From the journal entries of Commander Mars
Dear journal,
I've made a disturbing discovery.
"How can that thing be considered a Pokemon? It's vile."
"Not all the creatures of the earth have the grace and beauty that you do, darling."
I hate talking about my mother. I hate it for the same reason I often hate writing these journal entries, it's the gateway to my own pretentious tendencies. Blaming everything on my mother, how I was raised and the very nature in my bones is one of the great horrors of writing. It's the very nature of my pretentiousness, it's what tears me apart. I hate it, damn it all, but I have to.
There are times we have to discuss what irks us the most.
Sometimes, most all times, we need to let out the most disturbing things we've discovered, even ones about ourselves. There are unfortunate realities that do exist, and we occasionally cross over into those dark places. There are things that are too strange to be processed alone.
"That's a disturbing thought, Ari."
On the floor, kneeling, Ariana stroked the plumy, fleshy pads of Vileplume's flowery crown. She grinned through full lips, hearing gentle coos emit deep in Vileplume's mouth-less chest as she worked her fingers deep and massaged him. Sighing, she slid further down towards the floor, sitting on her rear in her labcoat-like uniform, folding her glossy white boots beneath her as she rested. A set of glossy, candy red fingernails scratched and tickled beneath the 'leaves' of Vileplume's body, her eyes wandering over the psychedelic, mustard colored spots that adorned his body.
"It is," Ariana smiled, letting her red eyes flare up to Archer.
In the summers, I take my trips to Johto. One a year, every year. I had never gone as Commander Mars.
It's the same. I stay in the same, old hotel on the outskirts of Cherrygrove and ask for a room where the pink cherry trees face the old, papery windows, overlooking the city with so many creeks interwoven through it. I visit the same sushi restaurant towards the southeast entrance off Route 43. I rent a bike from the same shop, and take it touring the western coast by the Tidal Caves and the whirlpools. I buy from the same brewer of Sake in the north and take it to my hotel, watching the same romance movies on tape.
There are so few times where I take a trip on Team Galactic business, and they are usually in cataclysmic circumstances. The Floaroma Windworks come to mind. Frankly, the only feeling I had is a feeling of dread for what a trip to Johto meant. I could only dread what it meant to be in a place of such relaxation, such history and serenity, and desecrate it. Yes, Johto has a lot of other meaning to me—lots of meaning to me—but I had given it lots of new meaning. It was a vacation spot to be free, and in all honesty, I do get a bit nostalgic for the past. It's just nice, now, to put some distance between it. Some good, healthy distance.
Archer sat on the edge of the table, holding a mug by the curled handle and balancing it on the center of a plate in his other hand. His nose wrinkled, taking in the scent of freshly brewed black coffee.
"Have you thought about changing careers?"
Raising an eyebrow, Archer turned his frigid blue eyes to Ariana, taking a long sip of his boiling hot coffee expressionlessly. The cup rested in the carved space in the center of the plate in his hand, and then was set on the table beside him. He held the table he sat on gently, running his fingers on the black rubber spacer that wrapped around the edge of the table, and then crossing his legs.
"Is it on your mind?" Archer asked pensively.
Ariana had coereced Vileplume to lay on his side as much as he could, resting on his plumy crown of petals. Her fingers danced around his pill-shaped, blue body, teasing and massaging Vileplume to get more of the light exasperated sighs that echoed through his tiny body. Her own head tilted softly, lost in thought.
"Not really."
"Then why ask me?" asked Archer.
Ariana chuckled in amusement, looking up with a gleam of inspiration wheeling in hereyes. "A couple Poke for your thoughts, I suppose."
Archer pursed his lips, his eyes wandering down to meet Vileplume's, giving a flat stare.
And what of this past? Well let's start from the beginning.
My mother was a Team Rocket Executive, tasked with all the individual operations in their criminal activities, stationed in the Johto region. When the Rockets had been kicked out of Kanto by some unknown debacle, they resumed activities in its neighbor, the Johto region. I wouldn't be lying if I said my mother headed up a lot of the organization in the area, but I'm just not certain. It was shared leadership, but at the time there was no higher-up. My mother shared her responsibilities with Team Rocket Executives. There were three others.
Let's go a little further back.
During Team Rocket's reign over the Kanto region, the height of their criminal activities and influence, is when the Johto chapter was started. Johto was a small, fully-fledged operation headed by a group of many executives, 'The Original Four', they were called. My mother, Ariana, was not a part of The Original Four.
My mother was a nurse during those times. She met a man in those days, a man named Giovanni, my father.
I have no idea how Giovanni seduced my mother to his side. Until then, I had known my mother not to have a cruel bone in her body, an ounce of evil in her to tide over the calm, collected person she was. I have never met Giovanni, at least in person, even though I have his blood coarsing through my body and his inherent traits. I know Giovanni must be powerful, an willful man who could turn the greatest men and women into the greatest servants and slaves, cowards to obey his will. How else could Team Rocket have done so much damage to the Kanto region? How else could he have turned my mother to the dark side?
"What I have hoped for in the short term is significantly different from what I have planned in the future," mused Archer, features soft as he stared at the floor in thought. He shook his head. "There are no immediate plans, no..."
"Then I guess I'm asking about the future," said Ariana.
"The future? Who can know the future? There are no facts about the future... We can only hypothesize, use clever insight and cunning conjectures..."
From behind Ariana, resting upright only a foot away from where she had slouched to the carpeted floor, a white leather purse rested. Fumbling for it, Ariana undid the zipper gracefully, rooting through it only momentarily as she knew exactly what she was looking for. She felt the plastic wrap graze her fingers, clutching the small wrapped package as she pulled it from the purse and set it on her knee, pulling the zipper up once more. The package was white, candy bar shaped, a barcode and several indiscernable markings printed onto the glossy surface.
"I know, but we can hope," Ariana said, mildly teasing with an impatient voice. She opened the plastic-wrapped package, unsheathing a tightly packed cluster of brown nutrients and grains—a nutrition bar for Pokemon. Breaking off a small, round chunk of the sandy substance, she handed it over to Vileplume, who caught it in-between his tiny, stubby arms.
"Well, only Giovanni can know the future, I suppose..."
Such a dark, harrowing and horrific possibility. It haunts me.
Taking a deep, airy breath through her nostrils, Ariana's eyes flared up to Archer, locking with his eyes for several long, strained moments. She clutched the nutrition bar, still where she was, continuing to stay on the floor, staring up mercifully.
Archer looked down sagely, then hung his head.
"Some Poke for my thoughts..." repeated Archer. His fingers clamped around edge of the coffee-filled mug, still steaming and hot, bringing the mug around and then lifting it to his lips as he took a long draw.
There were many stories about who my mother and father were. The more I try to write them, the more they start to feel like excuses. I've heard many stories, explanations for something I could've never experienced: a time when my mother and father were in love.Let's go further back again.
This is not the first time Giovanni and my mother had met. Growing up, my mother had been incredibly poor. Her family had come from a distant land I had never heard of, but she had made it to Johto for some excuse that made little sense to me at the time. I had heard stories that her father—my grandfather—had served in the Great War, and wanted to stay somewhere peaceful, so they had chosen the safe haven of Johto over the war-torn, nearly destroyed Kanto. Growing up, that meant they had very little, and for as often as I forget, I do know that Pokemon training was completely different for a people who were just learning the craft. My mother had always told me that Pokemon had helped work the land and sustain them, both dire and beautiful helpers. Though Johto is the great center of the arts as it always has been, it was built on rural ground, and it was ground that my family so long ago staked out for themselves and soon my mother and I. When they pulled together to send my mother to school, they were incredibly poor.
Giovanni was not, or at least hid it very well. He was poor but had made sustainable choices with his life. He was savvy, and able to survive on that, so he shared that ability with my mother. There is so little I know about him, where he came from and who he truly was, and that truly is a shame. I do know that he is how my mother survived her childhood, her young years, and her early adulthood.
The breaking point for this relationship was when my mother decided to go down the path of nursing, and Giovanni more or less stayed where he was. The point where my mother returned was when it had failed her.
She was broke, overworked, and more importantly purposeless. She wanted children. She wanted to do better on how her parents had lived and died. She wasn't heading that way.
Giovanni gave her that.
"I want a lawn, when I get older. I hope never to spend all the time that those fools in Kanto have, rotting away in some concrete box. No... I want to reflect on my sins in peace and quiet. I want to ruminate in a box bordered by a white picket fence... With a family... I want to die like everyone else..."
Ariana looked past Vileplume, past Archer's boots, looking under the table he sat and boring her gaze into the wall, lost in thought.
Past the red tips of Ariana's hair, Archer too stared off into space, unsure and lost in thought. "I don't want to die alone," said Archer, swallowing in earnest.
It made sense that my mother and father were together.Perhaps this is why this discovery is so disturbing. I never dreamt she would have an affair so...
So detailed.