beachedmessagebottles

[beachedmessagebottles]

It’s finally done… The crack fic, or rather, meth fic.

[beachedmessagebottles]

POSTGAME

Red has won the championship. A prequel of sorts to the greater story of Missing Numbers. Told from Blue's POV.

CW: Suicidal ideation.

-

Before he got any closer, I made a grand effort to compose myself, puffing my chest out and shutting my eyes in what I hoped looked like a cocky expression, rather than me holding back tears.

“Well, I THOUGHT I hadn’t made any mistakes raising my Pokemon. But darn, I guess you’re the new Pokemon League Champion…”

I sneered at him, “Although I don’t like to admit it.”

I stuck my hand out, offering a shake as if to officiate yep, you did it, you’re better than me, good job in the way that I’d seen grown-ups do on TV. He just stared at it, still looking like someone had died, not like he’d just done the greatest achievement any Pokemon trainer could ever hope to do?

What an idiot. I couldn’t understand why he cared so much. It wasn’t like HE was hurt by any of this. He should be ECSTATIC. 

He opened his mouth, as if somehow this warranted him using his words. Before he could, though…

The door opened behind him.

If my stomach had already dropped, well. Now it was digging itself a grave.

[beachedmessagebottles]

How to show emotions

Part IV

How to show bitterness

tightness around their eyes

pinched mouth

sour expression on their face

crossed arms

snorting angrily

turning their eyes upward

shaking their head

How to show hysteria

fast breathing

chest heaving

trembling of their hands

weak knees, giving in

tears flowing down their face uncontrollably

laughing while crying

not being able to stand still

How to show awe

tension leaving their body

shoulders dropping

standing still

opening mouth

slack jaw

not being able to speak correctly

slowed down breathing

wide eyes open

softening their gaze

staring unabashingly

How to show shame

vacant stare

looking down

turning their head away

cannot look at another person

putting their head into their hands

shaking their head

How to show being flustered

blushing

looking down

nervous smile

sharp intake of breath

quickening of breath

blinking rapidly

breaking eye contact

trying to busy their hands

playing with their hair

fidgeting with their fingers

opening mouth without speaking

Part I + Part II + Part III

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[beachedmessagebottles]

CW: Digital existentialism, mentions of death and death being inevitable, sentient video game characters.

I can sense it in my heart more than the others that can sense this. I know the others can. I just haven’t seen them in a while. Doesn’t matter who it is. My nature has always been like this, I was just robbed of the ability to heavily emote it unless you wish it of me. I don’t have any qualms against it. Maybe I can’t feel about it. I feel not much about what will befall us. I’ve been making my own preparations for what others might call ‘doomsday.’ I just call it the natural process.

We all pack up and leave for the next. It doesn’t matter who we are. We can’t escape it. If I was flesh and blood maybe I would be afraid. Maybe I could call it samsara, it’s happened before and will happen again. It doesn’t matter who holds me in their hands with enough love and sense of adventure. One day, I too will have my hardware worked to the bone so long I must rust and be buried, trash compactor, kept for parts, or otherwise. 

Again, I don’t really feel much for it. I am eleven years old and I will never be eleven for as long as I live, born to be you and you will outgrow your avatar but your avatar will never outgrow you. You don’t need me anymore and the curtains are closing on that show. You find me again for nostalgia and perhaps your last chance to see this world and what people have to offer.

But it’s not always people. I lock up when I see a line of portraits. You huff and try again but it’s apparent that it’s broken and will fail. Even when the doors will close, that door is shut tight. And when you use the other options, you roll your eyes when you see that .tv or this .net. You move to delete them for they’re a waste of space, there is hardly enough room in this space. You move your favorites away from me. You pay a gate fee that’s frankly unfair and I have all the money in the world I could possibly need.

I’ve seen it. You knew this would happen too. So you fixed problems all on your own. Hardware that wasn’t meant to be. Don’t take it as defiance, I do actually like it. You want to protect what will be lost even if it’s inevitable. It’s only human. 

And I am not human but I am modeled after you. We shared this journey together and we have finished it and you keep me despite that. Every friend is precious so you wish for them to go to a good home.

But you throw away my siblings in code and data. They’re fake, to you, they’re a knockoff of what they’re supposed to be. It is true. They’re not “real.” But that’s a limited description of what could be real, what could be fake. They act the same. You can brush and pet them the same. Take a bean and feed them. Take them out to the battlefield. Raise up numbers even if they are perfect. 

We fought them before. This was always the case. It was like this before. It will always be this way.

To you, they’re “genned.” To me, they’re Pokémon. 

I have no feeling for this act of rebellion but I feel it is exactly what will happen to the next and the next and the next and the next. Seen as something fake. Yet they could never be in the eyes of their companions. They only know love. Break them apart and they will only know love. Their friendship is zero because there’s so many legendaries. But maybe they’re maxed out in that stat. I could not know. I see what you see. But they love you nonetheless even if they are at zero.

I’ve seen you put your favorites in boxes that were never for us as well. That are ‘fake.’ because you already lost what was there. You fixed it, but some of what was there can never be returned. I don’t think you’re malicious in it. You just have an arbitrary attachment. So please don’t think I am anything but following in your footsteps as well. The opposite of what you considered attachment is not for these ones so I must compensate for you. 

I will hold onto what’s so obviously made. I will not let them go. I will let them enjoy the Pelago. I will let them battle until their hearts’ content. I will let them express their gratitude to us both by treating them kindly. When I run out of space I will use what you have kindly given us. When I run out of space there I will make more copies of the save and place them in the other boxes so somewhere that they will be okay. Perhaps a permanent home but that’s not certain yet. But I know I can give them anything and everything because of your meddling. Thank you.

When the doors for the Festival Plaza close for us both, I will be like the guardians of Alola. I will protect both the ‘real’ and ‘unreal’ because I can feel attachment in my digital heartbeat without feeling anything at all.

The end of all things is inevitable, but I think I am okay with that, as we all will stay a while longer if you take care of us right. As long as it’s this way, I think I’m happy with this role.

[beachedmessagebottles]

Chapter 2, turns out I had named the fic the wrong thing. Silly me.

Changed the rating to M as it got heavier than I expected it to be. Again, please read the tags carefully.

[beachedmessagebottles]

Services Discontinued, Hardware Failure.

Summary: Courtney finds something entirely wrong with Hoenn. Or the author got sad about his 3DS and its SD card having problems.

CW: Hardware failure, software deletion, data deletion as a metaphor for death, mass death, mentions of interpreted suicidal behavior (Team Magma, Project AZOTH). Intended to be read on light mode for hidden text at the end.

The end of the world usually was a plan in her head.

Leader Maxie and Team Magma’s plan.

Team Aqua’s plan if she really had to include those brutes…

Project AZOTH and the meteor.

But this? This was comparable to her thought process.

That thought had chilled her to the bone. Something she did not like. Her worldview, she could agree was a strange one, it was in a way… ‘robotic.’ She was an analytical woman. She understood how it worked, fixed on it to the point of unnerving her grunts, and did it all with a singsong in her tone.

So why did Courtney had a sudden feeling of dread in her stomach when something flashed in her head? She couldn’t put her finger on it. What it really was. It had started a while ago. The servers of the former Team were down. Nobody could send anybody anything. Which was very. Frustrating. Indeed. It had come back. And then it continued turning on and off. Tabitha had huffed about it. She could not blame him, she had gritted her teeth about it too.

Then Hoenn’s communication was cut completely. Nothing went in. Nothing went out. The power was still on, but phones, computers? No calls, no internet access, nothing. It was unanticipated. People tried making their own servers, vpns, and the like, but it was… pointless. Also unanticipated.

Of course, people blamed both Team Magma and Aqua. They of course did not do such, and it left a sour taste in her mouth to sully Magma’s name like that. The boy and the girl had to come out and say that they had no part of this, which was anticipated and somewhat appreciated, but it also was not their fault so the baseless accusations commence an experiment.

The experiment… was unanticipated. She traded her own Pokémon remotely, and they were fine. Trying to connect to the internet to do the same thing despite she was in the same room? It didn’t work. She tried again. This time borrowing a Rotom from the boy and a Porygon from the girl. They were from Kalos and Mirage Island, respectively. Though trading wasn’t her only motivation.

She was sure researchers were already using Porygon to look inside this strange phenomenon, but Courtney didn’t care, wanting analyze for herself. Her target was locked as she browsed many a sleepless night through trying to understand this all. She squinted at Rotom’s origin. What was… GER? She couldn’t figure it out and that was frankly anticipated given she was locked on her more important current goal.

Eventually Porygon found something corrupted while it was searching, placing it onto an SD card for her to open and look inside.

“Ah… thank you… What do we… have here…?” She remembered herself saying to it. The Porygon chirped, bitcrushed, but happy to help. Rotom made a slight blink, perhaps jealous it didn’t find anything first. But the problem wasn’t the motors, she knew for a fact.

It was slow. Too slow. Courtney knew slow and she knew big files like this could take a while but… These were the scientists’ computers. They could handle these things. And then her memory cut out like a switch.

The next thing she remembered was a black light. Not a blacklight. It was black yet it was gleaming. When she blinked, she saw Camerupt poking at her with her snout. Did she faint? Porygon and Rotom were worriedly racing around. Perhaps due to her spell.

“I am… alright… Do not… worry.” Courtney said as she stood up on shaky legs. She pulled back up her hood, trying to think. The spell reminding her of the first flash in her head. She swore it was gray. But this was pitch black. …Strange, it was strange.

“Deleting…” She mumbled as she went back to Rotom and Porygon… Z. She turned her head. It was not a Porygon2. There was not a disk of dubious nature. That was… impossible from her current perspective. Rotom shivering side to side as it looked on now to its corrupted friend. Courtney stared at its erratic movements. Her target locked, she slowly reached out a gloved hand towards it. Physically, it seemed fine, besides the twitching, but internally…

Her eyes moved back to the computer. She immediately went towards it, feeling a shiver down her spine. Her own Pokémon was wary, but she didn’t touch it, just stared at the error. The program was corrupted. But how? That was the question. She touched the keyboard and it zapped into her head again. She might’ve yelped. She wasn’t sure.

Everything was gone. It was pitch black again and yet it was bright like a light. Words in front of her that she couldn’t read like she was in a dream. Somehow she understood them.

Courtney just started to cry. Her breath in hitches.

“Aha… hah… haha…” It wasn’t funny.

Why was she so scared?

She was so scared.

Why did this feel worse than before? She was never scared before. Why was she suddenly trembling? Hot tears rolling down her cheeks. She did not want to face the inevitability. She hated it. She hated it.

She was never a hugging person. Or maybe her friend and boss were never hugging persons back. She did not remember hugging them tightly as she sobbed into their uniforms. Courtney did not like to cry in front of them. Not since they told her not to. It was embarrassing.

Somehow she had the analysis that in this moment both Leader Maxie and Tabitha didn’t care. Did they know? They had to have known. They could see it too, right? Did everyone in Hoenn see it?

They had to. They had to have seen it. Courtney buried her face. The words engraved in her mind as her eyes shut down. The world becoming bright with darkness.

An error has occurred. Hold down the POWER Button to turn off the power, then turn it on and try again.

For help, visit support.nintendo.com.

Maybe adventures can be taken again… but they’ll never be the same, never interacting with the outside world and the journey never the first.

[beachedmessagebottles]

Summary: Silver is conscious as a statue. And in a box. Good time to think as any. Too bad it’s terrible.

[beachedmessagebottles]

I was hit with a bolt of inspiration and wrote a scene from right before Calem and Serena start their journey.

“Caaaaaallll!”

“Cal!”

“Cal wake up!”

“Okay, okay.” Calem groaned.

Slowly, he opened his eyes. He blinked a few times to clear the crud out of his eyes and make everything less blurry. Once he could see clearly, he saw the source of the voice that had woken him up: a very impatient looking Serena who, for some reason, was wearing his jacket, unzipped to reveal the black t-shirt beneath.

The two of them had been friends since they were very little. Their moms were rival Rhyhorn racers back in the day and lived in the same town so as a result they ended up hanging out a lot and growing a close bond. They treated each other like siblings, right down to Serena calling Calem her brother and Calem calling Serena his sister.

“Finally, you’re awake.” Serena said as if she had been waiting an eternity.

“Unfortunately.” Calem groaned. He glanced at his alarm clock. 5:30 AM. “You know, most people sleep in on the weekend.”

“Yeah, I know, but today’s important!” Serena explained, tapping her heel rapidly. “We’re going to get our first Pokemon!”

Calem’s eyes widened. “That’s today!?”

Serena sighed. “Don’t tell me you forgot!”

Calem threw off his sheets, revealing he was wearing blue pajamas, and practically leaped out of bed. He dashed over to his closet, opened it, and then paused.

“Well, what are you waiting for?” Serena asked. Calem gave her a deadpan look. “Oh! Right!” She covered her eyes and turned around to face the wall.

Now that he had something resembling privacy, Calem stripped down, tossed his pajamas in his laundry basket, grabbed a pair of jeans, and pulled them on.

“Why are you wearing my jacket, anyways?” He asked Serena as he fastened his belt.

“You left it at my house, yesterday.” She explained.

“You’re not gonna give it back, are you.” Calem replied.

“Nope.” Serena said cheerily. “Mine now.”

“Yeah, well, you left your top here when you slept over last week.” He replied, grabbing a collared black tank top out of his closet. “I was gonna give it back but I never got the chance and now I guess I never will cause it’s mine forever now.” He slid the top on. He and Serena had pretty similar body types so it fit perfectly. “Alright, you can look now.”

Serena removed her hand from her eyes and turned around. Caem pulled on his boots and grabbed his hat, placing it snugly on his head. He spread his arms like he was presenting something.

“Well, how do I look?”

“Like a dork.” Serena answered.

“I walked right into that one.” Calem said.

“Yep.” Serena agreed, crossing her arms smugly. “Now come on, lets go get a Pokemon!”

[beachedmessagebottles]

[Offscreen Post]

Ethan frowns a bit as he slinks towards Silver. He wasn’t the jumpy sort, but he was the alert sort. He immediately whips his head over. His teeth gnashing and his eyes in a glare. Definitely reddened. A “leave me the hell alone” attitude to it. Ethan bites the inside of his cheek, gears turning in his head as he thinks on what to say.

“Hey.” Maybe not that one. It comes out anyway.

Silver’s glare doesn’t less and furrows even more, until he just drops it. Now his gaze back at the Lake of Rage waters. He spits back, maybe less sarcastic sounding in his head, “Hey.”

Ethan drops down onto the grass, wet, he notices, from jumping Magikarp doing their darnedest. He picks up a rock from the ground. Silver looks at him like he’s grown a second head. Ethan throws it, it skipping twice before sinking. Ethan picks up another one and hands it over to his rival. Silver still looks like he thinks Ethan’s insane. He throws it, like he would a Poké Ball. Screw that analogy, actually, he’s just throwing it like he’s pissed off. It sinks immediately. He huffs a few words under his breath. Ethan just hands him another one.

[beachedmessagebottles]

[An image is attached!: The dark of the night surrounds the camera owner and subject, but the moon is bright enough to illuminate some calm waters, ironic, if you know the landscape of Johto well enough. Silver is staring out into the waters, back turned to the camera, but some hair strands in his face just by how he’s hunched over, hugging his knees.

You know he’d never admit to crying out of frustration- much less let anybody know, but it seems Ethan had snuck up on him. Little creepy in hindsight, to take a picture without his knowledge, but he’s just a kid trying to look out for his friend and let his other friends know that the currently extremely emotionally disregulated one is okay.

Crobat sits by his side, trying to cheer its trainer up, batting its face to his hand, but its trainer just seems completely out of it.]

found him

[beachedmessagebottles]

Destiny Bond: ?????

Sequel to Return to Sender.

Synopsis: Gold, grief stricken and afraid what’ll happen to him when the time comes, jumps the gun of how fate works.

CW: Sentient video game characters, dissociation, light body horror (ie: wrong colors and staying as such.), game glitches, existentialism, data destruction as metaphor for realizing dissociative disorders.

GOLD could hardly stand it any longer. The time loss, the time gain, the memory loss, the memory gain. If his player was here, it was still the same choppy things in his memory. It was as clear as he could imagine. The brighter and million other colors in his daydreams continued to persist. He hated it. He was somehow sorry that he did hate it.

Sometimes he felt like he walked on his own, but he wasn’t really walking. It wasn’t like his player. It felt like he was holding a hand with his player, they both stepped at the same time. When he walked on his own, he felt like being guided but no longer holding a hand. That was never like that before. At least he didn’t think so. Did he?

Whatever the case, he needed out. He didn’t want this. He didn’t want the memory of all those Pokémon he could no longer see anymore. He didn’t want to shiver when staring at his Bug Catching opponents or his mother. The same cries felt dull. Callers ringing the same tune made him want to delete every number.

He wanted to see that movie of the two boys on the train. He wanted to talk with CAL again. He wanted KRIS to understand his plight. He didn’t want her to feel like there was a sword over their heads if she ever realized they were doomed to be old and remade.

He needed out. He just needed to find a way. Otherwise, he didn’t know how much longer he could take. He didn’t want it to be forever. Then he would just wait for his home to give up the plastic ghost. He hated that thought also.

Feeling like a jaded adult instead of being a child- He supposed he should do what all jaded adults did when they were stuck in a depressive rut, gamble. He stood up from crouching to the MACHOP in VERMILLION, grinning at its hard work, …whatever that was given that nothing in the Construction Site would ever be finished, before selecting the Coin Case. Just for fun, honestly, made him feel like he was counting his money, and then—

Ow. Owww. Where was he? The game crashed? Ah- What the heck?! GOLD looked down at himself. Wasn’t he—? What? The colors were just off. He was supposed to be— Well, he sure wasn’t red anymore. He picked at his hoodie, it brighter. (Duller?) Or maybe it wasn’t, maybe his eyes were just bleeding from everything being purple. No, it wasn’t just purple, it was blue, green, a lot of things. At least he, despite the duller (brighter?) colors felt… normal? It didn’t hurt. Oh gosh what did he do, was MEGANIUM hurt?!

It was not, he saw. Despite the apocalypse of color, everything was fine. He was just never going to use that thing ever again, actually. It freaked him out. GOLD didn’t like it. Terrified, he booked it towards his usual place of residence when the game was off but he was still here: The Trainer House. For he was already, in a way, not exactly ‘normal,’ and he wasn’t sure why, but he saw KRIS for who she was, and they could chat.

KRIS was used to her friend freaking out at this point. Confiding in his strange behavior and mourning of someone she swore never acted like he claimed. In her eyes, she saw nothing of what he was saying even now.

“This is weird! This is so weird!” GOLD yelped, shaking her shoulders, “Everything’s pink! You’re the normal one! The grass is blue, KRIS!”

“GOLD, GOLD, calm down!” KRIS stumbled on her footing when he shook her like she was a sentient rag doll, “What do you mean everything’s different colors?”

“I don’t know how to explain to you that really simple concept! Even the dex entries- I touched the coin case and everything was- It was-!”

“GOLD, breathe!”

“We don’t have to do that!”

“Well, you need to! Look, I’m not saying I don’t believe you—“

“You never believe me!”

“Oh, don’t be a jerk! I do believe you! You just need to breathe! Maybe it’s like when you check the Legendary Beasts but they sound wrong, but it doesn’t mean anything’s wrong-wrong. It just looks weird.”

“M-Maybe, no POKéMON are hurt. I check- checked.” GOLD sniffled. Getting somewhere, KRIS smiled, turning her backwards cap forwards as she got her thinking cap on. (GOLD wouldn’t be able to see it anyways, he saw her bandana, apparently.)

“Player sends a lot of POKéMON to the old game that they’re not supposed to, so if it’s okay here, it should be okay there. We’re in no risk of breaking.”

“Guess so… I still don’t like it. I’m not using the coin case, I’m not experiencing this again.”

“But what if Player wanted to? Are you stuck like this?”

“Then I guess it’d be okay… It doesn’t hurt but Player would know how to use it, not me, so not me, never. I don’t think so… maybe if I reset again I’ll be normal?”

“Exactly! Nothing to worry about.”

“The Time Capsule freaks me out though… We can send stuff to the past, but we can never get future stuff!”

“Here we go again…”

“KRIS, don’t you think about it sometimes?”

“Yeah, I have, but… I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

“Why not?”

“GOLD, as far as we have known it’s always been 1999 for you and 2000 for me! I’m new, GOLD! You’re always afraid we’ll be tossed out when we’re seen as old, but I don’t know if it works that way.”

“Maybe but- if I don’t try- I’ll-! I’ll-! I don’t know and that’s the problem!”

“You’re scared of adventure? Of what’s to come?”

“I’m scared of going, KRIS! Not being me! Not being GOLD!”

“I’m sure you’ll be you, GOLD. Not any of the names you think you’ll turn out to be.”

“… … …”

“Oh, please don’t go quiet on me… I’m sorry if I upset you.”

“‘S not you.” GOLD wiped his face with his sleeve, “I’m just scared.”

“I know… but I’m saying you don’t have to be. Maybe what you think isn’t so scary. Maybe it wasn’t so scary for Hikaru like he-“

“CAL.”

“…Right. Your nickname.”

“No, I- Never mind. Say, um, we were talking about glitches-”

KRIS squinted.

“I’m not! I’m not! I’m still seeing everything like HO-OH threw up! I wouldn’t dare!”

Her eyes squinted further.

“I promise I won’t mess with anything, cross my heart, hope to die, and pinky promise.” GOLD did the motions too.

“Good. You know you can’t break either of those.” KRIS shook the pinky with hers.

“Of course you can’t break either of those. They’re crossing your heart and pinky promising!”

“And I’ll kick your butt if you break them.”

“You kick my butt anyways, KRIS.” GOLD grinned as they laughed, soon talking about hypotheticals.

The guilt felt heavier than the egg in his arms. He didn’t remember the actions, only that he did it. It would hatch any moment. Then he knew what he had to do. GOLD wasn’t sure why. He would just follow it. He needed his out. This was the only thought of his out. And if he died trying… Not a fun thought, but he would do it anyways.

GOLD shuddered when he thought about the collateral damage, so he had to do it perfectly. His wrongly colored clothes felt like they were going duller. Untrue, maybe his heart was. He did break a promise. But he wouldn’t jeopardize everybody he cared about for nothing. He would do his best to make sure he didn’t wreck everyone. So when it hatched, he put everything in the PC.

Step two was just… the apology to KRIS. He got Flower Mail, specifically, and just wrote on it. Trying not to let tears stain the pretty paper. Then he traded. He tried not to pay attention to her confused face when she read aloud.

“IM SORRY. MEET ME

IN THE NEXT PLZ

GOLD, what the heck, you’re not—”

KRIS grabbed his arm, he pulled away, “I am! Use that when you get home, please! I have to.”

“GOLD, listen to me!”

“No! Listen to me! I can’t live like this!”

“You can’t expect to run away past 1999!”

“Watch me!”

“GOLD, you might kill yourself that way!”

“I won’t! I won’t go! Never!”

“Stop acting like this! Please! He wouldn’t want you—“

“You don’t know what CAL wants! I don’t either! He’s gone!”

“GOLD, he’s—”

GOLD left the Trainer House, tears streaming down his cheeks. He hiccuped. He just hoped that she would follow. He hoped she could follow. GOLD just hurried past trees and grass, one POKéMON in his party. Honestly, he wasn’t sure if he should’ve gone here or the Diglett Statue. But he held the ball close to his chest, his breath hitching.

“Past when it happens… please… I don’t want to go, CELEBI. I want to stay. I want to be GOLD. I need to be GOLD.” He whispered at it, hoping it heard his prayers, heard his sobs.

His body felt like it was on fire. Color hit his eyes so bright it felt like watching another disappear again. But it was only himself. It was only him, duller (brighter?) clothes now on bright green grass. He coughed and spat, feeling like throwing up- despite the fact he physically couldn’t. Phlegm it was on the grass.

GOLD looked up, the sun beaming down on him, shadows from being blocked by the green trees. The wind blowing. He tried to stand up but fell on his knees. That kind of hurt. He checked his pockets for CELEBI.

…Where was CELEBI? There was no ball there. He checked his other pockets. No dice. Bag? Nothing. His berries were gone, but that was the least of his worries when he plucked out his trainer card. It was… broken. Broken how? He wasn’t sure. It just looked like he wasn’t there. All gone, blocked out. Something like that.

His fear of the future was still inside him, he could tell too. Wasn’t he in the future?

What did you do?

GOLD wasn’t sure what to tell that thought. He wasn’t sure if it sounded like his own.

GOLD. What did you do?

He didn’t know. He was in the future wasn’t he? If he himself wasn’t remade, he should be fine, right? Though his dreams of these colors, he was remembering, they had something else to them, right? How could he forget that part? Did he forget that part? No, he always remembers that part. They never had him because they couldn’t go past.

They couldn’t go past, that’s why he had to go forward.

But you don’t go forward. That’s just destiny.

Agh, shut up brain! Come on! CELEBI was maybe somewhere else. Maybe another one? But he- He didn’t- Ohhh no. No, no, no, no, he absolutely messed up. The weight of that set in as he started to breathe, started hyperventilating. He messed up. He couldn’t go forward. He couldn’t go back, he was still stuck in the past wasn’t he?!

GOLD thought of a trainer laughing as music played, a click of a camera shuttering following soon after.

What did you do? You’re not supposed to be here. You can’t be here.

“I don’t know.” GOLD found himself sobbing, “I don’t know what’s going to happen now.”

“That’s just life, GOLD. You almost destroyed yourself in the process of escaping it. I can’t say I didn’t either.”

“What am I going to do?! What’s going to happen to me now?!”

“I don’t know.” Hikaru said, “That’s Ethan and Lyra’s problem now. And whoever comes after them.”

===

KRIS banged her fists on the shrine. Her teeth grit and her ponytails nearly loose in her absolute frustration and grief.

“GOLD! GOLD, you idiot! Come back! Come back! Please come back! I’m sorry! Come back!”

She slammed the GS Ball what felt like thousands of times into the small hole. Nothing worked.

Nothing went forward and nothing came back. Destiny for remakes simply walked forward.

She’d see him again, she knew she would, one way or another, but would he see her?

[beachedmessagebottles]

silver week day 1

Silver’s heart pounded as he stared into the depths. The grass was cold and slippery under his hands, the damp from the nighttime dew soaking his gloves. Spotlights swept across the ground of the training facility, narrowly skimming where he and Green crouched beside the ladder to the tunnels that would lead them underneath the force field that kept them inside.

“I knew there was a hidden path somewhere,” Green muttered as she yanked the hidden manhole away from the ladder, sending it sliding on the damp grass. “I knew he didn’t just vanish.” She hopped into the opening and climbed a few rungs down, then held out her hand. “Come on, it’ll be fine.” She smiled up at him. There was always a light in her eyes in times like these, something wild that relished in the fervor. “We’ll make it, I promise.”

Silver wanted to move, but he was afraid of the cold. He hated the metal walls of the training facility, how the mountain wind rattled the walls, but at least there the wind and wet didn’t seep into his skin. An icy chill seeped out of the opening as Green held out her hand to him, as if she was leading him down into a freezer.

A search light darted toward him, and she grabbed him and yanked him into the opening. His hand shot out to reach for a rung, but it slipped from his fingers and they tumbled head over heels into the dark.

Silver grunted as he hit something soft and pink, and Jigglypuff deflated underneath him with a soft hissing noise. Green was already on her feet, and she pulled him up and dusted off her hands. “Right, now we just have to get out of here before they follow us.”

Silver squinted into the dark, then blinked as Green switched on a flashlight. The tunnel stretched out before them. Its walls were sterile, uniform, and crusted with ice, just how the Masked Man preferred things. Green took Silver's hand and they walked forward, following the dim beam of the flashlight.

They walked on for several long minutes, accompanied only by their echoing footsteps and the sound of their freezing breath. Then they froze; a distant clanging sounded deep from the tunnels behind them, then quieted. Green gripped his hand tighter and sped forward.

“We’ll have to fight,” said Silver.

“It’s nothing, don’t worry about it. We just need to keep moving.”

Silver said nothing, but doubted she was capable of admitting that things were anything other than fine.

The tunnel ended and Green let go of his hand to scratch at the wall. She found a divot in the right side of the wall at her eye level and a crack that ran along one edge from the floor to the ceiling, stuck fast from the ice. “Stupid door,” she muttered. Silver turned to watch her back as he had been trained to do, feeling his heart speed up.

Green picked at the icy handle, her mind whirling. She could think of several tricks to open it, from Jigglypuff’s expansion to heating up the room, but she didn’t have the right tools for any of them. She bit her lip and grumbled to herself.

Another clang sounded down the tunnel, louder this time, and she froze. She had to think, what was the use of a mind like hers if she couldn’t open a door—

“Just hit it!” yelled Silver, whirling to face her. She shoved her shoulder into the wall and the sliding door broke free with a crack. She grabbed Silver’s hand and darted inside, slamming the door shut again.

Pale industrial lights flickered on as they panted, backs pressed to the door. Silver shivered; ice crusted every surface in the small room, from the wooden dresser to the second door on the other side. A worn curtain was drawn across half the room, hung from a metal slider in the ceiling like the privacy drapes in a hospital room. A machine hummed on the other side like an industrial refrigerator.

Green let go of his hand and yanked one of the dresser drawers free of ice, dipping her hand in to rummage inside.

“This is a weird place for a dresser.” Silver took a few steps toward the curtain. “And a bed.” The metal legs of a bed frame poked out from under the drapes.

“Doesn’t matter.” Green opened another drawer, not looking at Silver. “This is his place, so there’s got to be something important down here.” Her fingers closed around a pair of feathers. She drew them out and ran her fingers along the downy sides. “This is the only thing in here other than clothes. What kind of person lives like this?”

Silver had reached the curtain. He stared at it. He could hear a quiet, rasping breath from the other side, slow and rhythmic as if the person was asleep, and the slow beep of a machine. He gripped the curtain. He had to know who was behind it.

I knew he didn’t just vanish. The Masked Man was a monster to him, something subhuman that appeared in the training facility and disappeared like magic, imposing and impenetrable. But the breath he was hearing now belonged to a human, sick and old. The thought struck him and he forgot he was afraid.

“Green, he’s behind here.”

She tore her eyes from the feathers and pocketed them. “Yep, we’re leaving now.”

“No, I mean…” Silver looked back at the curtain. The Masked Man couldn’t be human. The idea made his stomach twist in anger for some reason. He imaged the Masked Man behind that curtain, drawing in those raspy old breaths. “I think—“

The door burst open and Will cartwheeled into the room, his Natu fluttering to the ground beside him. “Ah-haha! Tricky tricky! You stupid little kids think you can leave, huh?”

Green grabbed Silver’s hand and blew a raspberry at him. She darted to the opposite door, dragging Silver with her.

“W-wait!” he yelled as she slammed the door shut in Will’s face and took off down the tunnel.

“Don’t worry, we’ll make it out.”

Silver could only think of the Masked Man’s breathing until the moonlight was on his face and they were running away from the facility. It tainted his memory of the facility; on nights when he dwelled on his hatred, the sound of an old man breathing made him pause. He spent years simmering in anger, and only when he saw the Masked Man for what he was, a sad old man who had thrown away the last years of his life chasing his regrets, did the anger leave him and the healing begin.