A/N: Hey readers, MafiaMello here. This is my first Pokémon fic, inspired by several fics that I've read on here. Anyway, enjoy this first chapter, I should have the second chapter up within the next two weeks or so depending on the workload college decides to give me.
October 31st, 2004.
Riiiiing. Riiiiiing. Riiiiing. A soft light from the small window lit the ringing phone, its perch an empty desk covered in a thin film of dust. The rhythmic clack of cane and heel signaled the arrival of the aging woman who cautiously lifted the phone to her ear, almost dropping it in excitement when a masculine voice spoke the incredible news. "After 18 hours of labor she's finally done it. It's a boy, Agatha. We're going to call him Marik."
A soft smirk graced the short woman's face, "I can't wait to meet my first and only grandchild," She lightly set down the receiver as the call ended, turning to the dark shadowy beings encircling her before she spoke, her voice light but gruff, "And so it begins. We have much to prepare, friends. Marik Gale…you have an interesting future ahead of you."
April 3rd, 2005.
A blonde haired baby blubbered in the corner as a ball of toxic gases held together by extra-dimensional energy stalked it, hovering over to it with a curious grin on his pitch black face. The babe met the Ghost Type's piercing gaze, not fazed at all by the creepy stare. Gastly opened the black void of his mouth and stuck his tongue out at the little boy, earning a giggle from him. Things were going well for Marik's first encounter with a Pokémon, especially one as mysterious and uncontrollable as a Ghost Type. The Gastly's Trainer was none but the Master of Ghosts herself, Agatha, renowned for her skill in taming even the strongest Ghosts, the second hardest type of Pokémon to tame. Her cane clunked against the ground as she casually glanced at the child and Pokémon pair before walking back to the table and lifting her coffee mug to her thinly lined lips.
Another man sat across from her, his hair gelled to spikes and a long red scarf trailing down his neck. The man's black beady eyes seemed to pierce the very soul as they bored into Agatha's equally lethal glare. "The ghosts don't affect him like they've done others," he commented blankly, drawing a sip from his mug.
"They've taken to him as easily as if he were me. He's a natural, Koga. I think he may…" she began, fiddling with the vial around her neck, "…be just who we need."
December 25th, 2009.
"Ok, here's the plan…" whispered the young Marik, his pale blond hair looking white in the low light. Surrounding him were a Haunter and three Gastly, but he radiated no fear at being in their presence. Even the most experienced Trainers feel a chill in the presence of a Ghost Type, but to Marik it was just another day. But he had a glorious idea with the box of ninja tricks Uncle Koga had given him for Christmas. The boy's body slumped against the wall as Haunter punched a ghostly detached hand through his chest, pushing out the young boy's soul. Disoriented at first, Marik looked around the shadowy corner quickly; wanting to make sure nobody heard the first step in his plan. Nodding to the four ghosts around him, he rose up into the air and floated through the wall. A chill went through him as he passed through the physical object and hovered over the dinner table, his mom, dad, grandma, and uncle seated in light chatter. The ghosts floated invisibly behind him, each holding a stink pellet in their mouths or hands. Marik focused hard, lifting the solid pellet in his own ghostly hands. This was difficult feat for one as young as he, but being close with these ghosts all his life made ghostly manipulation a tad bit easier. Plus, he practiced all last week. Cocking back his arm, he signaled to the Ghosts beside him to fire their pellets with him.
"Fire!" he called out, laughing gleefully as the barrage of stinky gas-filled pellets sailed towards the table, only to be abruptly deflected by a whirl of Agatha's cane, sent right into the faces of the Ghost Pokémon around the boy.
"Marik," called her stern voice, "you'll have to try harder next time to best a Master of ghostly pranks like me," she added with a light smirk before resuming her normal chatter with Marik's mom, whose mouth was agape. "It was too obvious, Emily."
"That may be true, Mom, but few people can say they can sense a soul like you just did," was her astonished response.
Her husband, Amon, chuckled and addressed Koga, "Well, you did give him the ninja kit. Of course he was going to use it to try and get back at her for the prank last month."
Marik entered the room at this time, returned to body with no harm but to his ego. The five year old cringed at the mention of the prank last month…he still had the marks on his arms.
March 15th, 2012
"Alright, Beedrill, Poison Jab!" Venom dripped from the large bee's lance-like foreleg stingers like the sweat dripping off his short yellow and black fur. Letting out a mind-numbing buzz, the bee sped forward like a bullet, weaving through the trees of Lavender Forest up towards the canopy of a large maple, the setting sun illuminating him in a crimson glow. A pair of green eyes and a pair of red eyes lit up within the dark leaves, right where the Bug Pokemon's two-foot long stingers sought to pierce. The dark shadow with the green eyes held out his hand, pointing his finger at the incoming threat, his voice rising just audible enough to hear.
"Psyclone," spoke the green-eyed shadow, his voice firm but not at all deep; the voice of a child. The red-eyed shadow darted forward, eyes flashing purple, momentarily coating her tattered body and pointed hat-like head in a deep glow. A whirling cyclone of telekinetically controlled wind whipped up in front of the Trainer and Pokemon duo, the modified Psywave catching the Beedrill right before impact and sending it flying out the top of the vortex towards the forest floor a dozen feet away. The dangerous Bug/Poison Type easily caught itself before it could hit the ground, buzzing angrily in an ascending pitch.
"Excellent work, son," called the Trainer of the Beedrill, stepping out from behind a tree and calming the angered bug with but a glance. His skin lightly tanned, his hair trimmed close to his head, and his beard a mess of unshaven stubble, he looked up to the treetops, crossing his arms and sighing, "But you really do need to find a better hiding place. This is the third time this week!"
The two shadows leapt from the tree, revealing themselves as a young white haired boy with nearly glowing green eyes and a magnificent and wise Mismagius. Despite the large height, the seven year old boy touched down easily, like he'd been doing it for years. His hand brushed through his spiked hair and adjusted the zipper on the grey hoodie he wore, a grin falling upon his face as he looked up to his father. "Alright, you found me, Daddy." He clapped his hands excitedly, adding, "Can we move on to a real battle now?"
A light smirk graced his father's hairy chin, Amon answering with a teasing jibe, "I'm beginning to think you keep hiding here so we can get to the battle quicker."
The boy sniggered, "Never gonna tell!"
As the sun finally sunk, enveloping the small clearing within the dark forest, the father and son duo fell into step, that two splitting apart to form the necessary distance for a comfortable battle. Mismagius floated in front of Marik and Beedrill hovered close to Amon, the bee's usually feral eyes warm and soft. He was tranquil in the moment, but the young Marik knew all too well how dangerous and destructive this bee could be. It was one of Amon's oldest Pokemon, the first Pokemon he had caught when he was a child as a small Weedle. The little bug had put up a rather violent fight against his Charmander, even poisoning him, but he had prevailed and caught the little fella, raising him into this destructive monster.
Marik worked with Mismagius, a Pokemon Amon had caught as a Misdreavus later in his trainer career. However that did not dismiss the girl's fearsome ghostly power. But there was one problem with this. "I don't think you'll be able to beat me, son. I know my Mismagius all too well. You won't last five minutes," Amon added with a smirk.
Marik childishly stuck out his tongue and responded, "We've been practicing more than you think, Father. We'll defeat you this time!" This little exchange was tradition. Every battle had to be as real as possible, neither wanting to go easy on the other. Amon wanted his son to learn; Marik wanted his father to see how far he's come. This was, too, their only way of bonding. Amon worked most of the day, commuting to Safron City to work at Silph Co. He only had nights to teach his son all he knew about battling, which he had started the day of Marik's seventh birthday. Emily, Marik's mother and Amon's wife, was never a trainer, but she worked closely with Dr. Fuji at his Nursery, leaving Marik at home with Grandma Agatha and her Ghosts.
"Enough chat!" called out Amon, raising his hand high, "Let's start this off with a Fury Attack!" The oversized bee shot forward, easily traversing the distance with his stingers held forward and Marik's mouth agape.
Why would Dad use a Normal type move on a Ghost? Unless he's planning to switch to a different move at the last second...Realization struck the boy's mind, when he caught a small smirk on his father's face; his gut was correct. "Dodge the Pursuit, Mismagius!" Letting out a low wail in reply, the Ghost sped forward, flying through the air faster than the Beedrill to meet it halfway, spinning off to the right side using her momentum, just when all three stingers grew a sickly black- only for Beedrill to spin around himself, his abdominal stinger slamming straight into the back of the ghostly woman's head. She was sent hurtling towards the nearby tree, slamming hard against it with force enough to knock out anything weaker than her. Had she been punctured by the dark-covered stinger, it would have been much more debilitating. The darkness, though, had interrupted her ability to phase, and it is this, in combination with the impact, that dealt comparative damage. But she did rise from the assault, albeit wearily, floating slowly back to Marik.
Noting the look of confusion on his son's face, Amon smiled and explained, "You did well in predicting a switch to Pursuit, but you forgot one crucial thing. Pursuit is twice as effective against a fleeing opponent, multiplying the user's reflexes to allow him or her to strike before the foe can escape, but in this case my Beedrill has mastered it to the point that it greatly damages those he can strike in the back."
Marik looked down, sad that he had let the Mismagius get hurt, patting her tattered head affectionately. She cooed, enjoying the attention as Marik whispered a string of inaudible commands. The ghost floated up slowly, the gems embedded in her cloak-like body began to chime, coating her in a dim pink aura. This was Heal Bell, and this variation of the technique would steadily heal her wounds over time. Her eyes flashed a light green, releasing a whirling cyclone of leafs that she sent spirally towards Beedrill with a mere thought. At the same time, she charged energy to her mouth, summoning forth a growing orb of intense purple and black energy with blue lightning arcing about inside it. As the bee dodged and juked left and right, flickering out of existence to avoid the razor sharp psychic-covered leaves, Mismagius shot off her overcharged Shadow Ball, plowing straight through the leaves and slamming straight into Beedrill's exoskeleton covered thorax. Dark energy washed over the bug and few stray leaves collided with the weakened armor, cracking the thin defenses with gruesome ease.
Beedrill plummeted to the ground, arching his back in pain, the impact splitting open his defenses. A Beedrill's exoskeleton was built to weather energy attacks by spreading the damage over the full area. But a pinpoint powerful physical attack or a brutal impact was enough to break the tender shell. "Beedrill! Can you still fight?" called out the man, knowing full well that his aged bee was tough and prideful enough to continue despite the gooey green steadily seeping out from the cracked and battered exoskeletal surface.
Mismagius was hovering weakly over the ground, mentally drained from putting so much of her power into the Shadow Ball and still physically weak from the sound thrashing the Dark Type attack had done to her. Dark Type attacks and Pokemon were a particular threat to Ghosts just as much as they are to Psychics, and for the very same reason. Ghostly energies are like Dark energies in the effect that they are otherworldly, which explains why Dark Type moves like Dark Pulse were easily usable by many a Ghost Type, and just as easily could Shadow Ball be used by a Dark Type. But the energies were still structurally different. While both were exceeding harmful to Psychics, the energy enough to throw off the thought process and leave them open to other destructive attacks, Ghost techniques did little to Dark Type Pokemon, while Dark techniques did heavy damage to Ghosts. Perhaps the Dark energies were just more foreign than Ghost or Psychic, not even Agatha knew (or at least had not informed Marik of the matter).
"You still able to fight?" asked the boy, soft green eyes locked on Mismagius' own scarlet gaze, and she replied with a low hum. She was ready, but Marik knew a direct fight would result in his partner's eventual defeat. He just was not as skilled as his Father. But he did have a few tricks up his sleeve, and now would be the time to use them. "Start with Echoed Voice and set up a Double Team. Then hit him with Attract," he spoke with a slight smirk, thankful that the dark night was filled with the cacophony of wild Pokemon; his Father would not be able to hear the small conversation, and he was going to take full advantage of this situation. "But be watchful for a counter. Dad is smart." Now Marik was not naïve. He knew his father likely had his own plan, also taking advantage to set up his own stream of commands. But a Bug type could not usually take extremely complex commands; their minds were far too simple, intellectually that is. Beedrill had one of the deadliest killer instinct of his type. Many starting Trainers feared encountering or angering a swarm, as they were known to attack wildly without a care for who or what got hurt. This dependency on instinct granted them a boon against mental arts, as their minds were so simple it hurts a Psychic to be inside such an instinct-controlled mind.
Again the two Pokemon shot forward, determination set in Mismagius' glowing eyes and bristling anger welling within the Beedrill's deep red compound eyes. Suddenly, the deep red seeped from his eyes and throughout his body, coating him an aura of blinding red light which soon focused to the three stingers, the main weapons a Beedrill had. But his eyes brightened with an even more ethereal glow- he shot off, matching Mismagius' starting speed as if it were nothing. Knowing his dad well enough, Marik was able to pick out the skills that made this devastating technique: Rage, a conversion of anger into increased physical strength, perfect for the brutal instinct-driven bug; Focus Energy, a sharpening of the mind that led one to finding weak points easier, molding and concentrating the raw power granted by Rage; Agility, a psychic enhancement of one's natural speed, adding forceful momentum and velocity to an already devastating foe. This was one of Beedrill's more frightening combinations, known to Marik as the Kaio Ken technique. A massive increase in focused power and agility that brought Beedrill up to the overwhelming power levels of Amon's starter, one of the fiercest and largest Charizard to grace the sky. But again, Marik could tell this was a weaker version, meant to only double Beedrill's abilities. He still had nightmares of the time he saw Beedrill decimate an old and destructive Gengar with a Pursuit powered by Kaio Ken x20. The sheer volume of killing intent nearly sent the young boy into shock- but now was no time for a trip down memory lane.
"Now!" he called, noting that Beedrill was close enough for the combination to work. Mismagius immediately shifted into ten copies, surrounding the Beedrill and laughing darkly at the Bug/Poison Type's plight. The beast had stopped, not wanting to waste the power his controlled rampage held. The ten Mismagius let out a piercing wail, growing slowly in volume as each illusionary clone let off its blast of sound, culminating in the true Mismagius releasing a massive burst of auditory violence, shaking the deadly Beedrill to the core and sending it straight into the ground under the combined assault- at least that's what Marik wished happened.
Just as Mismagius began her wail, Marik caught his mistake. But it was far too late. Beedrill vanished in a burst of unparalleled speed, possibly adding another count to his Kaio Ken multiplier, and sliced into Mismagius' tattered chest with crossed stingers surrounded in a sickly lime-green energy. This was one of the strongest Bug Type moves, X-Scissor. Mismagius fell to the ground in a heap, her cloak like body shredded violently, but nothing she couldn't fix herself with a few hours of rest. Ghost Type Pokemon without a physical body were strange that way. Destructive damage that could easily kill any other Pokemon resulted in at most the Ghost fading away into the shadows to regenerate in a few days' time. Mismagius' head and hat-shaped tufts of wispy shadows adorning her head were left untouched, as were the red gems on her body that served as her personal energy conduit. She would be fine, but she knew not how well the Hatchling, as she had taken to calling Marik, would take his eighteenth straight loss to his father, whom she called Trainer-Friend.
Marik slumped to the ground in defeat as Amon took the time to tend to Beedrill's wounds, Truth be told, he was very proud of his son. The old Trainer switched his partner each week when they battled on Fridays, and this is the closest Marik had even come to defeating one of his Pokemon. Plus it provided Mismagius, one of the newer additions to the team, some well needed experience to bring her up to the rest of the team's awe-inspiring power. Amon focused on the deep slices and dents in Beedrill's exoskeleton, the bee's buzzing more like a pained wince and his deep red eyes dark with finally realized pain. Nothing a quick dose of Full Restore wouldn't fix, but he would need to take both Beedrill and Mismagius to the Pokemon Center down the road from their home within the next two hours, ample time to hike back to their humble abode in a lesser known residential area of Lavender Town.
Marik blinked as the Mismagius he saw as an aunt floated to him and nuzzled against his hand, becoming perfectly tangible to feel the soft touch her master's son had. She may be a tough opponent, but she did enjoy a pampering every once and a while, and Marik always delivered with a much needed massage. His mother had taught him the art and it had paid off exceptionally well. Even the hard-to-please female Gyarados Amon had melted at the young boy's touch. Marik lost himself in the simple act of rubbing Mismagius' tufts and even polishing her gems, an act that only people trusted by the particular Mismagius or Misdreavus were allowed to do without dastardly consequences. Several minutes passed in content silence before Marik raised his voice loud enough for the four of them to hear, "I thought I could trap Beedrill in a dome of sound waves using the Double Team copies…" he began, fiddling with his hoodie's zipper nervously before continuing, "But even after rethinking that whole plan five times over I can't see why it shouldn't have worked…"
An eerie silence reigned, even the Pokemon populating the dark forest remained silent. Amon found his voice after a few moments of contemplation, packing up his medical gear as he replied, "In theory it should, but it is partially my fault that I haven't fully taught you the full capabilities of Double Team. Your sound wave dome would only work if Mismagius was able to rotate among her copies, producing the ten Echoed Voices herself. Though a stronger sound move like Hyper Voice would cut down the amount of clones needed, you'd still need more training to use the move efficiently while switching between the copies at high speed."
Marik sighed; another attempted combination had failed him. Maybe one day he would figure out how to make it work right, but that day was not now. Amon rose to his feet, returned Beedrill to his Pokeballs, and quickly closed the short distance between him and his son, crouching down beside him and gripping his should firmly. His deep baritone sung a kind tune as he sought to find the right words. He was never a man of words, that was much more his wife's department. But just as he powered through his wedding vows nine years ago he would find just what he needed to tell his son. "You were fantastic, much better than the Rookies I see on my way to work, and you don't even have your own partners yet. I want you to remember one thing…don't ever forget a combination you've attempted. For all you know it just need the right push or an extra move or technique to work as you planned. Kaio Ken would not be nearly as strong of a combination had I not accidentally discovered it when I called a wrong move in my first Conference battle. Let's head home before it gets too dark," he finished, rising to his feet and slinging his pack over his large shoulders, "Ma must have some ice cream left in the fridge, you've surely earned a bowl after tonight's training. But first we should get to the Center and get some help for Beedrill and Mismagius."
Marik forgot the rut he had fallen into at the mention of the delicious treat and smiled widely, reverently pulling Mismagius' Pokeball from his belt and returning her before standing up as well. Normally he'd have let her walk (well, float) beside him, but he didn't want her to suffer too much in her injured state. At that they set off, aiming to make the hike to the Center in record time. Ice cream was on the line and they would have it if it was the last thing they did.
From inside the humble house several miles away from the forest clearing, Agatha smiled at the progress her grandson was making. Everything was falling into place.
A/N: Thanks for reading, and I hope you'll leave a review…or I might sic Beedrill on you.