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Fall Before the Pride; Fanfic Comp #2 ((Unfinished))
Tweet Topic Started: Mar 11 2007, 02:32 PM (438 Views)
Colbert Mar 11 2007, 02:32 PM Post #1
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“Team Aqua” and its leader “Archie” are both copyrighted by Nintendo. Obviously.

Fall Before the Pride
The Previously Untold Beginnings of Team Aqua


My life, fun as it has been, has always revolved around a diluted form of evil.

There’s no hiding it, no way around the central fact about what has made me so nefarious to society; I am Archie, Team Aqua’s very own. Normally in these kinds of memoirs, writers jump around all sorts of central themes in hopes of sparking suspense, but it’s always so anti-climatic for me to read, so while I spill away my life, in ink, on these very pages, I’m going to try to be as open as possible, maybe even too open at times. This is a memoir, and reader’s are not supposed to guess as to the author’s soul, but should instead have it presented to them.

Here is the first thing that I will so brusquely state: I hated how I got here. Sure, when I was on the top of the world in Hoenn, it was literally perfect… but no one likes how things have to be done to reach certain places. I can’t remember much since that damn runny-nosed kid with the white hair swept our entire team with only a Grovyle and a Beautifly (Brandon? Was that his name? I cannot even remember), bringing my admittedly poorly trained team to collapse in an embarrassing pile. What a pity my Sharpedo, Mightyena, Walrein, and Crobat were at battle, honestly. If they had only the shred of dignity that was so prevalent in the ever-persistent Quagsire, I would not have ever been reduced to what I am today.

The second thing that I know is thus… the world around me has changed. I have been in here, this cell, for a good amount of years; of course, I don’t have a definite number, but sometimes the guard here will remind me off Christmas, or Valentine’s Day, and each time hear either of those words mumbled by him, I knew that another year has passed. So much has been done, and I have been clueless as to the actions of everything. Sometimes, I wish that I could know what was happening, politically, and socially… who is president, for instance? What new slutty celebrities should I care about?

Everything I know, and have known, was based off that gym battle that long ago, and my life had sprouted from there. It sparked my infamous Aqua logo, the “A”-shaped skull and crossbones image, the iconic blue bandanas, and the entire line of uniforms. Without her, I would never have been able to even form Team Aqua, and get so close to flooding the world in the first place! Hell, if Sorsha didn’t one day decide to become an Electric-affiliated gym leader, I could care less about the world of Pokémon and humans… and so I have only to thank her.

If it weren’t for Sorsha, I would be dead. I can guarantee it.

I said I wouldn’t dawdle around the truth, but I cannot muster a decent description of this previously mentioned woman, Sorsha. These times have passed, and so much has blown away with the seasons, that as I rot away in this jail cell with a notebook and a pen seconds from drying out, I cannot remember her. I know that I dream about her, and I know I sleep with thoughts about that pivotal battle, but when I wake up, there is only nothing. What I can remember is that she was a fighter until the end, throwing herself into the arena time after time to run to the aid of her two Pokémon, Plusle and Minun. Of course, she was Kadaraa’s famed youngster of a gym leader, and I remember the stadium so clearly, but there is nothing other than that, and the battle.

There is one more thing I can remember after that time, Quagsire. How he died in my arms… the image would be etched into my brain forever. Without Quagsire at my side through the journey, however, I would never have felt anything; it would have been an exercise of trudging slowly and sadly through each step on the way. He made me feel, and laugh, and eventually hurt, but with all pain… can only come happiness, eventually. I sit in here, rotting away, and cannot help but laugh myself, appreciating the irony of being stuck in such an uncomfortably dank environment teeming with stagnant water. The leader of Team Aqua is considering suicide because of all the water around him. Genius… this was what I wanted? I sighed deeply, almost loud enough to cause the “guard” to step back in here, whip, and all. He used to really be a friendly guy too, what a shame, being coalesced with evil by greater powers. I guess that’s just what happens to people when they get isolated in a certain mindset, just as I am now isolated in this depressing suicidal train of thoughts.

As for what I still know, I can remember the following… when I was six, my life was just beginning to screw itself up. I could remember, honestly, everything from adolescence to the beginning of the gym battle, reminiscing in my quiet solitary time here, reliving the details that I can so keenly call back on a whim. From then on, my life has been nothing but diluted, my brain selectively forgetting everything I have never been proud of, unconsciously. If I can only get it back some day, these memories, I could die then… and finally be happy. But for now, I have only my innocent ones, and can only remember even the happy-go-lucky conversations I had with my friends to near-perfect detail.
 
Colbert Mar 11 2007, 11:02 PM Post #2
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~*~*~ Seventy-Three Years Ago ~*~*~
Braydon, splashing around in the lake’s water, was beckoning for me to come in and join him. “C’mon, Arch, it’s nice! Swear.” I still had my clothes on, dressed plainly in a white t-shirt, one of the cotton kinds with a stitched-in pocket on the right, and athletic mesh black shorts, ones that were too long, but I still wore around my :censored to keep them from riding up. If there was one thing now that I was adamant about, it was that I needed to keep the legs of the shorts below my knees, but at my tiny twelve-year old build, the bottoms were also encroaching upon the tips of my tennis shoes. Of course, there were horizontal black stripes that ran across my cotton t-shirt, and I had never considered (until recently) that this odd sense of pre-teenager fashion would eventually set the foundation for the publicly recognizable Team Aqua uniforms, and I was only eleven at the time.

“Nah, I don’t wanna. It’s kinda cloudy.” I stepped backwards, slowly, away from the edge of the lake to avoid being splashed by this new… well, he wasn’t really a friend. “The water’s cold too; don’t lie.”

“You scared of getting wet, that it, Arch?” I hated the pseudo-nickname of “Arch,” something that Braydon was always insisting on calling me. However, I hated that he was trying to force me into the water, too. I always equated water with death for some reason, and it wasn’t because in my life, someone close had died; I think I just watched too many killer shark movies. But… taunts get to me. I threw off my ugly shirt, slipped off my shorts (which were already pulled down near my ankles anyway) and kicked off my sandals, one of which landed in the pool. Diving headfirst into the pool, I shivered as my body was fully submerged by water. This was fun, avoiding death every time you decide to duck your head beneath the suffocating waves? Of course, over time, my opinions would change…

Spitting out water like a fountain I once saw (maybe in a dream, nonetheless), I turned to Braydon and began to tread water. “You happy now?” Braydon smiled contently and nodded in an oddly arrogant manner.

There was something comforting about the water, and this was the first time I had begun to understand what was so magical about water to other people. Sure, at first I only saw it as a convenient means for Satanists to commit suicide with a blow-dryer or toaster, but now I was beginning to change my mind. Floating through water was like ascending into space, where gravity meant nothing and anything could be achieved. Even with the lake’s somewhat murky aura, I could see Pokémon I once considered useless jettisoning themselves around with only their tail; Remoraids became entrancing, Seakings otherworldly, Poliwhirls mysterious, in all of their deft motions. I would not soon forget to appreciate this, and as history shows, I became obsessed with the notion. But that was an entirely different story.

I pause here, from the text, to share another one of my apperceptions, seventy-odd years in the future, as I reflect on the situation. My next sight, which I can only describe as pure magic, was not so to me at the time, but this would be the fateful encounter with one of my favorite Pokémon to ever grace me with their presence. With my six year old mind at the time, I did not see this encounter to be such a memorable experience…. However, I can assume that it will be the last thing that I see before I die, and it will be the only repeated scene as my life flashes before my eyes (as I assume it will)…

There he stood, eyes flashing around, not noticing me as I swam towards him. My eyes, burning with keeping exposing them to so much water, forgot pain for a few moments as I watched the Pokémon flap around, ignored by every other arrogant wild Pokémon in the water. The poor guy was alone, the sun shining in patterns off his delicate aquamarine skin tone, his pink antennae reflecting a glare in my face as well. The little mudfish, a Wooper I assumed, was alone by himself, outcast by everything for whatever reason it may be.

The poor thing… appeared to be crying, underwater, but no one could tell. His tears, flowing off simply as bubbles, were enticing enough by themselves, and as I watched the bubbles dissipate to the top of the water with a pop, the Pokémon sat there, still pouring his eyes out as much as the conditions would allow. He was sitting solitarily on a hunk of white sand that protruded from the bed of coral that protruded from the shore of the lake, everything passing him by without a glance.

And… I hate to say… I did the same. I noticed him there, and sure felt sorry, but what would I have to give about a stupid little Wooper (it pains me to write this, but it is, alas, true)? Damn, the thing seemed annoying too; really, we all have problems.

He, thankfully, was able to notice me though. His strangely pale black eyes were still glistening against the sun’s reflection through most of the lake’s murk, almost dried up from the tears he had wasted on… whatever, and to this day, I still didn’t ask him what was wrong. The problem with me was, at that time, I could care less about the damn fish. In fact, I left him there by himself for awhile, only noticing one thing as I turned around, that the skin over his spine was pretty badly scarred and red (tearing at the fins that ran down his backside as well); I didn't care though, and immediately headed back towards the more familiar life with Braydon, retreating cowardly to utter immaturity. The scar, running straight, was something I could infer to be the work of a slower Carvanha or Sharpedo, but, at the time, that meant nothing more to me than an interesting idea to consider on my short swim back to the shore.

And I hate myself for that.
 
Colbert Apr 15 2007, 12:18 AM Post #3
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~*~*~ Fifteen Years Later ~*~*~

I revisited that spot again later, around sixty years ago to the date. Something was odd about it, I knew, especially when I walked towards it… leading the environmentalists behind me. I should’ve known right then how my life would turn out, seeing that the entire “Water Pokémon Coalition” was hanging onto my every word (the fancy name for the ultimately lefty, save the Pokémon, stop the environmental abuse group I so stupidly headed at the time). At least this trip would finally knock some sense into me.

Right then, I had not remembered this site from when I was still friends with Braydon, so the murky lake was oddly “fresh” again. Now fifteen years from my twelve-year old experience there, I didn’t remember anything about my old encounter with the scarred Wooper. Like anything else, it would take something sensory to trigger my memory.

Naturally, I wasn’t focused on remembering this place, so I just continued with my speech. I held the megaphone to my mouth, licked my lips, and cleared my throat. A nasty sound escaped the megaphone, but I pretended as if it didn’t happen. “Thank you all for coming again!” It was an odd comment, normally something that one would say if he or she was addressing an entire group of people who they didn’t know, but I recognized everyone. All of those hippies at my feet… I could even tell the difference by their individual voices. Maxie coughed in the back, and I knew it was him without even bothering to look.

“I don’t think I need to explain to you all why we’re here, so I’m not going to waste your time with any damn filler detain, which you already know. That would be a waste of time… you all already know everything.” I was sweating, and repeating myself, but I still felt like I had the audience in my grasp. Those hypocrites, with their “defy the corporations” and “anti-conformist” messages, were listening to my every word and following them blindly (if only I even knew what I was talking about).

“Of course we’re all here to protest the radical destruction of Mother Nature’s beautiful lakes, and, of course, this is the starting point of our tour to show people that we will not stand and watch as companies carelessly dump their waste into our rivers and lakes! We stand at this lake here, hand in hand, arm in arm, and will stand in front of this paper mill (I motioned behind me to the white and grey, toxic spewing Tohean Paper Factory) with pickets and protest!” Cheers erupted, but that was stupid; I was just saying everything that everyone already knew before. They knew we would protest that paper mill two months ago, so me telling them again what to do, again…

Everyone in the audience was a stock hippie too, shaping their “Oh, let’s break the goddamn mold!” personas off of how their grandparents described protesting ‘nam in the Woodstock days. Unfortunately, I can’t say I was much different at the time; sure, I didn’t have long hair, bell-bottoms, and tie-dyed shirts, but I was never above a few joints. We were a pure group of hypocrites (as I can see from my less-diluted view, fifty years later), protesting the conformity that we so willingly copied ourselves.

Maxie yelled out a timely “Hear, hear!” in the back and continued to light up another joint. Wonderful, let’s protest the pollution of smoke this mill creates by smoking and releasing our own chemicals into the air. Makes sense.

I handed the megaphone back to Jeremy, who felt like he had to take the floor again. The crowd opened me up a path through them, and I headed to their back to sit by Maxie. “I really think we can do something this time, man,” I started. I had no idea, then, that this amateurish little group didn’t have nearly enough manpower to even scratch the mill’s steel surface. “You know when there’s just something there in you that screams out, like, ‘you got it this time!’ or something?”

“It’s like God finally is blessing us with karma. I know what you feel,” Archie replied, clearly baked, combining terms with words that didn’t make sense (I know what you feel?) He took another puff of his weed, threw down the joint, and dug it into the ground with his heel. “We can really stop these goddamn suits!”

Hypocrite. What a goddamn hypocrite.

The speaker on the stage drone on in the background, reiterating all of the previously known ideas to his audience, just as I did a second ago. This noise, of course, would naturally scare away all terrestrial Pokémon in that region, and although his “speech” did fall on a few Whismurs deaf ears, there was nothing wild to be seen anymore. Was that… was that what we were trying to do? Scare, with these rallies, what we struggle to protect with the very same rallies?

This, of course, made it an awesome occurrence when a Pokémon did have the courage to wander upon such a place, and when a denizen of the lake meandered to our location, I easily noticed. I summed up the Quagsire in a matter of seconds. I first noticed how he lacked the typical, and stereotypical, beaming Quagsire grin, instead wearing an expression of utter nothingness. His tiny black eyes stared holes through the crowd, but he couldn’t see anything nonetheless. Everything else was normal, although he had no bounce in his step whatsoever, nor did he have anything excited about him… he was just nothing, like death or life meant nothing. The pollution was obviously not what made him so upset.

And I was shocked, to say the truth. In a matter of seconds, without even knowing the first thing about this Pokémon (well, so I thought; I did know that fifteen years ago he would cry himself to sleep, but I had yet to remember that), I was totally turned off of the idea of helping anything wild. I realized that, at least through my eyes, they don’t even want our efforts. This is what I’m saving? This is what I’m devoting my goddamn life for!

Quagsire approached me, now less than five yards from my location. I was the only one looking back at him, as Maxie was laying on his back and watching clouds, laughing to himself.
 
Ky Ordrelin Aug 21 2007, 07:50 PM Post #4
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