JX Valentine's Nominations

The doors pulled apart with a loud whine. Inside, the hall opened up into a massive warehouse, filled with rows and rows of perfect conical steel devices Ghetsis stared oddly at. One at the far end had several grunts in HAZMAT suits inspecting an open panel on the cone.

"I'm unfamiliar with these devices. What are they?" asked Ghetsis.

"The complete collection of live Galactic Bombs, assembled and armed."

Ghetsis gave Saturn a complicated look, rubbing his forehead. "This wasn't the energy proposal I was invited to hear. I don't associate 'bomb' with electrical power."

“Again, I don’t have a clue. We’ve been given a name for this typing by the League, but-” The nurse was interrupted by the door slamming open with a loud bang, accompanied by a pink-haired girl who charged in bawling her eyes out.

“She’s been changed!” she yelled, waving a Clefairy at the nurse. Sam took a step away from her and looked at Brooke and Elliot with a raised eyebrow.

“That’s Whitney. She’s the Gym Leader of Goldenrod,” Brooke said. “She gets… emotional.”

“It’s different now! It’s a Fairy type, I know it!” Whitney was now jumping frantically. The Pokémon Centre door shook with each stomp she made, until a Chansey waddled up and stabbed her with a large tranquiliser. She slumped to the floor, while the Clefairy happily waved at the Chansey. The Chansey ignored it and looked at the nurse, as if to ask if she should inject the Clefairy as well.

“Right, let’s take a look at you then,” the nurse said, scooping up the small Pokémon. Sam stared at the unconscious gym leader.

“Oh, she’s very energetic sometimes.” She took the tranquiliser away from the Chansey and petted it on the head. “Too energetic. That’s why we have…” she trailed off as Whitney rose to her feet and stretched out her arms. Sam took a few more slow steps towards the door.

“But that should have been enough to knock out a Donphan,” the nurse whispered.

“I’m much too upset about this for that!” Whitney said, stomping a foot. “Something went and changed my Clefairy! It’s a Fairy type!” She began to sob again, but a bit less violently this time, an indication that the tranquiliser was having at least some effect.

“Honey,” she said tiredly, knocking on the tin door. “Baby, I did somethin’ real bad.” She heard nothing, but that was no surprise, so she continued. “I thought comin’ here would be good for us, y’know? Like, I thought gettin’ away from the city would make us better people. But I just feel worse. And meaner. And madder.” She sunk to the ground, getting dirt on the green dress she hated. Dotty sat next to her.

“I put the ladies to sleep, like I used to do at restaurants. Remember?” She smiled softly and absently rubbed Dotty’s slick leaves with her fingers. “But I didn’t even get nothin’ out of it. I gave all the money to charity,” she said, throwing her hands into the air. “And I don’t even feel good about it.”

She sat quietly for a second, before finally climbing back to her feet. “I’m gonna go make dinner,” she said faintly, after a long sigh. “Sandwiches okay?” Right before she left, the door cracked open, and Eddie peeked out at her from the pitch-black room. She started to ask him if he had heard her, but he grabbed her wrist and pulled her inside, shutting the door quickly behind her.

They were in a tiny curtained area, and once the door was shut and darkness returned, Eddie parted the thick cloth. Loretta gasped.

Bathed in dim red light, four shallow basins filled with different liquids sat on a table. Hanging everywhere on strings attached at various points on the walls were fully developed photographs. Loretta walked slowly, careful not to touch anything, and got closer to one of the photos. She saw that it – and all of the pictures – were from their photoshoot in the Viridian Forest. Her lip quivered, and she felt like her face projected more red than the light bulb.

“Oh, Eddie,” she whispered, placing her hand on her chest. With her other hand, she gently took hold of the photograph, examining it closer. “These are… wait.” She furrowed her brow and plucked the picture out of the clothespin’s grasp. She then quickly shuffled through the curtain and out the door, Eddie close behind. In full daylight, she saw all the details.

“I look awful!” she shouted, letting her arms fall limply at her side at she stared blankly forward. “I look freakin’ terrible,” she mumbled, biting her lip. She turned around and faced Eddie, her mouth still slightly open.

Eddie was slowly approaching her. Before he could wrap her in his arms, however, he giggled.

“You’re… laughing?” Loretta asked, eyes widening. “You think this is funny?” He was laughing even harder now, and his whole body was shaking. “You’re just as mean as those ladies!” she yelled, beginning to smile herself. “The whole reason we moved here,” she said, her nostrils widening as a full-blown grin took over face, “was because I thought green was my color! And look at this!” She waved the photo in his face and grabbed his arm for support as both of them panted for air. “I look like a Nidoking!”

They screamed and collapsed into the grass, holding each other tightly. Loretta buried her face into Eddie’s chest to contain her shrieks of laughter. After several minutes, they both lay down, holding their stomachs.

“I’m sorry, honey,” she mumbled, patting the ground until she found his hand. “I can’t believe I thought this would be a good idea. I just don’t know anymore, y’know? I don’t think havin’ kids is worth livin’ like this..” She scooted closer to him. “I’m startin’ to wonder if bein’ shot in the head in my thirties would be better than dyin’ from boredom when I’m eighty.” He laughed lazily in return, and she rolled over, pushing herself up so she could look him in the eyes.

“Wha’d’ya say, babe? Let’s ditch this place and go back home. We can crash our car runnin’ from the cops. Get in a shootout with a gang. Or we can just keep just keep livin’ forever, you, me, and Dotty, robbin’ banks every day.” As if on cue, the Oddish scampered over. Loretta grinned at her and looked back at her husband with pleading eyes. “It’s your choice. We can even… we can even stay here if you want.”

Eddie looked sternly back at her with a cocked eyebrow. He had spent their entire time in Viridian reading, making friends at work, and relaxing. For the first time in his life, he felt like he had stability. He didn’t have to worry about prison or gun wounds or dying. He was safer than he had ever been. Leaning up, he came face to face with Loretta, who was staring at him nervously. Never smiling, he took a deep breath.

“Let’s get the hell outta here.”

Perfect, I thought, as I wrapped my arms around hers.

As I made a knot out of my arms, I could see her brown eyes staring at me, with a mix of wonder and confusion. I could see her hair being blown by the soft wind, with strands both enveloping her bow and resting on her forehead. I could see her mouth slightly quivering at the motions of my arms, perhaps out of feeling tickled.

I had dozed off for a while before I realized that I had a firm grip on her. I turned my back towards her, and I could hear her soft gasp. Taking deep breaths, I readied myself to carry her.

One, two, thr—

Everything suddenly became a blur. The grass dissolved into streaks of green, and the sky became blotches of white and blue. The building was no more than a splash of gray, and the sun was nothing beyond a few dots of yellow.

But what filled my vision was pink. Everything screamed pink, and it felt like pink was embracing every part of my body. I couldn’t see anything but a world of pink, and even when I closed my eyes, my vision was filled by pink.

And then, a halt. And laughter.

“Weeeee! That was fun!” I heard the little girl say in between breaths. “You’re so cute!”

I looked at her, and her appearance had changed. Her hair was now very messy, with blades of grass and chunks of dirt in between her hair. Her forehead had beads of sweat that ran down her cheeks, which had lost some of its rosiness. Her pink clothes were now far from the neat ensemble she wore mere minutes ago.

But her eyes still had the same twinkle, and her lips still donned the same smile.

“I want to keep you! Can I keep you, Drifloon?”

I stared at her blankly, for I didn’t know what to respond. Keep me, like a Pokemon owned by a trainer? I have certainly thought about that possibility more than once, and this wasn’t the first time that a trainer tried to catch me. But as I looked at her and her delicate form, her earnest smile, her pink self, I knew that this was the first time that the feeling was mutual.

She wanted to keep me. I wanted to be kept.

I gave her a smile, which translated to a bigger one in her own face. She immediately ran towards the building, screaming “Daddy! Daddy!” I stayed there, excited at the prospect of being owned by someone I knew I would enjoy spending time with, even if I had only met her that day.

The next time I saw her, it was already sunset, and her smile was replaced by a frown.

She approached me rather slowly, almost as if it was the first time she met me. Her back was slouched, as if she didn’t want to look at me. I could sense that something was bothering her, and that she was about to tell me what it was.

“Daddy says I’m too young to own a Pokemon,” she said slowly.

I didn’t know what to do. I wanted to take her with me, but I knew she wouldn’t be happy about that. And I wanted her to be happy.

“But he did tell me that the wind pattern means that you’ll come again next week,” she said, a hint of positivity showing in her face. “Promise that we’ll play together again next Friday, okay?”

I gave her a smile. She gave me a bigger smile in reply.

“All right, I have to go back inside to help Daddy,” she said as she gave me a tight hug. I watched her pink self walk towards the building, occasionally looking at me to check if I was still there. When she reached her door, she looked at me and gave me a wave, and I waved back.

Maybe next Friday, I thought.

She sent her other hand up to touch the kwazai’s face, caressing it with fingers that shook in spite of her efforts to prevent such. His skin was rubbery and quite smooth. She found it pleasant to the touch, and she tried to focus on how nice it felt rather than on the fear that was steadily overtaking her. It began to work, too. But then Esaax’s head suddenly moved with surprising speed, the jaws snapping harshly. His serrated teeth sank deeply into the meager flesh of her arm.

Madeline screamed in pain. All the love that she’d had for Esaax was gone from her mind now, replaced by pure, primal terror. Knowing that she currently had access to no attacks that could do him any harm and aware that she would likely just get them thrown right back at her at twice the power if she did have any, she tried desperately to free herself from him, but to no avail. Her escape was foiled soundly, not only by Esaax’s sheer physical strength but also by the dark gray aura that flared into being around both pokémon at her attempt to escape, signaling that Esaax had retained his shadow tag ability.

Esaax worried Madeline’s arm in his jaws with shredding teeth and sharp, jerking movements of his neck until the appendage was torn away at the elbow, gruesomely freeing one side of her, drawing more cries of agony. His left hand clutched her right hand even more tightly, and there were several sickening cracks as the bones in his grip yielded to the pressure. His other hand shot forward and slammed into her chest, pinning her to the wall.

Now struggling to breathe, Madeline stared through eyes blurred with tears at the empty space where half of her arm had once been. Then, fearfully, she looked up at Esaax once more. His head was already raised for another strike. Her blood dripped slowly and thickly from his jaws, and she glimpsed a couple of her own fingers protruding from between his teeth before they, along with the rest of her severed limb, disappeared into his mouth and down his very long throat.

It was in that moment that Esaax became aware of something new. He had discovered the presence of a power within him into which he had not yet tapped. He summoned it forth, and it rose up through his spine, radiated out through one arm, and gathered in his hand.

Esaax went ahead and released Madeline, letting her slump to the floor in her wavering consciousness, knowing that she couldn’t escape anyway. He gazed at his hand with curiosity. Energy in a shade of black that he’d never seen before danced in a slow vortex around it with a glow that was intensifying by the second.

He drew that arm back as if he were working an invisible bow. All of his senses focused fully on the bleeding, shaking mr. mime before him. His concentration became heightened to its maximum acuteness. At this range, it was virtually unnecessary to take aim, but he nonetheless sought out the most lethal trajectory for his new weapon.

His arm thrust forward. With a loud, hollow sound, a glowing black beam of incredible intensity exploded from his hand, blasting Madeline point-blank.

At the exact moment that the beam struck Madeline, a horrible, sudden pain hit Esaax like a wrecking ball, taking his breath away. Red light exploded in his vision. His nerves seared excruciatingly for what felt like innumerable seconds, and his head felt as though it were blowing itself apart.

In his suffering, Esaax staggered and fell to the floor. When he rose once more, his mind surfaced from the altered state that it had been in for nearly the entire duration of the time since he’d evolved.

His vision returned in the next moment. He saw blood before him, as well as something black and twisted—a corpse. Something—someone—who, mere moments ago, had been alive—until he had killed her.

Esaax recoiled with a scream, suddenly frantic to be as far away from the scene as possible. His stomach violently expelled its contents. His renewed clarity wouldn’t let him delude himself into believing that this was a nightmare or a hallucination. The scene before his eyes unflinchingly spoke the truth: he had murdered this pokémon. He had tasted her blood. He had eaten her flesh…

A howl of anguish and horror tore its way out through his throat. With fear, confusion, and disgust like none that he had ever known, all directed straight toward himself, Esaax brought his newfound technique to bear on the wall, letting it linger there until a large area of the wall had turned black and disintegrated, and then fled into the night.

This was starting to happen with more and more regularity. In the beginning, the tentacles were stupid. They would literally just float right into Dorian’s shots without trying to get out of the way at all. It had been easy to pick them off, as they would usually spawn a few miles away in the sky and take their time getting to him. Over the last couple months however, they had wised up to Dorian’s weapons and gotten out of the way when he tried to take them out at a distance. Which didn’t make sense to him seeing as they had no visible way to see, but it was happening so he dealt with it.

As the tentacles drew closer they formed themselves into a fifty foot tall heart. Dorian laughed aloud as he plugged in his headphones and began searching for a song. They had tried to communicate with him over the course of their last few attempts, at first forming rudimentary shapes like squares and triangles. The heart was something new however and Dorian sarcastically saluted their attempt to soften his resolve.

“Nice try you fucks!” Dorian yelled, ending the words with a smile.

In response the tentacles straightened themselves into rigid spears and doubled their speed towards him. Dorian found the song he was looking for and pressed play. He deposited the mp3 player into his pocket and reached down to touch his toes. As the tentacles closed to within a hundred yards away he drew his sword with his left hand and his sidearm with his right. Five Finger Death Punch screamed in his ears as he sprinted forward.

“AND THAT’S WHY THEY CALL ME, BAD COMPANY!”

Dorian dove to the ground and rolled as the first pair of tendrils swiped down at him. He came up with a horizontal slash that sank deep into the flesh of one that was too slow to swing away. It exploded into purple light just as another three shot towards him from the left, right and middle. Instead of trying to clip them with his sword, Dorian fell backwards, allowing them to collide with each other.

“I CAN’T DENY! BAAAADDD, BAD COMPANY TILL THE DAY I DIE!”

Dorian raised his pistol and tagged another two before the third swung away. As they exploded into flares of energy he saw a single tentacle racing towards him from the corner of his eye. He rolled left as it dissolved the patch of ground he had just been occupying. As it streaked towards him he swung his sword in a wide arc and destroyed it with a glancing blow to its pointed tip. Only three remained and they shrank back to regroup and assess. They twitched and swung back and forth, as if trying rudimentary sign language.

“UNTIL THE DAY I DIE! UNTIL THE DAY I DIE!”

“Come on!” Dorian roared.

The tentacles shot forward again to impale him, spaced only inches from each other. Dorian ran forward and jumped upwards to meet them. He raised his right hand and fired towards the center of them. As he expected he missed and they spread apart to hit him from three sides, which is exactly what he wanted. He twisted his body to the right and managed to slash all three of them as his left arm came around. Dorian landed on his knees next to his beer. He opened one and drank it warm as the violet light faded from the sky.

Satisfied, Dorian shouldered his pack and his beer. He clicked his heels together as he resumed his trek back towards the house.

Dorian was already out of breath by the time they had ascended the first set of stairs. They had found that the floor of the room they needed to cross was hostile to their intent. He had taken a step forward into the room to have the floor crumble beneath them. So they had adopted a habit of Alakazam levitating them over every room they needed to cross on their way to the top.

Shelton had not let go of his hand since they had ascended the first set of stairs. For the first couple floors he had wanted to break away from her, and he didn’t know why. Some kind of space had opened up between them when she told him about Ethan’s involvement with their parents’ death. It was a space that had no shape or quantification. It was just there but he held on to her hand because it seemed to give her comfort.

They rose through the levels of the towers to eventually arrive at an archway filled with sunlight. The cascaded through and into the open air. Alakazam screamed with his mind and his voice.

A bewildering sight greeted Dorian. Six vaguely humanoid forms were holding Ethan’s head above his body. A small part of him exclaimed with happiness before the larger part cast it aside as he watched what happened next. The six shapes of glowing green dissolved into the air, swirling around Ethan’s levitating head. All at once, the pieces burrowed into Ethan’s exposed neck. A flash of green light issued from Ethan’s body as the last of the flakes disappeared from view.

Alakazam bellowed again as Ethan’s head drifted down to attach itself to his body. Black smoke issued from his neck as the flesh melded itself back together. Ethan shot to his knees, arms held forward. He breathed in, then out, in then out. When he breathed out on the third breath, he exhaled his teeth. They tinkled to the ground, their whiteness a stark contrast to the black of the tower.

“Dorian,” Shelton whispered.

He was about to say something, anything, when Alakazam interrupted by launching a swirling ball of energy at Ethan. The attack connected with his chest and ricocheted into the sky and exploded. Again Alakazam launched an attack but it bounced off Ethan’s body. Ethan looked up at them, his pupils dilated to the edge of his eyes.

Dorian shifted his stance as Ethan rose to his feet and floated into the air. His arms were stretched wide as he floated upwards. He looked down to them, a cruel grin etched across his face.

“Ethan?” Alakazam broadcasted.

“Our name is all,” Ethan responded, his voice a mix of overlapping voices.

Ethan’s skin darkened to black. His torso elongated and his arms instantly tripled in length. His clothes fell away as his body expanded and lengthened, becoming more serpentine. His legs melded together as his head morphed into a more triangular shape. Four fleshy crests broke his skin from behind his neck; two smaller below and two longer above. Interlocking rings of gold traced the length of his snake-like torso as a forked tail took shape at the end of his body. Bigger and bigger he grew as three claws sprouted from each hand and two fangs became visible in his mouth.

Dorian was never a model student. However, he had always been entranced by Pokemon mythology and had no trouble recognizing the creature in front of them. Rayquaza. Lord of the air and all below it. They all took an involuntarily step backwards, except for Alakazam. The legendary Pokemon snaked its reptilian head forward and grasped the plate in its mouth. Raising its head, the Rayquaza swallowed it whole.

The air dragon spun in a quick circle, clawed hands grasping the empty air. Its gaze fell to them. It roared so loudly that Dorian felt like the entire world was breaking apart. The Rayquaza lifted its head; a ball of pulsing white light filling its mouth. Dorian saw Alakazam raise his arms.

The sky dragon’s head jutted forward and released a discharge of energy that Dorian knew would kill them all. The blast of energy halted though, right before it reached them as Alakazam erected a gargantuan pane of energy to halt its movement. He saw the psychic’s body shake and glow as he struggled to hold the attack in place. The shield began to fracture. Wide cracks of white light expanded through its expanse as Alakazam’s hands waved from side to side.

Alakazam turned his head and looked backwards. He glanced at all of them but his gaze focused on Dorian. He breathed in and stared back as Alakazam closed his eyes. The shield of energy shattered and Rayquaza’s attack struck the top of the tower. Dorian saw Alakazam’s body break apart in a scattering of light as the energy detonated.

The shockwave blew all three of them off the tower. A pressure gripped Dorian’s chest as he fell. He focused his eyes down to see a spear of the tower embedded in his chest. Blood trickled into the air as he lightly gripped the shaft of stone. With each beat of his heart, the world around him became sprinkled with blackness. He turned his head to look for his sister but all he saw was the sky.

Another explosion turned his body around to face the water. It greeted him with an azure smile, waves slow and hypnotic. Dorian blinked, more darkness clouding his vision. As shock ravaged his body he saw two shapes streaking towards him from the West. One was pink and one was purple, and they both glowed like heaven itself.

Dorian’s heart thumped loudly one final time then stopped completely. The water below reached out to him, and up above, he heard the air dragon roar.