Survival Project (PG-13)

[Sid87]

She never wanted our journey to be over so she never completed any gym circuit, and she wanted to see the waters and the unique cities there, she said.

Should be a comma before "so".

My name is Ezrem, and I don’t need pity to suffer from or feel guilty for my actions. This is just the surface of my story, but details are not needed here…

I didn't know quite where to stick this, so I'll put it here: Ezrem is interesting. It (I'm awful at guessing your pokemon's genders! Though, now that I think about it, it is a Rufflet and thus, HAS to be male) combines so many aspects of Kuiora (the love of fables and legendary pokemon), Senori (tragedy it caused involving its "pack") and Atis (seeing humans as bothersome and a means to his own personal ends).

“Now that we’re the only ones, I vow to protect you!” I said to him shortly after the incident, trying to quickly atone for what I had done. It was the least I could do, and maybe he could help me find a home here in Johto, since, according to the spiteful forest guardian, going back to Unova was out of the question due to the evil stunt I had pulled. I could only hope that we wouldn’t find an elekid in Johto, which was believed to be their main region. If that ever happened, what would I do? I had not a clue.

Oh, foreshadowing.

I knew his voice was fake because his body betrayed him when he didn’t stomp off or anything, just walked like a normal person you would pass by on the road. And with that, he was out of my sight. It looked like he had gone back to Azalea Town despite saying he wanted to leave. Nevertheless, I kept a note in my head—if Marty ever showed up again, he had a weakness: his sister, and maybe just the idea of being a trainer.

Ezrem may have TRAITS of Kuiora, Atis, and Senori, but it is also very much its own pokemon. Such nefariousness and plotting. It's almost a little evil... or, at least, completely selfish and narcissistic.

Out of the bushes jumped Rennio, screaming “Rennio has come back to the world!”

...Oh, god. What is this Elekid's deal?

“We would both like to join your team,” I repeated, more calmly and more determined this time. I started walking up to Sai, motioning again for Rennio to follow me. I knew he’d listen to me, as he trusted my judgment despite everything… And he did follow, leaving his berries behind.

I like the use of ellipses near the end there; I can hear Ezrem's mental voice tailing off as he again recalls what happened that put him and Rennio in the situation they find themselves.

Rennio peered over at me, and I nodded. So Rennio rolled it, or something like that. Like the berries, he dropped them on the ground as if I had just rammed him in the stomach once more. He probably wasn’t ready for another trainer’s attention, the poor guy, but it had to be done, I thought.

I might drop the "I thought" from the end there. It saps the strength of the "it had to be done" line, and I already knew Ezrem thought it--the chapter is his first person perspective. I get that he's relaying a thought he had in the past, but I just think the line would be stronger without it.

“Are you going to give him a name?” chimed in the croconaw, who had just been watching during this entire ordeal.

Sai paused, then carefully answered, “No. The elekid doesn’t have a name.”

“My name is Rennio, given by my other—”

“You don’t have a name,” Sai interrupted, releasing his hold on the pokémon.

“I don’t?” he said quietly, looking heartbroken, as if he would really have to give up his old name.

“No, you don’t.”

“So I’m really your pokémon?”

“Yes, you are.”

“Are you sure? What about my friend, Ezrem?” he asked, pointing to me.

“Ezrem is not my pokémon, but you are.”

I really liked this whole bit. Quick-hitting and fun. I do wonder why Sai dislikes the Ezrem so much. Can he see what kind of pokemon it actually is?

As if she was reading my mind, the first thing that she said when the two of them made it over to the other side of the clearing was: “My trainer is very picky about what pokémon is on his team. This elekid is very lucky.”

“Lucky, huh?” I said under my breath. Yes, it confirmed that Sai was a good trainer. But what good did that do for me if I couldn’t be with him? Although I was jealous of Rennio, I tried to be happy for him, tried to lay out my future plans, but none were coming to me. And he was looking at me expectantly, clearly waiting for those plans to be said.

“Lucky!” Kuiora said, jumping up and down gleefully.

Oh, Kuiora. I'm glad she didn't end up staying all moody and bitter.

“You should be on the team, Ezrem! I can’t do this alone,” Rennio said, snapping my attention back toward him. I had been so engrossed in the legendary pokémon business that I had almost forgotten him, the poor pokémon.

Man, Ezrem is a self-righteous jerk.


-As with all of your pokemon thus far (by the way! Don't think I've forgotten that one of them is eventually going to die. This makes me unhappy), Ezrem is an exceedingly deep, fulfilling character. He seems diabolical and selfish, and he, in turns, treats Rennio either like a true friend or a stupid pawn. I can't figure out if he actually cares for the Elekid or not. It's an interesting little mystery.

Sai might not know what he's getting into. Both Ezrem and Rennio have to be greatly over-leveled and powerful, given their history with their previous trainer (who I don't buy for one second is actually dead). It'll be neat to see what he thinks when he sees their power for the first time.

[The Great Butler]

Well, I'm sorry for the extremely long wait. What else can I say? Real life has been kicking my ***. I guess if anyone cares, they can ask for details, but I'm mainly here to release the next chapter. It's an introductory chapter for a new pokemon, so it's shorter than the others, but I hope you all enjoy it nonetheless.

Welcome back! I think I'll enjoy this chapter for sure.

SURVIVAL PROJECT

chapter 10 ; [EZREM]
grounded

*

I don't think I've noticed it before, but I just realized that these chapter titles are laid out like titles of reports, or something.

There was a team of pokémon who had a trainer, once. She gave us all annoying names. There was Kephi the venipede, Obieme the tepig, Virokoe the purrloin, and when we went to Sinnoh and then to Johto, we got Rennio the elekid. Despite the weird names, they loved her so. I did not love her, but I tolerated her—just because she was the type of person that made you enjoy your name just because of the way she said it. And we all liked her enough to the point where we all agreed never to evolve simply because she wanted a team of non-evolved pokémon. We loved her—liked her, in my case—because she was easygoing, nice, compromising… and therefore she was also easy to manipulate.

Okay, I'm assuming this is the new Pokemon you mentioned narrating this, and I'm liking it so far. The idea of a Pokemon manipulating its trainer is especially unique.

After receiving six badges in Unova and six badges in Sinnoh, she had wanted to go to Hoenn. She never wanted our journey to be over so she never completed any gym circuit, and she wanted to see the waters and the unique cities there, she said. I told her that I was a rufflet that came from Johto, and I wanted to see home once more. Somehow she believed me; she trusted me wholeheartedly. In reality, I had heard of a legendary pokémon that could travel through time. I wanted to travel through the future so that my journey with her could finally be over, and I could permanently find a place I could call home. She had taken me when I was young, and moving around did not satisfy me in the slightest.

Because I pretended to love her and because she truly loved us, she sacrificed her dream of going to Hoenn for me. We took a boat to get to Johto, just so that she could travel the sea as if she were really going to her dream region. She never talked about it, but we all knew she was thinking of it.

To the degree that this Rufflet is manipulating its trainer - lying to her with carefully planned motives in mind - surprises me. This really is something I don't think I've ever seen before.

I assume that this girl was able to talk to Pokemon like Sai does? Forgive me if some details are slipping from my mind after a while.

When we got to the Johto region, she of course started the gym circuit over. I had agreed to let her do this, since I told her my home was in Azalea Town—only two badges in, it wouldn’t take long, I could at least give her that. When we finally reached the town and Ilex Forest, however, I wished that it had been the last gym.

I didn’t intend to do it. People in the town said that Celebi, the forest’s protector, only came out in the face of danger. Well, then, I thought, I would have to create my own danger so that I may talk to this forest guardian! I asked the tepig named Obieme to start a fire for me and then come help me find food. But our trainer and the other pokémon aren’t here to watch the fire, he said! She was out getting wood. I said it was fine, we needed to mark a meeting place anyway, and that was what our trainer had told me to do. She hadn’t. But of course the tepig with the silly name listened to me and started the fire and left with me. And of course the fire spread because no one was near it for a very long time and the winds were strong that day.

If the forest guardian ever came, I never knew. All I knew was that my trainer must have gotten trapped somewhere along with the rest of the pokémon. Rennio escaped because he had gotten lost and got help at the next town, and though Obieme was with me, I hadn’t seen him since. They were all dead, I knew, and it was my fault. The forest guardian was meant to help me but spited me instead.

Oh... oh wow... that's horrible. This Rufflet hasn't been around for more than a few paragraphs and I already feel an emotional connection to it, just because of how awful the things that happened to him are.

My name is Ezrem. I got that name from my trainer, once. She told me that the name sounded like it could be a type of jewel, an item to be cherished because it seemed so delicate yet, beneath its pretty exterior, was unyielding and sharp. She was certainly right, but I never got the chance to tell her so. I could not change my ways and she died for it.

My name is Ezrem, and I don’t need pity to suffer from or feel guilty for my actions. This is just the surface of my story, but details are not needed here…

That's a very apt way to end this part of Ezrem's story, I think.

My trainer said Johto was meant to be a new place, a new home, a new adventure. Again, she was certainly right. There was the incident, and then after, I had been watching over Rennio. Being the only survivor besides myself, he was shaken by the incident and at a complete loss as to what to do next. His situation was especially dire in his mind because I had once told him that there weren’t many elekid in the Unova or Sinnoh region—they were going extinct! And since then he had been panicking over battles and making sure that he was kept safe at all costs.

“Now that we’re the only ones, I vow to protect you!” I said to him shortly after the incident, trying to quickly atone for what I had done. It was the least I could do, and maybe he could help me find a home here in Johto, since, according to the spiteful forest guardian, going back to Unova was out of the question due to the evil stunt I had pulled. I could only hope that we wouldn’t find an elekid in Johto, which was believed to be their main region. If that ever happened, what would I do? I had not a clue.

I had not a clue about much of anything. We were, of course, still in Ilex Forest when we met Sai, three months after the incident. When Rennio was away, I liked to stand near the entrance of the forest and watch for potential trainers to manipulate into taking me home or finding me a home. So when I saw those trainers Marty and Sai, when I saw that Sai had little training experience and was copying Marty just to make himself look smart, I decided to butt in. The sentret was thrown back into the bushes, and I found my chance. I introduced myself in the best way possible—with advice! That would surely make them interested in me and think of me as a good pokémon, one who liked to help others…

Okay, I'm really liking how you're developing Ezrem so far. You're fitting him perfectly into Sai's narrative, and in just the paragraphs of this chapter thus far I feel that I know more about him than I do about most Pokemon in fics I see. Ezrem's relationship to Rennio also helps in fleshing him (?) out, by providing a more sympathetic angle to his character.

Seeing the two of them fight afterward only confirmed my decision. Marty had been a contender but had failed. He was too angry, stuck in his own ways… He just wasn’t for me. On the other hand, Sai’s pokémon stayed loyal to him, and they must have been doing so for a good reason, whatever reason it was. I needed loyalty, for Sai not to betray me. His apparent lack of knowledge appealed to me as well.

Showing a Pokemon choosing its trainer from the Pokemon's point of view is something I wish more writers would do. It's just so sadly rare, for moreso than it should be.

I continued watching them, keeping Rennio in my mind. He was out getting food and knew exactly where to find me, just as I knew where exactly to find him. I could have gone to help him, but I was waiting for my chance to step in, here…

“You know my sister?” the boy named Marty cried. He stood in the clearing, fists clenched and his feet spread apart. I couldn’t see his face, as his back was to me, but I could assume that he didn’t look too pleased.

“I met her and saw your house,” Sai said, remaining calm. He was standing now, when before he had been kneeling down next to his pokémon. A hitmontop stood behind him, and the other two, a sentret and a croconaw, stood in front.

“Did she say anything about me?” Marty said, his tone softer, his body still betraying him.

“She said you were a good trainer.”

Now, Marty’s pose started to change. His stood up straight, his fists unclenched. His voice was growing softer as he said, “She did?”

“Yeah, she did. I bet she’d want to be as strong as you if she were a trainer.”

“She is a trainer. She wants to leave Azalea Town soon, too,” he said quietly. Then, he tried to flame up again, though I could tell it was fake as he said, “Don’t think that she’d want to travel with us or anything! Or that I would want to. I’m out of here now.”

I knew his voice was fake because his body betrayed him when he didn’t stomp off or anything, just walked like a normal person you would pass by on the road. And with that, he was out of my sight. It looked like he had gone back to Azalea Town despite saying he wanted to leave. Nevertheless, I kept a note in my head—if Marty ever showed up again, he had a weakness: his sister, and maybe just the idea of being a trainer.

Kinda glad to see Marty go, in all honesty. Ezrem's observation about his potential weakness does develop him a bit, though.

This was when I decided to step out. If I waited any longer, Rennio would come back to interrupt me, or Sai would leave, and I’d lose him! It couldn’t happen. He was the one and I knew it, had to believe it. With my two stubby feet I made my way through the bushes, ignoring the giant leaves that tried to block my view of the boy. The rustling noise caught his attention, and before I even revealed myself completely, he was looking at me.

“I just saw you!” the sentret cried, darting out even further in front of Sai, as if I was an enemy.

“Yes, yes, you did! And I helped you, and you won,” I said, grinning like I was clearly an idiot.

The sentret looked confused for a moment, letting his guard down. He said, “Yes, we did win... You weren’t talking like that before, though.”

“No? I talk this way, all the time, believe me!” I said, jumping up and down, fluttering my wings ever so slightly. Ever so slightly, yes, but it would change soon enough! This was the beginning of my long flight home, wherever that was.

I looked up at Sai, expecting him to notice me and want to take me in immediately like most other trainers had. Trainers must not see rufflet in Johto very often, and it shows by their excitement, their desperation and the use of all their pokéballs, despite the fact that I can never be formally caught. My old pokéball was out there somewhere, but if Sai was the one, he would be okay with that…

But Sai didn’t do anything. He looked down at me, staring rather blankly. I thought maybe he didn’t know how rare rufflet were around these parts, and that once he knew, his mind would change easily. So I started gesturing toward Sai as clearly as I could. Speaking would be useless, as he couldn’t understand me. I flew over to him, landed by his side and used my wing to point toward his backpack, where I assumed his pokéballs were. Immediately he bent down and opened it for me, allowing me to retrieve whatever it was I wanted. In any other situation that would have been a bad idea, but alas! This time I only took out a pokéball, empty or not, didn’t matter. After I dropped it to the ground, I started jumping up and down, up and down to show my excitement. But still, Sai’s facial expression was blink, his body limp.

I stopped jumping up and down. Frowning, I turned to the sentret and said, “Tell your trainer I want to join his team.”

“He can understand you,” the sentret replied automatically, emotionlessly.

“He can?” I asked just as automatically.

“Yeah… He’s an interesting human, to say the least.”

I guess this means Ezrem's late trainer did not understand him, then? I'm not sure which way it's going.

I have to say Ezrem's enthusiasm is pretty adorable here.

I turned back toward Sai, looking straight into his eyes and trying to keep a blank facial expression myself. I wasn’t afraid of him! I wasn’t afraid of a trainer who could somehow talk to pokémon, and I had to show it. Yes, it only confirmed my suspicions of Sai being the one. He was special, all right. I could tell him everything straight to his face someday and he’d understand.

“I want to join your team!” I cried, jumping up and down again. “I can’t be caught in a pokéball, but I will remain loyal! I will never stray from your side if you take me with you. I have experience, I’m smart, ask your sentret there…”

“No,” Sai interrupted. My beak hung open for a moment, confused as to what I had just heard. Had Sai really just rejected me out front?

You know, somehow I should have expected this. It would have been too easy if Sai had said yes right away, not to mention that it would probably be a little outside his character.

Just as I was about to try to change his mind, I heard a crackling sound and a distinct humming noise. It was loud enough to attract the attention of everyone nearby. They were alarmed while I was not. But what bad timing, I thought! It was Rennio, and I knew it. That was what happened when you were stuck with him for so long and watched his every move…

Out of the bushes jumped Rennio, screaming “Rennio has come back to the world!”

Oh wow, Rennio's pretty great too. I like them both.

The little yellow and black elekid stood there with an armful of red berries, looking around, presumably for me. Once he spotted me, he obviously noted how friendly I was with these pokémon and this trainer already, so he steadily made his way over to us. It would be hard for him to see my inevitable disgrace and disappointment, but such was life, I supposed. I couldn’t have predicted, however, what happened next.

“Atis, get that pokémon!” Sai cried suddenly, his arm extended and pointing directly at Rennio. The hitmontop from behind peeked out around Sai as if he were peering around the side of a building, watching for danger. He saw Rennio and had a dreadful look on his face, but nevertheless launched forward and onto the spinner on the top of his head. He started spinning wildly, preparing to kick the poor elekid out of the way…

This all happened too fast for me to react right away. Once I figured out the situation, however, I remembered—I had to protect Rennio at all costs, even from Sai, my future trainer. Blowing the pokéball away in the process, I flapped my wings as aggressively as I could to make it to Rennio in time. I knocked him out of the way, figuring it was safer than attacking the dangerous hitmontop (Atis, was it?) head on.

All the red berries flew out of Rennio’s arm as he crashed to the ground beside him with a thud. The hitmontop tried to slow down and control his movement but he only succeeded in wobbling to and fro and then colliding with the same bushes that I had been watching from. He stood up a few moments later, looking for his target, but appeared dizzy. Atis was a hitmontop who wasn’t too used to spinning on its own head, apparently.

“No attacking Rennio!” I cried, admittedly unsure if I should be talking to Atis or Sai. Atis seemed like he’d listen immediately despite me not being his trainer, so I turned to Sai in the end. “He’s my friend. He would also like to join your team with me.”

“What?” Rennio asked, looking up at me. I realized that I was still standing on top of his body, so before I got electrocuted, I swiftly jumped off of him, realizing at the same time that he had no idea what the situation was at the moment. I would have to fill him in later. For now, I tried to motion for him to follow along with me.

“We would both like to join your team,” I repeated, more calmly and more determined this time. I started walking up to Sai, motioning again for Rennio to follow me. I knew he’d listen to me, as he trusted my judgment despite everything… And he did follow, leaving his berries behind.

Sai frowned, simply staring once more. This time, he was staring at Rennio. There wasn’t much else I could say. How much more straightforward could I be? We both wanted to be his pokémon. He looked like he needed a rare pokémon and an electric-type, anyway, right? But I was wrong.

I got my hopes up a lot when he started digging around in his pocket for something. At first I assumed it was a pokéball, but then thought that pokéballs were too big to fit in a human’s pocket, even when minimized. My hopes dropped away once he pulled out a black and white dice, and then another one. They stared at me mockingly, just as Sai had been doing not too long ago. I started seeing what was going on when Sai handed Rennio the dice as well. Sai clearly preferred Rennio over me, though I could not tell why.

I had a feeling that Sai would prefer Rennio the moment he came back. Actually, I think I predicted it a little earlier than that. Either way, right now I feel kind of bad for Ezrem.

Singular of "dice" is "die," by the way. There are two dice in total in this scene, but the way you're wording it, Sai took them out one at a time, right? I think it should say "he pulled out a black and white die" instead.

“Roll it,” said Sai.

Rennio peered over at me, and I nodded. So Rennio rolled it, or something like that. Like the berries, he dropped them on the ground as if I had just rammed him in the stomach once more. He probably wasn’t ready for another trainer’s attention, the poor guy, but it had to be done, I thought.

Both of the dice landed on the ground with a thud. One of them had a single black dot on it, while the other had three. I looked up to Sai, both eager and wary of seeing his reaction. His reaction was gleeful, overjoyed, and I felt empty.

“You’re my fourth pokémon!” Sai cried, diving down onto his knees and leaning in to apparently hug the poor electric-type. Rennio was embraced ever so lovingly, and he looked over to me, puzzled and utterly defeated. His facial expression was the equivalent of asking me whether or not he should electrocute this boy and make a run for it, but I was too stunned to move.

Sai's childish actions are amusing but the situation here with Rennio being separated from Ezrem and Ezrem getting rejected is pretty depressing. I don't know how to feel here...

“Are you going to give him a name?” chimed in the croconaw, who had just been watching during this entire ordeal.

Sai paused, then carefully answered, “No. The elekid doesn’t have a name.”

“My name is Rennio, given by my other—”

“You don’t have a name,” Sai interrupted, releasing his hold on the pokémon.

No. If he actually goes through with this and forces Rennio to get a new name against his will, I'm going to lose a lot of respect I built up for Sai.

“I don’t?” he said quietly, looking heartbroken, as if he would really have to give up his old name.

“No, you don’t.”

“So I’m really your pokémon?”

“Yes, you are.”

“Are you sure? What about my friend, Ezrem?” he asked, pointing to me.

“Ezrem is not my pokémon, but you are.”

Rennio frowned, but he wasn’t the type to deny others. He also wasn’t the type to doubt me, so he must have known I had something up my sleeve. Instead of turning away from Sai, he said, “Can I at least say good-bye to him first?”

“Go right ahead, but… Kuiora, go over there and make sure he doesn’t run off on us, okay?” Sai asked, petting the rather menacing looking water-type and directing her over to us.

As if she was reading my mind, the first thing that she said when the two of them made it over to the other side of the clearing was: “My trainer is very picky about what pokémon is on his team. This elekid is very lucky.”

I really cannot say that I like how Sai is coming off here. I know he can't help it and to him this behavior is right, but he's really coming off badly to me. Writing off Ezrem and basically forcing Rennio to throw out his identity bothers me, though I can't really tell if Rennio likes it or not.

“Lucky, huh?” I said under my breath. Yes, it confirmed that Sai was a good trainer. But what good did that do for me if I couldn’t be with him? Although I was jealous of Rennio, I tried to be happy for him, tried to lay out my future plans, but none were coming to me. And he was looking at me expectantly, clearly waiting for those plans to be said.

“Lucky!” Kuiora said, jumping up and down gleefully.

I couldn’t help but smile at the two of them. It reminded me of Obieme and the others with our former trainer, in a way…

“Well,” I said, scoffing to myself, “I have a feeling this will be a very good trainer for you, Rennio.”

“You’re just going to leave me?”

“What kind of question is that? I want to go home with you, and Sai is going to help us do just that.”

I don't understand exactly what Ezrem is doing here yet...

“Home?” Kuiora asked.

“Yes… to Unova, or somewhere like home.”

Suddenly, the croconaw’s eyes widened considerably. She began jumping up and down again, this time higher and higher, overflowed with joy. She also tried to tackle me in a fun way, but I thankfully dodged out of the way before any of my wings were broken.

“What was that for?”

“You’re a legendary pokémon, aren’t you?! You’re from a foreign land! I’ve heard stories about you and your evolved form! I know you’re legendary, so don’t try to hide it from me!”

“Stories?” I asked. I couldn’t help but be curious.

“Stories about such bravery and strength, about rescuing and war. Yes, they were definitely about you. I can’t believe I got to find a legendary pokémon so early on in our journey!” she said, holding her paws together and gleaming at me.

I had never heard of such stories, but I pretended like I had. I told her that yes, they were about me and my evolved form braviary. And yes, I was indeed a legendary pokémon. If Sai wouldn’t accept me, then having one of his pokémon accept me was clearly the next best thing. Then, maybe, he would realize how much his team liked me, and he would ask me to join the team. Yes, that could work, just maybe! It was worth a shot, at any rate.

It's not going to work, Ezrem. Sai doesn't operate like that, and the story about being a Legendary Pokemon is kind of flimsy.

“This is just great! Sai is so picky he doesn’t know what he’s doing. You should be on our team, too,” she said excitedly.

“Yes, I should be.”

“You should be on the team, Ezrem! I can’t do this alone,” Rennio said, snapping my attention back toward him. I had been so engrossed in the legendary pokémon business that I had almost forgotten him, the poor pokémon.

“Don’t worry, my friend,” I said generously. “I will go on this journey with you! I’ve got it all planned out, don’t you worry.”

“You really do?”

“I do. You should say yes to being on his team. Walk up to her replacement and welcome him home. And I will follow and protect you, despite the boy’s protests.”

I don't really understand the way Ezrem talks sometimes. "Her replacement" is obviously Sai, but I don't understand the "home" part completely. If you could just explain what it means a little more clearly, I would really appreciate that.

“You promise?”

“I promise.”

I said I promised, and Rennio smiled. Kuiora smiled, for other reasons, but it was a smile nonetheless. I smiled, too, but I didn’t know what I was smiling for. After all, I had chosen Sai, but he hadn’t chosen me?

He betrayed me from the start. But I was stuck. I had vowed to make it up to Rennio, and it was my fault we were in this mess to begin with, anyway.

Right now, I was grounded; my wings were broken. It was crystal clear that my dreams were hanging from a wire, ready to drop and crash at any moment.

Rennio, Sai, you don’t know what you do to me.

I will make it home…

Now I don't feel very hopeful for Ezrem at all...

I don't have much to say here. Not to reflect on you at all, it's just that there's nothing coming to mind for me to say, really. I don't have any predictions right now as to where the story will go from here. Ezrem might be either another entertaining personality on the cast or a heartbreaking one, depending on how he's used from this point, but Rennio really is caught in the middle. He doesn't deserve how seemingly poorly Sai is treating him, but I would like to believe that there's some development coming down the line that will fix up the issues there.

[diamondpearl876]

Should be a comma before "so".

Fixed, thanks.

Ezrem may have TRAITS of Kuiora, Atis, and Senori, but it is also very much its own pokemon. Such nefariousness and plotting. It's almost a little evil... or, at least, completely selfish and narcissistic.

Sounds about right.

...Oh, god. What is this Elekid's deal?

You can blame Ezrem for just about anything.

I might drop the "I thought" from the end there. It saps the strength of the "it had to be done" line, and I already knew Ezrem thought it--the chapter is his first person perspective. I get that he's relaying a thought he had in the past, but I just think the line would be stronger without it.

I can see why it’d ruin the powerfulness of the sentence. I removed it. For some reason I have a tendency to add “I thought” in first person.

-As with all of your pokemon thus far (by the way! Don't think I've forgotten that one of them is eventually going to die. This makes me unhappy),

I don’t know what you’re talking about. Glad you enjoy Ezrem, thanks for commenting!

I don't think I've noticed it before, but I just realized that these chapter titles are laid out like titles of reports, or something.

That’s pretty interesting. I never even considered that myself, but it sounds about right.

To the degree that this Rufflet is manipulating its trainer - lying to her with carefully planned motives in mind - surprises me. This really is something I don't think I've ever seen before.

I like being unique, so I’m glad you think it’s so.

I assume that this girl was able to talk to Pokemon like Sai does? Forgive me if some details are slipping from my mind after a while.

It’s okay, it’s been a while. The girl’s never been mentioned before, anyway. She could speak to her pokémon too after spending so much time with them, and it’s clarified in the next chapter.

Kinda glad to see Marty go, in all honesty. Ezrem's observation about his potential weakness does develop him a bit, though.

Hate to tell you but he’ll be back, but I think I’ve finally figured out how I’m going to develop him a bit more.

I guess this means Ezrem's late trainer did not understand him, then? I'm not sure which way it's going.

Ezrem is surprised because he thought Sai was a new trainer, and therefore unable to have the ability to communicate with pokémon just yet.

Singular of "dice" is "die," by the way. There are two dice in total in this scene, but the way you're wording it, Sai took them out one at a time, right? I think it should say "he pulled out a black and white die" instead.

Will fix, thanks for pointing it out.

Sai's childish actions are amusing but the situation here with Rennio being separated from Ezrem and Ezrem getting rejected is pretty depressing. I don't know how to feel here...

This is meant to be a depressing fic. I sorry.

No. If he actually goes through with this and forces Rennio to get a new name against his will, I'm going to lose a lot of respect I built up for Sai.

He won’t force Rennio to get a new name, but he won’t refer to Rennio as, well, Rennio.

It's not going to work, Ezrem. Sai doesn't operate like that, and the story about being a Legendary Pokemon is kind of flimsy.

How so, if I my ask?

I don't really understand the way Ezrem talks sometimes. "Her replacement" is obviously Sai, but I don't understand the "home" part completely. If you could just explain what it means a little more clearly, I would really appreciate that.

Ezrem talks funny sometimes, I think. Um. I think instead of “home” I should have put “in your life”. Since they’re looking for a home, it doesn’t make much more sense. So hopefully “in your life” makes more sense.

I don't have much to say here. Not to reflect on you at all, it's just that there's nothing coming to mind for me to say, really. I don't have any predictions right now as to where the story will go from here. Ezrem might be either another entertaining personality on the cast or a heartbreaking one, depending on how he's used from this point, but Rennio really is caught in the middle. He doesn't deserve how seemingly poorly Sai is treating him, but I would like to believe that there's some development coming down the line that will fix up the issues there.

Well, I have quite a few plans for Ezrem, so we’ll see how he turns out. As for Sai, I guess we’ll have to see about that too. Thanks for commenting!

[The Great Butler]

It’s okay, it’s been a while. The girl’s never been mentioned before, anyway. She could speak to her pokémon too after spending so much time with them, and it’s clarified in the next chapter.

Okay.

For the sake of clarification, I meant that I couldn't recall if people being able to understand Pokemon easily was a common thing in this universe.

Hate to tell you but he’ll be back, but I think I’ve finally figured out how I’m going to develop him a bit more.

That's good. I think he does have potential, but he hasn't fully realized it yet. As he fleshes out into his own character more, I think we'll see an improvement there.

Ezrem is surprised because he thought Sai was a new trainer, and therefore unable to have the ability to communicate with pokémon just yet.

I see.

This is meant to be a depressing fic. I sorry.

There's nothing to apologize for. In fact, I think the fault lies on my shoulders for being kind of wrong in how to interpret the story in the first place. I had been approaching it as a sort of mystery story about Sai's origins with bits of comedy and tragedy laced in, but now I can readjust my approach so I get it right.

He won’t force Rennio to get a new name, but he won’t refer to Rennio as, well, Rennio.

That could be an interesting thing to see going forward. Now I'm beginning to see a really unique angle this can take.

How so, if I my ask?

It's easily debunked as a fabrication if Sai ever actually decides to do any research on it.

Thanks for commenting!

You're welcome!

[diamondpearl876]

Thanks for all the comments again, guys!

So I've decided that I'll be writing the remainder of Survival Project for this year's upcoming NaNoWriMo. I chose this because I wanted to participate for the second year in a row, and starting something else would pretty much ensure that I'd never finish this, and I really do want to finish this fic. Whether or not I'll succeed is up in the air, of course, and this means tons of editing may be happening, but at the very least, this means that the fic will be planned out from this chapter until the end. The fic will have a total of ~30 chapters if all goes according to plan, so we're about halfway there. Wish me luck, and I'll see you all in the beginning of November with a new chapter.

SURVIVAL PROJECT

chapter 11 ; [RENNIO]
stranger

*

I still remember her like it was yesterday. She had long, flowing blonde hair, green eyes. Her love for us pokémon had no boundaries. She found beauty in all things, even the things that made people cringe when she talked about them, like philosophy and math. She was the first person I saw when I hatched from my egg. Where she got that egg, I never knew, but it was all I could do to thank her for retrieving it.

It was yesterday. In my mind. In my dreams. In my hopes, in my fears.

She asked me once, “If you were to think about it, would you predict that you’d have more fears than hopes, or more hopes than fears?”

Back then, I didn’t have to think about it.

Now, I think too much.

Yes, I remember her like it was yesterday… I remember even the little things that I observed over the years. She refused to sleep on her sides, so as to never leave her back wide open. She only spoke of Arceus to those who didn’t believe, again, to make them cringe all out of good fun. She never looked at the ground or at the sky as she walked, because she wasn’t afraid of the never-ending path in front of her.

My favorite memory was when she embraced me. She made it look like a normal hug, made it feel like a stronghold.

And it’s all so ironic, I know. I think too much about it now, these fears that outweigh my hopes.

It’s ironic because… the one time she truly needed me, I let her go.

*

Annie.

My first thought amongst the chaos.

We were simply out getting wood to build our own fire—and when we found it, all we wanted to do was get rid of it and run. It was just extra fuel for the fire heading our way, after all…

Fire!

I had to do a double take before I realized that, yes, there really was one coming our way. The crackling sound that I had heard so many times before on our journey now rang through my ears and tormented me relentlessly. The flames were taller than I’d ever seen them before, and the air smelled burnt, crisp, sharp. My senses were exhausted in a matter of seconds. I stood there, confused and dazed, wondering if I was in a dream…

Annie. Fire!

Annie, we have no water-type pokémon, we’re nowhere near the exit or entrance, and there’s nothing but more trees surrounding us, more fuel…

Something had to be done, but judging by our clear lack of action, everyone was thinking the same things as me and no one knew what to do. The fire was growing larger and coming closer to us with every passing second. Closer, closer.

*

“What are those things that are always in your mouth?” I asked once. We were just beginning our journey to Johto, as we were on the boat that would lead us to the renowned region. Though I had been traveling with her for quite some time, I had never questioned her about her peculiar eating habit.

She grabbed another spoonful of berries for me and placed them in my mouth. I smiled as I chewed in order to thank her. I was old enough to feed myself, yet she was always insisting on me being the baby of the group, the one who received all the extra special attention. I was grateful for the care, and so I thanked her for every bite.

“They’re called cigarettes,” she said, starting to prepare another mouthful for me.

“Can I have one?” I asked, swallowing the food in my mouth. “They must taste good if you have them all the time.”

“Nope, you can’t,” she said, smiling to herself. She put the white stick in her mouth once more and then removed it, a puff of smoke following behind. She always did this, over and over, until she had completely gone through the stick.

“Why not?”

“They’re not good for pokémon, and I can’t have my baby having something that isn’t good for him, right?”

“I guess not… What about the others?” I questioned, wondering if I would be jealous of the others for once instead of it being the other way around.

“They don’t get one, either.”

She continued feeding me the berries, spoonful by spoonful. I sat there and watched her smoke quietly, wondering what the taste was like, the texture, the feeling that she had when the eating session both started and ended. I supposed I would never know.

When she was done, she took out a device which sparked a bit of fire, and started all over again.

*

Fire.

That’s what must have happened. Annie must have dropped one of her cigarettes after lighting it on fire, and then left it there. There was no other explanation in my eyes. Because of her sudden carelessness, we were all stuck in this mess.

I forgave her instantly, though my body said otherwise. I wanted to stay, but my legs were quickly starting to betray me. My knees felt as if they were going to buckle at any moment, or turn and start heading in the other direction.

It was always this way. My thoughts were much different than my actions. Why couldn’t my mind and body just cooperate? Why was I such a baby on the outside and then so sure of myself on the inside? Wasn’t the mind supposed to send signals to the brain which would in turn send signals to the body? Or something like that? I remembered Annie telling me once. But it just didn’t ring true for me.

I wanted to stay. I wanted to stay and protect her, protect those green eyes in a fire that was turning everything gray.

But I was the first to run.

Annie.

*

The other pokémon on the team, particularly Ezrem, always liked to make fun of the day that I was born. Hatching from the egg and not being able to understand their taunting language was apparently amusing. And apparently, the first thing that I was told was my name.

When I hatched from my egg, the last thing that I wanted to hear about was my name. I was hungry and I was cold, so I wanted food and warmth right away. I could no longer turn to my egg to sustain me, so I had to find these things elsewhere. But on top of my basic necessities, I was overwhelmed with a sense of confusion. The only thing recognizable to me was voices, since I could hear them inside the egg. The other pokémon surrounding me were foreign, and so were my surroundings. Where was I? Was I supposed to be where I already was, or was some other place waiting for me? Did I hatch too soon, too late?

Despite my needs, Annie did not feed me or hold me or tell me where I was. Again, I was informed that the first thing she did was tell me my name.

“Rennio. Your name is Rennio,” she said. She beamed at me, along with the rest of her pokémon, all of which were foreign to me. They were whispering amongst themselves, however—or making fun of me, of course—so I assumed they must have known me somehow. I didn’t know what their names were, so I just stared at them. Their words meant nothing to me.

“Renee was my littlest sister’s name, and the end of your name makes it sound a little more boyish. It’s perfect for my new baby pokémon!” she said ecstatically.

At first, I couldn’t understand. But as Ezrem told me the story once when he felt like teasing me, I began to comprehend the situation’s significance. One of the first things a baby does when it’s born is try to figure out if the world is a safe place. Is the world trustworthy? Are people trustworthy? Annie didn’t feed me or hold me or tell me I could feel safe, but giving me a name and explaining its origin provided me with a sense of relief. That was her way of telling me that she was trustworthy. She knew I existed, and she loved and valued my existence enough to give me an identity.

My hunger and desire for warmth waited, and that was fine. I didn’t know much of anything at the time, but I felt safe here. And that was enough.

Rennio.

*

“Rennio!”

I heard her cry my name as soon as I started dashing in the opposite direction. I knew it then, I knew I should have stayed. But what else could I do? What was more important, her existence or my existence? Ezrem had told me so many times, so many times: I was the last of my species. If I were to die, there would never be another elekid or electabuzz or electivire.

This belief of almost being extinct had frozen my very being many times in the past. Because of this fear, I was unable to participate in battles, since there was always the possibility being hurt beyond repair. Because of this fear, death consumed my thoughts even in the safest of situations. Because of this fear, it was my goal in life to just be able to survive or create another one of my species.

But I was also able to understand the significance of oneself and others because of this fear. I knew that without my trainer, I could not have come as far I had. She was one who had nurtured me from the very start, and it was extremely important for me to repay my debt to her somehow. In the old days, I would usually just continue to be her baby pokémon, since that’s what she wanted, that was what she was content with. Occasionally I’d have to be with her when she cried, and I’d cheer her on in battles from the sidelines…

But because of this fear, I also ran away from my trainer when she needed me most.

I ran past the tree branches that fell to the ground, trying to block my escape. My legs were short and, due to the quick pace that I was running at, started to ache soon after my dash. Despite this, I kept on going, and I didn’t dare to look back, knowing that I’d have more regrets if I did.

To be honest, I had no idea where I was going, or even if I was truly saving myself. I just knew that standing still was not the answer unless I wanted death to come, which I certainly didn’t.

I ran. The fire was closer than ever before now, and smoke was starting to invade my lungs every time I tried to inhale. My body tried to stop itself a few times so I could cough, but I wouldn’t have any of it. I kept trudging forward despite myself, wavering from side to side as I did. Because of this, I got scorched by the fire a bit, and bumped into a few trees that were simply waiting to be devoured. I couldn’t see where I was going at all.

Moments like these are recalled as blurs because everything looks the same, no matter how you think of it. There were flames everywhere I looked, I was scared no matter where I was, and I alone everywhere I ended up. So I have no idea how I made it to the end of the forest, the opposite side from where we entered. All I knew was that I must have been running an awfully long time with an awfully large stroke of luck following shortly behind. All I knew was that my startled eyes and burnt body and shrieking self must have alerted the guards at the building, because they soon ran into the forest themselves and put out the fire.

They scoured the entire forest from top to bottom. It wasn’t hard, given the destruction. But in the end, only Ezrem and I were found. Annie and the others were nowhere to be seen.

*

A game.

Ring around the rosie, she called it.

The goal was to make yourself dizzy by spinning in a circle with other people in the group, ones you were holding hands with. Then, at the end, you were all supposed to fall together, laughing.

But she said—ashes, ashes.

She said she’d never let me fall, no matter what.

It was just a game. A kid’s game, one she didn’t expect me to understand.

I knew what she meant, deep down.

*

She left through ashes; I fell without laughing.

And remembering hurts.

I’m done.

*

But I can at least remember Ezrem without pain engulfing me. Ezrem, who has always been by my side. Even when he was teasing me, I knew that he wouldn’t betray me for anything. And now that it was just the two of us, our bond was that much stronger.

I often wondered what would have happened had he passed away in the fire with everyone else. With me being far too dependent on others, I can’t imagine that things would have gone well. I may have been crying forever, I may have gotten tangled up with a bad trainer, I may have gone off to die somewhere by myself due to some misfortune that I didn’t see coming…

Death.

Yes, Ezrem and Annie taught me all about death and the ephemeral thing that is life. I forgave him, as long as he stayed by my side.

And he did stay by my side. He explained to me his desire to return home, and it made perfect sense to me, given our situation. Who wouldn’t want to go home after a long, grueling journey? He said he’d take me with him since I had nowhere else to go, and I was more than happy to oblige. His plan involved getting a new trainer, which also made sense to me, since there was no way for us to know the layout of the regions. To find a new trainer, we also agreed to stay in the forest. Not only had we learned that it was usually full of new trainers whose potential we could judge, there was always the hope in the back of our minds that said Annie would come back for us someday, somehow.

So we remained where we were, avoiding the burned side of the forest as well as we could. We stayed near the entrance, the one full of better memories, better times, which seemed so far away now. Ezrem taught me which berries in the forest were good for eating after I explained that the thought of killing a pokémon for food was unacceptable to me. Then it became my job to retrieve our food and water while Ezrem stayed near the entrance and watched for trainers. Warmth was an afterthought; we never made fires.

I’d come back with berries every day, and I’d stare at him expectedly. He always knew that my gaze asked the same question: had he found anyone with potential? Because we don’t want just anybody.

He’d always look at me sadly, shaking his head.

“Someday, but not today,” he’d say.

*

One day, I returned with berries and simply told Ezrem, “I’m scared.”

He motioned for me to open my hands and dug his beak into the pile. Halfway through, he pulled back, finally realizing that I had said something.

“Scared of what?”

I sighed. If anyone should know what I’m scared of, it should be Ezrem. “What if I die before I’m able to keep my species from going extinct?” I asked.

“Well,” Ezrem said, swallowing though he had no berry in his mouth, “you just can’t think like that, okay?”

“Why not? It’s entirely possible.”

“If you let the fear consume you, you are destined to fail!”

“I suppose.” I paused. He was probably waiting for me to say something more, but I couldn’t think of anything. I stared at the berries, and then said awkwardly, “Will you… feed me?”

“Feed you?” Ezrem stared at me, perplexed. “Rennio, you’re not a baby anymore!”

“She used to feed me. Annie did.”

Ezrem snickered, but I knew that he was just hiding the pain that came with me saying her name. He dug his beak into my hands again, pulling back and taking a berry from my hand. He leaned in toward me, seemingly handing it to me, but he moved back again and chewed it himself. I stood there, disappointed, but it wasn’t like I wasn’t expecting it.

“Listen, Rennio!” he said after he finished the berry. “I’ll tell you what. You need more confidence. I want to teach you a catchphrase that you can have.”

“A catchphrase?” I said, dumbfounded.

“A catchphrase. Every time you battle a pokémon, you must say you have come back to the world! Every time you come back from getting food and water, you must say you have come back to the world. As time goes on you’ll say it in more and more situations. This will let everyone around you, including yourself, know that you are, indeed, alive, and that the elekid line lives on. Do you understand?”

“I-I think so,” I said, shifting my feet uncomfortably. “The idea just seems silly to me.”

“It may be silly, but babies do silly things. Now, if you want me to feed you like Annie used to, say it!”

I hesitated. I did need more confidence, but Ezrem’s solution was just words. What power did words have? They didn’t magically make me reproduce or cause elekid eggs to start lying around everywhere. They were just there to boost my ego, nothing more.

“Say it!” Ezrem said impatiently.

“I don’t know…”

“Then I’m not feeding you.”

And not only did I need more confidence, I needed Annie. As comforting as he was, Ezrem just didn’t meet all my needs. If I could have just this, I would feel much, much better, and be able to move on for just a little while longer.

“Fine,” I said, sighing. “I have come back to the world.”

“Say your name and say it loudly, or no one will know who you are!”

“Rennio has come back to the world!”

Ezrem smiled. “Yes, yes you have,” he said, taking the berries from me.

*

An unknown amount of time passed before the day we found Sai, before I felt like I really had returned to the world.

When I came back from searching for berries and shouting my silly catchphrase, I was expecting to find Ezrem still hiding behind bushes, watching. When I saw that instead, he was actually interacting with a trainer, I knew that something special was happening. Ezrem had finally found and picked someone!

I wasn’t expecting, however, to be attacked by another pokémon. And I wasn’t expecting Ezrem to get rejected, and for me to be welcomed with open arms. And I wasn’t expecting for the new trainer to try to take my name away.

Overall, I was overcome with mixed emotions. I knew that a trainer battling wild pokémon to capture them was fairly ordinary, but it had just never happened to me, so I wasn’t prepared in the slightest. The idea to defend myself hadn’t come to me; I let Ezrem do all the work to protect me, as usual. And when he was rejected despite his noble actions, I thought about unfair it was to him—after all his hard work, he had finally come to a decision only to be shut down. My heart ached for him, but there was nothing I could think of that would help him except to go along with Sai like he requested.

And that’s exactly what I did. I trusted Ezrem’s judgment, his reasoning. Even after Sai told me I had no name, I decided that he was an ideal trainer. I was okay with not having a name in his eyes as long as I knew my own true self, and as long as Ezrem knew who I was, too. I would continue to identify myself the way Annie identified me, so that her memory could live on.

It was the least I could do for her.

*

And just like that, Ezrem and I found ourselves making our way to Goldenrod City for the second time. This time was, of course, much different. We were with different pokémon, a different trainer… We were with complete strangers. The air was slightly tenser, for some reason I could not decipher just by looking at or making small talk with the strangers. Perhaps they had just gone through some ordeal, too, though I could not imagine anything as bad as our story.

The atmosphere was also much quieter. With Annie, we were always talking about something or another. Since she could understand us after being with us for such a long time, there was never a dull moment with her. I decided, then, to try to get to know my new teammates, my new trainer.

“Why don’t you guys tell us something about yourselves?” I said, talking to anyone who was willing to listen. I motioned over to Ezrem, making sure to include him in the conversations, too.

The three pokémon introduced themselves as Senori, Kuiora, and Atis. The names would be difficult to remember, but I’m sure I would learn them in time. I supposed that meant that he still thought I had no name, but he didn’t say anything in protest.

“Another trainer that gives their pokémon funny names!” Ezrem cried, keeping up with the rest of the group, just as he had promised me. I looked up at Sai, and noticed that he was still ignoring Ezrem—even more so, as he wouldn’t so much as glance at the bird.

“I do not have a funny name, thank you very much. I think it’s quite pretty,” Kuiora said, putting her small hands on her hips and glaring at Ezrem.

“It’s hardly what I’d call pretty.”

“You just say that because you’re a boy, and things aren’t pretty to you,” Kuiora retorted.

“I don’t mind mine,” said Senori while the other two bickered. “I had a different one before, but I think I like this one better.”

“You had a name before? What was it?” I asked, suddenly curious. So Sai had forced Senori to get a new name, but not me? He didn’t make any sense to me so far, but I still respected him.

“It doesn’t matter now. It was a long time ago,” Senori replied, smiling softly.

“Oh.” I decided not to press him. “What about you, Atis?” I asked, trying to include him, too, since he hadn’t said much yet.

“I didn’t have a name before…” he said shyly, keeping his head lowered toward the ground.

“Sai,” I said, noticing our trainer hadn’t said much, either, despite being able to understand us, “where do you get your names for us, then?”

“I… I knew some people with the same names. I don’t know many other names or anything, so I use them,” Sai said, looking down at me. He tried to smile but failed, as if he were recalling some painful memory. His answer seemed simple yet weird in my eyes for some reason I couldn’t explain, so I didn’t press him, either. Yes, there certainly was some pain surrounding this group, pain I didn’t know about yet. I was sure it was just another thing I’d learn in time.

If it were up to me, suffering wouldn’t exist. But it’s part of what makes us who we are, and personally, I was glad to find others who had experienced pain just like I had. So far, my journey with our new trainer seemed hopeful; it seemed like it would be a journey toward healing and peace.

I smiled at Sai. When it looked like he didn’t know how to respond, I said, “It was nice to meet you.”

“It was nice to have met you, too…” said Sai, offering a slight smile back.

“I had a trainer once before,” I said rather impulsively, catching myself off guard since I hadn’t talked about Annie to anyone except Ezrem. “She was really nice.”

“Yeah? Maybe she can travel with us sometime if we run into her,” Sai said, suddenly appearing hopeful and excited. I didn’t blame him, I really didn’t—Annie would be a great traveling companion if she were alive—but his words stung.

“She won’t be able to. She passed away a while ago,” I said, now looking down at the ground.

“Oh. Well, it looks like it’ll just be me and my pokémon, then… The trainer back there and his sister didn’t want to travel with me, either,” he said sadly, his eagerness fading. I let the conversation go once more, regretting bringing it up. I made a mental note to myself, saying that I would have to inquire and learn more about these little things that I let go now, but was still curious about.

We kept walking from there, making more small talk about things that were less significant to me. I noticed that Kuiora kept quite close to Ezrem, probably because she still thought he was a legendary pokémon for some reason or another. I thought it was amusing and chuckled at him a few times, only to have him glare at me and shut me up rather quickly.

Occasionally, a wild pokémon would attack and I would get to see my new teammates battle. While they seemed somewhat strong, I knew that they had a long way to go compared to me and Ezrem. I vaguely wondered how impressed Sai would be once he battled with us (assuming he’d eventually warm up to Ezrem and want him on the team), but I was also overly pleased with the fact that he didn’t ask me to fight even once. A fear of battling accompanied my fear of death and injury, so I didn’t want to fight if I could help it. Annie never made me do anything I didn’t want to, but with Sai, it could have been different. I supposed I would have to wait and see.

I noticed that Sai fed us plenty of food and made sure we were satisfied with a place to sleep. A few peaceful nights passed before we neared the end of the forest. Given mine and Ezrem’s past, I was also relieved about how our trek through Ilex Forest was rather uneventful. The only thing that particularly stood out to me was the damaged areas of the forest. They brought back haunting memories, mixed feelings, and an overwhelming desire to leave. Luckily, that’s exactly what we were going to do, and soon, I knew, since I recognized the forest’s exit. When we were close enough, I turned one final time to the destruction that caused me so much anguish, and said good-bye. I pretended to be walking beside Annie as I believed I was returning to the world, to our journey, starting with Goldenrod City.

[The Great Butler]

Thanks for all the comments again, guys!

So I've decided that I'll be writing the remainder of Survival Project for this year's upcoming NaNoWriMo. I chose this because I wanted to participate for the second year in a row, and starting something else would pretty much ensure that I'd never finish this, and I really do want to finish this fic. Whether or not I'll succeed is up in the air, of course, and this means tons of editing may be happening, but at the very least, this means that the fic will be planned out from this chapter until the end. The fic will have a total of ~30 chapters if all goes according to plan, so we're about halfway there. Wish me luck, and I'll see you all in the beginning of November with a new chapter.

I wish you luck. I'm going to try the same with The Angel of Reckoning.

SURVIVAL PROJECT

chapter 11 ; [RENNIO]
stranger

*

I'm glad we get to see things through Rennio's eyes immediately after Ezrem's chapter. I think that is very important.

I still remember her like it was yesterday. She had long, flowing blonde hair, green eyes. Her love for us pokémon had no boundaries. She found beauty in all things, even the things that made people cringe when she talked about them, like philosophy and math. She was the first person I saw when I hatched from my egg. Where she got that egg, I never knew, but it was all I could do to thank her for retrieving it.

It was yesterday. In my mind. In my dreams. In my hopes, in my fears.

She asked me once, “If you were to think about it, would you predict that you’d have more fears than hopes, or more hopes than fears?”

Back then, I didn’t have to think about it.

Now, I think too much.

Yes, I remember her like it was yesterday… I remember even the little things that I observed over the years. She refused to sleep on her sides, so as to never leave her back wide open. She only spoke of Arceus to those who didn’t believe, again, to make them cringe all out of good fun. She never looked at the ground or at the sky as she walked, because she wasn’t afraid of the never-ending path in front of her.

This section does a wonderful job of telling us about Rennio's late trainer. You've supplied the reader with enough for a clear picture of the trainer to be formed - for me, I see her appearance quite clearly and I can easily visualize the personality traits you've described.

My favorite memory was when she embraced me. She made it look like a normal hug, made it feel like a stronghold.

And it’s all so ironic, I know. I think too much about it now, these fears that outweigh my hopes.

It’s ironic because… the one time she truly needed me, I let her go.

Thanks for putting up this flag now. Now I know to be ready for my heartstrings to be pulled.

Annie.

My first thought amongst the chaos.

We were simply out getting wood to build our own fire—and when we found it, all we wanted to do was get rid of it and run. It was just extra fuel for the fire heading our way, after all…

Fire!

I had to do a double take before I realized that, yes, there really was one coming our way. The crackling sound that I had heard so many times before on our journey now rang through my ears and tormented me relentlessly. The flames were taller than I’d ever seen them before, and the air smelled burnt, crisp, sharp. My senses were exhausted in a matter of seconds. I stood there, confused and dazed, wondering if I was in a dream…

Annie. Fire!

Annie, we have no water-type pokémon, we’re nowhere near the exit or entrance, and there’s nothing but more trees surrounding us, more fuel…

Something had to be done, but judging by our clear lack of action, everyone was thinking the same things as me and no one knew what to do. The fire was growing larger and coming closer to us with every passing second. Closer, closer.

Rennio's desperation really shines through here.

“What are those things that are always in your mouth?” I asked once. We were just beginning our journey to Johto, as we were on the boat that would lead us to the renowned region. Though I had been traveling with her for quite some time, I had never questioned her about her peculiar eating habit.

She grabbed another spoonful of berries for me and placed them in my mouth. I smiled as I chewed in order to thank her. I was old enough to feed myself, yet she was always insisting on me being the baby of the group, the one who received all the extra special attention. I was grateful for the care, and so I thanked her for every bite.

For some reason I like the little touch of Annie treating Rennio as the baby of the group. I can't put my finger on why, but I like it.

“They’re called cigarettes,” she said, starting to prepare another mouthful for me.

“Can I have one?” I asked, swallowing the food in my mouth. “They must taste good if you have them all the time.”

“Nope, you can’t,” she said, smiling to herself. She put the white stick in her mouth once more and then removed it, a puff of smoke following behind. She always did this, over and over, until she had completely gone through the stick.

“Why not?”

“They’re not good for pokémon, and I can’t have my baby having something that isn’t good for him, right?”

I like this detail, too. A lot of stories tend to romanticize Pokemon trainers to some degree, so to see a character engaging in a trivial vice helps it stand out, I think. Her way of telling Rennio that he can't have one is really cute, too.

Perhaps this is also massive coincidence considering how she died...

“I guess not… What about the others?” I questioned, wondering if I would be jealous of the others for once instead of it being the other way around.

“They don’t get one, either.”

She continued feeding me the berries, spoonful by spoonful. I sat there and watched her smoke quietly, wondering what the taste was like, the texture, the feeling that she had when the eating session both started and ended. I supposed I would never know.

When she was done, she took out a device which sparked a bit of fire, and started all over again.

I'm sure I've mentioned it before, but one of your absolute strongest suits is how you humanize the Pokemon. I never thought I'd be reading a line in which a Pokemon thinks about what smoking a cigarette is like, but seeing something so casual through the eyes of a Pokemon is something I like very much.

Of course, this isn't going to keep going so well for Rennio, we already know that.

Fire.

That’s what must have happened. Annie must have dropped one of her cigarettes after lighting it on fire, dropped it, and left it there. There was no other explanation in my eyes. Because of her sudden carelessness, we were all stuck in this mess.

I knew the cigarettes would be connected at least vaguely to the fire, but if this is actually why it was caused, I'm surprised. I didn't expect that.

I forgave her instantly, though my body said otherwise. I wanted to stay, but my legs were quickly starting to betray me. My knees felt as if they were going to buckle at any moment, or turn and start heading in the other direction.

It was always this way. My thoughts were much different than my actions. Why couldn’t my mind and body just cooperate? Why was I such a baby on the outside and then so sure of myself on the inside? Wasn’t the mind supposed to send signals to the brain which would in turn send signals to the body? Or something like that? I remembered Annie telling me once. But it just didn’t ring true for me.

I wanted to stay. I wanted to stay and protect her, protect those green eyes in a fire that was turning everything gray.

But I was the first to run.

Annie.

Okay, at this point, I can't imagine how Sai's treatment of Rennio is going to help at all. Rennio's got some real, legitimate issues, and he needs someone who can help him deal with the things that have happened.

The other pokémon on the team, particularly Ezrem, always liked to make fun of the day that I was born. Hatching from the egg and not being able to understand their taunting language was apparently amusing. And apparently, the first thing that I was told was my name.

When I hatched from my egg, the last thing that I wanted to hear about was my name. I was hungry and I was cold, so I wanted food and warmth right away. I could no longer turn to my egg to sustain me, so I had to find these things elsewhere. But on top of my basic necessities, I was overwhelmed with a sense of confusion. The only thing recognizable to me was voices, since I could hear them inside the egg. The other pokémon surrounding me were foreign, and so were my surroundings. Where was I? Was I supposed to be where I already was, or was some other place waiting for me? Did I hatch too soon, too late?

You know, this is amazingly realistic too. Seeing these events through Rennio's eyes is, once again, a very important part of that. We often see the birth of Pokemon from Eggs, but primarily the angle presented is that of the excited trainer. Instead, here we see a Pokemon that isn't all that thrilled to be outside his Egg for the first time, which by itself is unique. Building on that by using it to further Rennio's known relationship to Annie, Ezrem and the others makes it an even more interesting scene.

Despite my needs, Annie did not feed me or hold me or tell me where I was. Again, I was informed that the first thing she did was tell me my name.

I can't help but wonder if this is a sort of lampshading of how a Pokemon can hatch from an Egg, be nicknamed and get sent immediately into battles in the games.

“Rennio. Your name is Rennio,” she said. She beamed at me, along with the rest of her pokémon, all of which were foreign to me. They were whispering amongst themselves, however—or making fun of me, of course—so I assumed they must have known me somehow. I didn’t know what their names were, so I just stared at them. Their words mean nothing to me.

“Renee was my littlest sister’s name, and the end of your name makes it sound a little more boyish. It’s perfect for my new baby pokémon!” she said ecstatically.

At first, I couldn’t understand. But as Ezrem told me the story once when he felt like teasing me, I began to comprehend the situation’s significance. One of the first things a baby does when it’s born is try to figure out if the world is a safe place. Is the world trustworthy? Are people trustworthy? Annie didn’t feed me or hold me or tell me I could feel safe, but giving me a name and explaining its origin provided me with a sense of relief. That was her way of telling me that she was trustworthy. She knew I existed, and she loved and valued my existence enough to give me an identity.

My hunger and desire for warmth waited, and that was fine. I didn’t know much of anything at the time, but I felt safe here. And that was enough.

Rennio.

That's actually a good little bit of philosophy that I wasn't expecting. It's also very true, what you say about figuring out if the world is a safe place. You wrote this part very well, also, which brings together all your thoughts into a very appealing package.

“Rennio!”

I heard her cry my name as soon as I started dashing in the opposite direction. I knew it then, I knew I should have stayed. But what else could I do? What was more important, her existence or my existence? Ezrem had told me so many times, so many times: I was the last of my species. If I were to die, there would never be another elekid or electabuzz or electivire.

Wow, my respect for Ezrem just took a huge hit, at least for now.

I would take that as a credit to you as a writer, though - it's not easy to so drastically make readers feel differently about characters by simply changing the viewpoint that events are seen through.

This belief of almost being extinct had frozen my very being many times in the past. Because of this fear, I was unable to participate in battles, since there was always the possibility being hurt beyond repair. Because of this fear, death consumed my thoughts even in the safest of situations. Because of this fear, it was my goal in life to just be able to survive or create another one of my species.

I can already see this presenting problems with Sai.

But I was also able to understand the significance of oneself and others because of this fear. I knew that without my trainer, I could not have come as far I had. She was one who had nurtured me from the very start, and it was extremely important for me to repay my debt to her somehow. In the old days, I would usually just continue to be her baby pokémon, since that’s what she wanted, that was what she was content with. Occasionally I’d have to be with her when she cried, and I’d cheer her on in battles from the sidelines…

But because of this fear, I also ran away from my trainer when she needed me most.

I ran past the tree branches that fell to the ground, trying to block my escape. My legs were short and, due to the quick pace that I was running at, started to ache soon after my dash. Despite this, I kept on going, and I didn’t dare to look back, knowing that I’d have more regrets if I did.

To be honest, I had no idea where I was going, or even if I was truly saving myself. I just knew that standing still was not the answer unless I wanted death to come, which I certainly didn’t.

I ran. The fire was closer than ever before now, and smoke was starting to invade my lungs every time I tried to inhale. My body tried to stop itself a few times so I could cough, but I wouldn’t have any of it. I kept trudging forward despite myself, wavering from side to side as I did. Because of this, I got scorched by the fire a bit, and bumped into a few trees that were simply waiting to be devoured. I couldn’t see where I was going at all.

Moments like these are recalled as blurs because everything looks the same, no matter how you think of it. There were flames everywhere I looked, I was scared no matter where I was, and I alone everywhere I ended up. So I have no idea how I made it to the end of the forest, the opposite side from where we entered. All I knew was that I must have been running an awfully long time with an awfully large stroke of luck following shortly behind. All I knew was that my startled eyes and burnt body and shrieking self must have alerted the guards at the building, because they soon ran into the forest themselves and put out the fire.

They scoured the entire forest from top to bottom. It wasn’t hard, given the destruction. But in the end, only Ezrem and I were found. Annie and the others were nowhere to be seen.

My stomach actually turned while I read that. Even though it was only a few paragraphs, the sheer horror that Rennio felt came right through, and I felt it.

A game.

Ring around the rosie, she called it.

The goal was to make yourself dizzy by spinning in a circle with other people in the group, ones you were holding hands with. Then, at the end, you were all supposed to fall together, laughing.

But she said—ashes, ashes.

She said she’d never let me fall, no matter what.

It was just a game. A kid’s game, one she didn’t expect me to understand.

I knew what she meant, deep down.

This part comes a little out of nowhere, but... it's just depressing to read after what just happened. The way something childish and innocent can be used to illustrate both a happier time and the horrors of a tragedy is very unsettling.

She left through ashes; I fell without laughing.

And remembering hurts.

I’m done.

Oh God, that just rubs it in...

But I can at least remember Ezrem without pain engulfing me. Ezrem, who has always been by my side. Even when he was teasing me, I knew that he wouldn’t betray me for anything. And now that it was just the two of us, our bond was that much stronger.

I often wondered what would have happened had he passed away in the fire with everyone else. With me being far too dependent on others, I can’t imagine that things would have gone well. I may have been crying forever, I may have gotten tangled up with a bad trainer, I may have gone off to die somewhere by myself due to some misfortune that I didn’t see coming…

I would dare to say something he didn't see coming arrived at his doorstep in the form of Sai.

One day, I returned with berries and simply told Ezrem, “I’m scared.”

He motioned for me to open my hands and dug his beak into the pile. Halfway through, he pulled back, finally realizing that I had said something.

“Scared of what?”

I signed. If anyone should know what I’m scared of, it should be Ezrem. “What if I die before I’m able to keep my species from going extinct?” I asked.

“Well,” Ezrem said, swallowing though he had no berry in his mouth, “you just can’t think like that, okay?”

“Why not? It’s entirely possible.”

“If you let the fear consume you, you are destined to fail!”

You could just tell him the truth, Ezrem...

“I suppose.” I paused. He was probably waiting for me to say something more, but I couldn’t think of anything. I stared at the berries, and then said awkwardly, “Will you… feed me?”

“Feed you?” Ezrem stared at me, perplexed. “Rennio, you’re not a baby anymore!”

“She used to feed me. Annie did.”

Ezrem snickered, but I knew that he was just hiding the pain that came with me saying her name. He dug his beak into my hands again, pulling back and taking a berry from my hand. He leaned in toward me, seemingly handing it to me, but he moved back again and chewed it himself. I stood there, disappointed, but it wasn’t like I wasn’t expecting it.

“Listen, Rennio!” he said after he finished the berry. “I’ll tell you what. You need more confidence. I want to teach you a catchphrase that you can have.”

“A catchphrase?” I said, dumbfounded.

“A catchphrase. Every time you battle a pokémon, you must say you have come back to the world! Every time you come back from getting food and water, you must say you have come back to the world. As time goes on you’ll say it in more and more situations. This will let everyone around you, including yourself, know that you are, indeed, alive, and that the elekid line lives on. Do you understand?”

So that's how that line came about... suddenly it's not so funny anymore.

I really feel bad for these two. They've gone through so much they don't deserve...

An unknown amount of time passed before the day we found Sai, before I felt like I really had returned to the world.

When I came back from searching for berries and shouting my silly catchphrase, I was expecting to find Ezrem still hiding behind bushes, watching. When I saw that instead, he was actually interacting with a trainer, I knew that something special was happening. Ezrem had finally found and picked someone!

I wasn’t expecting, however, to be attacked by another pokémon. And I wasn’t expecting Ezrem to get rejected, and for me to be welcomed with open arms. And I wasn’t expecting for the new trainer to try to take my name away.

Overall, I was overcome with mixed emotions. I knew that a trainer battling wild pokémon to capture them was fairly ordinary, but it had just never happened to me, so I wasn’t prepared in the slightest. The idea to defend myself hadn’t come to me; I let Ezrem do all the work to protect me, as usual. And when he was rejected despite his noble actions, I thought about unfair it was to him—after all his hard work, he had finally come to a decision only to be shut down. My heart ached for him, but there was nothing I could think of that would help him except to go along with Sai like he requested.

And that’s exactly what I did. I trusted Ezrem’s judgment, his reasoning. Even after Sai told me I had no name, I decided that he was an ideal trainer. I was okay with not having a name in his eyes as long as I knew my own true self, and as long as Ezrem knew who I was, too. I would continue to identify myself the way Annie identified me, so that her memory could live on.

It was the least I could do for her.

I don't know what it is exactly but something about this just doesn't feel right to me. Rennio deserves to be treated better than this and Ezrem is being left completely out in the cold, and neither of their situations sounds like anything Annie would have wanted. Earlier, Rennio expressed a fear of ending up with a bad trainer. I don't really understand how he can have that fear and then decide Sai is an ideal trainer even though he stripped Rennio of his name. That should be a huge red flag.

And just like that, Ezrem and I found ourselves making our way to Goldenrod City for the second time. This time was, of course, much different. We were with different pokémon, a different trainer… We were with complete strangers. The air was slightly tenser, for some reason I could not decipher just by looking at or making small talk with the strangers. Perhaps they had just gone through some ordeal, too, though I could not imagine anything as bad as our story.

The atmosphere was also much quieter. With Annie, we were always talking about something or another. Since she could understand us after being with us for such a long time, there was never a dull moment with her. I decided, then, to try to get to know my new teammates, my new trainer.

“Why don’t you guys tell us something about yourselves?” I said, talking to anyone who was willing to listen. I motioned over to Ezrem, making sure to include him in the conversations, too.

The three pokémon introduced themselves as Senori, Kuiora, and Atis. The names would be difficult to remember, but I’m sure I would learn them in time. I supposed that meant that he still thought I had no name, but he didn’t say anything in protest.

“Another trainer that gives their pokémon funny names!” Ezrem cried, keeping up with the rest of the group, just as he had promised me. I looked up at Sai, and noticed that he was still ignoring Ezrem—even more so, as he wouldn’t so much as glance at the bird.

“I do not have a funny name, thank you very much. I think it’s quite pretty,” Kuiora said, putting her small hands on her hips and glaring at Ezrem.

“It’s hardly what I’d call pretty.”

“You just say that before you’re a boy, and things aren’t pretty to you,” Kuiora retorted.

The arguing between them is pretty funny and a welcome distraction from the depressing events earlier.

“Sai,” I said, noticing our trainer hadn’t said much, either, despite being able to understand us, “where do you get your names for us, then?”

“I… I knew some people with the same names. I don’t know many other names or anything, so I use them,” Sai said, looking down at me. He tried to smile but failed, as if he were recalling some painful memory. His answer seemed simple yet weird in my eyes for some reason I couldn’t explain, so I didn’t press him, either. Yes, there certainly was some pain surrounding this group, pain I didn’t know about yet. I was sure it was just another thing I’d learn in time.

Something about Sai just opening up like this strikes me as odd. I'm surprised that he wasn't hesitant to share these things all that much.

If it were up to me, suffering wouldn’t exist. But it’s part of what makes us who we are, and personally, I was glad to find others who had experienced pain just like I had. So far, my journey with our new trainer seemed hopeful; it seemed like it would be a journey toward healing and peace.

I smiled at Sai. When it looked like he didn’t know how to respond, I said, “It was nice to meet you.”

“It was nice to have met you, too…” said Sai, offering a slight smile back.

“I had a trainer once before,” I said rather impulsively, catching myself off guard since I hadn’t talked about Annie to anyone except Ezrem. “She was really nice.”

“Yeah? Maybe she can travel with us sometime if we run into her,” Sai said, suddenly appearing hopeful and excited. I didn’t blame him, I really didn’t—Annie would be a great traveling companion if she were alive—but his words stung.

I wonder if this is going to lead into some much-needed development between Sai, Ezrem and Rennio. Their relationship could use some, I think.

Occasionally, a wild pokémon would attack and I would get to see my new teammates battle. While they seemed somewhat strong, I knew that had a long way to go compared to me and Ezrem. I vaguely wondered how impressed Sai would be once he battled with us (assuming he’d eventually warm up to Ezrem and want him on the team), but I was also overly pleased with the fact that he didn’t ask me to fight even once. A fear of battling accompanied my fear of death and injury, so I didn’t want to fight if I could help it. Annie never made me do anything I didn’t want to, but with Sai, it could have been different. I supposed I would have to wait and see.

Quick note first: "I knew that had a long way to go compared to me and Ezrem?" It looks like a word is missing from there.

Anyway, I predicted this would probably come up. Sai is not going to let Rennio off without ever battling. It's only a matter of time.

I noticed that Sai fed us plenty of food and made sure we were satisfied with a place to sleep. A few peaceful nights passed before we neared the end of the forest. Given mine and Ezrem’s past, I was also relieved about how our trek through Ilex Forest was rather uneventful. The only thing that particularly stood out to me was the damaged areas of the forest. They brought back haunting memories, mixed feelings, and an overwhelming desire to leave. Luckily, that’s exactly what we were going to do, and soon, I knew, since I recognized the forest’s exit. When we were close enough, I turned one final time to the destruction that caused me so much anguish, and said good-bye. I pretended to be walking beside Annie as I believed I was returning to the world, to our journey, starting with Goldenrod City.

A strong close; it feels right to talk like this at the end, because it's not just the end of a chapter. It's also the end of Rennio's suffering (hopefully) and the end of Rennio and Ezrem living in Annie's shadow.

Overall, a very enjoyable chapter. The writing quality was strong throughout, but there are parts where it becomes even more excellent than usual; those sections of exceedingly good writing form the center of your primary strength. Taken together with the previous chapter, these events play out as one very gut-wrenching ordeal. Both Ezrem and Rennio are compelling characters with both positive and negative traits, which makes them welcome additions to the cast. My only disappointment is that Annie is a posthumous character, because she seems like someone who would have been very enjoyable to read.

[Dragonicwari]

18th paragraph from the bottom (when they are talking about names);

“You just say that before you’re a boy, and things aren’t pretty to you,” Kuiora retorted.

I think you meant because, I haven't seen any other errors that haven't been pointed out yet

[diamondpearl876]

I wish you luck. I'm going to try the same with The Angel of Reckoning.

Good luck to you as well!

Thanks for putting up this flag now. Now I know to be ready for my heartstrings to be pulled.

LOL, no problem. It’s what I do.

Rennio's desperation really shines through here.

I always thought that part was a bit lacking but I wasn’t sure how, so I’m glad you thought otherwise.

Also, I’m not sure why the rest of the chapter is quoted in your comment, but something tells me you didn’t get to finish reading yet? Either way, thanks for commenting! LOL.

18th paragraph from the bottom (when they are talking about names);



I think you meant because, I haven't seen any other errors that haven't been pointed out yet

Oh dear, thanks for pointing that out. Will fix now.

[The Great Butler]

Also, I’m not sure why the rest of the chapter is quoted in your comment, but something tells me you didn’t get to finish reading yet? Either way, thanks for commenting! LOL.

Yeah, that's what happened. I got very tired while doing the review and I didn't want to give you a low-quality one.

I've edited the rest of the review in, so please have a look.

[diamondpearl876]

I like this detail, too. A lot of stories tend to romanticize Pokemon trainers to some degree, so to see a character engaging in a trivial vice helps it stand out, I think. Her way of telling Rennio that he can't have one is really cute, too.

I agree that a lot of fics romanticize trainers, so I’m glad you thought this helped Annie stand out. In a way I’m also a bit disappointed she isn’t a recurring character.

I'm sure I've mentioned it before, but one of your absolute strongest suits is how you humanize the Pokemon. I never thought I'd be reading a line in which a Pokemon thinks about what smoking a cigarette is like, but seeing something so casual through the eyes of a Pokemon is something I like very much.

Thanks for the compliment. I usually worry about not making pokémon have enough animal-like qualities because they just naturally come to me as humanized creatures. So it’s good to know someone likes the way I represent them.

I can't help but wonder if this is a sort of lampshading of how a Pokemon can hatch from an Egg, be nicknamed and get sent immediately into battles in the games.

It is, lol… I actually talked with a friend about how unrealistic that seemed while writing this chapter.

I would take that as a credit to you as a writer, though - it's not easy to so drastically make readers feel differently about characters by simply changing the viewpoint that events are seen through.

Well, thanks for the compliment again! I’m glad to see that you like that part of my writing as well since I usually interpret your changing viewpoints of the characters (specifically Sai) as a negative thing.

I don't know what it is exactly but something about this just doesn't feel right to me. Rennio deserves to be treated better than this and Ezrem is being left completely out in the cold, and neither of their situations sounds like anything Annie would have wanted. Earlier, Rennio expressed a fear of ending up with a bad trainer. I don't really understand how he can have that fear and then decide Sai is an ideal trainer even though he stripped Rennio of his name. That should be a huge red flag.

Rennio decides to trust Sai as a trainer simply because Ezrem does. And there’ll definitely be more development between the three of them that will help change this.

Thanks for commenting! Your reviews are always nice to read and very helpful.

[Sidewinder]

Chapter 10

just because she was the type of person that made you enjoy your name just because of the way she said it

That was very nicely written. I can relate to that in a big way. When my wife says my name in the street, at a store, or whenever, it gives me this warmth that starts in my stomach and radiates outward. I'm getting the feeling that someone you know IRL does this for you as well, because to me, the only way you would know to write that is if you've experienced it before. You certainly have a knack for feelings and getting people to pay attention to them because I've been stuck on that sentence for almost five minutes lol. Nicely done

and therefore she was also easy to manipulate.

That was um, unexpected

I wanted to travel through the future so that my journey with her could finally be over, and I could permanently find a place I could call home.

I liked that portion quite a bit as well. Obviously Ezrem is savy enough to manipulate his trainer into doing what he wants, and to me he's coming off as being capable of being vicious about it, but the quoted portion above suggests an almost child-like demeanor that clashes with a personality that's certainly adult. It's a weird mix that I'm liking.

despite the fact that I can never be formally caught. My old pokéball was out there somewhere, but if Sai was the one, he would be okay with that…

I would have been angry if you hadn't brought that up because that's the first thing that came to my mind once the story of Ezrem's trainer came up. Nice

After I dropped it to the ground, I started jumping up and down, up and down to show my excitement. But still, Sai’s facial expression was blink, his body limp.

I would have loved to have seen that haha. I pictured it quite clearly in my mind, and though you ended it with Ezrem stopping and speaking with Sai, I could see him tackling Sai and screaming, "DO YOU NOT UNDERSTAND HOW EXCITED I AM?!?! SEE HOW IM FLAPPING AROUND, MORON?!?!" Especially since his apparent dreams may be coming to fruition and he can't do anything about it lol

“He can understand you,” the sentret replied automatically, emotionlessly.

“He can?” I asked just as automatically.

Hmm, you might consider getting rid of one of the automatically's. It read weird to me and made me stop

I heard a crackling sound and a distinct humming noise.

That was awesome. I can picturing him sounding like a powered up electrical transformer. That would get extremely annoying.

hug the poor electric-type

I know for sure this is the second, and possibly the third time you've referred to Rennio as the 'poor' electric type. I can see why you use that word because of his story and demeanor, but surely someone as wordy as you can come up with a different way to describe him rather than repeating the same one again and again.

Chapter 11

She never looked at the ground or at the sky as she walked, because she wasn’t afraid of the never-ending path in front of her.

Awesome awesome...Sometimes I wonder who you're describing when you write things like this. I suppose it's easier for me to believe that you are drawing out these passages from people you know rather than you are truely this fantastic of a writer, but in all seriousness, wow. I couldn't have come up with that kind of passage if I tried. Nicely done

But I was the first to run.

Hmm, Rennio has a few qualities reminiscent of Senori and the guilt he carries. Though Senori is much more up front about it. I'm not sure whether it has to do with Rennio's age and inexperience or maturity level, but I do have the feeling that these side issues are going to get bigger and bigger as the story progresses. Hopefully Senori can help him with that, but at the same time Senori may be too introverted to help. Or I may be totally off base with my thinking here. Meh, I suppose you and I are continuing our tradition of commenting on something that we both think doesn't make sense to the other haha

Ezrem had told me so many times, so many times: I was the last of my species. If I were to die, there would never be another elekid or electabuzz or electivire.

That really makes me hate Ezrem

And remembering hurts.

More so than knives. Such a simplistic sentence, but you still drive a point home even just using three words

there was always the hope in the back of our minds that said Annie would come back for us someday, somehow.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure that hope only exists with one of them

“Will you… feed me?”

That was awesome too lol. Hugging that defense of Annie when he's scared and hoping that Ezrem could somehow fill in that role. Out of both chapter ten and eleven, the quoted portion is by far my favorite.

“I… I knew some people with the same names. I don’t know many other names or anything, so I use them,” Sai said, looking down at me.

Once again you're able to reveal something without revealing anything at all lol. My 'Sai used to be a Pokemon' theory is gone for the moment and I've formulated a new one that I'm going to keep close for awhile. The 'people' he used did it for me. People refer to other people as people, and it just seems odd to me that a Pokemon would do it when referring to other Pokemon. Hell, I'm probably still wrong lol, but that's what's fun about it. *Sigh* <---- Can be read two different ways haha

Well, two very good chapters as always. I'm surprised you added both new characters so quickly, but you were able to do it smoothly and I liked how you filled it up with such an impressive and emotional backstory (more from Rennio's side than Ezram's, but still) I'm looking forward to see what's going to happen in Goldenrod especially since you said that you'll have a new chapter up soon, and yes in the back of my mind I want Sai to punch Ezrem very hard across the beak lol.

[Sid87]

Yes, I remember her like it was yesterday… I remember even the little things that I observed over the years. She refused to sleep on her sides, so as to never leave her back wide open. She only spoke of Arceus to those who didn’t believe, again, to make them cringe all out of good fun. She never looked at the ground or at the sky as she walked, because she wasn’t afraid of the never-ending path in front of her.

As per usual, impeccable description and characterization. I can totally see the former trainer a real person by this point. Mischievous in a harmless sort of way and philosophical and fun-loving. It'll be interesting when she meets Sai because, like I said, I'm sure she isn't dead.

When she was done, she took out a device which sparked a bit of fire, and started all over again.

Hmmm...what an interesting little detail. How is that going to come back into play? Nice foreshadowing!

I wanted to stay. I wanted to stay and protect her, protect those green eyes in a fire that was turning everything gray.

But I was the first to run.

Annie.

Gorgeous dialogue here. This isn't quite the dopey, silly, "Rennio is back to the world!" Elekid we met last chapter.

My hunger and desire for warmth waited, and that was fine. I didn’t know much of anything at the time, but I felt safe here. And that was enough.

I might be making something up that isn't your intention, but the juxtaposition of Rennio's longing for warmth against the fire that killed the girl he cared so much for is really nice. There's all this... "The fire was bad, the fire was bad!", and then there is "I just wanted to be warm". And when that was what he wanted, Annie kept it from him. Later, the warmth (the fire) took Annie from him. I dunno. It's working really well in my head.

This belief of almost being extinct had frozen my very being many times in the past. Because of this fear, I was unable to participate in battles, since there was always the possibility being hurt beyond repair. Because of this fear, death consumed my thoughts even in the safest of situations. Because of this fear, it was my goal in life to just be able to survive or create another one of my species.

Again, this conflicts heavily with the seemingly happy-go-lucky, dopey Rennio we were introduced to last chapter. I wonder why he acts like that when he is, in truth, much darker inside,.

All I knew was that I must have been running an awfully long time with an awfully large stroke of luck following shortly behind. All I knew was that my startled eyes and burnt body and shrieking self must have alerted the guards at the building, because they soon ran into the forest themselves and put out the fire.

The two "All I knew" bits here tend to bump against each other. It just seems like...the first obviously wasn't all he knew if there was more that he knew.

She left through ashes; I fell without laughing.

And remembering hurts.

I’m done.

This part MIGHT be just a touch too melodramatic, in my opinion. It almost reads like bad teenage poetry.

Warmth was an afterthought; we never made fires.

Oh, there it is again.

I’d come back with berries every day, and I’d stare at him expectedly.

Maybe this is supposed to be "expectantly"?

I signed. If anyone should know what I’m scared of, it should be Ezrem. “What if I die before I’m able to keep my species from going extinct?” I asked.

I think that is supposed to be "sighed", not "signed".

And when he was rejected despite his noble actions, I thought about unfair it was to him—after all his hard work, he had finally come to a decision only to be shut down.

I think you missed as word in there. "...about HOW unfair it was to him..."

-Okay, that wasn't bad. The writing, as always, was fantastic. Some really nice stuff there. The only thing that bogged the chapter down for me somewhat was, well, Rennio. He's just not that engaging to me yet. He's sad and naive and childlike, okay. But I wasn't really gripped by him at any particular point. There were also some moments where the narrative felt more like your writing (this far in, I feel like I know it well enough to say such a thing) and less like it was coming from Rennio himself. It made him feel a little bit two-dimensional to me.

I guess, as a comparison, I don't like Atis. But that's because I don't like the character you have given him. My disdain for him is as a character, so you are evoking an emotion from me. I didn't really get that from Rennio. He's just kind of...there. And there's his backstory. And, again, the description and the story-telling were good, but Rennio himself was a miss to me.

But it is only the first chapter featuring him, so there's plenty of time for this to change. Not trying to be a downer, just stating my feelings. I think what it might be is that you are such a good writer that all your characters thus far have come across as eloquent and full of life and feelings. And after last chapter, I was kind of expecting Rennio to be a little herpy-derpy. And when he wasn't, I just kind of thought "this narration reads a lot like Senori's or Ezrem's or Atis'", and it threw me.

[diamondpearl876]

That was very nicely written. I can relate to that in a big way. When my wife says my name in the street, at a store, or whenever, it gives me this warmth that starts in my stomach and radiates outward. I'm getting the feeling that someone you know IRL does this for you as well, because to me, the only way you would know to write that is if you've experienced it before. You certainly have a knack for feelings and getting people to pay attention to them because I've been stuck on that sentence for almost five minutes lol. Nicely done

I agree that one of my biggest strong points is emotion. And yes, I do have someone like that, LOL. He always calls me by nicknames so when he actually says my real name it’s great. By the way, must feel cool to be able to say “wife” now.

I would have been angry if you hadn't brought that up because that's the first thing that came to my mind once the story of Ezrem's trainer came up. Nice

Oh my, glad I didn’t make you angry! LOL. But yeah, old pokéballs are something I wonder about for some reason, so I included it.

Awesome awesome...Sometimes I wonder who you're describing when you write things like this. I suppose it's easier for me to believe that you are drawing out these passages from people you know rather than you are truely this fantastic of a writer, but in all seriousness, wow. I couldn't have come up with that kind of passage if I tried. Nicely done

I’m not too observant of other people (kind of odd for a writer, I think, but oh well) so these things just come out of my head. Don’t know where they come from.

Hmm, Rennio has a few qualities reminiscent of Senori and the guilt he carries. Though Senori is much more up front about it. I'm not sure whether it has to do with Rennio's age and inexperience or maturity level, but I do have the feeling that these side issues are going to get bigger and bigger as the story progresses. Hopefully Senori can help him with that, but at the same time Senori may be too introverted to help. Or I may be totally off base with my thinking here. Meh, I suppose you and I are continuing our tradition of commenting on something that we both think doesn't make sense to the other haha

Nah, it totally makes sense. I actually hadn’t really thought of their similarities or anything or how they could help each other, so thanks for bringing that up.

Well, two very good chapters as always. I'm surprised you added both new characters so quickly, but you were able to do it smoothly and I liked how you filled it up with such an impressive and emotional backstory (more from Rennio's side than Ezram's, but still) I'm looking forward to see what's going to happen in Goldenrod especially since you said that you'll have a new chapter up soon, and yes in the back of my mind I want Sai to punch Ezrem very hard across the beak lol.

[/quote]

I thought putting them both back to back would be fitting. And Ezrem has got quite another thing coming to him, so don’t you worry about him.

As per usual, impeccable description and characterization. I can totally see the former trainer a real person by this point. Mischievous in a harmless sort of way and philosophical and fun-loving. It'll be interesting when she meets Sai because, like I said, I'm sure she isn't dead.

LOL. I’ll tell you now so you’re not disappointed later: she isn’t going to show up. I do believe something happened to her in that fire.

Again, this conflicts heavily with the seemingly happy-go-lucky, dopey Rennio we were introduced to last chapter. I wonder why he acts like that when he is, in truth, much darker inside,.

I blame Ezrem.

The two "All I knew" bits here tend to bump against each other. It just seems like...the first obviously wasn't all he knew if there was more that he knew.

Fair enough. I don’t know why I write things like this sometimes.

This part MIGHT be just a touch too melodramatic, in my opinion. It almost reads like bad teenage poetry.

LOL. Well, focusing on emotions in my chapters, I was expecting something to be too melodramatic at some point. Thanks for pointing it out.

Okay, that wasn't bad. The writing, as always, was fantastic. Some really nice stuff there. The only thing that bogged the chapter down for me somewhat was, well, Rennio. He's just not that engaging to me yet. He's sad and naive and childlike, okay. But I wasn't really gripped by him at any particular point. There were also some moments where the narrative felt more like your writing (this far in, I feel like I know it well enough to say such a thing) and less like it was coming from Rennio himself. It made him feel a little bit two-dimensional to me.

I guess, as a comparison, I don't like Atis. But that's because I don't like the character you have given him. My disdain for him is as a character, so you are evoking an emotion from me. I didn't really get that from Rennio. He's just kind of...there. And there's his backstory. And, again, the description and the story-telling were good, but Rennio himself was a miss to me.

But it is only the first chapter featuring him, so there's plenty of time for this to change. Not trying to be a downer, just stating my feelings. I think what it might be is that you are such a good writer that all your characters thus far have come across as eloquent and full of life and feelings. And after last chapter, I was kind of expecting Rennio to be a little herpy-derpy. And when he wasn't, I just kind of thought "this narration reads a lot like Senori's or Ezrem's or Atis'", and it threw me.

I appreciate your honesty. I’ll have to work on his character so it seems less two-dimensional. Not sure how I’m going to do that yet, but I’ll figure it out. Thanks for commenting!

[diamondpearl876]

SURVIVAL PROJECT

chapter 12 ; [ATIS]
influence

*

He felt like progress.

…Sometimes, anyway. I couldn’t tell most of the time.

On one hand, I had been able to leave Earl and the wild kids that attended the Violet City pokémon school, just like I wanted. I was no longer able to stand giving myself up to the concept of pokémon training day after day, and Sai rescued me from that when I needed him most. But traveling with Sai was partly like being part of my nightmares, where we were training for the sake of training, getting badges for the sake of having them, and not having any future goal in mind. The other half of the journey consisted of being free, of being able to explore the world and see it for what it is. And that was what I liked. I wanted Sai to be able to contribute to the world in some way that didn’t involve pokémon, and he was beginning to do that by slowing down his journey, but… Well, yes, Sai felt like progress—but only sometimes.

And somehow, I know that pokémon don’t often get a second chance to choose their trainers. I can only count on one hand the amount of situations that could offer a second chance, and I don’t even have that many fingers. More importantly, neither scenario is pretty: a trainer either dies or abandons his pokémon. As much as I despised being the pokémon of a trainer, I wouldn’t wish that upon myself or anyone else.

But Marty, when he came along, he presented what originally seemed to be unthinkable to a trainer, people who normally can’t stand being separated from their partners. He forced Sai into reconsidering his choice in pokémon. He forced Sai into thinking about our opinions and desires and dreams. And Sai gave us a choice—to stay or go! The choice to go or stay, it was as simple as that, really, and not one that many trainers would have the guts to offer.

When it was my turn to decide and answer, I wasn’t sure what to say. Again, Sai felt like progress, but was it enough to me? Was it worth it to stay until the boy finished his journey and had to find something else to do with his life? Was it worth it to leave and try to make it on my own in a society where pokémon are nothing more than pets or tools of violence? I weighed my options right then and there, but I was very limited on time. I simply said that I needed time to think about it, and at least it was true.

So, when we were making our way to Goldenrod City, I knew I still had a choice to make. Though Sai seemed strict and set in his ways, I knew that he wouldn’t honestly take my choice away from me if I decided to bring it up again. He was clearly following someone else’s rules and setting his own aside, only allowing them to be set free when he deemed it safe and perhaps necessary. I felt that, this far into the journey, I could say this with certainty, when my life was anything but certain…

It seemed especially so when Sai suddenly stopped walking, when I was expecting him to keep going and going until he reached the gym, even if it took all his energy and hours and hours of no sleep. It wouldn’t be out of character for him, anyway. But he stopped, and I crashed into the back of his legs accidentally.

“Sai?” I said. He was glancing at a lone building in front of us. It was surrounded by a short white fence where cries of happy and playful pokémon could be heard inside. The sign ahead read: Daycare Center—We Take Care of All Pokémon! After the previous ordeal, I vaguely wondered if he was considering abandoning us here, but the thought fled from my mind just as quickly as it came. I also knew that he wouldn’t do that…

“A daycare is a place where people or pokémon stay and get taken care of, right? Fed and bathed and stuff?” he asked, turning toward Senori. I wondered how Senori would know, but didn’t say anything, as usual.

“I don’t know,” Senori admitted, “but we can always go inside and ask, if you’re really curious.”

“I am,” Sai said, moving forward now to the door. I followed closely behind him, careful not to have the chance of bumping into him again.

When we got inside, there was an older woman sitting behind a counter, reading a book. She glanced up at us and immediately stood and smiled as if she hadn’t had any visitors in years. Perhaps she was lonely after being only with pokémon. I would be lonely, too, if I was stuck with them for an extended period of time.

“Hello!” she said, putting her hands together and holding them up to her face gleefully. “Welcome to the daycare center! How can I help you?”

“You take care of pokémon, right?” Sai said, not even bothering to greet her.

“Yes, me and my husband take care of pokémon here. He’s out in the back giving a young pichu a bath right now”—so maybe she wasn’t lonely after all, I thought, and smiled, too—“and that’s just one example of what we do here. If you need a vacation day, we’re here for you! If your pokémon wants a unique place to train, this is a place to do it. We’re here for any reason you made need our services.”

“Ah, yes…” Sai said, taking his backpack off and rummaging through it. “I caught a bunch of magikarp the other day. I know I can’t carry more than six pokémon, and I know I won’t be using them on my team, so…”

“So you want us to take care of them?” the older lady finished for him.

“Exactly,” Sai said. He took out one pokéball and placed it on the counter. He went through his backpack again and pulled out another pokéball. And another. And another… In total, I counted about twenty of them. The older lady looked stunned rather than eager now.

“Son, do you know how much it’s going to cost for us to keep all of these magikarp?” she asked.

Sai looked down to the ground, and I could see that his face was turning red. “I don’t know why I caught them. I mean, I was going to use them for food… but I thought about it and that didn’t seem like a good idea…”

“You were going to eat them?”

“Yeah… I mean, yeah, isn’t that normal?”

“I’m glad you changed your mind,” she said, ignoring his question. “But it will cost a lot for you to leave them here, depending on how long it takes you to come back for them.”

“I don’t intend on coming back.”

“You don’t?”

“I have no use for them. I know they’re probably expecting a trainer to take care of them, and this is my way of showing them that they were in my thoughts. I hope you understand. They were in an old, small cave with terrible water before, and here, maybe they’ll be treated better.”

“So you’re giving them to us to keep.”

“I will give you anything. I will pay you now if you want instead,” Sai said, looking through his backpack again, probably for money.

“That would be acceptable,” she said, and told him how much it would cost. As soon as she told him, Sai paused while looking through his backpack, as if he was reconsidering his choice, but he went through with it and paid the older lady. He had a strained look on his face. I wondered if he was guilty for spending money after carelessly buying so much in Azalea Town.

But that became an afterthought as we left and kept heading toward our destination. I kept repeating the scene over and over in my head and noted that Sai could let go of pokémon—if he really tried.

I supposed that was a start.

*

Goldenrod City surely lived up to its name. The outside of each building was built with yellow bricks, save for the pokémon center, which looked like every other one we had seen so far: made of a grey exterior with a red roof, and a medical sign on the top to indicate the building’s purpose. Even the shopping center looked different than the others we had seen so far. Getting closer, I could tell that instead of it being a normal mart, it was an entire mall, with several floors and various types of sales inside. Several people were walking in, while others were walking out with bags in hand.

“This city is huge,” Kuiora pointed out as we kept walking around, getting ourselves familiar with the area we would be in for at least the next few days.

“It is! I wonder what they need all these buildings for, anyway,” Senori said.

“There’s a gambling place,” I said, reading the sign of the building we had just passed. I kept reading them as we went by. “And a radio tower. A flower shop, a bowling alley… Regular houses…”

It occurred to me, then, that I should try to take Sai around the town and expose him to these other places unrelated to pokémon, to at least expose him to other ideas out there in the world. It was worth a shot, anyway. The worst case scenario would be that Sai would despise everything and anything about each place, but the boy seemed to be excited about every little thing back in Azalea Town, so that was unlikely. Still, I could tell that he was slowing down quite a bit. I would have to observe his new tired behavior so that I could get used to it, and not be as negatively affected by it as I was by his previous outburst.

“Sai?” I said again, though this time I didn’t bump into his leg. Instead, I pulled on his pants leg, trying to get his attention as best as I could. I wasn’t used to trying to get another person’s attention, and didn’t know how much was too much or how much was too little. Still, my efforts seemed to work as he stopped to peer down at me expectantly, saying nothing in order to let me speak. “After we go to the pokémon center, why don’t we… you know… actually explore the town more thoroughly? I mean… if you’re okay with that, that is…”

“Like go into the buildings and stuff?”

“Yes!” I said a little too loudly. He was understanding me pretty well; things were going smoothly so far already. “Um, again, if that’s all right with you.”

Sai hesitated for a moment, lost in thought. After a few moments of silence and awkward staring, he finally said, “Sure, if that’s what you want. I want to go to the gym first to set up a battle appointment first, but I’ll make it happen in two weeks.”

Though this was clearly not like his ordinary self, I was cheering on the inside.

*

Within the hour, it was official: the gym battle would take place two weeks from today. Since we were already so close to the gym, we stopped by to set up Sai’s “appointment.” I didn’t know why he felt compelled to schedule the gym battle, since what we had done so far was just approach the gym leader when we were ready, but he simply explained that he was following the rules now that he knew them better. As his pokémon, I felt obligated to go along with him, so I stayed quiet.

That night, we stayed in the pokémon center, with all of us staying in the same room. Sai explained that although he was earning money from winning pokémon battles with trainers, he didn’t have enough anymore to cover the cost of all of us having our own room after the encounter with the daycare lady. None of us complained, as this was nothing new, though there were whispers about what we’d do about food. I lay on the top bunk, as always, remembering how he knew this about me, and fell asleep wondering what else he knew and kept to himself.

The day after, the first place I took him to was the shopping mall. With the building being as large as it was, surely there was something unrelated to pokémon inside. And I was right. While there were floors dedicated to supplies and pokémon food, there were sections for clothes, gifts, candy, video games, music, movies, and much more.

“You can buy us more shirts,” Kuiora said casually, walking behind Sai to stay close to Ezrem, who was just peering around, exploring the place like everyone else.

“You can have one, but I don’t want one,” Senori said. “The last one covered my tail and made things feel really weird for me.”

I wouldn’t have minded a shirt to feel more human, but I said nothing and watched as Sai looked around, trying to decide where to go first. I tried to push him toward the movie section since he was having trouble choosing, but he said, “I’ve never seen a movie in my life. I don’t know.”

“You’ve never seen a movie before?” said Rennio, who was also standing close to Ezrem. I was just glad it was the bird and not me. “Even me and Ezrem have seen a movie before. We saw one about a boy and a girl who wanted to erase their memories of each other, but then changed their minds and had to go through a lot of trouble to remember each other.”

“It sounds interesting… People make up things like that?”

“Yeah. Watching movies is something every human should do,” Rennio added, nodding.

“I don’t think it’d be appropriate to see one… Maybe some other time,” Sai said after a moment, and I stopped pushing him in that direction. The last thing I wanted to do was make him uncomfortable. Instead, I offered to take him to the gift shop. Surely he had someone back home to think of, even if he didn’t speak about his home too often.

“There’s one person,” he said, his voice quiet. “I don’t know what she’d like…”

“That’s the point of shopping—to look around and see!” I said, pushing him over there. Where I was getting this energy and motivation from, I didn’t know, but it was nice. This time, he accepted and didn’t complain.

When we finally got over there, he glanced at the various items that were stocked on the shelves. There were picture frames, bobble heads, cards, a section for the cheapest little trinkets, plush dolls. Kuiora was glancing through the shelves as well, finding a totodile plush doll and hugging it tightly to herself.

“Look at this, Ezrem! This is what I used to look like! Don’t I look much tougher now?” she said, looking at him expectantly.

“Yes, yes you do,” Ezrem said, smiling at her.

Senori was following Sai, probably eager to see what he’d choose. The sentret was always watching out for our trainer, I noticed, and that was for the best, seeing as how I couldn’t properly do it myself…

Eventually, I caught up to the two of them and started following Sai, too. He was roaming the aisles, lingering at some of them and not others. He didn’t appear to be interested in anything in particular until he came across the shelf with pieces of various outdoor equipment. There were tents, pieces of sports equipment, and a shelf for all of the smaller items, like pocket knives. And that’s exactly what he picked up: a pocket knife. He held it out in his outstretched hands, turning it over and over in his palm.

“You want that for her?” I asked incredulously.

“That’s not a very girly gift, you know,” Senori said, folding his arms and smiling.

“She’s a fan of weapons,” said Sai.

“Sounds dangerous,” Senori said, his grin disappearing from his face.

“Hmm,” was all he replied with.

“Everyone’s got a secret,” Ezrem said, coming up behind me and scaring me to the point where I almost jumped. My body turned in his direction, my breath quickly accelerating at his presence. I didn’t know if there were any ill feelings about attacking his partner, and quite frankly, his cunning personality frightened me considerably.

“W-What do you mean?” I asked. I was losing my confidence rather quickly. At least I had gotten Sai to think about something other than the gym, but now Ezrem was here.

“Who knows what he really wants to do with that knife?” he said. He fluffed up his feathers and pretended like what he was saying was nothing, though the thought seemed sinister to me, even though I didn’t think Sai was a sinister person. “There’s a secret in everyone, in every place! I bet plenty of people have stolen from this mall. My old trainer used to do so when she was out of money and desperate for food!”

“W-Well, we’re not stealing anything… even though we’re low on money…” I said in Sai’s defense, though in my opinion, I was doing poorly. Apparently, Ezrem thought so, too.

“I’m just saying,” Ezrem said. “How well do you really know your trainer?”

Not very well, I thought, but kept my mouth shut.

“Ezrem, be nice,” said Kuiora, who had been listening in on the conversation and had been giggling up until now.

“I am always nice! I’m just saying that I’d like to know my trainer real well, so I’m watching Sai.”

“You’re scaring Atis.”

“It’s not my problem if he gets scared so easily,” Ezrem retorted, grinning.

“Well, I don’t care. Just shut up. You’re not even Sai’s pokemon,” Kuiora said, going back to her childish ways, though I was thankful for it.

Needless to say, Ezrem went quiet after that comment. He watched Sai like a bird always seems to watch its prey. He made sure that Sai bought the pocketknife, and that was the end of the journey in the mall, since I couldn’t bring myself to push him anywhere else.

*

The next day, I brought him to the flower shop because the place sounded pretty innocent compared to the mall, where there was so many things to look at and consider. Ezrem wouldn’t be able to bring me down this time.

The flower shop was at the north end of the city, so I made sure to wake them all up early, though I wanted to stay at the top of the bunk and rest a little while longer. So did Sai, as it took quite a lot of shaking to get him to finally wake up, which was odd considering he never seemed to sleep. Now it seemed that he slept too much.

On the way to the flower shop, the aroma of the city changed. Before, the city air was polluted and not very appealing when breathed in. Now, the air smelled much more pleasant and inviting, which made me feel like we were going to a good place, one where we would all feel comfortable.

Inside we discovered the source of the beautiful aroma. There was a bunch of women, each of them doing their own chores within the shop. One was water the various plants, another was placing them in a satisfactory order, another waited at the counter, looking at us expectantly. From the look on her ecstatic face, I could tell that she didn’t get many men coming into the shop.

“Would you like to buy any flowers today?” she asked sweetly, cupping her hands together and holding them behind her back.

“Maybe,” Sai said quickly, and the rest of the group seemed to take that as permission to look around and see what they wanted. Kuiora was attracted to the blue flowers immediately, with Ezrem and Rennio following close behind. Senori went to the red flowers, and I stood by the yellow ones. Sai roamed around the shop, coming to each of us at least once.

When he reached Kuiora the second time, he picked out a blue flower, bent down a bit to see her face to face, and gave it to her, smiling.

“For you,” he said.

“Why?” she said, but she was reaching out nonetheless.

“For being my pokémon, of course,” he said as she took it from him.

One by one, he came to each of us and gave us a flower from the vases that we were standing by, and thanked us for being his pokémon. He even went over to Ezrem and thanked him for joining us, which was surprising to all of us considering the past rejection, but none of us protested. Then, he went to all of the individual ladies in the store and gave them one, too, saying, “You give out flowers every day, but how many times do you have flowers given to you?”

After seeing our trainer be so kind, I had to say that I was impressed. Senori must have noticed, too, as he decided to join in on the giving atmosphere and took out a red flower for Sai, trying to hand it to him.

“I don’t deserve one, but thank you,” Sai said. He took the flower from Senori’s hand, but then put it back into the vase, where he thought it belonged. Then he went up to the counter and paid for the flowers that he had given us and the ladies.

“You should take a vase with you, too, to put them in,” the lady at the counter offered, handing an empty one to him.

“What do I do with it?” Sai asked.

“Fill it with water and put the flowers in there so they don’t die. It’s on us, since you were so kind.”

“It’s okay. You don’t have to give me this.”

“We want to!” she said, smelling the blue flower in her hand and smiling.

“Well, it’s just a vase, right? Okay,” he said, finally giving into something. “Thank you, too.”

“Our pleasure,” said the lady at the counter.

The next day, I didn’t take Sai anywhere. I decided to take a day for myself, since this idea of taking charge of my life for once was absolutely draining on me. I stayed in the bunk all day as the others lounged around and talked. Sai filled the vase he got from the flower shop with water and put all the flowers we had bought into it. It didn’t look like a pretty bouquet, as the color combination wasn’t appealing with three blue flowers, one yellow, and one red. But I lay in bed all day looking at it and I smiled to myself anyway. After being rejected by Sasha and Marty, Sai had gotten the human interaction that he so desperately needed. And maybe even more important than that, he was showing us that he appreciated us for being with him. I thought, again, about my choice to stay or go. I was cherished where I was, there was no doubt. Sai wasn’t out to maliciously harm me or anything by wanting to do pokémon training; it was his own preference, and it just happened to be a preference that was similar to most others’ in the world. I decided to just keep going with my plan, to keep spending time with Sai and the others, and then I would give myself more time to decide. This wasn’t something that I could rush. No, this wasn’t something I had to rush at all…

*

I thought that maybe I’d regret it later, but I took him to the casino after the flower shop. I’d heard horror stories of people becoming addicted to gambling and losing all of their money, but I thought that we had nothing left to lose, being so low on money, anyway. And Sai didn’t seem like the type to get addicted to one thing, but instead to a bunch of things.

“This place is loud,” Rennio complained the moment we got inside. And indeed, it was loud. The sound of coins clanging against each other and on machines filled the air. Victory music was playing at some machines, but not others. There was angry shouting and cries of joy all at once. Yes, this place seemed to fit Sai perfectly, since he was happy one moment and furious the next and then seemingly sad. At least he seemed interested, but he was also completely lost.

“I have no idea what to do,” he admitted sheepishly.

“You’ve never heard of a casino before, either?” Ezrem cried, trying to be heard over the musical building.

“Nope.”

“Well, then. I know the perfect place for you to start,” Ezrem said, and I instantly forgave him for the ordeal at the shopping mall since he was choosing to take charge. He navigated the rows of games and slot machines, trying to find whatever it was that he was looking for. Eventually, we reached a table that had a wheel on top of it. The wheel consisted of black and red lines with various numbers on them. People were crowded around the table, murmuring excitedly.

“Roulette,” was all Ezrem said at first. When Sai still seemed confused, he continued, “You make bets on what color you think the ball will land on. Or you can bet on what kind of number the ball will land on. Whatever you want!”

“Sounds easy,” Sai said, walking up to the table and joining everyone else.

“Exactly!” said Ezrem, clearly proud of himself.

So Sai joined in on the next bet, with all of us sitting at the edge of table and watching intently. Most people were making complicated bets to try to get more money. They offered thirty pokédollars if the ball landed on a red number between one and eighteen, for example. But Sai focused on simplicity.

“It will land on black,” was all he said at first. When he was instructed to place money on the table to bet with, he did so, though he was reluctant. He looked at me, and I knew he was silently asking why I didn’t tell him we would be spending more money. I shrugged my shoulders, pretending that I didn’t know. The others encouraged him to put the money down anyway.

It turned out that Sai didn’t have to worry too much about money. In fact, it was the opposite. He ended up winning his first bet, and made a profit off of it. Then he won again. And again, with his simple bets. I wondered how he was so good at guessing when his chances were so low and there was no way that anyone could possibly win every time he played. Well, he did lose about once or twice, but that was it. In the end, he still made more than he lost. It reminded me of the dice he always carried around with him. When he introduced himself as my new trainer, he had instructed me to roll the dice, somehow knowing that the outcome of the roll would show a three—and sure enough, two black dots and one black dot showed up. How did he know? Was his intuition that reliable for him? As I watched him bet on red or black and win again and again, that seemed like the most plausible explanation.

I didn’t know how much Sai had earned from his adventures here at the casino, but he was smiling at the end, saying, “Now I don’t have to feel guilty for spending so much money at the daycare or at the flower shop. We can have food and a room at the pokémon center still!”

And that was all that mattered to him. He didn’t even want to leave and explore the rest of the place, he just wanted to win money at the game he was at. His childish eagerness over adult-like responsibilities made me giggle, which got me some odd looks from the others. I ignored them—was the image of a giggling hitmontop really that funny? It probably was, and the image of myself made me giggle again as we left, pokédollars still in Sai’s hands.

*

On the last day of our thorough exploration of Goldenrod City, I decided to take him to the radio tower. I didn’t know that it would be the last place we would be able to go. I just knew that Earl always used to listen to the radio back in Violet City, and the people on air always had something to say. There seemed to be no end to the amount of things they could share and laugh about. This, to me, was a good thing to show Sai. But my plan backfired.

Once again, I woke everyone up early because we had discovered that the radio tower was at the northern end of the city, like the flower shop. I wanted to make sure we had enough time to get to that part of the city and then browse the radio tower. Sai was more eager to get up today than he had been before, I noted, probably because of yesterday’s winning adventure.

When we arrived there, the man at the counter explained that the place was free. There wouldn’t be much to see, he said, because maintenance was being performed upstairs and we weren’t allowed to go any higher than the first floor. Once the man let us go, we thanked him and wandered around inside. Of course, there wasn’t much to see on the first floor. The place looked like the inside of any other building. The only striking feature I could see was that the counter that the man was at extended throughout the entire room, and even more people were behind the counter, looking at us expectantly and smiling warmly. One of them wore headphones and had an interesting, complex piece of machinery in front of them, but that was about it. There were stairs leading upstairs, but we weren’t sure whether or not we could go up, despite having paid to be here.

“Well,” Sai said dumbly. “This is it.”

“I guess so…” I said, disappointed, despite the warning we had received.

“Don’t look so forlorn, boy!” called the guy who had the headphones on. “Come over here!”

Sai obeyed instantly, and the rest of us followed. We got a closer look at the machinery the guy had. There was a microphone to accompany the headphones, and the flat part of the machine had a ton of buttons and words on it to indicate what each button did. I couldn’t read any of them upside down, though.

“Hello, guys!” the man behind the counter continued. I wondered why he was talking so loud, when we were right in front of him, clearly able to hear. “Welcome to the radio tower! I know you can’t go upstairs, so you’re probably wondering why you came here…”

“Definitely,” Kuiora butted in, peaking her head up over the counter. I winced.

“Well, you may not be able to look around the rest of the place, but you can get your spot on the radio right here! See this jar we have here?” he said, pointing to it. I hadn’t noticed it before. It was a small jar that had some pokédollars in it. “If you pay a small amount of money, I’ll record your voice so it appears on the radio. You can say just about anything you want!”

“Anything we want?” said Ezrem, who was now peering next to Kuiora.

“Well, almost anything. You must be appropriate, of course!”

“Nevermind,” said Ezrem, backing down from the counter.

“What about the rest of you? Some people just like to vent and complain, others say hi to their families, others talk about their pokémon… Why, just the other day, someone even came here just to mention that they had seen a Team Rocket member floating around the city recently,” he said, his voice growing quieter.

I could feel Sai tense up next to me almost instantly.

“T-Team Rocket?” he said.

“Yeah, the group of bad guys that took over—”

“I’m sorry, but we need to go now,” Sai said. He was turned around and walking before he was even done speaking. The man watched him go along with the rest of us.

“Are you guys confused? Because I’m confused,” Senori said to break the silence.

“Well, what are we waiting for? We have to listen to him! Let’s go!” Kuiora said, pulling along Ezrem, who pulled on one of the plugs on top of Rennio’s head.

Senori and I listened to her, knowing better than to deny her wishes. Senori waved good-bye to the man behind the counter and apologized for his trainer’s behavior.

When we were back out in the city air, we struggled to keep up. Since Kuiora, Ezrem, and Rennio got a head start, they had an easier time following Sai back to the pokémon center. We tried not to lose them, all the while wondering what was happening to Sai this time.

“Do you know what’s wrong with him?” Senori asked me, then started running on all fours, seeing that his thoughts were keeping us further and further behind. I shook my head and started running.

At the pokémon center, it was at least easy to find our room from the front lobby, since we’d gone done that hallway several times before. This time, though, none of us could get in because the door was locked. We all sat outside in complete silence, none of us daring to disturb our trainer. Eventually, though, Sai showed his face again.

“Atis?” he said, peering out into the hallway through a small crack in the door.

“Y-Yes?” I said, trying to stand up, but my feet were wobbly. I was the one responsible for this situation, yet I didn’t know how to take full responsibility. The idea was unfavorable to me, to say the least.

“Come in here, please,” he said softly, which calmed my nerves a bit, but not by much. I stumbled over Kuiora’s tail and she squealed. I apologized lamely, thinking now that neither the hallway nor the room was where I wanted to be. Sai seemed like the least threatening, so I just went into the room and quickly shut the door behind me before Kuiora could yell at me.

“Atis,” Sai said again.

I simply nodded, afraid to speak.

“I’m sorry, but we’ll have to go to the gym as soon as possible now. Forget the appointment,” Sai went on. “These people are following me. I just know it.”

“W-Who’s… following you, Sai?” I dared to ask.

Sai was quiet, then he spoke after a few moments: “Do you want to be closer to me or something? Are you feeling like the others are getting more attention or something? I didn’t know. You should have told me.”

I looked up, caught off guard. “N-No, that’s not—”

“I don’t know how to be close to people. Or pokémon, for that matter,” he said solemnly, ignoring me. “I’m not allowed to be close to anyone, so it’s fine. I guess. But if that’s what you want…”

I waited for him to go on, but he didn’t. He looked at me, his dark blue eyes full of sadness. The panic that he was in at the radio tower had vanished.

He went over to the bed and started rummaging through his backpack. He pulled out a marker, which I didn’t even know he had. It made me think that there was no end to the amount of things in his backpack, just like there was no end to the things to the radio.

“I use it to practice writing sometimes,” he said. “I don’t know what to do. It might sound weird, I know. I don’t know. We can share a secret about each other, all right? You share one secret, and I’ll share one of mine. You can read my secret, but I won’t read yours. You can write it on my back, and I’ll write yours on a piece of paper, since you don’t wear shirts.”

“Um,” was all I could think to say. A secret? About me? About my trainer? I had mixed feelings, as I usually did. I had never told anyone a secret about me since I was too shy. But it would be nice to know my trainer a bit more, and maybe it could help me make my decision…

“This could make us feel closer, you know? Since that’s what you want,” Sai went on. He went over to the table in the corner of the room, and picked up the piece of paper that had been lying there since the day we rented out the room. It had all of the pokémon center’s housing rules on it, but he took the marker and wrote over the words. Soon, I would be able to read those words, whatever they were. I noted that it took him a long time to write, as if writing each letter was agonizing for him.

When he was done, he took off his shirt. Since Earl had always told me I shouldn’t look at his body out of self-consciousness, I turned to look away from Sai as well. But then Sai came closer to me and bent down, making it hard to not see him. He handed me the marker and nodded.

“This is…” I said, trailing off. I didn’t know how to put it. It was weird, writing on a human’s back, was it not? Would it stay there forever? What if someone else saw? Couldn’t I just not write a secret, and Sai would never know?

But Sai seemed so calm compared to his panicky demeanor at the radio tower. I wanted to keep him calm. So I took the marker and wrote on his back as quickly as I could to get the awkwardness over with. I didn’t even have to think about what I wrote: I wish I was human.

Yes, I did wish I was a human. If I were human, I would do my absolute best to get rid of my shy demeanor. I’d travel the entire world, see what each city and town had to offer. I’d meet all the great kinds of people out there, and all the terrible kinds of people, too. I wouldn’t have pokémon to protect me; I’d protect myself. And as I traveled, I’d find out what I wanted to do with the rest of my life.

I wished the same for Sai.

I had believed that I had done a good job of finally forcing myself to do something I wanted in life. I had believed that I was doing a good thing for Sai by showing him around the city, proving to him that there was more to like than the pokémon that constantly followed him around. Perhaps I had been wrong, because now he was being paranoid. Now he seemed to be crazy again, thinking someone was stalking him, watching his every move. This seemed completely illogical to me, but there was nothing I could say to prove it to him. All I could think was that, at the end of the day, his life revolved around this journey for the gym badges. To him, there was nothing else, and though it bothered me, I couldn’t change him. His emotions and passion were fierce, his eyes set on one goal and one goal only. Still, I would wait out my decision. It wasn’t anything that I had to declare right now, and truthfully, I was afraid of deciding, anyway.

To thankfully distract me, Sai handed me the piece of paper he had written on, and turned to look away from me. I went to read it, both terrified and drawn to the idea at the same time—

I am always sick.

[The Great Butler]

SURVIVAL PROJECT

chapter 12 ; [ATIS]
influence

*

Ooh, Atis. Feels like it's been a while since we've had a chapter for him.

He felt like progress.

…Sometimes, anyway. I couldn’t tell most of the time.

On one hand, I had been able to leave Earl and the wild kids that attended the Violet City pokémon school, just like I wanted. I was no longer able to stand giving myself up to the concept of pokémon training day after day, and Sai rescued me from that when I needed him most. But traveling with Sai was partly like being part of my nightmares, where we were training for the sake of training, getting badges for the sake of having them, and not having any future goal in mind. The other half of the journey consisted of being free, of being able to explore the world and see it for what it is. And that was what I liked. I wanted Sai to be able to contribute to the world in some way that didn’t involve pokémon, and he was beginning to do that by slowing down his journey, but… Well, yes, Sai felt like progress—but only sometimes.

And somehow, I know that pokémon don’t often get a second chance to choose their trainers. I can only count on one hand the amount of situations that could offer a second chance, and I don’t even have that many fingers. More importantly, neither scenario is pretty: a trainer either dies or abandons his pokémon. As much as I despised being the pokémon of a trainer, I wouldn’t wish that upon myself or anyone else.

I should have realized sooner how important a perspective on Ezrem and Rennio Atis can offer. I'm really looking forward to this now.

But Marty, when he came along, he presented what originally seemed to be unthinkable to a trainer, people who normally can’t stand being separated from their partners. He forced Sai into reconsidering his choice in pokémon. He forced Sai into thinking about our opinions and desires and dreams. And Sai gave us a choice—to stay or go! The choice to go or stay, it was as simple as that, really, and not one that many trainers would have the guts to offer.

When it was my turn to decide and answer, I wasn’t sure what to say. Again, Sai felt like progress, but was it enough to me? Was it worth it to stay until the boy finished his journey and had to find something else to do with his life? Was it worth it to leave and try to make it on my own in a society where pokémon are nothing more than pets or tools of violence? I weighed my options right then and there, but I was very limited on time. I simply said that I needed time to think about it, and at least it was true.

I really appreciate how philosophical you're making Atis. Though the question of staying or going is a rather straightforward one, there's some significant weight behind it and Atis's examination of those philosophical questions really makes him more than just a Pokemon.

So, when were making our way to Goldenrod City, I knew I still had a choice to make. Though Sai seemed strict and set in his ways, I knew that he wouldn’t honestly take my choice away from me if I decided to bring it up again. He was clearly following someone else’s rules and setting his own aside, only allowing them to be set free when he deemed it safe and perhaps necessary. I felt that, this far into the journey, I could say this with certainty, when my life was anything but certain…

I notice Atis is taking note of something about Sai I noticed a long time ago, that Sai is following someone else's rules...

It seemed especially so when Sai suddenly stopped walking, when I was expecting him to keep going and going until he reached the gym, even if it took all his energy and hours and hours of no sleep. It wouldn’t be out of character for him, anyway. But he stopped, and I crashed into the back of his legs accidentally.

“Sai?” I said. He was glancing at a lone building in front of us. It was surrounded by a short white fence where cries of happy and playful pokémon could be heard inside. The sign ahead read: Daycare Center—We Take Care of All Pokémon! After the previous ordeal, I vaguely wondered if he was considering abandoning us here, but the thought fled from my mind just as quickly as it came. I also knew that he wouldn’t do that…

I hope he won't. That would be a rather unpleasant turn.

When we got inside, there was an older woman sitting behind a counter, reading a book. She glanced up at us and immediately stood and smiled as if she hadn’t had any visitors in years. Perhaps she was lonely after being only with pokémon. I would be lonely, too, if I was stuck with them for an extended period of time.

Something about that - the fact that Atis doesn't want to be among others of his own kind, at least for long - sticks with me. It just really says something to me for some reason.

“Hello!” she said, putting her hands together and holding them up to her face gleefully. “Welcome to the daycare center! How can I help you?”

“You take care of pokémon, right?” Sai said, not even bothering to greet her.

“Yes, me and my husband take care of pokémon here. He’s out in the back giving a young pichu a bath right now”—so maybe she wasn’t lonely after all, I thought, and smiled, too—“and that’s just one example of what we do here. If you need a vacation day, we’re here for you! If your pokémon wants a unique place to train, this is a place to do it. We’re here for any reason you made need our services.”

“Ah, yes…” Sai said, taking his backpack off and rummaging through it. “I caught a bunch of magikarp the other day. I know I can’t carry more than six pokémon, and I know I won’t be using them on my team, so…”

Wow, you actually remembered that! I even forgot about those Magikarp!

“So you want us to take care of them?” the older lady finished for him.

“Exactly,” Sai said. He took out one pokéball and placed it on the counter. He went through his backpack again and pulled out another pokéball. And another. And another… In total, I counted about twenty of them. The older lady looked stunned rather than eager now.

“Son, do you know how much it’s going to cost for us to keep all of these magikarp?” she asked.

Sai looked down to the ground, and I could see that his face was turning red. “I don’t know why I caught them. I mean, I was going to use them for food… but I thought about it and that didn’t seem like a good idea…”

“You were going to eat them?”

“Yeah… I mean, yeah, isn’t that normal?”

“I’m glad you changed your mind,” she said, ignoring his question. “But it will cost a lot for you to leave them here, depending on how long it takes you to come back for them.”

“I don’t intend on coming back.”

“You don’t?”

“I have no use for them. I know they’re probably expecting a trainer to take care of them, and this is my way of showing them that they were in my thoughts. I hope you understand. They were in an old, small cave with terrible water before, and here, maybe they’ll be treated better.”

I'm surprised Sai actually thought this deeply about the Magikarp and their fate. It makes me respect him a bit more again, and I think I'm coming to like just how erratic his personality is.

“So you’re giving them to us to keep.”

“I will give you anything. I will pay you now if you want instead,” Sai said, looking through his backpack again, probably for money.

“That would be acceptable,” she said, and told him how much it would cost. As soon as she told him, Sai paused while looking through his backpack, as if he was reconsidering his choice, but he went through with it and paid the older lady. He had a strained look on his face. I wondered if he was guilty for spending money after carelessly buying so much in Azalea Town.

But that became an afterthought as we left and kept heading toward our destination. I kept repeating the scene over and over in my head and noted that Sai could let go of pokémon—if he really tried.

I supposed that was a start.

I do feel like this point could have been a little stronger if we knew a little more about at least one of the Magikarp, though. That way, they would feel a little less like plot devices.

Goldenrod City surely lived up to its name. The outside of each building was built with yellow bricks, save for the pokémon center, which looked like every other one we had seen so far: made of a grey exterior with a red roof, and a medical sign on the top to indicate the building’s purpose. Even the shopping center looked different than the others we had seen so far. Getting closer, I could tell that instead of it being a normal mart, it was an entire mall, with several floors and various types of sales inside. Several people were walking in, while others were walking out with bags in hand.

Great description.

“This city is huge,” Kuiora pointed out as we kept walking around, getting ourselves familiar with the area we would be in for at least the next few days.

“It is! I wonder what they need all these buildings for, anyway,” Senori said.

“There’s a gambling place,” I said, reading the sign of the building we had just passed. I kept reading them as we went by. “And a radio tower. A flower shop, a bowling alley… Regular houses…”

I'm curious, can Atis read because he came from a school, or can all the Pokemon read?

It occurred to me, then, that I should try to take Sai around the town and expose him to these other places unrelated to pokémon, to at least expose him to other ideas out there in the world. It was worth a shot, anyway. The worst case scenario would be that Sai would despise everything and anything about each place, but the boy seemed to be excited about every little thing back in Azalea Town, so that was unlikely. Still, I could tell that he was slowing down quite a bit. I would have to observe his new tired behavior so that I could get used to it, and not be as negatively affected by it as I was by his previous outburst.

“Sai?” I said again, though this time I didn’t bump into his leg. Instead, I pulled on his pants leg, trying to get his attention as best as I could. I wasn’t used to trying to get another person’s attention, and didn’t know how much was too much or how much was too little. Still, my efforts seemed to work as he stopped to peer down at me expectantly, saying nothing in order to let me speak. “After we go to the pokémon center, why don’t we… you know… actually explore the town more thoroughly? I mean… if you’re okay with that, that is…”

At this point I'm getting a growing feeling that Atis is going to leave the group sometime soon. Call it a hunch, but I just feel like I'm moving in that direction. His interest in getting Sai to do new things is understandable, though - it will help both Sai and Atis himself in some ways.

“Like go into the buildings and stuff?”

“Yes!” I said a little too loudly. He was understanding me pretty well; things were going smoothly so far already. “Um, again, if that’s all right with you.”

Sai hesitated for a moment, lost in thought. After a few moments of silence and awkward staring, he finally said, “Sure, if that’s what you want. I want to go to the gym first to set up a battle appointment first, but I’ll make it happen in two weeks.”

Though this was clearly not like his ordinary self, I was cheering on the inside.

I think "ordinary" Sai is exactly what this inconsistent personality Sai is.

I continue to be intrigued by Atis. He's a curious one...

Within the hour, it was official: the gym battle would take place two weeks from today. Since we were already so close to the gym, we stopped by to set up Sai’s “appointment.” I didn’t know why he felt compelled to schedule the gym battle, since what we had done so far was just approach the gym leader when we were ready, but he simply explained that he was following the rules now that he knew them better. As his pokémon, I felt obligated to go along with him, so I stayed quiet.

Thanks for spending little time on the appointment being made. I was afraid the chapter would get bogged down in focusing on it.

That night, we stayed in the pokémon center, with all of us staying in the same room. Sai explained that although he was earning money from winning pokémon battles with trainers, he didn’t have enough anymore to cover the cost of all of us having our own room after the encounter with the daycare lady. None of us complained, as this was nothing new to us, though there were whispers about what we’d do about food. I lay on the top bunk, as always, remembering how he knew this about me, and fell asleep wondering what else he knew and kept to himself.

The day after, the first place I took him to was the shopping mall. With the building being as large as it was, surely there was something unrelated to pokémon inside. And I was right. While there were floors dedicated to supplies and pokémon food, there were sections for clothes, gifts, candy, video games, music, movies, and much more.

“You can buy us more shirts,” Kuiora said casually, walking behind Sai to stay close to Ezrem, who was just peering around, exploring the place like everyone else.

I had to smile here, with another mention of the shirts.

Curious that it took this long for Ezrem to be mentioned, though. I kind of thought he'd be having more interaction with Atis.

“You can have one, but I don’t want one,” Senori said. “The last one covered my tail and made things feel really weird for me.”

I wouldn’t have minded a shirt to feel more human, but I said nothing and watched as Sai looked around, trying to decide where to go first. I tried to push him toward the movie section since he was having trouble choosing, but he said, “I’ve never seen a movie in my life. I don’t know.”

“You’ve never seen a movie before?” said Rennio, who was also standing close to Ezrem. I was just glad it was the bird and not me. “Even me and Ezrem have seen a movie before. We saw one about a boy and a girl who wanted to erase their memories of each other, but then changed their minds and had to go through a lot of trouble to remember each other.”

I'm trying to think if I know what movie this is, but if it's a real movie or not, I suspect this is a Chekhov's Gun for something regarding Sai.

“It sounds interesting… People make up things like that?”

“Yeah. Watching movies is something every human should do,” Rennio added, nodding.

“I don’t think it’d be appropriate to see one… Maybe some other time,” Sai said after a moment, and I stopped pushing him in that direction. The last thing I wanted to do was make him uncomfortable. Instead, I offered to take him to the gift shop. Surely he had someone back home to think of, even if he didn’t speak about his home too often.

“There’s one person,” he said, his voice quiet. “I don’t know what she’d like…”

Did we just learn something about Sai's past?

I really want to see where this goes. This is really getting me excited to know more.

“That’s the point of shopping—to look around and see!” I said, pushing him over there. Where I was getting this energy and motivation from, I didn’t know, but it was nice. This time, he accepted and didn’t complain.

When we finally got over there, he glanced at the various items that were stocked on the shelves. There were picture frames, bobble heads, cards, a section for the cheapest little trinkets, plush dolls. Kuiora was glancing through the shelves as well, finding a totodile plush doll and hugging it tightly to herself.

“Look at this, Ezrem! This is what I used to look like! Don’t I look much tougher now?” she said, looking at him expectantly.

“Yes, yes you do,” Ezrem said, smiling at her.

Adorable, I like it.

Senori was following Sai, probably eager to see what he’d choose. The sentret was always watching out for our trainer, I noticed, and that was for the best, seeing as how I couldn’t properly do it myself…

Nice job keeping everyone in character and remembering their histories here.

Eventually, I caught up to the two of them and started following Sai, too. He was roaming the aisles, lingering at some of them and not others. He didn’t appear to be interested in anything in particular until he came across the shelf with pieces of various outdoor equipment. There were tents, pieces of sports equipment, and a shelf for all of the smaller items, like pocket knives. And that’s exactly what he picked up: a pocket knife. He held it out in his outstretched hands, turning it over and over in his palm.

“You want that for her?” I asked incredulously.

“That’s not a very girly gift, you know,” Senori said, folding his arms and smiling.

“She’s a fan of weapons,” said Sai.

Again, whoever this girl or woman from Sai's past is is really intriguing me. She certainly sounds quite unique.

“Sounds dangerous,” Senori said, his grin disappearing from his face.

“Hmm,” was all he replied with.

“Everyone’s got a secret,” Ezrem said, coming up behind me and scaring me to the point where I almost jumped. My body turned in his direction, my breath quickly accelerating at his presence. I didn’t know if there were any ill feelings about attacking his partner, and quite frankly, his cunning personality frightened me considerably.

“W-What do you mean?” I asked. I was losing my confidence rather quickly. At least I had gotten Sai to think about something other than the gym, but now Ezrem was here.

“Who knows what he really wants to do with that knife?” he said. He fluffed up his feathers and pretended like what he was saying was nothing, though the thought seemed sinister to me, even though I didn’t think Sai was a sinister person. “There’s a secret in everyone, in every place! I bet plenty of people have stolen from this mall. My old trainer used to do so when she was out of money and desperate for food!”

And now we get the Atis/Ezrem interaction I expected... and it doesn't disappoint. These two and their clashing is really something to see.

I can't tell if Ezrem is grandstanding or telling the truth about Annie here.

“W-Well, we’re not stealing anything… even though we’re low on money…” I said in Sai’s defense, though in my opinion, I was doing poorly. Apparently, Ezrem thought so, too.

“I’m just saying,” Ezrem said. “How well do you really know your trainer?”

Not very well, I thought, but kept my mouth shut.

“Ezrem, be nice,” said Kuiora, who had been listening in on the conversation and had been giggling up until now.

“I am always nice! I’m just saying that I’d like to know my trainer real well, so I’m watching Sai.”

“You’re scaring Atis.”

“It’s not my problem if he gets scared so easily,” Ezrem retorted, grinning.

“Well, I don’t care. Just shut up. You’re not even Sai’s pokemon,” Kuiora said, going back to her childish ways, though I was thankful for it.

Needless to say, Ezrem went quiet after that comment. He watched Sai like a bird always seems to watch its prey. He made sure that Sai bought the pocketknife, and that was the end of the journey in the mall, since I couldn’t bring myself to push him anywhere else.

That was slightly disturbing but a very entertaining exchange of characters. I really would like to see more of Ezrem and Atis going at it, because their parts stood out to me. Ezrem is clearly planning something, but he's being a lot more sneaky about it than Atis, who also has a plan but is going about it in a different way. The parallels between them are quite curious.

Kuiora's insertion into this scene was great, too.

The next day, I brought him to the flower shop because the place sounded pretty innocent compared to the mall, where there was so many things to look at and consider. Ezrem wouldn’t be able to bring me down this time.

I don't know about that, Atis...

“Would you like to buy any flowers today?” she asked sweetly, cupping her hands together and holding them behind her back.

“Maybe,” Sai said quickly, and the rest of the group seemed to take that as permission to look around and see what they wanted. Kuiora was attracted to the blue flowers immediately, with Ezrem and Rennio following close behind. Senori went to the red flowers, and I stood by the yellow ones. Sai roamed around the shop, coming to each of us at least once.

I wonder if Ezrem and Rennio following Kuiora to the blue flowers is significant in any way.

When he reached Kuiora the second time, he picked out a blue flower, bent down a bit to see her face to face, and gave it to her, smiling.

“For you,” he said.

“Why?” she said, but she was reaching out nonetheless.

“For being my pokémon, of course,” he said as she took it from him.

One by one, he came to each of us and gave us a flower from the vases that we were standing by, and thanked us for being his pokémon. He even went over to Ezrem and thanked him for joining us, which was surprising to all of us considering the past rejection, but none of us protested. Then, he went to all of the individual ladies in the store and gave them one, too, saying, “You give out flowers every day, but how many times do you have flowers given to you?”

Wow, Sai is really impressing me here. I know this can't last, but while it's here, it's nice to have him being so polite and thoughtful.

After seeing our trainer be so kind, I had to say that I was impressed. Senori must have noticed, too, as he decided to join in on the giving atmosphere and took out a red flower for Sai, trying to hand it to him.

“I don’t deserve one, but thank you,” Sai said. He took the flower from Senori’s hand, but then put it back into the vase, where he thought he belonged. Then he went up to the counter and paid for the flowers that he had given us and the ladies.

Ditto for Senori acting like this.

The next day, I didn’t take Sai anywhere. I decided to take a day for myself, since this idea of taking charge of my life for once was absolutely draining on me. I stayed in the bunk all day as the others lounged around and talked. Sai filled the vase he got from the flower shop with water and put all the flowers we had bought into it. It didn’t look like a pretty bouquet, as the color combination wasn’t appealing with three blue flowers, one yellow, and one red. But I lay in bed all day looking at it and I smiled to myself anyway. After being rejected by Sasha and Marty, Sai had gotten the human interaction that he so desperately needed. And maybe even more important than that, he was showing us that he appreciated us for being with him. I thought, again, about my choice to stay or go. I was cherished where I was, there was no doubt. Sai wasn’t out to maliciously harm me or anything by wanting to do pokémon training; it was his own preference, and it just happened to be a preference that was similar to most others’ in the world. I decided to just keep going with my plan, to keep spending time with Sai and the others, and then I would give myself more time to decide. This wasn’t something that I could rush. No, this wasn’t something I had to rush at all…

I'm kind of surprised Atis hasn't decided to stay yet. He seems very happy.

I thought that maybe I’d regret it later, but I took him to the casino after the flower shop. I’d heard horror stories of people becoming addicted to gambling and losing all of their money, but I thought that we had nothing left to lose, being so low on money, anyway. And Sai didn’t seem like the type to get addicted to one thing, but instead to a bunch of things.

Oh no, I can't imagine this'll end up well.

“This place is loud,” Rennio complained the moment we got inside. And indeed, it was loud. The sound of coins clanging against each other and on machines filled the air. Victory music was playing at some machines, but not others. There was angry shouting and cries of joy all at once. Yes, this place seemed to fit Sai perfectly, since he was happy one moment and furious the next and then seemingly sad. At least he seemed interested, but he was also completely lost.

“I have no idea what to do,” he admitted sheepishly.

“You’ve never heard of a casino before, either?” Ezrem cried, trying to be heard over the musical building.

“Nope.”

“Well, then. I know the perfect place for you to start,” Ezrem said, and I instantly forgave him for the ordeal at the shopping mall since he was choosing to take charge. He navigated the rows of games and slot machines, trying to find whatever it was that he was looking for. Eventually, we reached a table that had a wheel on top of it. The wheel consisted of black and red lines with various numbers on them. People were crowded around the table, murmuring excitedly.

“Roulette,” was all Ezrem said at first. When Sai still seemed confused, he continued, “You make bets on what color you think the ball will land on. Or you can bet on what kind of number the ball will land on. Whatever you want!”

Now I believe that Ezrem was telling the truth about Annie, because he knows how to play roulette.

Stop making me want a spinoff prequel about Annie. :P

“Sounds easy,” Sai said, walking up to the table and joining everyone else.

“Exactly!” said Ezrem, clearly proud of himself.

So Sai joined in on the next bet, with all of us sitting at the edge of table and watching intently. Most people were making complicated bets to try to get more money. They offered thirty pokédollars if the ball landed on a red number between one and eighteen, for example. But Sai focused on simplicity.

“It will land on black,” was all he said at first. When he was instructed to place money on the table to bet with, he did so, though he was reluctant. He looked at me, and I knew he was silently asking why I didn’t tell him we would be spending more money. I shrugged my shoulders, pretending that I didn’t know. The others encouraged him to put the money down anyway.

It turned out that Sai didn’t have to worry too much about money. In fact, it was the opposite. He ended up winning his first bet, and made a profit off of it. Then he won again. And again, with his simple bets. I wondered how he was so good at guessing when his chances were so low and there was no way that anyone could possibly win every time he played. Well, he did lose about once or twice, but that was it. In the end, he still made more than he lost. It reminded me of the dice he always carried around with him. When he introduced himself as my new trainer, he had instructed me to roll the dice, somehow knowing that the outcome of the roll would show a three—and sure enough, two black dots and one black dot showed up. How did he know? Was his intuition that reliable for him? As I watched him bet on red or black and win again and again, that seemed like the most plausible explanation.

I didn’t know how much Sai had earned from his adventures here at the casino, but he was smiling at the end, saying, “Now I don’t have to feel guilty for spending so much money at the daycare or at the flower shop. We can have food and a room at the pokémon center still!”

I did get a gut feeling at the beginning of this part that he would have some sort of magic touch, and I guess I was right.

On the last day of our thorough exploration of Goldenrod City, I decided to take him to the radio tower. I didn’t know that it would be the last place we would be able to go. I just knew that Earl always used to listen to the radio back in Violet City, and the people on air always had something to say. There seemed to be no end to the amount of things they could share and laugh about. This, to me, was a good thing to show Sai. But my plan backfired.

Oh no... not after everything that went right...

Once again, I woke everyone up early because we had discovered that the radio tower was at the northern end of the city, like the flower shop. I wanted to make sure we had enough time to get to that part of the city and then browse the radio tower. Sai was more eager to get up today than he had been before, I noted, probably because of yesterday’s winning adventure.

When we arrived there, the man at the counter explained that the place was free. There wouldn’t be much to see, he said, because maintenance was being performed upstairs and we weren’t. allowed to go any higher than the first floor. Once the man let us go, we thanked him and wandered around inside. Of course, there wasn’t much to see on the first floor. The place looked like the inside of any other building. The only striking feature I could see was that the counter that the man was at extended throughout the entire room, and even more people were behind the counter, looking at us expectantly and smiling warmly. One of them wore headphones and had an interesting, complex piece of machinery in front of them, but that was about it. There were stairs leading upstairs, but we weren’t sure whether or not we could go up, despite having paid to be here.

There's a stray period in that paragraph, after the word "weren't."

“Well,” Sai said dumbly. “This is it.”

“I guess so…” I said, disappointed, despite the warning we had received.

“Don’t look so forlorn, boy!” called the guy who had the headphones on. “Come over here!”

Sai obeyed instantly, and the rest of us followed. We got a closer look at the machinery the guy had. There was a microphone to accompany the headphones, and the flat part of the machine had a ton of buttons and words on it to indicate what each button did. I couldn’t read any of them upside down, though.

“Hello, guys!” the man behind the counter continued. I wondered why he was talking so loud, when we were right in front of him, clearly able to hear. “Welcome to the radio tower! I know you can’t go upstairs, so you’re probably wondering why you came here…”

Oh I am getting a bad feeling about where this is going...

“Definitely,” Kuiora butted in, peaking her head up over the counter. I winced.

“Well, you may not be able to look around the rest of the place, but you can get your spot on the radio right here! See this jar we have here?” he said, pointing to it. I hadn’t noticed it before. It was a small jar that had some pokédollars in it. “If you pay a small amount of money, I’ll record your voice so it appears on the radio. You can say just about anything you want!”

“Anything we want?” said Ezrem, who was now peering next to Kuiora.

“Well, almost anything. You must be appropriate, of course!”

“Nevermind,” said Ezrem, backing down from the counter.

I'd laugh if I wasn't so nervous right now.

“What about the rest of you? Some people just like to vent and complain, others say hi to their families, others talk about their pokémon… Why, just the other day, someone even came here just to mention that they had seen a Team Rocket member floating around the city recently,” he said, his voice growing quieter.

I could feel Sai tense up next to me almost instantly.

Okay, major red flag about Sai's past. I think I just pieced something together, but I'm going to keep it to myself for now.

“Do you know what’s wrong with him?” Senori asked me, then started running on all fours, seeing that his thoughts were keeping us further and further behind. I shook my head and started running.

At the pokémon center, it was at least easy to find our room from the front lobby, since we’d gone done that hallway several times before. This time, though, none of us could get in because the door was locked. We all sat outside in complete silence, none of us daring to disturb our trainer. Eventually, though, Sai showed his face again.

“Atis?” he said, peering out into the hallway through a small crack in the door.

“Y-Yes?” I said, trying to stand up, but my feet were wobbly. I was the one responsible for this situation, yet I didn’t know how to take full responsibility. The idea was unfavorable to me, to say the least.

“Come in here, please,” he said softly, which calmed my nerves a bit, but not by much. I stumbled over Kuiora’s tail and she squealed. I apologized lamely, thinking now that neither the hallway nor the room was where I wanted to be. Sai seemed like the least threatening, so I just went into the room and quickly shut the door behind me before Kuiora could yell at me.

“Atis,” Sai said again.

I simply nodded, afraid to speak.

“I’m sorry, but we’ll have to go to the gym as soon as possible now. Forget the appointment,” Sai went on. “These people are following me. I just know it.”

My theory is getting stronger, but wow are my nerves tense right now. You've really got me wound up with this paranoia.

“W-Who’s… following you, Sai?” I dared to ask.

Sai was quiet, then he spoke after a few moments: “Do you want to be closer to me or something? Are you feeling like the others are getting more attention or something? I didn’t know. You should have told me.”

I looked up, caught off guard. “N-No, that’s not—”

“I don’t know how to be close to people. Or pokémon, for that matter,” he said solemnly, ignoring me. “I’m not allowed to be close to anyone, so it’s fine. I guess. But if that’s what you want…”

He's making me really, really nervous here. My heart is about to jump into my throat.

But Sai seemed so calm compared to his panicky demeanor at the radio tower. I wanted to keep him calm. So I took the marker and wrote on his back as quickly as I could to get the awkwardness over with. I didn’t even have to think about what I wrote: I wish I was human.

Yes, I did wish I was a human. If I were human, I would do my absolute best to get rid of my shy demeanor. I’d travel the entire world, see what each city and town had to offer. I’d meet all the great kinds of people out there, and all the terrible kinds of people, too. I wouldn’t have pokémon to protect me; I’d protect myself. And as I traveled, I’d find out what I wanted to do with the rest of my life.

That opens up a lot about Atis's mind to me. I suddenly understand his character a lot more.

Also, I find the idea of a Pokemon wishing to be human quite curious, in a time when a lot of fics are written involving people becoming or wanting to become Pokemon.

To thankfully distract me, Sai handed me the piece of paper he had written on, and turned to look away from me. I went to read it, both terrified and drawn to the idea at the same time—

I am always sick.

This is far more significant a line than it might initially seem, I'm sure of it. It has so many potential meanings that guessing exactly what it indicates would be fruitless. I will keep my theory to myself for now, though, and wait for more information.

Great chapter. It gave us a lot of information and plenty of enjoyable content, such as Atis and Ezrem going at each other. It really got thoughtful and intense, though, and that's where I'm really hoping to see more.

[diamondpearl876]

Ooh, Atis. Feels like it's been a while since we've had a chapter for him.

It's been 6 chapters! I'm sure he totally missed the attention.

Wow, you actually remembered that! I even forgot about those Magikarp!

Lol, yeah, it's been a while since they were caught. Darn things.

I do feel like this point could have been a little stronger if we knew a little more about at least one of the Magikarp, though. That way, they would feel a little less like plot devices.

Good point, I had planned to include them more but it never seemed like the right time to do so.

I'm curious, can Atis read because he came from a school, or can all the Pokemon read?

He can read because he came from the school.

Thanks for spending little time on the appointment being made. I was afraid the chapter would get bogged down in focusing on it.

I actually was going to focus more on it but couldn't find any way to make it interesting... so I knew it was time to scrap the idea. lol.

Did we just learn something about Sai's past?

I really want to see where this goes. This is really getting me excited to know more.

Damn right we did. This chapter was fun when it came to revealing more about Sai.

I'm kind of surprised Atis hasn't decided to stay yet. He seems very happy.

He's in no rush.

Stop making me want a spinoff prequel about Annie. :P

Yes, sir.

Okay, major red flag about Sai's past. I think I just pieced something together, but I'm going to keep it to myself for now.

Keeping it to yourself is no fun for me. :'(

My theory is getting stronger, but wow are my nerves tense right now. You've really got me wound up with this paranoia.

Awesome.

Great chapter. It gave us a lot of information and plenty of enjoyable content, such as Atis and Ezrem going at each other. It really got thoughtful and intense, though, and that's where I'm really hoping to see more.

Glad you liked it. Thanks for commenting as always!

[Sidewinder]

He felt like progress.

You might consider rewording that. It may just be me, but it was a little difficult to make sense of it at first. After I read the second sentence it clicked, but for a second I stumbled. If I seem off base just ignore me lol

The other half of the journey consisted of being free, of being able to explore the world and see it for what it is. And that was what I liked. I wanted Sai to be able to contribute to the world in some way that didn’t involve pokémon, and he was beginning to do that by slowing down his journey, but… Well, yes, Sai felt like progress—but only sometimes.

Like I've said countless times, you have a wonderful talent at being able to have readers sympathize with your characters. After reading the quoted portion I found myself wanting to reach out to Atis, and give him what he wants.

He was clearly following someone else’s rules and setting his own aside, only allowing them to be set free when he deemed it safe and perhaps necessary.

Couldn't have phrased it any better myself. Like a barely visible trail through the woods that's become almost invisible with age. He's trying so hard to make sure he does this the right way, but subtle little things like social graces escape him, but at the same time he knows he needs to get badges. Hmmm, I have a new theory! I'll wait to the end of this chapter to see if it pans out.

I wondered how Senori would know, but didn’t say anything, as usual.

Lol that's what I was wondering when I read the previous sentence. If anything, Atis would be the one to ask. Over the last few chapters it has felt like Sai is giving preferential treatment to Senori, though I can't imagine why as he made such an obsessive grab for all of them when he wanted them. Hope I didn't miss anything important there, but I doubt it

noted that Sai could let go of pokémon—if he really tried.

That was a very nice effective way to put Atis a little more at ease. Thanks for being creative and not stuffing it down our throats. Nicely done

Senori said. “The last one covered my tail and made things feel really weird for me.”

Lol I showed that line to my wife, and after I showed her a picture of a Sentret, she thought it was adorable. Nicely done

“Even me and Ezrem have seen a movie before. We saw one about a boy and a girl who wanted to erase their memories of each other, but then changed their minds and had to go through a lot of trouble to remember each other.”

Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind? Maybe?

“Yeah. Watching movies is something every human should do,” Rennio added, nodding.

“I don’t think it’d be appropriate to see one… Maybe some other time,” Sai said after a moment,

HE SAID THAT BECAUSE HE'S NOT A REAL HUMAN!!

“That’s the point of shopping—to look around and see!” I said, pushing him over there.

It's almost like since Atis isn't human, he's trying everything in his power to live vicariously through Sai in the sense that if Sai has these experiences, maybe Atis will be able to feel what they mean as if he was a human too. It's sad in a pretty sort of way

The next day, I didn’t take Sai anywhere.

Lol I'm surprised he took him somewhere the second day haha

I wondered how he was so good at guessing when his chances were so low and there was no way that anyone could possibly win every time he played.

I'm glad you followed that up with the dice situation, because that's the first place my mind went as well. To be honest the quoted portion screams at me to pay better attention, but I am at a complete loss as to what it might be. I firmly have my theory now, and the dice is the only thing that doesn't fit

There wouldn’t be much to see, he said, because maintenance was being performed upstairs and we weren’t.

Nice game reference

Yes, I did wish I was a human. If I were human, I would do my absolute best to get rid of my shy demeanor. I’d travel the entire world, see what each city and town had to offer. I’d meet all the great kinds of people out there, and all the terrible kinds of people, too. I wouldn’t have pokémon to protect me; I’d protect myself. And as I traveled, I’d find out what I wanted to do with the rest of my life.

Wow, just wow. Awesomely done on that bit, and I'd be lying if I didn't say I didn't get misty eyed. I've told you several times that my favorite character changes with every chapter you release, but after that thought from Atis, I am firmly on his team. You'll be hard pressed to change that unless you can top the quoted portion. It was fabulously written

Wonderful chapter as always, and once again I can't wait for the next chapter. I'm going to PM you my new theory because even though I'm sure I'm off base with it, I don't want to accidentally get lucky and ruin it for everyone else lol

[Sid87]

I was no longer able to stand giving myself up to the concept of pokémon training day after day, and Sai rescued me from that when I needed him most.

That first bit reads a bit hard. Maybe it would be better as "I was no longer able to stand the concept of giving myself up to pokemon training..." ?

And somehow, I know that pokémon don’t often get a second chance to choose their trainers. I can only count on one hand the amount of situations that could offer a second chance, and I don’t even have that many fingers.

Okay, that was funny.

So, when were making our way to Goldenrod City, I knew I still had a choice to make. Though Sai seemed strict and set in his ways, I knew that he wouldn’t honestly take my choice away from me if I decided to bring it up again. He was clearly following someone else’s rules and setting his own aside, only allowing them to be set free when he deemed it safe and perhaps necessary. I felt that, this far into the journey, I could say this with certainty, when my life was anything but certain…

Atis has a very clear and distinctive voice here, contrasting my complaint about Rennio last chapter. His thoughts are consistently broken up and separated by clauses. This goes a long way in exhibiting his wishy-washy nature and inability to decide what is best.

When we got inside, there was an older woman sitting behind a counter, reading a book. She glanced up at us and immediately stood and smiled as if she hadn’t had any visitors in years. Perhaps she was lonely after being only with pokémon. I would be lonely, too, if I was stuck with them for an extended period of time.

Wow...what a knife-twist of characterization. Atis really hates everyone, doesn't he? Or, at least, he has no faith in man nor pokemon.

“Sai?” I said again, though this time I didn’t bump into his leg. Instead, I pulled on his pants leg, trying to get his attention as best as I could.

Cute and earnest.

None of us complained, as this was nothing new to us,

The two "us" so close together there jarred me. Maybe take out the "to us" in the second part? Might just be me.

“You’ve never seen a movie before?” said Rennio, who was also standing close to Ezrem. I was just glad it was the bird and not me. “Even me and Ezrem have seen a movie before. We saw one about a boy and a girl who wanted to erase their memories of each other, but then changed their minds and had to go through a lot of trouble to remember each other.”

I love Eternal Sunshine. I wonder if there is a thematic reason you chose that movie to reference... Hmmmm. Must keep that in mind.

“Who knows what he really wants to do with that knife?” he said. He fluffed up his feathers and pretended like what he was saying was nothing, though the thought seemed sinister to me, even though I didn’t think Sai was a sinister person. “There’s a secret in everyone, in every place! I bet plenty of people have stolen from this mall. My old trainer used to do so when she was out of money and desperate for food!”

So hard to tell with Ezrem what is the truth and what is just deceit. I also wonder why Sai is letting Ezrem follow him around when he clearly has no interest in him. Previously, I'd thought Ezrem has sneaking along and staying hidden, but that doeesn't seem to be the case now.

“Well, I don’t care. Just shut up. You’re not even Sai’s pokemon,” Kuiora said, going back to her childish ways, though I was thankful for it.

It's nice to see Kuiora sticking up for her "family" rather than just going along with Ezrem since she has been marveled by him so far.


-Okay, I have to start getting ready for work, so I will come back to this as soon as I can. Sorry I'm having to break up the review like this, but... que sera sera.


EDIT: More!

Inside we discovered the source of the beautiful aroma. There was a bunch of women, each of them doing their own chores within the shop. One was water the various plants, another was placing them in a satisfactory order, another waited at the counter, looking at us expectantly. From the look on her ecstatic face, I could tell that she didn’t get many men coming into the shop.

I'm going to interject here just to say how I love the life you give each city and the landmarks therein. This almost reads as sort of a love letter to Johto.

Sai filled the vase he got from the flower shop with water and put all the flowers we had bought into it. It didn’t look like a pretty bouquet, as the color combination wasn’t appealing with three blue flowers, one yellow, and one red.

I think it is odd and interesting that Atis, who cares so little for the pokemon world and envisions himself as somewhat more worldly and experienced, can't even be bothered to know the names of types of flowers. It's an odd little thing I can't put my finger on.


-Okay, so it's a short update from me before the casino scene. I'm plugging away!

The bit with Sai hating to accept the vase while being so happy to give everyone flowers seems odd. He seesms a bit more self-loathing there than I'd thought of him for a while (since the last Atis chapter, anyway, so perhaps there is some projection there on Atis' part...).


EDIT: More again!

It turned out that Sai didn’t have to worry too much about money. In fact, it was the opposite. He ended up winning his first bet, and made a profit off of it. Then he won again. And again, with his simple bets. I wondered how he was so good at guessing when his chances were so low and there was no way that anyone could possibly win every time he played. Well, he did lose about once or twice, but that was it. In the end, he still made more than he lost. It reminded me of the dice he always carried around with him. When he introduced himself as my new trainer, he had instructed me to roll the dice, somehow knowing that the outcome of the roll would show a three—and sure enough, two black dots and one black dot showed up. How did he know? Was his intuition that reliable for him? As I watched him bet on red or black and win again and again, that seemed like the most plausible explanation.

So...curious. He's got to have some low-level mental ability, right? That's how he's choosing his team; he knows their destiny. Yes? Or I'm WAY off.

I didn’t know how much Sai had earned from his adventures here at the casino, but he was smiling at the end, saying, “Now I don’t have to feel guilty for spending so much money at the daycare or at the flower shop. We can have food and a room at the pokémon center still!”

It's petty, but considering the story is paste-tense, you shouldn't say "here". It should be "there at the casino..."

And that was all that mattered to him. He didn’t even want to leave and explore the rest of the place, he just wanted to win money at the game he was at. His childish eagerness over adult-like responsibilities made me giggle, which got me some odd looks from the others. I ignored them—was the image of a giggling hitmontop really that funny? It probably was, and the image of myself made me giggle again as we left, pokédollars still in Sai’s hands.

How charmingly un-Atis-like. He's loosening up.

There wouldn’t be much to see, he said, because maintenance was being performed upstairs and we weren’t. allowed to go any higher than the first floor.

You have an odd period mid-sentence there. Between "weren't" and "allowed".

“Anything we want?” said Ezrem, who was now peering next to Kuiora.

“Well, almost anything. You must be appropriate, of course!”

“Nevermind,” said Ezrem, backing down from the counter.

Isn't it kind of a big deal that Sai can understand his pokemon so easily? This guy is doing it, no problem. I might be misinterpreting the past, though.

“What about the rest of you? Some people just like to vent and complain, others say hi to their families, others talk about their pokémon… Why, just the other day, someone even came here just to mention that they had seen a Team Rocket member floating around the city recently,” he said, his voice growing quieter.

OH. This feels like a clue. Now we have a timeframe; this all takes place right around G/S/C....maybe.

But Sai seemed so calm compared to his panicky demeanor at the radio tower. I wanted to keep him calm. So I took the marker and wrote on his back as quickly as I could to get the awkwardness over with. I didn’t even have to think about what I wrote: I wish I was human.

This scene is all so confusing and touching at the same time.

proving him that there was more to like than the pokémon that constantly followed him around.

Missed a "to" in there. Proving TO him.


Yeah, I've got absolutely no idea what's going on here. You and Sidewinder are so damn good at keeping your mysteries mysterious. I have even less of an idea what's going on with Sai than I ever had before.

Atis...what a lovely chapter to change my mind on him. He was unsteady, earnest, open, and heartfelt. So much more than his previous judgmentality and timidness. There were times this chapter where I wished I could be with Atis, and that's crazy. Kuiora is still my FAVORITE member of this team for entertainment, but damn if I wouldn't rather HAVE Senori or even Atis now. Damn you for being so bloody good at that.

[diamondpearl876]

Lol that's what I was wondering when I read the previous sentence. If anything, Atis would be the one to ask. Over the last few chapters it has felt like Sai is giving preferential treatment to Senori, though I can't imagine why as he made such an obsessive grab for all of them when he wanted them. Hope I didn't miss anything important there, but I doubt it

Nah, there’s nothing important you’re missing. Sai knows Atis doesn’t like attention so he turns to Senori, who has known some human-like things in the past, that’s all.

Lol I showed that line to my wife, and after I showed her a picture of a Sentret, she thought it was adorable. Nicely done

YOU TWO ARE TOO CUTE. GAH.

Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind? Maybe?

Yes, yes, and yes.

HE SAID THAT BECAUSE HE'S NOT A REAL HUMAN!!

BOOM! We already spoke about this, so I’ll say nothing more.

Wonderful chapter as always, and once again I can't wait for the next chapter. I'm going to PM you my new theory because even though I'm sure I'm off base with it, I don't want to accidentally get lucky and ruin it for everyone else lol

Glad you liked it, thanks for commenting as always!

That first bit reads a bit hard. Maybe it would be better as "I was no longer able to stand the concept of giving myself up to pokemon training..." ?

Will fix, thanks for pointing it out. Someday I’ll write a chapter in which nothing reads too “hard” or awkwardly.

Wow...what a knife-twist of characterization. Atis really hates everyone, doesn't he? Or, at least, he has no faith in man nor pokemon.

I didn’t quite think that part was THAT powerful, haha.

I also wonder why Sai is letting Ezrem follow him around when he clearly has no interest in him. Previously, I'd thought Ezrem has sneaking along and staying hidden, but that doeesn't seem to be the case now.

Nah, Sai’s not the type to push others away. He just doesn’t want Ezrem to officially be a part of the team.

I originally was going to have him hide and follow, but that seemed to allow very little room for character development so I scrapped the idea.

I think it is odd and interesting that Atis, who cares so little for the pokemon world and envisions himself as somewhat more worldly and experienced, can't even be bothered to know the names of types of flowers. It's an odd little thing I can't put my finger on.

He wants to be worldly and experienced, though he hasn’t had the means to do so, so I doubt he’d know the name of flowers.

The bit with Sai hating to accept the vase while being so happy to give everyone flowers seems odd. He seesms a bit more self-loathing there than I'd thought of him for a while (since the last Atis chapter, anyway, so perhaps there is some projection there on Atis' part...).

He’s supposed to be more self-loathing than before. :O

So...curious. He's got to have some low-level mental ability, right? That's how he's choosing his team; he knows their destiny. Yes? Or I'm WAY off.

Sometimes, the answer is a lot more simpler than you think.

Isn't it kind of a big deal that Sai can understand his pokemon so easily? This guy is doing it, no problem. I might be misinterpreting the past, though.

Yeahhhhh…. He’s not supposed to understand pokémon. That was my bad.

Yeah, I've got absolutely no idea what's going on here. You and Sidewinder are so damn good at keeping your mysteries mysterious. I have even less of an idea what's going on with Sai than I ever had before.

My goal is complete. *evil cackle*

Atis...what a lovely chapter to change my mind on him. He was unsteady, earnest, open, and heartfelt. So much more than his previous judgmentality and timidness. There were times this chapter where I wished I could be with Atis, and that's crazy. Kuiora is still my FAVORITE member of this team for entertainment, but damn if I wouldn't rather HAVE Senori or even Atis now. Damn you for being so bloody good at that.

Yay! This means a lot to me. I’m glad you liked the chapter… and Atis!

[Crimson Penguin]

...Oh, man. It's been a while, hasn't it? I'm sorry it's taken me so long to review these last two chapters. School and all that jazz.

Well, on with the review...

Chapter 11

This chapter felt a little different to me. Not bad at all, just different. I think it's because we saw Rennio from such a dramatic change in perspective - rather than the happy-go-lucky Pokemon he appeared to be in the previous chapter, he seemed so much more vulnerable and naive in this one. I will say, though, I think you did a good job of reinforcing the fact that Elekid is a "baby" Pokemon through his mindset and his close relationship with Annie. It makes the events of the chapter that much more emotional, because an innocent little creature like that just shouldn't have to go through such a terrifying experience, but as you showed, life can sometimes be very cruel.

As others have said, Annie came through as a well-developed and quite intriguing character. Intelligent and openminded, but also warm and devoted to her Pokemon at the same time. Those traits really fit the idea of a true Pokemon trainer, I think. She seems to recognize that it's not always winning or losing that's most important, but the entire journey and the experiences that come with it. Her personality is a nice contrast to Sai's comparatively narrow focus and always wanting to follow the "rules," whatever those may be. I think he'll get there one day, though.

Finally, Ezrem. That bird has Rennio completely brainwashed, doesn't he? I mean, he's the one that betrayed his trainer and his fellow Pokemon, yet Rennio still believes Ezrem is his true friend. And with Ezrem saying that Rennio is the last Elekid, and making him say that little catchphrase... What a jerk. My hate for Ezrem has gone right back up again. You seem to be good at doing that. :P

And now, for the grammar...

That’s what must have happened. Annie must have dropped one of her cigarettes after lighting it on fire, dropped it, and left it there. There was no other explanation in my eyes.

Not sure if the repetition of "dropped" was intentional, but if it was, you may want to change the preceding comma to a dash or a semicolon to make the passage a little clearer.

They were whispering amongst themselves, however—or making fun of me, of course—so I assumed they must have known me somehow. I didn’t know what their names were, so I just stared at them. Their words mean nothing to me.

Should be a "t" at the end there since you're in past tense.

One day, I returned with berries and simply told Ezrem, “I’m scared.”

He motioned for me to open my hands and dug his beak into the pile. Halfway through, he pulled back, finally realizing that I had said something.

“Scared of what?”

I signed. If anyone should know what I’m scared of, it should be Ezrem. “What if I die before I’m able to keep my species from going extinct?” I asked.

Should this be "sighed"?

Overall, though, great chapter.

Sorry for the short review, but the next one should hopefully be a little longer. I'll try to post it sometime over the weekend (hooray for holidays)! Until next time...

~Crimson Penguin