Disclaimer: Um, I don't own Pokémon. I'm just a girl with a laptop. That's pretty obvious. I do own Violet, though, and a few other characters. You'll know them when you see them.
Author's Note: Greetings to all readers!
To those who are familiar with Violet Version's original incarnation from 2006, this is the result of what I had announced. I'm rewriting the series bit by bit, hopefully improving it. Yes, it is drastically different from the first version. But I really hope you will all grow to love this. Violet Version didn't have a prologue, originally, but I figured I'd add this for the sake of letting everyone know I'm alive, well, and haven't forgotten about Violet and the gang. There will be a huge shift in storytelling direction, as is evident in this prologue.
To newcomers, this is Violet Version, a kooky Original Character-driven parody of the anime. Instead of following the formula presented by the anime, I'm meshing together a number of concepts: mostly based off of the video games and the Electric Tale of Pikachu mangas illustrated and created by Toshihiro Ono. Hence, a lot of things are different from the anime. Oh yeah, and the Pokémon talk. While this is mostly a comedy story, there are going to be a lot of dramatic elements that disrupt the absurdity here and there.
The re-envisioning of Violet's "awakening" was inspired entirely by my bestest friend, Matt. Actually, he's the one who came up with it, and he continues to inspire me in general – he's an amazing writer and I am honored to have been his friend for so long. Thanks to Matt for putting up with me babbling about all of my crazy ideas. For more author's notes and credits, check the very end of this story.
Also, thanks to everyone who had reviewed Violet Version in the past, whether they are reading this or not.
To those who think of reviewing: I'm definitely critique-friendly. I don't like flames at all, but constructive criticism makes my world go 'round. If you think something can be improved, just tell me and tell me how to do it. I'll follow it to the best of my ability or keep it in consideration.
Violet Version
Prologue: A Bump on the Head
Fearow had a job to do.
As one of the oldest and most dedicated residents of Pallet Town, he had made it a traditional habit to awaken at the moment the sun breached the horizon, as though his mind was automatically configured to predict that precise second. At first he was content with limiting his interesting talent for more recreational purposes, such as taking advantage of the ungodly hour to snatch unsuspecting prey from their dens without resistance. This ritual kept his family nice and plump for a good, long time, but eventually, after they departed from the nest, he decided to devote his early hours to a more rewarding pastime. When the former mayor of Pallet Town – now deceased from old age – approached Fearow and asked for his assistance, he was all too enthusiastic to help.
Fearow spread his wings and glided to the highest place in Pallet Town; given the modest size of the community, it was not a very impressive view, but it was convenient, given its purposes. Sunlight was bathing the buildings; glancing off of every reflective surface and rapidly encroaching upon every unlit nook and cranny in the little town as the sun rose. From where Fearow stood, he could see many of the town's essentials, such as the congregations of houses and a few modest shopping centers. Ever since the day it had been established, Pallet Town had never reached a considerable state of notoriety, and was scarcely visited, which was probably why the inhabitants overzealously welcomed newcomers. There were no gyms, no places that gave Pokémon Trainers an excuse to visit, other than to use the Pokémon Center neighboring the hospital as a brief reprieve from adventuring. Most children, when they came of age, departed to see the outside world.
Clearing his throat, Fearow leaned back, straightened his posture, rustled his feathers, and went through a whole cycle of unnecessary preparations before he cried out in a tremendously loud squawk.
And another one, even louder.
And another one, tremendously resonant.
The town remained in a stubborn state of hibernation. Fearow was not amused. "Alright, everyone!" he barked, "Up and at 'em! No time for lollygagging!"
An endless cacophony of frustrated and irritated groans started up from the nearby buildings. A single window opened; Fearow immediately ducked, knowing from experience that such a maneuver often precipitated a projectile of choice being flung at him. Instead, a very irate-looking Nidoking leaned out the window, setting his beefy, chitinous claws on the sill. He did not look in the slightest bit grateful for this interruption.
"Oh my god, SHUT UP! Do you have any idea what time it is?!" he growled.
"Such disrespect! Don't take your frustrations out on me, sir, this is my job!" Fearow retaliated.
"Nobody asked you to be my alarm clock, old man!"
"Old man?! Show some respect for your elders, you moronic, spike-encrusted beast!"
The sounds of the pair's vehement argument drifted over the town. Sleepy townspeople twitched and turned in their beds; a gradual upswell of (mostly angry) activity swept from house to house until the whole neighborhood was awakening. A few people and Pokémon closed their windows to seal off the never-ending torrent of noise. Down in a mostly-deserted alleyway flanked by two houses, a Growlithe that had once been asleep in front of a cardboard box glared at the sky and retreated inside the shelter, using his paws to close the flaps behind him. An Oddish withdrew into the loamy soil that filled its ceramic pot, so its leafy crown was protruding from the earth.
"Shouldn't you be off eating roadkill or whatever it is you buzzards do?!"
"Goodness! What a clever rebuttal. Quite unfortunate that it doesn't have the originality of the response you used yesterday…"
They kept going, and going, and going, much to the dismay of every person in Pallet Town. The Nidoking and Fearow's bickering echoed far and wide.
Violet Amaranth stirred in her sleep.
When Violet woke up, she was in a room she did not recognize.
Wherever she looked, all she could see was a ubiquitous, oppressively boring lack of color, like the walls had been utterly bleached and all the paint had been bled out of the paper. The floor was equally denuded of any sort of carpet, exposing the plain, polished tiling, of white blemished with splattered markings of black. Even the bed seemed unfamiliarly uncomfortable and cramped. The only object Violet considered interesting was the television suspended by tangled vines of cables and wires in the far upper corner of the room, but she couldn't find the remote. (Disappointing, since Violet was pretty sure that her favorite wrestling show was on – she wanted to see if The Extirpator had defended his championship title, as she missed last night's program and due to his popularity the results would be announced on the news. And like hell she was going to get out of bed to turn on the damn TV!) Other than that generous little addition, provided as an afterthought to any bored occupants, Violet could see nothing else that could be considered fascinating.
After assessing her surroundings, Violet laid back, propping herself against the strangely voluminous pillows of her bed. In a moment of absolute, Zen-like calm, she felt as though her emotions had been wiped off of her mind like they were chalk markings on a slate. However, at the same time, she felt like her brain had been turned off. A dull grey haze buzzed in her head, much like the static-filled screen of the television at which she was staring.
Something in Violet's head clicked, and then something penetrated that indistinguishable cloud of confusion. It pricked, and all the thoughts in her head started to bleed through that mental perforation in a deluge of panic.
She reached a conclusion.
"OH MY GOD," Violet intoned, her hands fisting in her hair, "I'VE BEEN ABDUCTED BY ALIENS!"
Her first instinct was to lunge out of the bed, and so she did. Her hands didn't fail her; they whipped away the sheets cocooning her reticent body in a heartbeat, throwing the starch white blanket to the side. However, when she tried to leap to her feet, she was met with very little success.
Actually, her face met the floor as her legs gave out beneath her. That was horribly embarrassing.
"OW!" Violet exclaimed, sitting upright and rubbing her aching nose. There was no blood, fortunately, but she was certain the impact would leave a nasty black-and-blue memento in the form of a bruise. Almost indignantly, she glared at her legs, which refused to respond to her commands. Her muscles felt completely atrophied; given Violet considered herself to be quite robust and energetic, and she made a morning ritual out of catapulting out of her own bed, this was a disturbing predicament. Never before had she felt so lifeless after a good night's sleep, since otherwise she felt very refreshed.
There was a convenient ledge nearby; the windowsill. The window was currently locked and shut, but Violet surmised, in a rare moment of clarity, that if she could open it, she could possibly use the new entrance as a makeshift escape route.
'Good plan!' Violet congratulated herself.
With that goal in mind, she started to paw her way along the floor – her hands barely provided any friction on the polished linoleum, but it inched her body forward at a gradual pace. For some reason, aside from the cumbersome weight of her useless legs, Violet felt very light. She had no idea why, but by the time she started to speculate, she had reached the windowsill. Lurching upright, almost like a barely-animate zombie, she seized the edge, straining to find a way to stabilize her position. At long last, once she had managed to push most of her body onto the window ledge, she was able to reach out for the window lock and unlatch it. With that obstacle out of the way, she weakly lifted the barrier of glass so she could gaze outside.
Glaring sunlight was streaking over the horizon, vaguely tinting the sparse clouds with a wide spectrum of pinks, purples, and brilliant oranges. Just beneath Violet's gaze, she could see the symmetrically-trimmed arrangement of glistening green foliage fringing her prison's walls. Violet was deeply perturbed by the distance between herself and those bushes – she reckoned she was on the second floor of this particular building, which was fortunate, if she planned to escape, but it certainly limited her options.
'Okay, but how do I get down there?' Violet thought. She glanced back over her shoulder, at the askew and disheveled sheets of her bed. She formulated an improvised scheme: she could take the sheets and use them to lower herself just enough to allow her to safely fall into the bushes.
'And… where do I go after that?' Violet's brow furrowed. She scratched her forehead, still looking around her room, like she was desperately scavenging for anything that could inspire a revelation. She was just as uninterested in the room's lack of decoration as she was earlier.
A shimmer of light caught her attention. Violet noticed something she hadn't paid any attention to when she awoke. Hanging pleasantly over the door – the solitary exit to this chamber, other than the window – was a round clock, its glassy face gleaming with the vestiges of morning sunlight. One of its elongated arms was drooping toward the boldly-emblazoned six at the bottom of its cyclical pattern of numbers; its stubby companion lifted a hairsbreadth to indicate the nearby seven.
Panic welled up in Violet's stomach again. She whipped back around to face the window, and she narrowed her eyes as she struggled to determine the nondescript assortment of buildings not too far from her own prison. She could recognize a few of the customary shops: a blue-crowned construction located in the shopping district definitely indicated the Pokémon Mart, and she recognized its neighboring establishment as being her primary source of Pokémon-related merchandise.
This cemented her previous fears. She was still in Pallet Town.
Violet's priorities swiftly changed like a Kecleon would casually alter its coloration.
"I'M LATE!" she screeched at the top of her lungs, her fingers hooking in a mighty death grip on the windowsill.
Two things happened within the span of a few seconds.
Violet heard the door open; a quiet voice murmured her name. Her heart was thundering too fast to acknowledge the absurdity of the situation, let alone comprehend the familiarity behind that utterance. All that registered amidst the otherwise unintelligible rush of thoughts was the obsessive need to escape. Violet didn't even look behind her, or contemplate any alternatives – she just propelled herself out the window, legs floundering and flailing to life in a sporadic seizure of activity, felt herself tip over, and started to fall.
Actually, the experience was quite liberating. During the short but exhilarating descent, she felt her adrenaline spike in incredible amounts, impregnating her electrified blood as her heart thumped violently in her ears. The breeze whistled through her hair. Violet almost convinced herself in a moment of near-deliriousness that she could fly if she flapped her arms hard enough.
Contrary to her expectations, this did not work. She fell like a boulder.
---
Around the same time of this occurrence, the local gardener, Sylvester the Scyther, had just finished extricating a particularly stubborn branch from a diseased tree. After a minute or two of frustrated sawing and slicing, he managed to break through the tough, flaky wood. Pinching the severed tree-limb between his two blade-arms, he flung it into a nearby pile of leafy detritus, watching with satisfaction as it crowned the virtual mountain of junk with an almost delicate, perfunctory crunch. All manner of accumulated garbage, mostly undesirable growths and trimmings collected from the nearby trees, such as gnarled, dismembered branches and leftover leaves, had been grouped in a jumbled heap in the center of the lawn. An unfortunate epidemic of some complicated disease had been infecting the trees, and due to this affliction, many of the finer specimens had to be excessively trimmed in order to prevent further spreading. Many of the trees were salvageable, so Sylvester was charged with tending to those individuals. The grand majority of the bushes that produced medicinal and other valuable berries remained unmolested.
Sylvester hummed to himself, adjusting the ear-piece lodged into the cavity that sufficed as his ear. The inharmonious thundering of Fistula Haggis pounded from the throbbing speaker of that ear-piece; as all the singers droned along to the chorus, Sylvester twisted the dial on the ear-piece's controller to increase the volume and listened intently, bobbing his head. In a matter of seconds, the synthesized and artificial beat was warped into the singing of angels.
The music continued with such vociferous, ear-splitting ferocity that he did not notice Violet's startled scream as she fell into the bushes. There was an uncertain second where he thought he had heard something rustling the leaves, and was perturbed by the chance that someone had disturbed his meticulous floral masterpiece, but he concluded that it was only a malfunction in his ear-piece when he saw no one there.
"Gotta replace this thing..." Sylvester muttered irritably, and his half-assed investigation was completely forgotten. He turned away, and was about to take a break before he saw an Aipom surreptitiously approaching one of the denuded trees, carrying a large bundle of sticks in her arms. "HEY! No! I said you can't build your nest there! Get out of here!"
Tugging the ear-piece out, abruptly silencing the music, he spun around and chased after the Aipom, shouting obscenities over her chattering laughter.
---
Violet had sunk deep into the foliage, creating a person-shaped depression among the leaves; although she was battered and most likely bruised in places previously unfathomable and the world was now completely upside-down due to her angle, she was unhurt. Of course, her head ached like hell, and she was fairly sure the halo of imaginary Pidgeys surrounding her head was quite unusual. She managed to compose herself enough to create an inventory of possible injuries: nothing seemed broken, and she wasn't experiencing any abnormal pain. She was just experiencing regular pain.
Regular pain that was inexplicably fun.
Violet quietly reminded herself to repeat this adventure again, when nobody else was around. She felt like she hadn't had an adrenaline rush like that in a long time. It was almost like skydiving! Except she didn't have a parachute... and this was from the second story of a building. So it was like Skydiving for Pussies.
'Okay, enough of that,' Violet reminded herself sharply, rolling out of the sanctuary of the bushes. She tumbled into a line of colorful, tall plants, belly-first in the moist soil. If she was concerned at all about her physical appearance, she'd be quite distressed by the dirty smear she left over the immaculate fabric of her gown. 'Gotta get out of here. What am I supposed to do now?'
Violet warily gazed around the garden. The Scyther gardener was too preoccupied with chasing a mischievous Aipom around the lawn to notice her, and judging by the Aipom's nearly infinite amount of stamina, that misadventure was going to last for a very long time. This was a convenient distraction, but Violet still needed to escape if she wanted to reach Professor Oak's laboratory.
'Let's see... trees... berries... bushes... a nice fountain... and...'
Violet's eyes rested squarely on the glowing metal frame of a wheelchair, parked alongside several others near the side of the building. Nobody was around to protest the theft of any of those glorious devices.
A wide, victorious grin spread across Violet's face. 'That'll work.'
---
In short order, Violet had seated herself in one of the wheelchairs and was making her way down the winding path of concrete leading from the entrance to the building. She found that by spinning the wheels flanking either side of the chair itself, she could drastically accelerate her pace and maintain an almost limitless momentum without any outside assistance. After making this discovery, Violet abused it relentlessly, keeping herself going at a pace that would have made any professional police officer have an aneurysm.
Once more, the invigorating pulse of excitement that kept her so alive during her anticlimactic descent sparked in her body, energizing her arms as they kept the wheels going in a constant state of animation, fueling her heart as it throbbed and beat within her chest, and permeating her very blood with that almost contagious, drug-like sense of intoxicated ambition. Some mostly-dead part of Violet kept cautioning her that such an unadulterated amount of nonsense would be almost inappropriate for the urgency of the situation, but that uncharacteristically mature shred of her consciousness was summarily ignored. In a matter of moments, Violet was speeding through the streets of Pallet Town, whizzing past districts and neighborhoods and buildings that she used as reliable landmarks for her improvised navigation.
Once Violet passed the Pokémon Center, she knew she was closing in on her destination. She grinned widely in unabashed anticipation.
Every year, Professor Oak received a shipment of Charmanders, Squirtles, and Bulbasaurs either specifically bred as potential partners, or that volunteered for the opportunity to explore the world. Children all around the globe aspired to become Pokémon Masters and came to Oak personally to receive a Pokémon of their choosing. This event lasted from the crack of dawn to the late morning, maybe even shorter, due to the flood of eager people that converged at Oak's laboratory.
Violet had unsuccessfully tried to procure her first Pokémon for three years straight, but all of her annual attempts were thwarted because of one universal smackdown or coincidental interference or divine intervention. Professor Oak was endlessly patient and understanding regarding her plight, and even graciously offered to reserve her desired Pokémon for next year, a rather generous gesture given the high demand. Violet refused every time. She wanted to obtain her first companion through what she felt to be achievement alone. That was the closest example of discipline she had exercised in her life, and she felt it was the most important. If there was one passion in Violet's life, it was Pokémon.
Violet watched as she closed in on the enormous building looming on the crest of the hill. Oak's lab was a virtual Elysium for Pokémon enthusiasts, as he conducted all manner of research and experiments inside. Pokémon often personally approached him in order to help with his studies, normally because Oak was perfectly willing to provide free shelter and food in the sanctuary stretching beyond his lab. Given the success of his inventions and studies, he could certainly afford to reward his test subjects. While the size of Oak's laboratory was undeniably imposing, firmly establishing the foundation as the largest building in Pallet Town, the enclosed, vast sanctuary speckled with makeshift settlements, villages, and other homes for Pokémon was almost mesmerizing in its enormity. Violet recalled working there once or twice for summer vacation.
'Well... I'm here,' Violet concluded, gradually slowing her wheelchair. Oak's home was a few feet away.
Fortunately, Oak's home was essentially an adjunct for his laboratory so he could perpetually continue his work, so it was not at all a remarkable distance. Its roof was slanted, disturbing the otherwise impeccable symmetry of the architecture, and aside from that discrepancy it was nearly identical to the lab to which it was attached. Given the luxury that Oak provided in his Pokémon sanctuary, the fact he himself lived in such a humble abode was an insanely monochromatic juxtaposition. Violet estimated that the house was roughly the size of a small apartment.
Violet swallowed down her anxiety. She tried to lift herself out of her wheelchair, but once she realized her legs still felt limp and lifeless, she remained where she was. 'Can't just sit here all day.' Violet narrowed her eyes, feeling determination heat in her stomach. 'Let's do this, girl!'
Once more using her wheelchair as impromptu transportation, Violet rolled up the short ramp – she was infinitely grateful for the fact there were no stairs, otherwise she would be in trouble – to Oak's patio and halting before his front door. A red button was nestled in the heart of a wreathing silver ornament just beside the doorframe. After a brief routine of preparations – rolling her shoulders, stretching her neck, cracking her knuckles – she reached up and pressed the button. She could hear the resonant chime that echoed within the house, and what sounded like a choking snore as she startled its presumably sole occupant.
Violet waited. She frowned. She pressed the button again. Once more, the bell rang, repeating the same, melodic pattern as before. This time, she heard no activity.
She pressed it again.
And again, she did it.
And again. And again. And again.
Finally, the door opened, and Violet was staring reverently into the face of Professor Oak himself. (Well, she was staring up at him, technically, but there was no time for pedantic details.) He did not immediately recognize her – his eyes were blurred and crusted at the corners with sleep – and he looked distinctly irate. Violet knew him to be approximately fifty years old, but he looked ages older due to the exhaustion weighing his normally square and rigid face. He was bundled in a fuzzy red bathrobe which he was obviously wearing over his unkempt lab coat.
"For God's sake," Oak said, not looking at Violet – his fingers were rubbing at his eyes, struggling to clear away the fog clouding his vision, "I've already bought your pamphlet. I thought your friends told you. And I also told you, I will look into the Church of Our Lady Crobat. Be PATIE-"
In the moment Oak finally managed to glance up at his unwanted visitor, his irritable facade effectively diminished. All traces of vexation vanished from his features in favor of absolute shock; his jaw hung agape, his eyes widened, and for a moment Violet thought that the remaining color in his hair had drained back into his roots. (Of course, this was just an exaggeration, since once he blinked his hair was as she remembered it, but the rest of him still looked quite stupid.)
Violet felt rather confused. It wasn't like the professor to be so inarticulate. Maybe he was having a seizure? But he wasn't epileptic, last she checked. Before she could open her mouth to inquire about Oak's well-being, he was, surprisingly, the one to break the silence.
"Violet? What – how -"
"Professor, dude!" Violet jubilantly proclaimed, ecstatic that he had snapped out of his inconsiderate state of silence, "Oh man, I'm so glad you're back to normal. For a moment I thought your brain had been infected or somethin'."
For whatever reason, Violet interpreted his following bewilderment as an invitation to enter his home, as she took that opportunity to wheel past him and into the living room of his house, unimpeded by any protests or stammering. (Apparently, in Violetland, "But... you..." translated directly to "I am glad to have you here, please enter and raid my fridge of whatever you find edible.")The living room of Oak's house was rather small, but in a way that invoked coziness, not discomfort, and neatly and fashionably furnished. The sofa was the only thing that reflected any lack of organization, with some of its pillows lying on the floor and a crumpled blanket draped over its cushions. Violet theorized that was where Oak was sleeping before she awakened him, possibly after overworking the night before. All while searching for the kitchen or someplace suitable to rest, she ranted and raved almost tirelessly. The words just came spilling out as she felt compelled to narrate the morning's mishaps.
"Man, you wouldn't believe the day I had! First I wake up in some prison run by ALIENS, then I fall out a window, and then I'm going through town in this wheelchair. People kept staring at me. I tried to ask for help, but the guy I asked kept starin' at me. What is it with people? Hey, do you have any cereal? I didn't have any breakfast and I'm starving. Got anything with marshmallows? I like it with milk. Especially chocolate milk. And hey, did you tape last night's show of Excessively Violent Wrestling? I need to see if the Extirpator defeated his arch nemesis last night..."
"VIOLET!"
Stunned by the sudden input on her otherwise unreceptive audience's end, Violet looked at Oak in a manner that was at first surprised, but which quickly soured into something that could be easily read as "Do you mind, I'm trying to tell a story here".Oak stood stock-still in the middle of his living room, only numbly managing to register the girl who had invaded his kitchen. "Violet, how did you get here?"
Violet blinked. She shut the refrigerator door, finding nothing interesting amongst its nutritional contents, and proceeded over to the cabinets. Inspecting its interior revealed that all of the boxes and dried foodstuffs lining the shelves were carefully-categorized, even labeled under respective, corresponding sticky-notes and cards. Such painstaking coordination reminded her more of a grocery store than of a person's kitchen. "Uh, duh? Weren't you listenin'? I used the wheelchair." Oak wasn't a very good listener, apparently.
Much to Violet's annoyance, Oak persisted in his interrogation, still stuttering in what seemed like disbelief. He clarified, "How are you awake?"
Closing one of the cabinet doors, Violet shifted to the adjacent one, opening it and scanning over the selection of colorful boxes. She identified a few, tasteless brands specifically concocted for those who were interested in keeping their arteries unclogged, and was about to surrender when she spotted a bright red box sitting in the back of the arrangement. She snatched up the box with exuberant avarice, her hands turning it over as she admired the box's brightly-colored surface. Violet tore open the cereal box, offhandedly and indifferently answering Oak.
"I dunno, Prof. You're a scientist-thingy or whatever, right? So... you'd know."
Just then, Violet remembered the reason why she even arrived.
"Oh, that reminds me. Is the handout over? I went to all the trouble of comin' here so it'd really suck if I missed it. You still got any Charmanders left?"
At that point, Oak seemed extremely dumbstruck. Violet likened his astounded, slack-jawed appearance to a gob-smacked Magikarp – he looked so absolutely exaggerated in his disbelief that she couldn't help but laugh. "Wow, y' look weird, Prof." Violet's hand delved within the cereal box, scooping up a fistful of precious marshmallows and sugar-encrusted flakes. "What's the big deal? Why're you looking at me like that?"
Oak composed himself enough to utter a single question. "Violet... do you... do you have any idea as to what happened?"
Violet spoke through a mouth of half-masticated cereal. "Wha' happened?" she asked, but it came out more like "muf mhapphned" or something equally unintelligible. Fortunately, the sentiment of her confusion was sufficiently conveyed.
Oak pressed two fingers to his temple, deep in thought, like he was contemplating potential ways to explain his response. He floundered verbally, once or twice, before he attempted to elaborate. "You were asleep for a long time, Violet."
Violet wasn't really paying attention. She was on her way to the refrigerator again, in search of something to moisten the too-stale cereal. "No way, Prof. I woke up at, like... seven. I think. I can't remember. My alarm clock didn't work or nothin'... I probably smashed it to pieces and forgot."
"I-I don't know what happened to make you wake up, but... you had hit your head, Violet."
"Oh, that's fine. I hit my head all the time," Violet laughed, removing a sizable carton of Moomoo Milk from the fridge.
"No, you don't understand," Oak explained as gently as he could, "When you hit your head, you had passed out."
That time, Violet stopped. She addressed Oak, but did not meet his gaze. She tried to recall the incident he was describing, but she couldn't really remember anything beyond when she went to sleep last night. A small note of apprehension was evident in her voice as she said, with uneasy calm, "I don't remember that happening. So what? I'm awake now, and I feel great." Violet paused. "Well... aside from... my legs. But they're starting to feel better, I guess."
Violet took advantage of the following silence, which she thought to be Oak conceding to her logic, by twisting the cap off of the milk carton. She upended it and started chugging down the sweet deluge of milk, so satisfied with her victory that she didn't notice the fact Oak's shock had been replaced with grim clarity.
"You had been unconscious for seven years."
Violet's brain blanked out again as she promptly and reflexively spit out the mouthful of milk in an impressive, torrential geyser. Even after her mouth had been emptied, she erupted into a fit of coughing and hacking as she choked on an unfriendly dollop of milk she had swallowed the wrong way. She had relinquished the milk carton without realizing it; the container bounced off the floor, bleeding milk in a swelling white puddle around its bruised and battered frame. Oak dashed up to the girl and slapped her on the back; the obstruction clogging her esophagus was safely siphoned into her stomach and her episode of wheezing abated. Totally ignoring the apologetic look on Oak's face, Violet jerked her head around to glare accusingly at him.
"Yeah right, Prof," she rasped, "Knock it off. That wasn't funny."
"I wasn't joking. I didn't want to say it in such a brusque manner, but there was really no other way to go about it."
"But that's IMPOSSIBLE!" Violet blurted, so outraged by this lukewarm prank that she didn't really realize that Oak was leaving the room. Her hands jerked the wheelchair, and she raced after the good professor, chasing more out of impulse than any other emotion. "How couldja think I'm that STUPID, Prof? Okay, I do do some stupid things sometimes and I might say a few stupid things but that doesn't mean you can make fun of me like that! I thought you were really awesome even though you're old, but now I know you're..."
Oak thrust what looked to be a piece of glass framed in black under Violet's nose. Scowling defiantly at him and muttering some choice words that were better not repeated in polite company, she examined the reflective surface with an edge of disenchantment. "Oh, a mirror. Nice. I see what you're doin' there. I guess I'm just gonna look at it and see that I'm an entirely different..."
Violet knew that the person she was looking at was herself. She knew all the features projected in the mirror were most assuredly hers. But something was different, something she couldn't really pinpoint. One quick scan asserted that she wasn't missing any body parts; both of her eyes were present and in place, properly arranged in the pattern she intimately knew: one blue eye, one green eye, shaded by the bedraggled, purple-streaked bangs of her bright blue hair. Her face was as round as she remembered, with olive skin and besprinkled around the cheeks and throat and in other places with freckles, but just then, just then, she understood that she looked older, more mature, and thinner and more pronounced in places that were once plump with baby fat (and ordinary fat). This was not just a cosmetic change that occurred overnight, this was a complete and total leap in age.
"...person."
She had grown from a twelve-year-old girl to a nineteen-year-old woman.
---
Utterly silent and solemn-faced, Violet rested the mirror on her lap, staring at the wall in front of her. From outside of her vision, she heard Oak say something, but didn't quite realize it was his voice.
"Apparently, you had tripped on your way over here and... bumped your head. It was quite amazing that you hadn't – well, uh, at either rate... you were in a coma. The doctors knew your condition was quite stable; they just didn't know when you would wake up. I guess... now we know the answer."
"Huh," Violet muttered affirmatively, brow furrowed and face squared, like she was trying to decipher a thought that she just could not place.
"So... I..."
"Uh, Oak?"
"Yes, Violet?"
"Did... did the Extirpator win his championship title?"
A pained silence.
"...No, I'm afraid he lost on the day you hit your head."
"...Huh."
That last shock was the icing on the panic cake. Violet's wheelchair tilted to the side and crashed on the ground, and she promptly passed out.
To Be Continued
That was the prologue, guys. I hope you all enjoyed it. I'm not sure when I'm gonna update again, but hopefully it'll be soon.
By the way, Fistula Haggis was a name concocted by Matt. We needed a name for a ridiculously hardcore death metal band. He came up with that. I pretty much imagine that they're like Insane Clown Posse in their music, because I hate Insane Clown Posse, and Fistula Haggis is basically an unimaginably bad band that is inexplicably popular.
The Our Lady the Crobat joke was also made by Matt. He should do all the work for me.