Dragonfree's Nominations

“But look at it like this. My life right now is on a repetitive schedule, and I know you like things on schedule. Maybe I'm just trying to please you. Have you thought about it like that?”

“I also like making out. Please me that way.”

“Keep trying, ” she said with a grin.

“Damn.”

“You look pretty beat up. I think you should take a drink, Hitmonchan.” Gyarados noted as he curled up, allowing himself to fit into the edge of the ring.

“Come on, Chan-“

“Why do you call me that?”

“It’s contagious!” Throh contemplated a joke for a moment, then snapped his fingers. “Now how about we make a new kinda drink recipe! I’ll call it… Doc Slam. Step one, chill a Gyarados by hitting it with a maximum power Sky Uppercut. Watch its tears fizz out of its eyes for about ten seconds, and then grab a mug. Its tears will eventually start spewing out a sweet sensational soda. That’s how you make Doc Slam.“

Lilligant giggled. “That sounds like a cool soda! Though the recipe sounds a bit profound and bland. Now why don’t you hear it from a real cook who’s been in the kitchen a ton?”

“Yeah, why not? It’s not like we have all day.” Hitmonchan sarcastically responded as he crossed his arms.

“Now find a Gyarados and make sure it is completely flattened out. To do so, you must completely shock it in every way possible. After doing so, that’s when you…“ Lilligant’s leaf curled as a hand would make fist, as well as changing her tone of voice to a more violent one. “…grab it by the neck! Once you’ve got Gyarados, slam him into a hole about three yards high, three yards wide, constantly trying to push it into there! After about doing it for a minute, remove the Gyarados and shake it as much as you can, until it throws up the best-tasting soda ever! This can be repeated up to three times a day until the Gyarados faints from lack of liquid. And that’s how you make Lilligant’s Spice Soda!”

Both Fighting types were dumbfounded at how violent Lilligant sounded. “That recipe makes my recipe look like carbonated water.” Throh replied.

“OBJECTION!” he cried loudly. However, all Phoenix managed to do was lose his grip on the animal, the trout flying through the air and hitting Edgeworth right in the face.

Pearl grinned to herself. She never really understood the way the courtroom worked, but she knew that if the crowd shouted loudly after Phoenix did something it usually meant he did that something well. She grinned, before mentally slapping herself. So much for not talking to him!

The nine-year-old girl continued to muse to herself as Phoenix hurried over to make sure Edgeworth wasn’t badly hurt. But maybe…maybe I’m wrong. Maybe Phoenix isn’t Maya’s ‘special someone’…after all, they both insist on denying that! That, and I never see any Psych Locks when they do so…

“Sorry, Edgeworth, I didn’t mean to throw that…” Phoenix mumbled, feeling himself glow red with embarrassment.

“Mr Wright, I will not tolerate the throwing of evidence in my courtroom! Maybe Godot and his cups of coffee were allowed, I’ll admit, but I draw the line at trout!” the judge shouted, banging his gravel loudly. “I hate fish, ” he added with a stern frown.

He doesn’t ever stare at her like real lovers should! But if so, then who does he like? All adults should like someone!

“Great, this suit is ruined forever now!” Edgeworth lamented as Phoenix tried to remove the fish, only for it to flop out of his hands and on top of Edgeworth’s head.

“Why is it still ALIVE!?”

“GET IT OFF!”

“You’re right Perry, ” Phineas said “We live in a fan fiction now.”

“Does that mean a child controls our destinies?” Irving asked

“Yes, yes it does, ” Isabella answered “And please, stop with all the fourth wall breakage. Seriously, there are other forms of humor to work with.”

“Don’t blame us, ” Baljeet told her “Blame the writer! He thinks it’s funny!”

“If the author breaks the fourth wall one more time, ” Isabella began “I’m seriously gonna hurt him.”

“I think that line breaks the fourth wall, ” Phineas said

“That’s it, ” Isabella said “The author is going down!”

“That also breaks the fourth wall, ” Baljeet said

“What is the fourth wall?” Buford said

“I wait eight chapters to appear and as soon as I arrive, all my chapter is is just a bunch of fourth wall gags, ” N complained

“Seriously, ” Buford said “What’s the fourth wall?”

“Does this system have ten-pound balls?”

This time Matt really was annoyed. It was Olivia who made the interrupting remark, and he immediately realized that Nekou had goaded her on into saying it. “Someone who isn’t my student who is getting penalized later for bad behavior, please, ” he hissed through gritted teeth.

I went to lay my hand on James's shoulder, but something stopped me in my tracks. My hands were bright red.

I looked at them for a second, confused, then looked to see where the red had come from. My eyes slowly worked their way down to my lap, the sheet laying over me stained with red. "James…? What's on these sheets…?" My eyes then made their way across the bed, the thick, red substance pooling where James had been laying next to me. The sheets were ripped in places, and a single hand coming up from the floor laid on the side of the bed. A single hand with the wrist cut and a diamond ring on its finger. Realization and horror flooded over me. "James, what the hell is going on here?!" As I went to grab the man sitting at the edge of my bed, it was then that I saw its horrible figure. The way its back looked as if it had been broken three times, the way its head was facing upwards at a horrible angle. I grabbed it by the shoulder, touched the skin that felt strangely inhuman, and as it turned to me, I screamed in horror. Its eyes and skin were pure white, but its face was covered with blood, as if it had just been feeding. It looked at me with a surreal form of delight as it licked its lips, its tongue slowly moving over its pointed, bloody teeth. A deep gurgling sound arose from its throat as it turned back to my daughter, moving its face down towards her ear. "Don't you dare touch her!" I screamed, lunging towards the monster as quickly as I could in hopes to stop it from whatever it had planned. In a single, sudden motion, it then threw her to the ground and shot off towards the window on all fours, skidding to a halt and looking back over its shoulder at us. I could almost see a smile cross its face as it gave a deep growl before jumping out into the night.

I can’t see anything. Am I blind? Dead? No, I can’t be dead; why would Death chase me if I was already in his grasp? I keep hearing Andrea’s screams. God, I have to help. I can’t just lie here and do nothing. I have to open my eyes. Wake up, Claude! Wake up, damn you!

Pokulok knew that something was wrong the second he opened his eyes. He saw nothing but darkness, and he couldn’t move his legs. He had a cold feeling all around his skin, like something was crawling above and inside it. And it wasn’t just his skin. It was eating at his brain and his eyes…

Wait – that’s not a cold feeling…

He felt the area around his eyes with his fingers, dread working its way into his body. Normally, his eyes would have closed at the intrusion, but he immediately noticed that no matter what he did, they wouldn’t shut. He had a horrible feeling that there was something missing. His quivering fingers brushed against the upper part of his eyes, and he nearly emptied the contents of his stomach when he realized what was missing.

My eyelids! Oh, GOD!

The cold feeling that he had earlier had returned, but this time it seemed very tangible around his left hand. He grabbed at his left hand with his other hand, and he felt something squish against them. His eyesight was beginning to improve in the darkness. He felt around for the thing that he had crushed. When he finally found it and saw what it was, he let out a very high-pitched screech.

“Maggots! ****!”

Pokulok flung the crushed maggot away from him, revulsion racing through his body.

I think I'm a corpse, but why? Why am I dead? I can’t believe this is happening…

“Why is it so hard to believe? You’re already dead inside. Why can’t you be dead on the outside as well?”

"Mommy… It… It ate Daddy…It told me that-"

"Ma'am, what about your husband? Ma'am?"

I disregarded the operator for a second, looking down at my daughter, horrified. "It… It told you it ate Daddy? When did it tell you that…?"

"No, Mommy… That's not what it told me. It…" She gave a horrified sob, burrowing her face into my chest.

"Katelyn, what did it tell you?!" The lamp above us flickered off, coating the room with darkness as the phone in my hand went silent. A shiver ran down my spine as I stared at my daughter through the darkness. "Katelyn…?" The door to the room slowly creaked open through the darkness and low, gurgling noises filled the air. "Katelyn, what did it tell you?" I whispered. Tears began to roll down my cheeks as hot breath hit the back of my neck.

"Mommy… It told me that it was hungry and would be coming back with some friends."

Lucidity. She pulls herself forward, watching the edge draw nearer by miniscule increments. Pride. She pulls again, her body by now screaming in protest. Freedom. She pulls again, standing up now out of the question. Sun. She pulls again.

Wahahaha, wheheoo, I'm the big man, yes I am, see me come, I'm going to be rich, and you're going to make me that way, say, I wonder how you're doing there, you've been awfully quiet, good girl, good girl, goody-googy, goody-girl you, wahooooo, good-good-good, goooooood . . .

The sun, the sun. The edge is right there. Her nose pushes its way under the red canvas, and a little light floods in, pure as the drops of dew on a rose in the morning. Almost, almost. A few more pulls, her body now shaking with effort and misery, but also that most elusive of vehicles: hope. The sun, she can almost see the sun.

There is nothing. She tries to back up, but her back legs cannot move properly and she can only watch, as if she is a helpless outsider, as her tiny body tips over the edge and off, down, out. The sun, the sun! It's there, but it's not. It's something else, something bright and round and white. It is cooler than the sun, and it sits in a field of indigo, surrounded by its incandescent children, calmly watching as the last of her balance goes and she drops like a filthy, hopeless stone. She wonders briefly if she will fall forever, but that thought is quickly quashed as the ground hits her like a mallet, shattering her utterly.

As she floats her way skyward on wings made from her soul, she watches the moonlight wash over the world below, cleaning what is unclean and righting what is wrong. It kisses the top of the rough red drapes over what had been her prison. It brushes its fingertips across the sleeping eyelids of the sailor who tried to free her. It gently folds itself downwards, settling itself in silken ribbons upon the body of a tiny Pokemon who, in life, did no wrong, and embraces it like a long-lost child.

The Queen did not say anything, continuing to walk forward as they made their way into the town square. Before she knew what she was doing, the Queen turned to the man and embraced him, holding onto him tightly the way she had always hoped to as a child and he had always hoped to hold his beloved as a child as well. "I'm sorry, " she whispered quietly. "Love is a good thing, something that brings peace and happiness to all that it touches. Never should I have outlawed it in this fair kingdom."

The man smiled at her, breaking the embrace and walking towards the execution stand in the middle of the town square. "Fear not, my Queen. There must be a reason why my love is met with death while yours shall be met with praise once it is found."

The Queen watched as the man she had loved since her youth stepped onto the execution stand, surrounded by crowds of her loving, jeering subjects. Before her eyes another young man stepped onto the execution stand, holding the hand of her beloved and kissing him gently on the lips as the executioner made his way through the masses.

And as the crowd cheered at the death of the young, loving couple, not a single soul noticed the crying Queen in the midst of the revelry.

With a heavy heart, he flipped over the lid. Staring back at him was the skeleton of a puppy.

More specifically, it was the Growlithe he had owned as a child. It was his best friend, and he shared so many memories with him—happy, sad, angry, the works. Seeing the decayed and broken corpse of his long-lost friend drove a hot knife into Blaine’s heart. A tear slid down his normally composed face behind his sunglasses. Shaking, he replaced the lid and lifted the coffin. He slowly dragged his feet in the direction of the boat.

He was ready to move on from Cinnabar, but he was not ready to forsake his past.

Sunken beneath this earthen plain
Lies a seed which awaits the rain.

Before he reached the ridge separating him from the boat, he heard Cubone making a ruckus. He tried to block out the sound, but finally an exclamation from Mr. Fuji himself made him turn around.

“Blaine! Come back!” Grimacing from emotional pain, he set down the coffin and dragged himself back to where Mr. Fuji and the Cubone were standing, near the hole. “Look down there.” Slowly, Blaine drifted his eyes back down to stare into the hole. Staring back at him was a red and orange striped and spotted egg.

“Good idea, ” Rui remarked after Espeon had followed his brother. “Hopefully they won’t take too long…”

“It’s what we did in the old days in fact, ” Wes admitted with a slight smirk. “But meanwhile, if you don’t mind you could tell me more about what you were saying when we were so rudely interrupted.”

“Ah, ” Rui replied, looking at her feet. “Well, sure, there’s the stuff I said already, but I suppose those are not the only reasons why because I suppose when I get down to it you could say that I like you, but not just like you but maybe-” she tried, before being interjected by Wes holding up a hand.

“Rui, you’re rambling again, ” Wes said slowly as Rui pouted.

“Well, I’m not sure I can put it in words that easily…well!” she suddenly piped up, and before Wes knew what happened she had kissed him.

“Well indeed, ” he said at length.

Marina couldn’t have understood him, but she seemed to get what he meant all the same. “I didn’t enter the League in the end, ” she said. “I tried – I went right up to the registration desk and everything. But it just felt wrong, entering all of my Pokémon except you. I couldn’t do it.” She gave us an apologetic smile. “So no League battles for a while, I’m afraid.”

She suddenly threw her hands up in frustration. “I’ve really messed up, haven’t I? If I’d just kept looking for longer, I might have found you, and then I could still have got here and registered on time.”

Left rested his head comfortingly on her shoulder, and she sighed. “No, you’re right, ” she said. “There’s always next year. And you’re still here, which…” Marina smiled at Left, her eyes lighting up with that same joy from before. “I still can’t believe you’re alive.”

She lifted her bandaged hand to ruffle Left’s feathers. “Oh, Dodrio, ” she said, smiling sadly. “I’m so sorry I didn’t try harder to find you. You must have been all alone in there.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Left shared an amused glance with Right and me. For all her qualities as a trainer, sometimes Marina didn’t understand us at all.

Instantly, the cool wind whipped his hair around and tossed Meghan’s sunhat off of her head as if it had a mind of its own. Luna took flight next to them, struggling to keep pace with the massive bird. Meghan had both of her Pokémon, Emory and Vesta, out of their Pokéballs, both flying at top speed at the incoming blotches. They were starting to come into focus.

He felt drops of water on his hands, thought briefly, ****, its raining, but then noticed the silent tears streaming down Meghan’s cheeks.

“It’s going to be alright, ” yelled John over the roar of the wind.

Her response was inaudible; all he could make out was “Blackthorn, Blackthorn.”

He seized control, somehow, some hidden instinct kicking in, and started talking to Charles.

“The hard part is going to be the approach, ” he shouted, the previously formless blobs now showing the clear shape of men riding on the backs of black, hawk-like Pokémon.

They looked like Staraptor, not that it mattered; the other looming black shapes - obviously other Pokémon - meant to do the dirty work.

They were rapidly approaching, fast and furious. The faces of their attackers came into focus, probably twenty of them, their dark, bloodshot pupils and five o’clock shadow suddenly appearing.

“Dive, ” John shouted, and the Pidgeot obeyed, narrowly missing the lead attacker.

“Bilbo, Water Gun at anything you see; Luna, Hypnosis!” John called, assuming Charles would act on his own. Meghan was busy commanding her Pokémon. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a giant grey bird gnawing on a Pellipper with a man hanging on for dear life.

“Luna!” he shouted again, startling the struggling Hoothoot.

<I’m trying! I don’t think I can! > she screamed.

“Do it or he dies!” he shouted frantically. Immediately her eyes glowed red, yellow waves almost exploding from them towards their target. The hypnosis attack caught the man in the grey Galactic uniform off guard. The bird Pokémon, a species unknown to John, fell asleep, falling down, its master flung from her back. John followed the tumbling bodies as they landed with a violent splash in the water far below them.

Their ally climbed back aboard the gigantic seagull Pokémon, waved briefly in appreciation, and dove back downward to catch an enemy.

“Great job, Luna!” he cheered; she smiled.

“Who says you get to have all the fun?” asked Meghan, clearly having regained her composure.

“You can have the next one, ” he joked, in a fake gentlemanly tone.

The mood changed suddenly though.

“Duck!” she cried. John instantly buried his head in the Pidgeot as the bird dove. He felt a searing, ripping pain on his back, as two twin yellow claws gored him. He felt like he was being yanked in the air for a brief moment, and then he was soaked, covered in water, his lower back sticky with blood.

“Bilbo?” he asked frantically.

< I no think he likes water, > he chirped. John couldn’t tell, but he was sure the oblivious Totodile was beaming.

He looked to his left, his eye forced to shut momentarily after a simultaneous wind gust and glare from the sun. He saw the bird that had gored him, a Staraptor, and a rider in a black robe, both of whom were drenched.

“He’s coming for another pass, ” he moaned, trying to shake off the pain in his back. He looked down below. They were only feet from the water, which didn’t look so serene and calm now, instead like staring into the face of death. His stomach lurched. He forgot how much he hated flying.

“Vesta, Comet Punch that bastard out of the sky!” Meghan ordered.

The Ledian did as she was told, meeting the winged assassin head on, dodging a fierce bite from its beak, and using all of her arms to whip the duo down. The two of them were furiously thrown into the depths of the lake, so close to them that they felt the mist from the splash.

He looked up, the city now in front of him. Nothing was burning or seemed damaged, except for Sprout Tower to his left. The elderly structure was partially on fire; smoke billowing from a large hole in the middle of its structure.

As Charles rose in height, he looked for the enemy combatants. After a brief moment of scanning, he saw only a few, all of which were headed in the opposite direction. Struggling to catch up with them was the black hooded warrior they had just encountered. He must have survived. Falkner and Amelia, meanwhile, were charging after them with the rest of the militia that Gabe had gathered. They caught Falkner’s attention, and he waved them back, his face frozen in a sigh of relief.

Charles swiftly turned around, targeting the beach. After a few minutes of flying, the bird began to descend rather rapidly, tired from the advanced maneuvers it had just executed with the weight it was carrying. He landed clumsily, and Luna, Emory, and Vesta landed with him.

They boy got an idea. “One!” The same attack was repeated. “Keep it up for as long as you can!” He dived yet again to dodge the rolling stone, squinting from the heat as the pursuing pup and trail of fire followed. “Good girl!” He glanced at the other man and saw he was screaming at his now-bright red Pokémon, something that had gone unnoticed until now.

Suddenly, apparently by command, the smoking, almost-bubbling boulder stopped. He stopped attacking, he stopped rolling, and judging from the dead look in his eyes, he had stopped caring. What followed happened too suddenly for the boy to comprehend immediately.

The Pokémon exploded.

Whether by the heat or a special technique, it became a living bomb, destroying both itself and the boy’s Pokémon, scorching the land around it, and covering the boy’s screams with a ringing left in the ears of anyone within hearing range. He wore his lungs out after only a few seconds, soon reducing his cries into wheezes and then nothing but sobs. She was absolutely decimated. Aside from a few scraps of hide and guts, she had crumbled into nothing more than a pile of ash.

Adding Pokémon to the battlefield was supposed to decrease the psychological damage of war. If you weren’t the one doing the actual killing, then the burden of murder would not be an issue. Pokémon were considered expendable. The military saw not the importance of the creatures to individual soldiers but rather the value of them as a weapon. It was a controversial view.

The boy ripped a knife from the small case on his belt and ran at the man without delay. Tears burned his eyes and blurred his vision. His target was enormous but there were no stakes left. They would both die eventually.

With this being the dominant thought in his mind, he dived through the air and stuck the blade as hard as he could into the guy’s chubby stomach and they both fell to the ground. Blood gurgled out and ran down his sides.

It was strange. The boy felt no pleasure now. He wasn’t even relieved to have avenged his Pokémon. In fact, he felt nothing now. Why was the anger gone? Where was the fear? He pulled the knife from the flesh and stared at it. He had murdered. He had reacted in a single flash of rage and had murdered another human being.

St. Peter’s Square was eerily quiet as Katharine strolled through it alone. She picked up a few bits of Shadow energy nearby, but that wasn’t what haunted her. For some reason, she felt as if someone was watching her every mood. Suddenly, a chill washed through her, and she was convinced someone was standing behind her.

“Hello, Chosen One, ” a cold voice spoke.

She turned to see a tall, black-haired young woman step across the stones to stand a few feet in front of her. She shivered at the young woman’s cold gaze. There was no mistaking that she was a demon. The bottom of her black dress seemed to recede into the shadows as if they were one.

“I am Nyx, ” she said, smiling a cruel smile. “And this is your last day on Earth.”

The boy tilted his head to the left and shrugged his left shoulder, pressing his ear against it. His brow furrowed. “The word 'go, ' a verb, often defined as 'to move or travel, '” he began, brow relaxing the further he spoke. He straightened his head. “‘You're, ’ the contraction of ‘you are’ with ‘you are’ being ‘I am’ in this case. ‘Not, ’ an adverb, used to express negation, denial, refusal. Therefore with my powers combined I, Brendan Birch, am not going.”

“I don't mind losing”–she didn't mind a lot of things, he noted–“and I have no regrets about my battle with Alder. But I will be back. Trust me. Until then, I suppose I have 'other' things to do.” She winked.