EVERYONE: Lifetime Achievement Award (Halloween 2022 One Shot Contest)

[Welkamo]

This is your last ride ever, forever
Fill up your lungs - feel better?
Look - it's you, good as new
New hands, new throat, new living tissue
You earned this new purpose
Lifetime Achievement Award

Spoiler: Content warnings

While this story isn't a horror in the gore/slasher sense, it does focus on existential time-loop themes that may be disturbing to some users.

Spoiler: Author's Notes

This was originally going to be several drabbles, one based on every song in Lemon Demon's album Spirit Phone, but then writer's block happened, and this was the only part I was really proud of. I'll probably eventually write the others, but for now, enjoy.

Rumors had spread on the whispering wind that somewhere in Jubilife City, there was a door to a dimension of Myths one could only dream of.

And Dawn had found it. Dawn had found the void deep in a building in the city. It wasn't any sort of special building, just a regular office building. People came and went, seemingly unaware of the void. Perhaps it would have been wise for Dawn to be concerned, but if anything, she felt special for being the only one who could see it.

"Will you enter?" It seemed to coo, like it was trying to win her heart.

She reached out her hand, and the void took her in.

Travelling through darkness in search of light, she ran with legs of lightning, steps of precision. Steps to a dance burned into her memory. A ritual to summon—

Arceus.

The Creator of the Universe, the Father of all being. They stared into her eyes with a glare made of rubies and emeralds. Its white fur glowed like marble. It stood before her, the only light in the darkness.

She gasped at the sight of Arceus. Few, if any, could say that they had seen it, and now here she was, on the cusp of capturing it and declaring herself its Trainer.

And then a voice came from its maw, echoing across the empty:

“Soft reset.”

-

She was back in the building, back in front of the void. What... Why...

How had she come back to the building? Why did the people walking by look so familiar?

Had she... Had she gone back in time?

"Will you enter?" The void seemed to coo.

Time travel or not, she had to enter again. She had to find Arceus again.

Travelling through darkness in search of light, she ran with legs of lightning, steps of precision. Steps to a dance burned into her memory. She had done this dance before. She had done it before. It was a ritual. A ritual to summon—

Arceus.

The Creator of the Universe, the Father of all being. They stared into her eyes with a glare made of rubies and emeralds. Its white fur shone like marble. It stood before her, the only light in the darkness. Few had seen Arceus, but how many had seen it twice in their lifetime?

It said again, “Soft reset.”

-

She was back in the building, back in front of the void. Same people. Same movements.

What was going on?!

"Will you enter?" The void seemed to coo.

Something told her to enter again—or forced her, perhaps.

Travelling through darkness in search of light, she ran with legs of lightning, steps of precision. How long had she been running? How many times had she run through the void? How many times had she seen Arceus? More times than there were people who even worshipped it, probably. Steps to a dance burned into her memory. Her legs were tired, and yet she moved onward. A ritual to summon—

Arceus.

The Creator of the Universe, the Father of all being. They stared into her eyes with a glare made of rubies and emeralds. Its golden fur shone like ancient riches. It stood before her, the only light in the darkness.

“Soft Reset.”

-

She was back in the building, back in front of the void.

Dawn blinked, her mind stopping. Then it began to run. Arceus’s fur had been golden, not white. What changed? Why did it change? What—

“Damn it. That was a shiny.”

Arceus’s voice reverberated in her head. The voice was nauseating, mocking.

The same damn people were making the same damn movements. They couldn't see the void. Dawn screamed at them, but no sound came out. Could they even see her?!

She tried to run, but her body wouldn't move. Her arms wouldn't move, even as her thoughts moved faster and faster. What was going on what was going on WHAT WAS GOING ON??????

"Will you enter?" The void seemed to coo.

NO! Dawn shouted in her head and tried to shout to the real world. I WON’T! I WON’T! I—

She was thrown back into the void by a force she couldn't see.

No control over her body, only her mind. Thrown through darkness in search of light, she was moved with legs of lightning, steps of precision. She couldn’t even register her movements anymore. They happened without her even being aware of what was happening. Her mind was filled with ineligible thoughts. Steps to a dance she didn’t even know anymore. She was a sacrifice in a ritual to summon—

Arceus.

The Creator of the Universe, the Father of all being. Dawn had heard so many stories of Arceus, but now it was no more interesting than a regular Bidoof. They stared into her eyes with a red and green gaze, no more powerful than her mother's scolding glance. Its white fur was... like paper. Boring copy paper. No longer did it have the luster many claimed it had. It stood before her, the only light in the darkness.

“Soft—”

“Why are you doing this to me?!”

Arceus was silent, as though they didn’t expect Dawn to be able to speak. Neither did Dawn.

“Because it’s not shiny," Arceus said. "I need to soft reset for a shiny Arceus.”

The voice was Arceus’s, but it was in Dawn’s head, not its mouth. Like how it had been in the building

“But you are Arceus!”

“I need to soft reset until it’s shiny.”

“IS IT NOT ENOUGH TO CAPTURE THE CREATOR OF THIS FORSAKEN UNIVERSE?!?!?!”

Her shout scraped her throat like knives, but she needed to speak. She needed to break free.

“What does it matter if you see it with a golden or white coat?!”

“I already accidently soft resetted a shiny Arceus. I can’t give up now.”

“How many times?” Dawn rasped. “HOW MANY TIMES DO YOU HAVE TO DO THIS?!?!”

“It might take hundreds or thousands of times. But I promise, it will be worth it. Shiny Pokémon are rare, and Shiny Mythical Pokémon? It’s to die for. The reward of a lifetime. You should be glad you get to witness such an experience. You’re luckier than you can ever imagine.”

“Lucky… LUCKY?!?!”

“Soft reset.”

-

She was back in the building, back in front of the void. The same people passed and went as they always did. Dawn didn't even try to talk to them.

"Will you enter?" It seemed to coo.

She had no choice.

 

[columboisreal]

Wow! I really like the changes you made to this! I think it really makes the idea clearer. I had a great time beta reading this for you!

But uh... just one more thing...

“What does it matter if you see it with a golden or white coat?!”

Interesting use of word, here, 'coat'. I have a coat, a really nice coat, made of raincoat material, not sure what the technical term is here. But in this story, I'm quite sure you're referring to fur...

Shiny Pokémon are rare, and Shiny Mythical Pokémon? It’s to die for.

A fellow I heard of a while ago said something along those lines... from the Pridelands or somewhere... one of these Disney Villains, you know...
But I also noticed that the player character in this story chose Dawn. And something about the combination of the fact that they chose a female avatar, the dialogue, the focus on the value of Arceus' fur coat...



The player wouldn't happen to be... Cruella De Vil, would it?

 

[Welkamo]

The player wouldn't happen to be... Cruella De Vil, would it?

The truth comes out (of my very own mouth)

 

[Spiteful Murkrow]

Heya, it took me a little longer than I’d hoped to look over your story, but I figured that getting out my thoughts now before the judging window set in still counted for something. And hopefully you find this feedback helpful for your story.

Full disclosure for anyone reading, but the below review captured the state of this one-shot as of around 4PM EST on October 30th. By the time you're reading this, things may look radically different for the version of the story that you read.

Rumors had spread on the whispering wind that somewhere in Jubilife City, there was a door to a dimension of Myths one could only dream of.

And Dawn had found it. Dawn had found the void deep in a building in the city.

Jubilife City, huh? For a second, I thought this was going to be a Turnback Cave story, but looks like it’s something completely fresh for this story.

‘Will you enter?’ It seemed to coo, like it was trying to win her heart.

Oh, well that’s not ominous at all. Though I’d suggest adding some sort of quotation marks around the bit that’s styled as dialogue.

She reached out her hand, and the void took her in.

Whelp, too late. Let’s see where this winds up going. I do wonder if you had room to expand on this whole sequence going up to this point in terms of scene-setting, though. Like is this some abandoned building from the earliest days of Jubilife when it was still Jubilife Village? Is it in the backroom of a crowded shopping mall like the first episode of Madoka where everyone’s just happily going on with their lives less than 50 meters away?

If you do decide to expand this story before the judging window kicks in, I think that that’s probably a major area that’s open for addition, to play up that “fear of the unknown” a bit.

Travelling through darkness in search of light, she ran with legs of lightning, steps of precision. Steps to a dance burned into her memory. A ritual to summon—

Arceus.

doing this in the middle of a crowded city

The Creator of the Universe, the Father of all being. They stared into her eyes with a glare made of rubies and emeralds. Its white fur glowed like marble.

Wait, so… he’s suddenly just there and blipped into existence? No ominous lightshow at all before he appears in this inner room that’s probably massive given that Arceus can fit into it without breaking a sweat?

She gasped at the sight of Arceus. Few, if any, could say that they had seen it, and now here she was, on the cusp of capturing it and declaring herself its Trainer.

And then a voice came from its maw, echoing across the empty:

“Soft reset.”

Oh, so here comes that timeloop from the summary.

She was back in the building, back in front of the void.

‘Will you enter?’ It seemed to coo.

I kiiiiinda wonder if this would’ve worked better with a hard scene break to emphasize things skipping back. Since it might’ve played up the “abrupt jump” a bit more.

She had to enter again. She had to find Arceus again.

Uhhh, no. You should really go and do something else for a while, Dawn.

Travelling through darkness in search of light, she ran with legs of lightning, steps of precision. Steps to a dance burned into her memory. A ritual to summon—

Arceus.

The Creator of the Universe, the Father of all being. They stared into her eyes with a glare made of rubies and emeralds. Its white fur shone like marble.

It said again, “Soft reset.”

I kinda wonder if there should’ve been a little more differentiation between this and the first loop, since this is almost verbatim the same sequence. Maybe working in little bits of feeling of ‘deja vu’ or ‘this time I’ll get him for sure’ from Dawn might help with that.

<><><>

She was back in the building, back in front of the void.

‘Will you enter?’ It seemed to coo.

She didn’t want to enter. She didn’t want to do this again. She didn’t even want to catch Arceus anymore. She just wanted to be free again.

Wait, is this only the third loop of her trying to get Arceus? Or is this supposed to be like 20 attempts later after the second loop? Since I’m pretty sure that this is building up to a reveal that Dawn’s being controlled by a “player”.

Though either way, you probably want to add a hard scene break here again.

But she had no choice. Her body moved despite her mind’s protests.

Travelling through darkness in search of light, she ran with legs of lightning, steps of precision. Steps to a dance burned into her memory. A ritual to summon—

Arceus.

The Creator of the Universe, the Father of all being. They stared into her eyes with a glare made of rubies and emeralds. Its white fur shone like marble.

“Soft Reset.”

Yeah, see the remarks for the last loop of this you did. Since if Dawn’s in full “I don’t want to do this anymore” mode, you probably want to have that more explicitly bleed into Dawn’s thought process here where you emphasize the “oh god, we’re doing this again”-ness of this loop.

Dawn:

<><><>

She was back in the building, back in front of the void.

‘Will you enter?’ It seemed to coo.

Travelling through darkness in search of light, she ran with legs of lightning, steps of precision. How long had she been running? How many times had she seen Arceus? More times than there were people who even worshipped it. Steps to a dance burned into her memory. Her legs were tired, and yet she moved onward. A ritual to summon—

Arceus.

She’s being controlled by a player trying to get a Shiny Arceus, isn’t she?

Dawn: “Oh for crying out loud! Let me go and take pictures at the TV station or something like that!” >.<

The Creator of the Universe, the Father of all being. They stared into her eyes with a glare made of rubies and emeralds. Its golden fur shone like ancient riches.

“Soft Reset.”

Dawn:

<><><>

She was back in the building, back in front of the void.

Dawn blinked, her mind stopping. Then it began to run. Arceus’s fur had been golden, not white. What changed? Why did it change? What—

“Damn it. That was a shiny.”

Yuuuuuuup, called it.

Player: “Dammit, now I have to do this all over again.”
Dawn: “Again?! Meaning I was about to be free from this?!”

Arceus’s voice reverberated in her head. The voice was nauseating, mocking.

‘Will you enter?’ the void seemed to coo.

“NO!” Dawn shouted. “I WON’T! I WON’T! I—”

She was thrown back into the void.

Yeah, this is why IMO you should take a bit more time and throw more description around to show Dawn’s sanity slippage creeping up more and more on her along with the rapidly ballooning amount of resets to try and nab shiny god there. Since while on one level Dawn’s mental state feels believable right now, it didn’t feel like we got enough of a depicted transition into her present

state of mind across the depicted loops.

No control over her body, only her mind. Thrown through darkness in search of light, she was moved with legs of lightning, steps of precision. She couldn’t even register her movements anymore. They happened without her even being aware of what was happening. Her mind was filled with ineligible thoughts. Steps to a dance she didn’t even know anymore. She was a sacrifice in a ritual to summon—

Arceus.

Well that got sinister fast, though I have to wonder when Dawn was meant to realize that she was deliberately a sacrifice here, since that didn’t seem built up much at all.

The Creator of the Universe, the Father of all being. They stared into her eyes with a glare made of rubies and emeralds. Its white fur shone like marble.

“Soft—”

“Why are you doing this to me?!”

Player: “Because I want a shiny Arceus? That’s a good enough reason, right?”

Arceus was silent, as though they didn’t expect Dawn to be able to speak.

“Because it’s not shiny. I need to soft reset for a shiny Arceus.”

Boy, can I call ‘em or what.

The voice is Arceus’s, but it’s in Dawn’s head, not its mouth.

“But you are Arceus!”

“I need to soft reset until it’s shiny.”

Oh, so that’s how the “player” manifests to Dawn in this story, huh?

“IS IT NOT ENOUGH TO CAPTURE THE CREATOR OF THIS FORSAKEN UNIVERSE?!?!?!”

Player:

Her shout scrapes her throat like knives, but she needs to speak. She needs to break free.

“What does it matter if you see it with a golden or white coat?!”

Player: “I’ll get to brag about it to my friends and on game forums?”

Dawn: “You’ve been putting me through this hell for bragging rights?!”

Player: “Yes? And?”

“I already accidently soft resetted a shiny Arceus. I can’t give up now.”

“How many times?” Dawn rasped. “HOW MANY TIMES DO YOU HAVE TO DO THIS?!?!”

Player: “Well the statistical odds of getting a shiny via random encounter are 1 in 8192, so…”

Dawn: “Oh my god.”

“It might take hundreds or thousands of times. But I promise, it will be worth it. Shiny Pokémon are rare, and Shiny Mythical Pokémon? It’s to die for. The reward of a lifetime. You should be glad you get to witness such an experience. You’re luckier than you can ever imagine.”

“Lucky… LUCKY?!?!”

“Soft reset.”

Dawn:

She was back in the building, back in front of the void.

Will you enter? It seemed to coo.

She had no choice.

Dawn:

And with that note, let’s get right into the recap:

Alright, to start off with what I liked, but I thought the premise of this story was pretty neat for a horror one. Since a lot of people reflexively go into death and gore for horror, while this one didn’t and it pulled still pulled things off well, enough so that I’d consider it fitting as a halloween read. I also liked the meta angle that you took, since this is something that players actually do on a regular basis for games, and part of the reason why it works is that whole “I’m someone else’s plaything” that becomes apparent after the player forces Dawn to keep doing things that are increasingly at odds with her own will.

As for stuff I didn’t like… I thought your story was cut a little to the bone for length. IMO, you could’ve easily doubled or tripled the length just from describing the background and Dawn’s thought process a bit more. And you should probably consider doing that at some point anyways since it helps sell the sense of how Dawn’s deteriorating. Also, I get that this is a story built around the premise of a stable time loop, but seeing passages repeated verbatim with no difference in between did make things feel a little repetitive. Given that the only thing different is Dawn’s mind and thought process, you should show more of that off with each loop, if for nothing else other than to make each one distinct to the readers.

But all-in-all, I thought it was a fun read @Torchic W. Pip . There’s some room to sand down the edges a bit, but hey, if you want to do it, you do have a few days still on the clock before the judges start actually looking at final products. Though even if you opt to just leave things as-is, I thought it was an interesting premise, and I’ll be looking forward to checking out some of your other stories in the near future.

 

[kintsugi]

Hi there! Checking out the contest oneshots, and it's good to read your work again! Not the themes or characters I was expecting, but it's a good look on you. It's always fun to see the directions that people take these prompts.

I always love seeing when people go for the more meta version of the game, where the player avatar truly is an avatar. Typically it's pretty horrifying and bleak, with the direct confirmation that their life and actions are outside of their own control, and it's no different here. I liked the creeping fridge horror of Dawn slowly realizing that things are familiar, that this is something she's already done. I thought it was a little strange that her first guess was "time travel" and not, like, a weird dream or something--but the Pokemon world and specifically Sinnoh is pretty prone to space-time shit, so it doesn't seem terribly unheard of.

I also think the shorter length was in your favor--understanding of course that pacing and sense of scale are super subjective to individual readers. But imo this specific concept of existential horror is easily grasped (understanding that I've read a lot of fic and played Undertale and as such am probably more familiar with the tropes than most), so keeping the timeloop repetitions short is a good way to make sure that things don't overstay their welcome.

and now here she was, on the cusp of capturing it and declaring herself its Trainer.

I really liked the angle that you took on this story. The meta-commentary on the nature of gameplay genre tends to lend itself to questions of control, higher power, free will--which intersects really nicely with the idea of "it's a beautiful day outside to capture god". Words like "declaring herself" make it seem like Dawn isn't interested in Arceus's opinion on the matter; you don't declare something if you intend to give someone a choice. And before the initial glow wears off, she "[feels] special for being the only one who could see it"--this to me suggested that, at least initially, capturing Arceus is a matter of status to Dawn, a means of being unique from the rest.

So for me, when the tables turn and Dawn is also the trapped one, where it turns out someone else has come into her life and is stripping her ability to choose, using her to obtain a symbol of status and uniqueness, she's understandably upset and horrified. But there's nothing she can do about it. She doesn't have a choice--but it's okay, this is the reward of a lifetime, she should be proud to be serving this higher power who declared control over her without asking. Right?

No, of course, it turns out that that arrangement isn't fun and having your brain reset Gen IV full odds shiny levels of times is abjectly torture. But I do like this angle of horror. Sometimes it's easier to punch down and forget. I think there are two kinds of scary things--things that everyone recognizes as universally horrifying/to be avoided, and things that people are fine with until it happens to them. And lurking monsters in the dark who replaced your spoons with knives or whatever are horrifying, but I liked the inclusion of the second type of horror here instead. Thanks for sharing!

Oh! I was going to rec you BAD EGG, since that seems very thematically in-line with this piece, but it seems like you've been there already. You may also enjoy Being Human, a short story about the life and times of the glitches of RBY + the spiritual prequel to BAD EGG (by a different author, long story). Or also, for an absolutely ancient throwback, Downfall of a Master, a oneshot that also gets to the heart of that "but was it worth it" feeling that comes at the end of a long struggle.

some notes on grammar in the spoiler below:

Spoiler

Travelling through darkness in search of light, she ran with legs of lightning, steps of precision. Steps to a dance burned into her memory. A ritual to summon—

Mostly your call--I think the stylized prose is vivid and descriptive, but I did struggle to actually picture the details or sensations in the more stylized bits. Is there a literal dance? But she's running? She's running with speed and precision, but what does that mean? Sort of thing.

"Will you enter?" It seemed to coo, like it was trying to win her heart.

This one could go either way, but the way that you punctuate these implies that the spoken dialogue is ["Will you enter", followed by a non-verbal coo]. If you wanted it to be ["Will you enter", spoken in a cooing voice], you'll want to punctuate it as ["Will you enter?" it seemed to coo], to indicate that the cooing is describing the way the dialogue is spoken rather than an event happening after the dialogue.

Like how it had been in the building

The ending lines here get pretty stylized, so some of the grammar doesn't apply, but it seems like this period may have been forgotten

 

[Lone_Garurumon]

The player wouldn't happen to be... Cruella De Vil, would it?

I'll take "Comments that came out of the left-field and slapped me in the face" for 500, Alex.

I really enjoyed this one. Extremely well-paced, and great execution of a very existential kind of horror. Forced to grapple with just being an avatar in somebody else's game. Personally my favourite part was the complete degradation of Arceus' appearance once it really sets in for Dawn what's happening. It's lost all its lustre in her eyes, and the way it's written works really well as a contrast. Good story, I liked it!

 

[lisianthus]

Thank you for making an entry, Torchic!!

I really really enjoyed this one, I've never really encountered cosmic horror before, but I think that this was a super great introduction to it!!

I also love the mental image of a disembodied arceus voice going 'Damn it, that was a shiny!', talking about... itself, basically, to Dawn's point of view.

Like others said, the length is just about perfect here I think, too. It isn't repetitive enough to be boring or anything, and that's super great!

You did really well torchic, and I enjoyed this quite a lot. Thank you!!

 

[DRX.maliant]

oh ho ho ho. this admittedly made me shiver quite a bit.

sure terror can be one way to scare, but having the same scenario loop, imo, is probably the scariest scenario that can ever happen. the loop leading to existential dread and crisis as well as the way its portrayed is really good. enjoyed the read but this got me shaking in my boots.

 

[Blanc]

I knowwww like Lisia I told you my thoughts on discord but I wanted to reiterate them!! I find this fic REALLY interesting in a number of ways... from the "meta"-ish concept of Dawn actually being and living within the game's mechanics. It has a strange mixture of both being comedic while actually horrifying to think about, and it is absolutely amazing how you pulled this off in such a harmonizing way! I also loved the way the scenario would repeat with little changes each time, from the Arceus looking majestic and god-like, to it turning shiny, and finally to Dawn no longer being impressed by its lustrous appearance because she has seen this play out so many times and been utterly broken by it. I also liked the little nuance of the player's voice being/coming from Arceus, since we all know Arceus is akin to a god of the Pokemon world, and the player is also technically a god themselves, in this kind of tale. Your handling of wordplay and creative writing is insanely good, Pip! I absolutely loved this one!

 

[InfiniteBakuphoon]

Hello there, Torchic! Somehow, I think that it’s appropriate that my first long overdue review for these Halloween contest fics is your entry, haha. Although I’ll admit that I was in no small part attracted — and intrigued — by the shorter length of your piece; I’ll be speaking at length about that, by the way. With that said, let’s dive right in…

Now, I know you said in the author’s notes that you wanted this to be longer, but I think that the brevity of this piece is actually perhaps its single greatest asset, and one that plays to your strengths as a writer and storyteller that I’ve had the pleasure of seeing elsewhere, haha. With one of those strengths being your uncanny ability to pack a lot of emotion into a relatively small amount of space. Which is especially impressive here with our blank slate of a protagonist Dawn here… or perhaps more so to the person that’s “controlling” her, haha! And speaking of her…

The premise here reminds me heavily of another story with a meta time-loop twist, one actually posted here and appropriately called Hard Reset (I wonder if you’ve read it?). That story was no slouch, but what I think makes your take on the concept a more successful is that we really get a sense of the confusion, and then frustration, that Dawn feels as she grasps the full reality of the situation she’s in, all in a surprisingly visceral way. Again, I think that this is where the short length shows its worth, namely because it forces the pace to be very fast in order to get the point across, which helps greatly with accentuating the increasingly repetitive and tiresome nature of Dawn’s quest, even when said quest is, you know, capturing freakin’ Arceus Himself! And all the while, you accomplished all of that before we even got to the complete reveal…

…and about that, well. “Damn it, that was a shiny” was that wham line that I presume was intended to unveil the full twist, and it’s one of those twists that you realize that you probably should’ve saw coming much earlier, yet somehow, you just don’t. I generally like twists like that, as I think that having something like that pulled off is a good barometer of the story’s ability to distract you from the clichés and the more mechanical structures and plot and move the reader’s attention more towards the point of view of the characters and how they’re feeling, I think. Such that by the time the twist is unveiled, you’re just as surprised as the characters are! And in this case, being more in the point of the view of characters is also useful because it distracts from the kind of weird lore here, haha — a random building in the middle of a busy city, leading to Arceus? — which I presume was intended to be a homage to what could’ve been with the non-existent Arceus event in DPPt. Either that, or it’s painfully clear that I haven’t played BDSP yet… I could also guess that maybe you were deliberately trying to go more abstract? In any case, it really doesn’t matter; it’s something that my mind latched onto throughout the read but not enough to bring me out from the POV which, again, is something that this fic does wonderfully.

As for how I actually feel about Dawn’s fate, though? Weirdly, I actually don’t think it’s all that bad. Sure, she’ll have to spend the next hundreds, if not thousands, of cycles in forced search of that Arceus… or Shiny Arceus, haha. And as surely painful as that will be, at least she won’t be additionally tortured by not knowing the full truth of her situation, which I imagine otherwise would have haunted her greatly as it did in the beginning; sometimes ignorance isn’t bliss. And certainly, at some point, someone dedicated enough — or crazy enough, perhaps — to quest after a shiny Arceus should be dedicated enough — and crazy enough, indeed — to succeed, one day. That is, unless, they decide to give up…

…oof. RIP Dawn…

Not much more so say, I think. Pat yourself the back for another fic well done, Torchic!