TEEN: some rise by sin

[kintsugi]

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This is the way the world ends—

“You fool. Do you really think that is going to work on me?”

“No.”

Bang.

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chapter o. the fault in our stars ​

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So I'm going to save you a good deal of suspense and tell you that by the time you catch up to me here, I will have gotten all eight of the Johto gym badges, defeated my unofficially-designated rival five (ish) times, and failed precisely once in my mostly-futile bid to save my homeland, leaving Johto in ashes. Also, I'll be dead, thanks in part to the efforts of a psychic bird, a solid shot with a .36 Novum, and my own idiocy, cleverness, call it what you will. True to form, though, I'll be careful to leave this building ablaze and in shambles, just in case I had any second thoughts about not-dying.

I suppose we can navel gaze for a bit with that out of the way.

There was a quote I liked from one of those playwrights whose other works I might've remembered from high school if I'd bothered taking a practical career or going to college instead of becoming a nationally wanted terrorist. So this guy, Shakespeare, wrote a tragedy about some guys in togas who got into a fight about ruling this ancient fictional empire. In true dramatic fashion, the toga guys had a bunch of infighting, and then there was betrayal when some of them realized they all wanted to rule, so they got together and stabbed the old emperor death. He died, because that's what people tend to do when they get stabbed to death.

I didn't choose to major in literature, probably for good reason, but what stuck out to me the most of that play was this one quote: "The fault, dear Brutus," the old emperor had said, "is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings." When I read the play for the first time, I found myself nodding along, carried up in the swell and the hype. I even wrote a beautiful paper about it. Of course I couldn't blame the heavens for every bad things that happened to me. Of course I wasn't a special snowflake because I was suffering. When bad things happened to me, it wasn't because I was cursed, but because I'd done something stupid and brought it upon myself. The stars are not wish-granters or life goals or even reachable at all. They are balls of combusting gas millions of miles away. And, above all, they are not to blame for our misdeeds. For a while, I believed that.

But I grew up eventually, or maybe I grew down, because I started blaming things out of my control. I found out that sometimes the old emperor's words couldn't hold true, and sometimes we all just got caught up in the machinations of fate, and sometimes we were all helpless to forestall the aftermath. Sometimes, we can't be heroes, because the world doesn't want saving. Sometimes.

I don't know where it all went wrong, honestly. I could tell you that the day on which I got my starter pokémon was a normal day like any other, and that the fault wasn't in my stars that morning: a morning on which pidgey sang, the sun shone, life went about its boring business as usual, whatever. Unfortunately, there would be two things wrong with that statement. One, it would make for a very uninteresting beginning. And two, it would be a lie.

In fact, that day was abnormal, almost hilariously so. Fate, at least, was having a grand time at my expense. Three markedly unusual things happened in rapid succession when I dropped in to the lab in New Bark Town to get my first pokémon. None of them were really my fault, I guess, but let's be honest. Sometimes the fault really is in our stars.

So welcome, I guess. Presented for your entertainment is the not-so-short story of how I burned Johto to the ground.

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[kintsugi]

TABLE OF CONTENTS

o. the fault in our stars

autumn
i. carrion men
ii. gaia
iii. all that glitters
iv. an eye for an eye
interlude i. icarus

v. a penny for the old guy
vi. those who favor fire
vii. to perish twice
the noodle incident
interlude ii. aftermaths
viii. iris
interlude iii. silver

ix. on the slopes of olympus
x. these violet delights
xi. the center cannot hold
xii. the ceremony of innocence
house of spirits
xiii. things fall apart
xiv. the first coming
xv. the forest queen
xvi. nihil supra
interlude iv. motives

xvii. imago dei
xviii. swarm
xix. a monument to all your sins
xx. teneral​

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FOREWORD

Presented for your entertainment is my version of Johto. Readers be warned that later chapters will contain cursing, mentions of death/blood, mentions of mental illness, and general dark themes. General blanket warning for cursing/death/blood from here on out; other subjects will be tagged at the beginning of relevant chapters.

AWARDS

I can never say it enough, but guys, you are so amazing. Whether we won or lost officially, it's always been a victory in my book. Thank you so much to everyone who read/reviewed/nominated/judged. I couldn't have done it without you. <3

autumn 2013: best darkfic
spring 2014: best darkfic, best protagonist (nara), best pokemon (icarus), best character (nara)
summer 2014: best darkfic
winter 2015: best darkfic, best story
winter 2016: best antagonist (silver), best supporting (bates), meme queen

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[Resona]

Re: {some rise by sin} {prologue: the fault in our stars}

Ah, Fault in Our Stars is on my to-read list. Alas, my real life is being a serious pain in the butt that I don't have time to read it.

Anyways, this sounds like an interesting fic. I can't really provide constructive criticism. But I do want to compliment on the narrative prose, because I think it's very well-defined and independent. Your tone/syntax seems pretty consistent, almost believable for a narrator with its own kind of prose and rhythm. From what I'm reading, I keep thinking that the narrator is some teen who's not depressed but rather going through memories that is displayed through that kind of narrative prose.

I'll be back to read more! DFTBA!

 

[Flaze]

Re: {some rise by sin} {prologue: the fault in our stars}

That was actually a really interesting Prologue. It was surprising how the protagonist just tells you what's going to happen, but at the same time it really made me think about what could've happened and that caused me to read more. It was a simple prologue but it was very philosophical in a way and we got to see a bit of the protagonist's personality thanks to it.

You didn't make any mistakes in your grammar, I'll actually say it was perfect. Aside from that I don't have much to comment on except that this prologue accomplished what a prologue should accomplish, and that's making me want to keep reading and waiting for the next chapter.

 

[Beth Pavell]

Re: {some rise by sin} {prologue: the fault in our stars}

Not bad at all. I happen to like journey fics. The voice of the narrator is consistent and feels believable, so kudos there. Technically accurate, though I thought that this:

There was a saying I liked from one of those Old Poet Guys about whom I might've studied in more detail in school if I'd bothered taking a practical career or going to college instead of becoming an insurgent. This Old Poet Guy wrote a play about some Even Older Not-Poet Guys in togas who got into a fight about ruling an ancient empire. In true poetic fashion, the Even Older Not-Poet Guys had a bunch of tragic fighting, and then one of them organized a plan to stab the older one, who was emperor, so a bunch of angry people who also wanted to rule the ancient empire got together and stabbed the older one to death. He died, because that's what people tend to do when they get stabbed to death.

was a bit breathless. I had to read it over a couple of times. I would suggest either being more explicit that you're making a Shakespeare reference or break it up a bit with another full stop in there rather than a comma.

Personally, I'm a little sceptical about where this is going. The whole "homeland in ashes" thing could go either way - I often find grim Pokémon fanfics to be a bit contrived, but in all fairness I'm more than prepared to give it a go and see what you're going to do with it. Hope all this is helpful

 

[kintsugi]

Re: {some rise by sin} {prologue: the fault in our stars}

Um, hi guys, turns out that real life hit like a truck and I got super-bogged down with school this week. I've got the chapters all loaded up for editing, but I just haven't had the heart to do it, and my unofficial beta-reader is taking her sweet time/is also bogged down with real life. Hopefully I'll get a legit chapter up by the weekend? :>

However, I got reviews and they make me all warm and fuzzy inside. Thank you so much for reading and commenting, everyone! ^^

Ah, Fault in Our Stars is on my to-read list. Alas, my real life is being a serious pain in the butt that I don't have time to read it.

Anyways, this sounds like an interesting fic. I can't really provide constructive criticism. But I do want to compliment on the narrative prose, because I think it's very well-defined and independent. Your tone/syntax seems pretty consistent, almost believable for a narrator with its own kind of prose and rhythm. From what I'm reading, I keep thinking that the narrator is some teen who's not depressed but rather going through memories that is displayed through that kind of narrative prose.

I'll be back to read more! DFTBA!

OMG NOT TO SHOOT MYSELF IN THE FOOT BUT STOP READING FANFICTION AND READ TFIOS. NOW.

...now that I've caught your attention, you really should read TFioS. I'm a little obsessed with it at the moment, but don't worry; the idea of the fault in our stars is the only idea main theme that I'll be somewhat-taking from TFioS (or, for that matter, that I'll be somewhat-taking from any book, haha), and I swear I won't be a shameful Nerdfighter-Weaboo all the time, no matter how much I wish I could be.

I'm glad you liked the narrator, though; establishing the tight voice that I needed for a first-person narrator (and especially this first-person narrator) was one of the more difficult parts about writing this story. I'm glad it paid off! And no spoilers, but your guess about the narrator is pretty spot-on. ^^

*makes the Nerdfighter symbol and squees in excitement*

That was actually a really interesting Prologue. It was surprising how the protagonist just tells you what's going to happen, but at the same time it really made me think about what could've happened and that caused me to read more. It was a simple prologue but it was very philosophical in a way and we got to see a bit of the protagonist's personality thanks to it.

You didn't make any mistakes in your grammar, I'll actually say it was perfect. Aside from that I don't have much to comment on except that this prologue accomplished what a prologue should accomplish, and that's making me want to keep reading and waiting for the next chapter.

Haha, thanks! My English teacher last year mentioned that no one wants to read a story where they already knew the ending, so I figured it'd be fun to defy expectations a bit, and I'm glad that it worked. The next chapter's coming soon, I swear famous last words

Not bad at all. I happen to like journey fics. The voice of the narrator is consistent and feels believable, so kudos there. Technically accurate, though I thought that this:

There was a saying I liked from one of those Old Poet Guys about whom I might've studied in more detail in school if I'd bothered taking a practical career or going to college instead of becoming an insurgent. This Old Poet Guy wrote a play about some Even Older Not-Poet Guys in togas who got into a fight about ruling an ancient empire. In true poetic fashion, the Even Older Not-Poet Guys had a bunch of tragic fighting, and then one of them organized a plan to stab the older one, who was emperor, so a bunch of angry people who also wanted to rule the ancient empire got together and stabbed the older one to death. He died, because that's what people tend to do when they get stabbed to death.

was a bit breathless. I had to read it over a couple of times. I would suggest either being more explicit that you're making a Shakespeare reference or break it up a bit with another full stop in there rather than a comma.

Woah, definitely see what you meant with that and tried to trim down my gratuitous commas and Confusing Capital Nouns of Doom. Hope it looks better this time?

Personally, I'm a little sceptical about where this is going. The whole "homeland in ashes" thing could go either way - I often find grim Pokémon fanfics to be a bit contrived, but in all fairness I'm more than prepared to give it a go and see what you're going to do with it. Hope all this is helpful

On a scale of grim-darkness, I would put this somewhere darker than the average Pokemon Anime episode (which, granted, is designed for children two-thirds of my age or less, I think) but far less dark than, uh... wow, I can't think of any dark fiction examples off of the top of my head right now.

But yeah. Not that you can tell from the prologue, but this narrator is a conflicted teenager who is a little prone to over-dramatization and exaggeration. Fear not; I will not literally burn Johto to the ground through my writing, and hopefully the darker bits won't be contrived when they rear their little heads.

Thank you, though. This was quite helpful! ^^ (especially the paragraph you highlighted; somehow, it made perfect sense in my head during editing, but I can't imagine how)

 

[kintsugi]

hello due to impulsive editing, this chapter has been merged. pls proceed.

 

[Beth Pavell]

Re: {some rise by sin} {prologue: the fault in our stars}

Hmm ... interesting. Ok, I'll be fair and stop being all mysterious. I'm not quite sure what to make of it. Overall, I enjoyed Chapter One. You've cunningly got round any problems you'd run into from writing a Rocket dictatorship by presenting it through the eyes of a teenager. The concept of the starter pokémon works just fine, I rather like the implication that Xatu does as it pleases rather than necessarily what the Rockets want.

I will say that the reference to the games fell flat for me. More of a sly wink than a loud shout would have worked better on that score

 

[Flaze]

Re: {some rise by sin} {prologue: the fault in our stars}

Well I have to say. I actually quite liked that first chapter. We don't get to see a lot of flat out first person fics and certainly not ones that really dwell into the character's mind. I like this protagonist, even if he seems like the sarcastic type that's gonna get in trouble anyway the way that you made him out to be felt really fresh to me, plus the jokes were all pretty funny to begin with.

There's not much to comment on aside from the fact that I still like the way you went about making Team Rocket into dictators, it's kind different and at the same time not...so like something that's not different but it's done in a unique way if that makes any sense. My only advise would be not to dwell into his mind too much otherwise narration will end up taking most of the chapters in the future.

 

[jjl2357]

Re: {some rise by sin} {chapter one: the murder of carrion men}

Nice first chapter. Actually reminds me of Clouded Sky a little - wishing the protag luck..

 

[kintsugi]

Responses:

Spoiler

Hmm ... interesting. Ok, I'll be fair and stop being all mysterious. I'm not quite sure what to make of it. Overall, I enjoyed Chapter One. You've cunningly got round any problems you'd run into from writing a Rocket dictatorship by presenting it through the eyes of a teenager. The concept of the starter pokémon works just fine, I rather like the implication that Xatu does as it pleases rather than necessarily what the Rockets want.

I will say that the reference to the games fell flat for me. More of a sly wink than a loud shout would have worked better on that score

I'm glad you like it. ^^ Some of the mystery concerning the xatu get explained in a few chapters, and the rest... well. By volume two, maybe. Maybe. xD

I have some issues balancing "humor" with storytelling, I think, and thank you for pointing them out. Don't worry; there isn't going to be much fourth wall breaking in the future. Glad you enjoyed!

Well I have to say. I actually quite liked that first chapter. We don't get to see a lot of flat out first person fics and certainly not ones that really dwell into the character's mind. I like this protagonist, even if he seems like the sarcastic type that's gonna get in trouble anyway the way that you made him out to be felt really fresh to me, plus the jokes were all pretty funny to begin with.

There's not much to comment on aside from the fact that I still like the way you went about making Team Rocket into dictators, it's kind different and at the same time not...so like something that's not different but it's done in a unique way if that makes any sense. My only advise would be not to dwell into his mind too much otherwise narration will end up taking most of the chapters in the future.

Haha, glad you liked too! As for the narration bit--I actually struggle with first person, honestly, because putting myself in the mind of another is fairly difficult, but I thought it would be a fun exercise in style and all the Young Adult fiction I've been reading lately has been in first person for some reason, which is probably important. There's a lot of introspection in these first few chapters because I'm cheap and have to set the stage somehow, but I promise that it'll go away in a couple of chapters, if that helps!

Nice first chapter. Actually reminds me of Clouded Sky a little - wishing the protag luck..

I've never actually read Clouded Sky, but my beta reader mentioned this to me before. She said that the similarities stop after the murkrow and (I think) the xatu, though, and some social stigma against dark-types, though, so I think it'll be okay?

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PART I. AUTUMN​

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chapter i. carrion men​

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I waited until I was nearly sixteen before I got on that bus in Goldenrod. Sometimes, I can't help but wish I'd never stopped waiting. It would've saved my life, at least.

Trainers of all ages were welcome to journey—it was a nice break from everyday life. The minimum age was ten, like it used to be before Johto went to shit, but anyone could start whenever they decided that the best course of action in life was to run on a merry adventure across the region. You could find yourself out in the wilderness, they said. Get your life goals in order, figure out how the world worked. Some Zen stuff. But I wasn't going to find myself. I wanted to lose myself.

Funny, that.

Waiting so long was a definite disadvantage if I'd ever planned on doing well in the League, actually, but I hadn't had a choice—problems at home had kept me in Goldenrod five years after most of my friends had gone off on their journeys, and now problems at home were forcing me to follow after them. Luckily, I hadn't planned on doing well in the League. All I wanted was to win a couple of badges and send the prize money back to my mother for four or five months; once I turned sixteen, the legal age of full-time work in Johto, I was getting a job and settling down. I'd seen enough people come back with injuries from a spontaneous cave-in, or an unfortunate training accident. And I'd seen people leave and not come back.

I'd waited six years before taking the bus down to New Bark Town. And as I stood on the icy tiles of the laboratory, shivering in a mild autumn day, I wished and wished and wished I had waited longer.

These are the thoughts I had when I entered the laboratory to face the xatu. These are the thoughts I gave him to read my mind and choose my destiny.

The wizened old xatu in New Bark Town was gifted with two impossibilities: the ability to see all of time simultaneously, and, judging from the stark black-and-white tiled room, a rather interesting taste in home decor. The walls were lined with empty bookshelves, while the rest of the room was almost entirely barren, leaving me staring at the green bird splattered with red and white perched on the only piece of furniture in the room. Even from the door, I could see a decade's worth of gouges that had ground their way into the dark grain of that wooden table, undoubtedly from the xatu's wrinkled claws. Fitting, that it would choose to keep that lump of wood and nothing more. Dr. Elm, an eccentric man who'd gotten his doctorate in at the age of nineteen and whose genius was only rivaled by his kindness, had once allowed gifted trainers to carve out their futures using the starting pokémon he kept from that table. The scientific advances those brave trainers had made during his career should've been enough to launch Johto into a new golden age. That should've been his legacy.

Instead, twenty years later, high school kids like me write papers about how his refusal to surrender ran most of southern Johto to the ground, left New Bark Town an underpopulated wasteland, and earned him a bullet to the brain on live television.

Having a single-party country run by the main branch of Team Rocket wasn't that bad so long as you stayed on the right side of the law, which also wasn't that bad if you were okay with the status quo. Which, as it turned out, wasn't terribly bad, either. By the time I was old enough to get my first pokémon, they'd mastered the dictatorship thing quite well. I'd heard blood-soaked legends about how the Rockets came to their position of power, but that all happened well before I was born. Team Rocket overturned all of Johto mostly through the combined might of precisely two trainers, only a year or two older than I was, who'd harnessed the destructive forces of one of the Birds Regent—Lugia—and that was that. That's how it goes sometimes. Legends appear in the history books from time to time, and when they do, destruction reigns and the world changes.

Kanto burned, Johto fell to Team Rocket, and, the rest gets left to inherent bias in a one-party state's textbooks. Team Rocket took down the old government in a time when most Rocket grunts ran around with zubat and rattata. They were so disorganized that they almost got stopped by a plucky teenager and a houndour before they managed to hold their ground against the fearsome forces of a puny kid, his puppy, and his half-grown starter. And then a couple of glorious leaders came around, the Rockets got their act together, and basically everyone involved that wasn't on their side was publicly dismembered or executed when the Lugia and those two trainers came along.

We expected subjugation, I imagine. We got blessings beyond that imagination. The Rockets diverted the Lugia's massive psychic prowess into powering the country's power grid and providing free hydroelectric energy for everyone—in the process overcoming one of Johto's unique quirks that had previously made a region-wide power network impossible. They improved the route system to cover some of the previously inaccessible areas, like Ilex Forest. They founded hospitals and schools and charity organizations across the region. They replaced New Bark's cratered laboratories with an entire science district in Olivine city. Within a year, they'd even subsidized the cost of training for low-income families—like mine—and distributed free starter pokémon to all citizens who wanted them. Training, a pastime formerly available to those rich enough to stop working. They did what the old government hadn't, as terrible as that sounds. If you ignored the facts that all opposition was violently and systematically scourged out, some of their buildings were literally built on the corpses of their enemies, and all of the really good people they'd murdered, you could almost say that things had changed for the better.

And, of course, if you tried to turn that starter against them, you earned a one-way ticket to the gallows in Ecruteak. The Rockets had the means and the technology to give far more efficient deaths than hanging, but then again, watching a person slowly suffocate before your eyes sent a better message—sort of like crucifixion without all of the Jesus imagery. It was, at least to me, clear enough. You were perfectly welcome to mount a rebellion against the generally benign, completely helpful organization that had rebuilt our failing government into a charity machine. You were encouraged, even; they'd give you the starter. And then you were facing a charity machine that held a power against which you stood no chance, and you would die.

That brings us back to now, when I was standing before an impassive xatu, starting my own journey at long last and wishing it would end sooner.

{Greetings.}

I had enough time to take one shaky breath before I was able to process the confusion and turn my thoughts to the current conundrum: there was a voice speaking. In my mind. The words felt static-y and made my brain tingle, like when I stood to close to the TV at home and the hairs on my arms stood up.

The xatu's eyes cracked open then, glowing blue, and I felt a presence in my head, one that was very much alive and fizzled with power. I realized that I'd probably been staring, dumbfounded, at a high-powered psychic while listing off reasons I was terrified and also uncertain about its employers, and that was my last coherent thought before—

I found myself on my knees, clutching my temples and gritting my teeth in pain, and I was probably screaming as well, although I wasn't exactly listening. All of my thoughts adopted the consistency of melted butter, and I struggled to blink the spots out of my vision. The white tiles flickered black and purple before my eyes, thoughts running together like melted butter, time repeating itself, looping through, redundancies upon redundancies while something somewhere deep inside of my mind was simply screaming, screaming over and over again.

I'd wondered what telepathy was supposed to feel like. Never felt it before. And now it was like someone had seared the edges of a knife before running it through my forehead, a laser cutting through my skull and then bouncing around inside.

I was going to die, I decided then, while a colder, logical voice admonished me not to be stupid.

The mental touch retreated hastily and diminished until it was only grazing me. {I apologize,} the xatu said, its voice surprisingly gentle, given that it had just shredded my mind. {I did not mean to harm you.} It paused thoughtfully and surveyed me like it might survey a particularly delicious caterpie. Its talons tightened their grip on its table. Perched on the last of Elm's legacy, the strange bird added, {You have indeed come a long way, trainer.}

I watched it numbly.

Whatever other response I had in my arsenal was lost in the wave of bright spots that filled my vision, so instead I found myself giving it an astute-sounding, "Unnnnghhhhh." I tried to follow some sort of logical chain. It wouldn't do any good to panic now. The xatu could've probably euthanized me with its mind if it had wanted to, but I hadn't done anything to provoke that. I had absolutely no plans of doing anything stupid. I just needed a starter to help me through the first few gyms so I could get enough cash to stay alive for the next few months. That was it.

That was it. It was that simple. If only.

The xatu could see the past, present, and future all at once, and it would give you, quite literally, your destined starter, based on the type with which you had the strongest affinity and your own personality. You would grow together, your strengths and your pokémon's complimenting each other—that's how Gifts came out in trainers. The xatu looked at you both, and some ability in it reflected back your true potential, like some sort of magic mirror. Science, magic, mumbo jumbo, something or the other that would've been easier to focus on if I hadn't been on the ground, dry heaving.

You weren't allowed to ignore the Rocket's hospitality, so what the xatu gave you stayed. And if the all-seeing, all-knowing psychic bird told you that you should specialize in the water-type and gave you a magikarp, well, you would spend a lot of time training and raise yourself a gyarados. Raise a magikarp, raze a gym; that was the motto they taught us in school.

There were worse options than the garbage, honestly. If the all-seeing, all-knowing psychic bird gave you a ghost, bug, or steel-type, you plead amnesty, quit training, and swore fealty as quickly as possible. Because that meant you were unyielding like steel, or insidious like insects, or haunting like ghosts; because that meant it saw you as a threat to the Rockets. More specifically, it meant that the xatu, who could see your entire past and future, thought that this was all you would ever be. And everyone knew it. Ghosts were evil. Bugs were an infestation. Steel refused to change. Your starter said more about your personality than your words ever could.

{It is done,} the xatu told me. And then, as if it were speaking of an entirely different matter, it added, {I have determined your starter.} There was a pause, and then I felt the touch again, less burning-knives and more feather-light. He—the voice was certainly male—opened his eyes and looked squarely at me. I felt a chill go down my spine as I met a gaze that, surely, saw eternity even as he looked at me. His voice had dropped twelve octaves. {I knew you would reach here eventually. So it begins.}

The all-seeing xatu, whom I had never seen before in my life, had first liquefied my brain and then recognized who I was. I couldn't help but wonder if I could just turn heel and leave now. There weren't any real laws against immediately stopping a journey, and I could probably—

His eyes were rheumy and old and full of so much sadness that my entire train of thought stopped short. Here was the master of Johto's future, essentially, and he looked as wizened and tired as the dying trees in the Goldenrod Park. His feathers drooped and were tinged with silver, and as he spread his wings to fly to the entrance, a few fluttered to the ground before vanishing in flashes of light.

{Are you prepared?}

I had just about quelled the urge to projectile vomit all over the tiled floor and made the room stop spinning, which I figured was a solid start. If he meant anything else, though, such as completely free of second-guessing all of my reasons for going on this journey, or currently not suppressing the impulse to run back to Goldenrod for my mother, or generally not terrified to take my first steps on what would no doubt be a long and arduous trial, then no, I wasn't quite 'prepared.'

I assumed that the bird didn't take sarcasm very well, so I nodded instead.

The xatu's eyes glowed blue, eclipsing the tired expression I had seen before, and in the harsh shadows that the light cast the instant before we vanished, he seemed omnipotent once again. Across from him, the doors flew open, and he teleported the two of us to the front of the laboratory without a second glance. There was no dramatic popping or queasy shaking of the ground; one moment I was facing the xatu, and the next, I was facing the open world of New Bark Town, where the winds of new beginnings are supposed to blow.

I'd expected him to waste a little more time on the small talk, honestly. The kids I had watched yesterday had been inside of the room for at least five minutes, and they'd come out excited and smiling, as if their time with the xatu had been the most enlightening moment of their life. Granted, most of the kids were barely half my age, but it would've been nice to be a child again, just so it would be acceptable to be scared for this.

There was usually a small crowd in front of the laboratory at New Bark Town, so the ten or twelve people I saw milling around in the square wasn't anything strange. Nothing had really rebuilt here since the destruction; the city was quieter than it had ever been. Most of the people here were just prospective trainers waiting for their own starters, a handful of them were extremely bored residents, a few were waiting for their friends, and the rest were probably Rocket agents in disguise. Who knew.

{There will be a long journey ahead of us,} the xatu said to me, not yet addressing the crowd. His voice seemed softer now, as if his words were meant for someone precious to him. Meanwhile, I was beginning to regret ever leaving at all. I could probably still go back to Goldenrod and sell my starter on the black market at this rate and get enough money to last until I could find a job. Yeah. Pray for anything that wasn't a magikarp. No need to raze the town. That would be—

{And your path will be far from kind.}

Too late, the thought began to occur to me. He was saying these words with intention. This was an apology. "You aren't going to—"

{You will experience much loss, trainer. Be careful that you do not lose your way in the dark.} And then, before I could manage a response, the xatu turned his gaze and his voice toward the throng of people before us: {I have chosen a fitting starting pokémon for this child. It shall be…}

In front of us, a pokéball flashed into existence. Teleportation again. Hesitantly, I reached out to touch it, as I knew I was supposed to. As I'd seen happen dozens of times already. A pokéball. It was like Christmas.

Not a bug-type. Not a steel-type. Not a ghost-type. I repeated the mantra over and over. A pidgey, a ratatta. Anything. Anything innocuous. Anything at all.

The red and white hemispheres of the ball were cool on my fingertips. I'd barely touched it with my fingertips before it burst into a flash of red.

A small bird, about the size of the pidgey materialized in the air in front of me. Its feathers, sleek and jet-black, jutted out in strange places, giving the bird the illusion of having a small top hat perched on its head and a small broom for a tail. Its beak and feet were bright yellow, and I could just make out a pair of beady, crimson eyes peeking out beneath the hat, taking me in even as I stared at my new pokémon, the history books ringing in my ears as I finally understood—

"Murrr!" it shrieked in a long-forgotten voice that made my blood run crowd.

{A murkrow,} the xatu next to me announced proudly. My brain was already in overdrive, so I did the math half a second before everyone else did.

—shit.

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​

The first unusual thing about that morning was the murkrow, which was not at all my fault, no matter what the xatu said. Destiny be damned, my personality was not one of a bloodthirsty killer. I swear.

The second unusual thing about that otherwise normal, brisk autumn morning was probably what kept the Rockets watching in the crowd from killing me on the spot, and was also not my fault. Probably. Apparently of its own accord, the sky filled with unearthly fire, the only occurrence more absurd than a murkrow and far-fetched enough to save my skin.

Fine. That was too dramatic. It wasn't fire. I'd always wanted to see the northern lights, actually, but I'd imagined seeing them where they belonged: the north, for lack of a better word.

So it really wasn't surprising that everyone, myself included, was entranced by the ribbons of green and purple that danced across the sky above us. The sirens started then, faint but certainly extant, whining from a distance like they'd travelled a good deal. I frowned. I'd heard these sirens before, in some sort of test, but I couldn't quite remember their purpose—partially because I wasn't the type to memorize the sound of sirens for fun, but also because, hey, the all-seeing, all-knowing xatu had decided to wake up this morning and ruin my life because wouldn't that just make for a fantastic Tuesday.

I realized that my hand had started to feel numb, which might've been the first physical reaction I'd had to this entire incident, but by then I was shaking and my breath was coming in quick pants. My head felt like it was about to split open.

No. I had to focus. This was just a mistake, and there would be an easy way to get out of this.

No, there wouldn't. The crowd was starting to notice, and they were putting two and two together to get what I'd just understood as well. If the sky had been cloudy that day or hadn't decided to burst into flames, I would have been killed that instant, probably. The xatu gave me a murkrow. A dark-type in a world where dark-types had been made practically extinct when the Rockets took over long ago. I wouldn't have made a more welcoming target if I had started preaching anti-Rocket propaganda on the spot with, say, a scizor and a semi-automatic.

There was also the added reason as to why dark-types were extinct: it wasn't only because they threatened the psychics of Team Rocket, although I'm sure that was taken into consideration. Dark-types were vicious. I'd heard the stories. Children being snatched away by houndoom in the night, weavile leaving the shredded bodies of hikers in the Ice Path, murders of murkrow ambushing city-dwellers and pecking their eyes out—the list went on. Pokémon were dangerous, yes; although we'd reached the point where small children were given portable flamethrowers or hurricane-summoners on a daily basis. And dark-types still scared us because they weren't just dangerous; they were deadly.

This was the pokémon that the xatu thought best described my destiny. The xatu picked us based on our type, so the dreamy boy who lived across the street from me and liked to stare at clouds rather than do his homework ended up with a hoppip while Whitney, who lived next door and was a second degree black belt, got a heracross, turned in her starter immediately, and swore in public never to train again. She had no shortage of dirty looks from the neighbors, she could barely register for schooling again, and eventually the pressure must've gotten so bad that she and her family left her apartment completely empty with not so much as a note.

Oh gods.I'd never head of a dark-type starter. I'd never heard of people using dark-types at all, actually—the whole murder-happy and gloom, doom, destruction thing tended to be a pretty big turn-off. This wasn't one of those times where I wanted to be special, like the girl in my elementary school class who could read eleven thousand words per minute, or the guy in the flat next door who could bend spoons if he closed his eyes and concentrated hard enough. This was the kind of special that would get me killed. This was the kind of special that would mark me a killer.

I turned to the ancient bird before me, rage and fear blotting out my knowledge that the creature beside me had literally witnessed the fall of empires and also had just sent me reeling in pain with a casual thought. On accident. "What are you doing?!"

Turning myself in wouldn't help. Going home wouldn't help. The stupid bird was marking me for death. Both of the stupid birds were marking me for death, actually.

The bird remained calm. {I am sorry, trainer.} He shuffled his wings. {Fate has given you a hard path to walk. Did I not warn you?}

"This is just a complicated way of saying I should specialize in flying-types, right?" I probably shouldn't have asked. It would've been better not to know. In fact, had I not known for certain, I could've deluded myself into thinking that I wasn't meant for this path, and things might've gone a lot differently.

{No.} He shuffled his wings impassively. {I have looked into your heart and your future, and I have seen much darkness.}

"I'm not evil." I knew the mantra, drilled into our minds since birth. I'd read the books. Public opinion aside, there was the whole issue that dark-types killed everything they could. Unorthodox or not, there was no denying that this murkrow brought death. It literally travelled in a flock called a murder.

At first, I received no words in response—only a vast wave of telepathic bemusement that bordered on being offended. {I never said you were, trainer. Darkness is not evil. It is simply unknown, and people fear that which they do not know. That is human nature. But you must be wise, child. You must not fall into such a simple trap.}

I lost it then. I started to beg. "Please, I can do soul-searching on my journey, but I really don't want to—"

He ignored my protests. Instead, he looked up to the sky, his sallow beak pointing like an arrow to the flashing light show above us, which had taken a backseat in my mental hierarchy until now. {When the lights go out, you must run. But be careful that you do not lose your way in the dark.}

And then the xatu that had sealed my fate teleported away, leaving me alone.

The murkrow spread its wings and cawed, locking beady, blood-colored eyes with me as if daring me to challenge.

The third unusual thing—after the murkrow and the sky's lighting on fire—about that otherwise normal, brisk autumn morning was certainly what kept me alive in the days that would follow. And it was, once again, not my fault. Technically, it counted as an aftermath of the second unusual thing, but I hadn't done the math at that point. It saved my life, though, and that's really the important part.

I looked at the murkrow, prepared to do—I don't know what, exactly; probably something desperate—and then I stopped.

In a single instant, the air shuddered and the power lines around us lit up like torches, sending brilliant bursts of sparks cascading to the ground. In the distance, I heard something explode, and one of the large, grey boxes at the base of the telephone poles burst into flames. The entrance to the lab, normally pristine and white, was filled with sparks as the overhead lights shattered, and I ducked to shield my head with my hands, unsure of what else to do. I'd felt the static back when the xatu had first began speaking to me, but now it was everywhere, hot and crackling, and I could feel my hair rising in the storm.

And then, silence.

The lights died, the sirens shut off, and everything went dark and quiet. Literally, everything. There was no whir of air conditioning behind me, no hum of generators, no gentle illumination from the inside of the laboratory. Every single light in the town had gone off. Everything in the town had gone off. The silence began to worm its way into my ears as I stood, frozen and alone, on the top of the laboratory steps, goosebumps working their way up my arms.

My first instinct was to look to the Rocket members in the crowd. They looked as horrified as I was, and I realized with a sinking feeling that they were just as surprised as I was. They hadn't disabled the magnezone field to hold our electricity hostage, or if they had, the operation had been so well-hidden that Petrel, or, hell, Ariana, half of the executive core, looked confused about it.

Speaking of Ariana and Petrel. They were likely going to order their grunts to detain me at the very least and execute me at the very worst. As a person who enjoyed having a functioning system of internal organs, I was in the mood for neither of these events. From my spot on the steps of the laboratory, I could see the reactions of the crowd clearly. Some of them were trying to open their pokéballs to no avail, waving them like they were broken.

Something inside of me was still running while the other half screamed and went into panicked overdrive. That something remained cold, calculating, and utterly sure of herself as she began working out the details of a very suicidal, very destructive plan. It was madness. But if they weren't going to attack me, I could make them pay for it.

The plan entailed getting the violent dark-type pokémon that would be my starter to, first, not kill me, and, second, go along with the next steps.

When the lights go out, you must run, the xatu that had damned me had said. Well. The lights were out. Now I had to run. I could feel my breath catching in my throat as I tried to process what had happened in the past ten minutes. I was scared to—

No, said that cold, foreign, dark part of my mind. Not now. There will be time for terror later.

I looked at the murkrow before me, the only pokémon not in a pokéball in the immediate vicinity. Blood pounding in my ears, I took a deep breath. I was probably going to regret this later. The thing had wickedly sharp talons and a curved beak that could, from what the books said, cut up a caterpie in under six seconds. It would probably murder me in my sleep later, but in the meantime, it was the only pokémon in the immediate vicinity, so we'd have to work together if we both wanted to live. "I'm your trainer, and we're going to start running now. Objections?"

The bird glared at me indignantly, beady eyes glancing from me to its useless pokéball and then back to me. And then it leapt for my throat, talons outstretched.

I reacted almost on reflex, online articles about murders of murkrow savaging travelers in Ilex Forest running through my mind as I swatted the bird out of the air with an outstretched fist. The bird staggered back, halting its flight in midair and circling back toward me.

I glared at it, eyes hardening, resolve strengthening, something welling up inside of me that I didn't know I had. "No," I told the bird in a firm voice. "You listen to me."

In hindsight, I don't know what I was expecting to happen. Whatever it was, I wasn't prepared for when the murkrow dipped its head in sullen affirmation. It shifted its perch to my shoulder, allowed me to adjust my backpack, and then spread its wings, dark as the night, wide above its head before craning its beak to the sky and screeching. A chill went through my bones. What had I just done?

The sound snapped the crowd back to reality, and I saw Ariana's signature, flaming hair moving toward me, her eyes narrowing as she fumbled in her pockets for something. I started calculating. Three seconds. The pokéball was in her hands immediately, but I never saw her try to open it and fail, as I knew she would, because I was already shouting, "The redhead!" because I knew I only had seconds more before she went for her gun.

The darkness pokémon launched itself from my shoulder in a flurry of black wings and flew straight into her face, letting out another blood-curdling screech as it did so. On one hand, it had sort of listened to my command, although whether that was a reflection of its bloodthirsty inclination murder everything or some tiny semblance of loyalty, I wasn't sure. It tangled its talons into her hair, wings spread wide, and began pecking. With any luck, it wouldn't be strong enough to actually peck out her eyes—

That was never a thought I'd considered having before today, funnily enough, and context or not, I would never forgive myself for trying to rationalize through it. But I was going to die. If the Rockets didn't shoot me, the murkrow would murder me, no pun intended, and then—

Other people, unsurprisingly enough, had caught wind that I had just told my pokémon to attack one of the Executives. There was no turning back now. I started running. "Off! We're leaving!" I shouted to the murkrow over Ariana's hoarse screams. I didn't actually want to hurt her. I just didn't want her hurting me.

The murkrow screamed back in defiance, never even bothering to look at me as it continued worrying away at the woman whose fate I might've just sealed.

Oh my gods. I'd just—

"Now. Leave her." The cold was back, and with enough strength to leak into my voice.

To my eternal shock, pride, and relief, the murkrow actually listened and disengaged.

I ran.

The murkrow landed on my shoulder by the time I reached the tall grass bordering the route out of New Bark Town. No one had bothered following me. Crowd mentality, I thought, suddenly grateful, remembering distant lessons in school. People always thought that the bystander effect was based on laziness, that tragedies were witnessed because crowds would literally sit around and wait for someone else to do the difficult job.

That wasn't the entire truth. It was more of a mimicry thing, actually. You'd look to your left and right and see no one else moving, and you'd assume that that was the proper thing to do. That a whole crowd of people couldn't be wrong. And besides, if they weren't good enough to do that task, then how could you possibly be?

And in this case, said difficult job involved taking down the blood-crazed murkrow, a species known for its uncanny love of devouring the dead, that had just attempted to maul Ariana, whose Gift, while unknown, apparently made her one of the best battlers in Johto.

Honestly, I would've much sooner stuck with the crowd.

"If you try that eye-pecking shit on me, I'm throwing you at a tree," I muttered darkly to the bird that now defined me, casting one last furtive glance over my shoulder to the darkened city. I wondered how far the power outage had spread, if all of Johto had this problem.

I had my own problems. If I took that first step into the forest, my old life would be over. I'd tried to maul an Executive, after all. I could probably still turn back now, and beg for forgiveness, and maybe get off with a firing squad instead of a public execution. I'd only tried to maul an Executive, after all. But if I ran off into the grass like this, if I made myself into a fugitive, the only way I could come back would be in a bag.

Then again, I think I'd already taken that first step the minute I'd gotten the murkrow.

The murkrow cawed at me indignantly, fixing me with a bloody, one-eyed glare that burned from beneath the fringes of the top hat-like protrusion on its head. Well, don't just stand there, it seemed to say.

We sprinted into the tall grass together.

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previous || next​

 

[Flaze]

Re: {some rise by sin} {chapter two: the burning sky}

Well that chapter was a little short, but it was a pretty good chapter. However I do think that maybe making it a bit longer would've helped since it felt that not a long went on. I liked how you expanded more in regards to the state the world is in, and I'm interested as to what will happen since I can pretty much tell that something regarding the magnetic feel will keep popping out. I'm looking forward to the next chapter and seeing some more plot, I like to dwell into his mind but a story has to move.

So what I'm wondering now is how long he'll be able to survive, either from the Rockets or from Murkrow.

 

[Beth Pavell]

Re: {some rise by sin} {chapter two: the burning sky}

Aha, the promised next chapter! Not bad, a lot of imagination in this one and the ideas are solid. I do feel the exposition slowed down the action too much though, especially since our protagonist is in fear for his life. I'll freely admit that I'm not very good at action scenes myself though, so I wouldn't blame you for ignoring that comment

 

[kintsugi]

Responses:

Spoiler

Well that chapter was a little short, but it was a pretty good chapter. However I do think that maybe making it a bit longer would've helped since it felt that not a long went on. I liked how you expanded more in regards to the state the world is in, and I'm interested as to what will happen since I can pretty much tell that something regarding the magnetic feel will keep popping out. I'm looking forward to the next chapter and seeing some more plot, I like to dwell into his mind but a story has to move.

So what I'm wondering now is how long he'll be able to survive, either from the Rockets or from Murkrow.

Aha, the promised next chapter! Not bad, a lot of imagination in this one and the ideas are solid. I do feel the exposition slowed down the action too much though, especially since our protagonist is in fear for his life. I'll freely admit that I'm not very good at action scenes myself though, so I wouldn't blame you for ignoring that comment

The general consensus is that last chapter was too short, methinks. This chapter isn't much longer, but I found myself struggling--the next chapter is quite lengthy, and I didn't know where to meld the two of them together, so for now, I've this next chunk is split into two smaller/medium-length chapters. Hopefully, there's a lot more action going on here, and we can finally get the plot rolling; hurray!

Again, thank you for your feedback, guys! ^^

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chapter ii. gaia​

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No one tried to follow us. This confirmed my suspicions: no one felt safe going into the forest without a pokémon of their own to defend themselves, or no one knew where I was. That was good. Unfortunately, I didn't feel safe going into the tall grass with only a pokémon I had just met to defend myself. Namely, a pokémon I had just met that was known for its ability to be both a carrion bird and a bird of prey, and one that had probably been hunted to extinction for good reason.

Part of me really wanted to throw in the towel now. I could offer to swear loyalty to Team Rocket, give up training forever, and let them shoot the murkrow. Better yet, I could just ditch the murkrow myself and sneak on back to Goldenrod. Maybe even bother the xatu into giving me a normal starter. That would probably be enough to keep them from marking me as a terrorist and starting a witch hunt, and I'd probably get out alive with the least amount of collateral damage.

Looking up to the aurora-streaked sky, dancing with shades of green and purple that continued to defy all my expectations, I realized the piece I'd been missing.

The sirens. The aurora borealis in the heart of the south. The electrical lines exploding.

Something had just nuked the power grid. All of it. And craziest of all, I knew how.

One day, the literal sun decided that having Team Rocket rule our country wasn't bad enough, so the sun ended up spewing untold amounts of charged ions woven in with the light of the day. Well, actually, that had happened for about as long as the planet existed. The magnetic field from the center of the earth kept us from being fried instantly. And, in the past few years, something had happened. The official theories were beyond my comprehension, but the most popular one was that the Lugia's awakening had done something to screw with the planet's core.

Up until now, Johto, the technological beacon of the world, whose legendary pokémon either lived unreachable high in the clouds, deep in the seas, or unreachable in the heart of the land, had played at being god. We had used an entire fleet of magneton and magnezone, courtesy of Team Rocket and their Lugia, to imitate whatever the iron core in the center of our planet wasn't really doing properly for the past years. Medical technology kept the cancer from the rest of the radiation away. Apparently.

The imitation field was the only reason Johto had been able to utilize Kanto's technology once the Rockets came in. It was a metaphorical umbrella sheltering the tiny flame that was our tech from a torrential downpour of coronal radiation. And with the umbrella gone?

They didn't know my name, and I wouldn't be in the trainer database for a long time because the database currently didn't exist. All trainer records would be wiped out, and even if they managed to get the mag field up and restore power, I wouldn't exist in them because I'd made my timely exit instead of registering. The only way people would remember what had happened today would be by their own, fallible, human memories, and, by virtue of not being native to New Bark, no one even knew my name.

In fact, if I showed up back at home at Goldenrod and claimed that the magnetic apocalypse—it was hard to believe that I was accepting this, and yet here I was plotting around the complete failure of Johto's infrastructure—had struck before I got my starter pokémon from the xatu, no one would ever know the difference. Ariana might've caught a glimpse of a frightened sixteen year-old kid throwing a murkrow at her face, but would she be able to pick my face out of the chaos that followed? Dozens of trainers got their pokémon each day; the Rockets couldn't possibly hope to sift through them all and they wouldn't know where to look.

So all I really had to do, actually, was ditch the murkrow. I could just forget the xatu's cryptic advice, hide from the Rockets for a while, and throw the stupid bird at the nearest tree. He was a pokémon; he didn't need me to survive—well, actually, he might've fed on my flesh later, if given the chance, but he could probably hunt on his own.

We were nearly two miles in uncharted undergrowth by now. I slowed to a brisk walk, panting. As if sensing my intentions, the murkrow dug his talons into my shoulder. His claws easily pierced through the thin fabric of my shirt, and I hissed in annoyance as pinpricks of pain flared up on my shoulder. "For the love of gods, let go of my shoulder," I snapped, thinking back frantically to what I knew from pokémon behavioral classes. I had to show that I was the alpha murkrow, or else things would get messy. Did murders of murkrow even have hierarchies? Could I treat him like a pidgeot and hope for the best?

He cawed back in defiance, the sound unnaturally loud in the silent forest. I instinctively reached into my pocket to pull out my dented, second-hand pokédex to translate what he was saying, and I was already flipping back the plastic cover and fiddling with the power button before I remembered that, yes, I'd just watched the magnezone field go down this morning and take out all electronic devices with it, and, yes, my pokédex was an electronic device.

Reality started to sink in then, albeit just a little. Pokédexes didn't work. Phones didn't work. Pokéballs didn't work. Until the Rockets found a way to get another fake magnetic field up and running, and then fixed the power grid again and replaced all the hardware—and no one had seen the Lugia for nearly a decade, although that meant absolutely nothing—life was going to be quite difficult. For instance, my starter pokémon probably wanted to kill me, and I had no idea if he was telling me this or not.

"Let go of my shoulder," I repeated firmly, turning to look at the bird perched on my shoulder. The murkrow's beady crimson gaze met mine, and I swear I saw his eyes narrow. I tried to glare back as well to look as intimidating as possible.

"Okay."

He obliged and lifted himself airborne, hovering for a moment before sinking his claws into the cuff of my jacket, right above my wrist. The better to see me with.

I thought I was hearing things for a moment. I held the bird up at eye level, squinting. My pokédex was short-circuited, so it couldn't translate for me, but—"Did you just, uh, talk?" I knew some pokémon could talk—chatot, in Sinnoh, for example, had vocabularies of nearly four hundred words, and almost all psychic-types were telepaths, but that was a little different.

Of course, if the xatu had given me a chatot or a psychic-type, I would've been in a much happier place right now. Murkrow were in the same family as chatot, I guess—they were both birds, right?— and I'd never really seen one to know about its vocal habits because they were supposed to be mostly extinct. For all I knew, all murkrow were capable of human speech, curing cancer, and doing the can-can alongside bloodthirsty murder and destruction.

I kept my eyes pinned on the murkrow. He cackled at me, and then slowly and deliberately opened his bright yellow beak to croak, "No."

So we were going to die, murkrow could talk, and my starter had a sense of humor.

Damn. It was an interesting day to die, at least.

"Look," I said patiently, trying to ignore the fact that I was holding a logical conversation with a bird. "Your pokéball is broken. It doesn't work." I pulled the empty sphere out of my pocket and waved it for emphasis. "I changed my mind. I don't want to train pokémon any more. You can go. Fly off. Be free. Peck someone's face off. Do murkrow things."

"No."

I tried a different tactic: logic. Maybe the bird was smart enough to piece it all together. "I don't want to keep you. That means you don't have to fight for me or train with me or do whatever else starter pokémon are supposed to do. That means you're free." I paused expectantly. "Now please leave me alone."

"No."

I kept storming through the undergrowth, enjoying the taste of tree in my mouth as I walked through a low-hanging branch by accident. I could hit him with a rock or something until he fainted, but he might've died, and I didn't want that on my hands as well. And besides, I wouldn't be able to catch another pokémon without his help, and I'd expertly maneuvered myself into the middle of a forest full of wild pokémon. If I miraculously managed to escape from the murkrow, I'd be easy pickings for whatever was hanging around. I sighed. "You can't be my starter." He tilted his head to one side. "I can't keep you. They'll kill me. Go away."

"No."

I didn't even know where I was going at that point. It was becoming painfully more and more apparent that the murkrow intended to stay with me as long as possible, probably so he could kill me at night. He'd even torn himself a nicer grip in the wrist of my jacket. "Is that all you can say?"

"Yes."

I sighed.

I was honestly curious to know how much English he could speak—purely for scientific reasons, of course, because I was not going to keep him. Chatot could hold lopsided conversations, but I doubted that murkrow were quite so competent, if only because they had far less social exposure. But until I could get my pokédex translator fixed, I could at least maintain basic communication with pokémon. He had the vocabulary of a rock, but it was way more than I'd expected. And, again, he was possibly the only captured pokémon usable in the immediate area, seeing as the pokémon in their pokéballs were unreachable, and the pokémon outside of them were wild.

The reasons, sadly, for keeping the murkrow were starting to pile up. On the other hand… "Are you going to kill me?"

The murkrow shifted his feathers and snorted a little to himself. "Pity yourself already?" he asked, a condescending tone slipping into his voice. Could birds even be condescending? "Pathetic response to danger. Should fight or fly, not talk."

"Please let go of my arm." I was holding a conversation with a pokémon, my starter was a dark-type, and the mag field had gone down less than an hour ago. Very quietly, I pinched myself on my free elbow. The murkrow took the liberty of nipping at my ear as well, and then swiveled his head violently as a pidgey burst out of the bushes at that moment, screeching angrily at us. I noticed the wickedly sharp talons and a long, curved beak, and I suddenly felt thankful that I had the murkrow before remembering that he might not want to battle for me at all, anyway.

As if to contradict me, the murkrow immediately launched himself off my shoulder and into the air, spreading his jet-black wings and throwing back his head to issue a battle-cry that at least gave the pidgey some reason to pause. At the very least, the murkrow wasn't going to hesitate about attacking things, even if he didn't seem to have any qualms about attacking me, either.

"Use, uh…" I trailed off. What moves did murkrow even know? I assumed that he could peck, seeing as he had a beak, but he could probably do something else. This was my first actual pokémon battle. I'd imagined this scenario several times before, although I'd never been stupid enough to imagine a murkrow. I felt like it should've been some momentous occasion that I'd been dreaming of for years, but I was coming up empty here.

Instead, the murkrow made a sound in my direction that might've been a snicker before darting toward the pidgey, his inky-black wings marking his progress across the still air. The pidgey nimbly dodged out of the way of his attack and began flapping its wings to generate whirling jets of air that buffeted at the murkrow, but before they could do much damage, he'd already looped around in a tight somersault to avoid the compressed gusts of winds and was preparing to peck at the pidgey again with its beak.

I was impressed against my will. This was by no means a high-caliber aerial battle, but it looked fairly awesome and everything was happening within a matter of seconds. Neither bird had managed to hit the other for much damage, but they both seemed to know how to handle themselves in airborne combat fairly well.

Another thought occurred to me then. If the pidgey was a competent battler, I could catch it. At the very least, I could add it to my team so I'd have another pokémon with which to defend myself if the time came. And at the worst, I could replace the murkrow with another pokémon, no questions asked (or answered, really).

I wasn't dark. This was all a mistake.

At that moment, the pidgey jetted forward even faster than normal, cloaked in brilliant white light that I recognized as some sort of quick attack, and clipped the murkrow in the wing, sending him plummeting to the ground.

I remembered then that I was a trainer and not a bystander, and a few seconds too late, I darted forward, trying to intervene or at least shout some words of encouragement to remind the murkrow that, hey, I really did care—which was only half of a lie, at the very least.

My fears were ungrounded. The murkrow righted himself inches before his feathers touched the grass, and then he rocketed upward, slamming into the pidgey's feathered midsection with bone-crushing force and sending the pidgey into a tree. The pidgey slid limply toward the ground, and I scrambled in my backpack for a pokéball, thinking fast. I could catch the pidgey and pretend that one, it was my starter, and two, I was a flying-type pokémon trainer. There. Problem solved. No death by Rockets and no death by murkrow.

It would've been a great plan, too, if my pokéballs worked. It would've been an even better plan, except the murkrow, noticing the pokéball in my hand, leapt forward with renewed vigor and sunk its talons deep into the pidgey's feathered chest, pinning the pidgey to the floor. He spread his wings wide and opened his bright yellow beak, preparing to tear into the pidgey's throat. I could see the bloodlust reflected in the murkrow's eyes. The history books were true.

"What the shit!" I shrieked, resisting the urge to vomit was that blood? "Stop it!" I cringed away, fully expecting the murkrow to rip the pidgey's throat out and then turn on me and attack me as well.

Fine. I felt my fingers curling into fists and tried not to think about how they'd find my body—abandoned in some random corner of the forest, and probably picked over by birds. I turned back. Eye contact. No flinching. "Stop it."

To my surprise, the murkrow lowered his wings and stepped off of the downed bird, making harsh, hacking sounds under its breath but clearly bowing his head in submission.

The pidgey staggered away, and we both let it.

"What the hell were you doing?" I shouted, but the murkrow seemed to ignore me.

Instead, he settled back onto my shoulder like nothing had happened, and it was hard to believe that the black scruff of feathers perched by my ears had been on the verge of gutting a pokémon not ten seconds before. Both in the sense that he was actually quite unintimidating with his head lowered like this, and in the sense that he was much closer to my neck than I liked. "Do not want to be replaced," he muttered.

And then I realized that the murkrow was smart, possibly smarter than I was, and the warm, fuzzy feelings were replaced with dread again. All I wanted to do right now was get out of this situation, but he could see through all my lies. "Look. There are a bunch of people who think that dark-type pokémon should—"

The murkrow glared at me with those beady crimson eyes again, as if daring me to give him another excuse. I found myself stopping short.

Whether I liked it or not, I was grudgingly impressed with the murkrow. So far, he'd done a good job of attacking anything I pointed him at, which seemed like a fairly useful skill. He was clever, he was vicious, and he was fairly strong for such a young pokémon, and he seemed to have some iota of trust in me. On top of all of that, he could talk, which was already setting itself up to be an invaluable skill, seeing as the translators were dead and I probably wouldn't get a psychic-type any time soon.

On the flip side, he'd either kill me in my sleep or get me killed by the Rockets. Maybe.

He hadn't killed the pidgey.

I wasn't dark. Maybe he wasn't dark either.

Something about the bird struck me in the core. He seemed afraid, just like I was, even if he was doing a much better job of hiding it than I. I couldn't really be sure. But what other pokémon would be afraid that its trainer would replace it within an hour of being caught? And the xatu had pegged me for darkness, after all, even if darkness wasn't evil.

He hadn't killed the pidgey.

"Look. Fine. Say we do this together," I said at last, running my free hand through my hair and screaming internally. I was actually going through with this. Okay. "Remember those people in suits that we saw earlier? They probably don't like you and me very much."

"Attacked them," the murkrow cawed back proudly.

In hindsight, setting a rabid bird on Ariana definitely hadn't been my brightest idea all day. No worries, though; I was now trying to reason with and then lie to said bird, which was most certainly a stupider plan. "And if there are more? We're going to need backup." Yeah. I could totally pull this off. "More pokémon on our side."

He stared at me blankly.

"More pokémon on our side whose throats you don't rip out."

His eyes actually narrowed and his head cocked to one side as he began calculating through what I had told him. Fascinating. He was listening to reason. I could get a fake starter from the woods. Something strong, like a—

"Caterpie!" the murkrow shouted loudly, suddenly distracted, at which point he launched himself off of my shoulder, talons extended, toward a nearby branch.

There was that kind of edge in his voice that he tended to have when he wanted to murder things, so I my guard went up fast. "Hey, wait! I'm talking to you!"

The murkrow ignored me, of course—like I had expected anything different—and continued to wheel around the tree. He dipped out of sight for a moment and then shot like an arrow back to me, inky black feathers almost invisible among the branches.

"Hey!" I shouted, right before I remembered that shouting would probably be a horrible idea in my dastardly scheme of not drawing attention to myself.

Did murkrow eat caterpie?

The murkrow flapped back laboriously to me, something struggling in his claws, and then he released his burden and swept back around to perch on a branch in front of me so I could better see his prize. "Caterpie," he said proudly.

Indeed, in front of me was a very stunned caterpie. Its buggy eyes, large, white, and bulging, stared vacantly off into space for a minute, and then it righted itself with a soft squelching sound, its suction cup-legs searching for traction on the damp ground. Pink antennae twitched in fear as it slowly focused on me.

I turned away at first, intending to leave without looking back so I could try this plan again. Caterpie were basically small piles of shit with legs. I didn't want to sound like some sort of jerk who only cared about strong pokémon, but I knew enough about bugs to know that caterpie weren't all that impressive, and I needed a real fake-starter.

Another sentence that I couldn't really wrap my head around properly. Caterpie were weak, picked apart by birds like murkrow, and evolved into slightly better versions of themselves that could—

"Fly," the murkrow said calmly, jabbing at the caterpie with his talons and then back at himself. "Caterpie. She fly one day."

The leafy-green bug shied away, and I realized just how smart my bird was. Caterpie weren't the most powerful bugs, but they evolved into flying-types. Flying-types like xatu, or, more pressingly, murkrow. How many dots had he connected?

"I thought you were afraid I was going to replace you?" Oh, well done, I mentally congratulated myself. Let's shoot ourselves in the foot while we're at it, shall we?

The murkrow cocked his head to one side, beady red eyes narrowing as he studied me. "Caterpie weak," he said, judging my reaction carefully. "I not afraid you try to replace."

"Piii." I wasn't sure if the caterpie understood our conversation, but she had the sense to try to look a little offended. With those adorable, massive brown eyes, she didn't look particularly upset at all.

When he said it so bluntly, actually, I sounded like some sort of jerk who only cared about strong pokémon. "Why this?"

"Boss says afraid of Team Rocket because starter is dark." The murkrow made that sighing sound again, as if he were being incredibly patient simply by enduring my presence for this long. "Pretend caterpie is Boss's starter. Evolve her. Then we are all fliers."

My blood ran cold.

As much as I hated to admit it, perhaps the xatu was right. This murkrow and I were a lot more similar than I would've liked, and—

No, I was still going to replace him as soon as I had the chance. No one had seen me with the bird yet. I could easily avoid being killed. Even if I decided to keep him around, I could say that the xatu had told me I was destined to be a powerful flying-type trainer, and I, a dumb kid, had seen this very obvious black flying-type on the road and captured it to complete my specialized team of awesomeness. What, it was a murkrow? Murkrow weren't seen in the wild because they'd mostly been killed off after the Rockets came to power? How was I supposed to know that—my pokédex broke, and I had no idea why! What was a dark-type? Evil? Me? Never!

Heck, if I wanted to, I could avoid starting anything altogether and actually believe that the xatu wanted me to specialize in flying-types. Maybe I could convince the murkrow to let me capture another pidgey as well. I reached into my backpack for an empty pokéball and aimed it at the downed caterpie. It stared back at me, large, beady eyes wider than normal. I would have had the murkrow attack it, but it already looked battered up from its collision with the ground. Also, said ground was still covered in our last capture attempt's throat-blood.

In terms of first pokémon captures, this one was quite lame. I didn't care. I had a pokémon that wouldn't mark me as a terrorist if I used it as my starter. I pressed the center of the pokéball to expand it.

Nothing happened.

Right. Magnetic apocalypse. That was still a thing. Funny how my world was ending in two ways for the price of one.

The murkrow cackled again, this time making no effort to keep it to himself, and I silently fumed. Life without electricity was probably going to get brutal after I finished freezing to death. If anything, though, failing to capture the caterpie only cemented my fears—previously, I could delude myself into believing that life was still fairly normal and the power grid wasn't down and Goldenrod wasn't in crisis mode, but now, with the dead pokéball in my hand, I knew that that wasn't the case. This was all happening.

"Piii?"

"Stupid," the murkrow said, flapping from my shoulder and landing on the ground between me and the caterpie. At first, I thought he was talking to me, but he kept his beady gaze fixed upon the caterpie. He cawed at her again in a mixture of some sort of pokémon-conversational-language, and she nodded happily. "Stupid bug wishes to accompany you on free will," he concluded. "Not need pokéball."

I crouched down so that I was somewhat level with the caterpie. She waved her pink antennae cheerfully at me, and I could have sworn that she was smiling despite the general lack of mouth. "You want to come with me?" I could hardly believe my luck. I mean, caterpie weren't known for their bellicose natures, and I hardly expected them to resist capture, and if it came to it I could probably just pick up the caterpie and carry her around Johto, but at the same time, it was nice not to have to resort to kidnapping this early on in my adventure.

"Pi!"

I stood there for a moment, two roads dangling in front of me for yet another time this day. "I'm supposed to have a dangerous path ahead of me," I said at last. "You don't mind?"

"Pi." She shook her head and then returned to nibbling at the grass. She didn't seem like the warring type, which was nice. I had a hunch that the bloodthirsty bird who was technically my starter would be bad enough.

"And you don't mind either," I added, turning to look meaningfully at the murkrow. The last thing I needed was for the little blighter to change his mind and murder my caterpie in a couple of hours. It would be sad, and also that would take ages to clean.

"Caterpie make better company than you," he said proudly, picking at a bit of dirt between his talons with his abnormally-large beak. "You say wrong things often. Caterpie make nice conversation." He paused and thought about something. "Also, nice not to be chased by men in coats." Another pause. "But not afraid of men in coats either, so that matter less."

The caterpie suctioned her way on to my arm—it felt a little strange, and her feet were a lot colder than I'd expected—and looked at me with wide eyes while I looked back. I didn't have any brilliant strikes of naming ideas, and there wasn't much by way of inspiration. If my murkrow and I were going to go down in flames, I was going to feel a little guilty bringing something as helpless as a caterpie down with me.

In that case, we weren't going to go down at all. We couldn't. Time to fly.

The name came to me then. "Your name is Gaia." The first. The foundation. The roots of the earth.

"Piii," the caterpie replied solemnly, and the murkrow bowed his head.

Our foundation was made of lies, of course, but that was a matter for a different day.

___________________________________________________________________________​

previous || next​

 

[Beth Pavell]

Re: {some rise by sin} {chapter three: Icarus}

Much better! A good read, this chapter. I like Icarus - he reminds me of Commander Mormont's raven ("Dead! Dead, dead!") with his obtuse speech. Good bonding ... well, uneasy alliance, I suppose. But it was fun to read. I think you may have missed something in editing early on in the chapter:

Part of me really wanted to

I assume that means "to go back" or something of that kidney, but you don't make that clear in the text

 

[Medusa Gorgon]

Re: {some rise by sin} {chapter three: Icarus}

I have to agree, this is one of the most interesting fics I have encountered for a while! I look forward to seeing where you take this

~Immortal Sin~

 

[Flaze]

Re: {some rise by sin} {chapter three: Icarus}

All right, I read the chapters a couple of days later but better late than never right xD

I think this chapter did a good job on expanding from the last one, we got to see more of our still unknown protagonist (has he named been mentioned? I might've forgotten) as well as Icarus, we got to learn more about Icarus such as the fact he can actually speak...sort of, I wouldn't thrust wikipedia nah I'm just kidding I was actually surprised that you used that little note about crows, which makes it more ingenious since you're also incorporating things from real life so as to expand on it, that always helps.

You know what I like about your story, it's a good cross between serious and funny, like it's supposed to be a serious situation I mean the protagonist is on the run now and he's with a Pokemon that could kill him at any second, but still manages to be freaking hilarious so it creates a good and at the same time fitting contrast, I don't know if I could call it dark humor but something like that yeah.

 

[Crystalanachrony]

Re: {some rise by sin} {chapter three: Icarus}

Okay, firstly: I would like to thank you for thinking of a Murkrow of all Pokémon to give to her as a starter. They're actually my favourite Pokémon, and pretty much never get any appreciation in anything, so having a badass one like Icarus walking around just makes me all happy inside. c:

Aside from that, I'm enjoying the rest of the story as well. You've really set up a compelling take on the Pokémon world; it's not uncommon for writers to use "dark Pokémon planet" as their setting, but few actually put in the effort of thinking about what makes it so dark, and your magnetism thing is very cool and original. (Hopefully we will learn more about the other Regions and how they've responded to the crisis!) I also like how Team Rocket is putting in the effort to at least appear nice to the people of Johto, unlike in some other productions where they would just run the place into the ground and laugh about it. I think you've succeeded with the dark humor you've put in, for the most part; it's very hard to get the timing right, especially for cynical senses of humor like our protag's, and I can definitely appreciate the stuff in here so far.

So overall... really good job so far! You've clearly put a lot of thought and effort into making this world, and it doesn't hurt that you included my favourite Pokémon of all time either. Definitely looking forward to more.

 

[kintsugi]

Responses!

Much better! A good read, this chapter. I like Icarus - he reminds me of Commander Mormont's raven ("Dead! Dead, dead!") with his obtuse speech. Good bonding ... well, uneasy alliance, I suppose. But it was fun to read. I think you may have missed something in editing early on in the chapter:

Part of me really wanted to

I assume that means "to go back" or something of that kidney, but you don't make that clear in the text

I ended up fixing the grammatical error about forty years ago when you actually commented, but I didn't want to reply to needlessly bump the thread. Glad you enjoyed, though. This is Mormont from ASIOF, right?

I have to agree, this is one of the most interesting fics I have encountered for a while! I look forward to seeing where you take this

~Immortal Sin~

Bwahaha, welcome! So glad you enjoyed reading; as you can see, I totally update frequently and awesomely. Sort of. Not really. Not at all.

All right, I read the chapters a couple of days later but better late than never right xD

I think this chapter did a good job on expanding from the last one, we got to see more of our still unknown protagonist (has he named been mentioned? I might've forgotten) as well as Icarus, we got to learn more about Icarus such as the fact he can actually speak...sort of, I wouldn't thrust wikipedia nah I'm just kidding I was actually surprised that you used that little note about crows, which makes it more ingenious since you're also incorporating things from real life so as to expand on it, that always helps.

You know what I like about your story, it's a good cross between serious and funny, like it's supposed to be a serious situation I mean the protagonist is on the run now and he's with a Pokemon that could kill him at any second, but still manages to be freaking hilarious so it creates a good and at the same time fitting contrast, I don't know if I could call it dark humor but something like that yeah.

BETTER LATE THAN NEVER, RIGHT. ;-; totally hasn't been a month

Actually, no, the protagonist's name hasn't been mentioned, and it won't be for a while. It's, er, a technical thing I'm trying out: the idea is to make le narrator's (gonna be called LeNar) voice so engaging that readers actually don't notice the lack of name or the fact that she's actually a girl BAHAHAHA It'll probably get really cumbersome in the future, but there's a method to the madness (that I'd explain deeper, but spoilers hehe). We'll see.

Glad you enjoyed mine black humor. I didn't want to wallow in self-pity, but at the same time, this is definitely going to be a more-serious take on the pokemon universe.

Okay, firstly: I would like to thank you for thinking of a Murkrow of all Pokémon to give to her as a starter. They're actually my favourite Pokémon, and pretty much never get any appreciation in anything, so having a badass one like Icarus walking around just makes me all happy inside. c:

Aside from that, I'm enjoying the rest of the story as well. You've really set up a compelling take on the Pokémon world; it's not uncommon for writers to use "dark Pokémon planet" as their setting, but few actually put in the effort of thinking about what makes it so dark, and your magnetism thing is very cool and original. (Hopefully we will learn more about the other Regions and how they've responded to the crisis!) I also like how Team Rocket is putting in the effort to at least appear nice to the people of Johto, unlike in some other productions where they would just run the place into the ground and laugh about it. I think you've succeeded with the dark humor you've put in, for the most part; it's very hard to get the timing right, especially for cynical senses of humor like our protag's, and I can definitely appreciate the stuff in here so far.

So overall... really good job so far! You've clearly put a lot of thought and effort into making this world, and it doesn't hurt that you included my favourite Pokémon of all time either. Definitely looking forward to more.

Murkrow is best mon <totally not biased or giving characters awesome pokemon for starters because plot

Anyhow, glad you enjoyed, and welcome. ^^ This world will be a little darker than the games/anime (who am I kidding; it'll probably be a lot darker), but I try to keep an aspect of realism as well, hence all the magnetic apocalypse. I wanted to delve into some aspects of the pokemon universe that I don't often see addressed in fanfiction, so hopefully this delivers!

 

[Beth Pavell]

Re: {some rise by sin} {chapter four: Gaia}

A quiet chapter, this is a first for you @kintsugi eh? You're getting better, I'm sure of it. Still very coy about where this is all going, and as usual I don't see that as a weakness. I can see that you're thinking about practical matters - the coming winter, for example - and I'll be curious to see how the rest of Johto is coping without electricity.

A rare moment of well, very nearly warmth at the end of this chapter. It's a nice change, I rather liked this line

The first. The foundation. The roots of the earth.

I'm hoping this means a little more attachment ... it would be sweet if that little Caterpie became a firm companion. Don't pander to me, mind

Oh, yes, and I did have A Song of Ice and Fire in mind when I referenced Commander Mormont's raven (Dead! Dead, dead! Corn)