Hello angry people who want to kill me for deleting two stories that you all really seemed to like, and I really have no good excuse, per se. My only excuse for deleting both of them, which is pretty dumb when you think about it, is because, like with a lot of my stories, there's nothing to really keep me interested in writing them, and I know there are going to be a lot of people who are going to say, "I told you so." A lot of you readers out there have told me that I'm definitely overworking myself, but I have to say that this is really not the only reason why I deleted both my newer Gijinka and Regular Elite. Part of the reason I deleted them is because of that reason above about overworking myself, another part is that the premise of both of those other stories forces too much onto my own character which is unfair to the rest of you, and finally, the characters I made for my own are definitely not in my repertoire, so I'm going to stay in my comfort zone until I know can actually work with a character like Altair or Setsuna, so I apologize. This is OC submission as always, and the form will be on my profile. Like last time, I will be accepting up to eleven characters, and the rest of this will be explained in the author's note below.
DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN POKÉMON, BECAUSE IF I DID, GHOSTS AND DRAGONS WOULDN'T BE WEAK TO THEMSELVES.
Prologue: The Truth Behind Fantasy
Have you ever noticed how reality always falls short of your expectations, and just doesn't seem to be what you expected out of whatever it was that you thought about? This isn't a rare thing to happen, in reality, and most people have felt that the reality behind something is never is good as their fantasy. The phrase, "reality can really but you out," is one that carries a meaning past what most of us can comprehend. It suggests that because humans look only at the end result they can never fathom what it would take to get to where they can envision the end result as, and in most cases, it's true. Human thoughts are fragile, and will often break at the slightest disappointment or roadblock, and the strongest man is seen as the one who is able to accept what the reality of something is, and not build it up only for him to be disappointed by the end result.
There are many stories that depict the lives of those in specific training academies that specialize in specific pokémon elements, or separate their students by the element of their pokémon; well, this is one of those stories, but of a different kind. At these schools that people like yourselves have read stories about, specific students are set aside as both the major characters, and usually share something in common; either they are all comparatively weak to the rest of the school, stronger than even some of the staff members, are all part of a specific student union, club, or some other kind of school function or element that all connects them; there is that in this story. And often, the main character is of one of two types; the weak persona that grows strong as the story progresses, or the strong persona where people are instantly drawn to him, and he is already skilled in what he does, and helps the other character; this story does not have this person…it has a person who is both. The young man that this story begins with is neither strong in his heart, nor weak in his ability, but instead a weak boy with the strength that terrifies everyone around him.
Reaching his hand out towards the table in front of him, the boy hesitated as the one in front of him gave off a confident look that sent a shudder running down his spine as he placed his hand down. As his hand glided across the table, ending, closer to the one in front of him, he slowly lifted his hand, and retreated it back to his side as the eyes staring at him, shifted from side to side, and made a single movement, barely noticeable, making the boy rub his temples as he let out a small sigh.
"Checkmate," the withered voice in front of him said, leading up to an aged man with a bald head, shaking limbs, and a cane in his right hand. "How is it you keep coming here and you still can't beat me in chess once, Natsu-kun?" he asked, readjusting his glasses as the boy in front of him showed next to no confidence in his own identity.
"Maybe I'm just not somebody who's really very good at anything?" the boy answered in question, the strands of his hair pointing at the ground and he kept his head down in defeat. "Or maybe you were just born to always win."
"I have Parkinson's and I'm living in an assisted living home," the man said, receiving a small chuckle from Natsu. "I don't think I'm really the one to talk to about being lucky, or winning. But every time you come here, it makes me wonder if this is the feeling that everyone else here gets when they're visited by their family. My family left for the other side of the world, and I haven't heard from them since."
"Does it feel as though I pity you?" Natsu asked, his head still down in near shame. "As though I'm just reminding you of what left before you could understand how much you missed it?" he asked, the old man laughing out loud, although left unheard by the other residents walking around the room.
"Not in the slightest," the man said, placing a shaking hand on Natsu's shoulder. "Whenever I see you riding down here on your bike, your hair flowing behind you, it makes me feel as though I'm being visited by a granddaughter who still bothers to remember her grandfather."
"Even though I'm a boy," Natsu said, feeling even more depressed, reaching for the different chess pieces, resetting the board for the old man he had been visiting for the past three years. "This hair has been my curse for as long as I can remember," he said, pinching a clump of the layered light brown strands, and running his fingers all the way down to where they ended at the same length as his shoulders.
"I believe it to be more of a blessing from Arceus," the man said, making the first move in the game, followed quickly by Natsu copying the same move. "Boys who can be easily mistaken as girls shouldn't be seen as cursed, but blessed that they understand the problems that both genders face, and are able to be the true counselors as opposed to those overpaid therapists that are always able to find something wrong with you."
"Trust me, there's not a shrink out there that wouldn't have a field day with me," Natsu replied, continuing the game, the depression in his voice ever present as he spoke. "With everything wrong with me, there shouldn't be any reason why I'm not six feet underground, and yet I continue to choose that there's something outside my life that would be changed if I wasn't here."
"There is," the old man said, moving his bishop piece across the board. "And it would be the happiness I gain from your visits. Looking at you reminds me of myself when I was younger, and truth be told, there were times I felt that my life wasn't worth as much as others continued to tell me. And yet, I've lived to this age of ninety seven, and the doctors that with my life, I am well on my way to living past hundred. Your life is too precious to me for you to disappear; because if you leave this world then there is no one to even remember me when I do pass on."
"You say I remind you of yourself at my age," Natsu said, keeping the conversation alive as he moved his rook in the path of one the old man's pawns. "How could I? I can never remind a man about their years when they were sixteen because I still look like I'm fourteen, at the oldest. I doubt there is even one man in this entire area that I could help remind them of days when they looked like me at that age."
"You amaze me, Natsu," the man said, continuing to play the game. "You see yourself as a cursed being because you don't look like everyone does, or did at your age, and you miss the point of what your face was created for; making others happy. In the years where you forget so much of your life, a person who looks like yourself would bring back the memories of just being young in any sense, regardless of how you look now, and how we looked back then. People who are able to preserve their youth are the people we wish to see the most because they remind us that while we are beginning to fade away, the world will still remember us in your memories, and your face will forever be a mirror for ours."
"Good to know how I can be of some use for the first time in my life," Natsu said, ramming his knight into one of the old man's bishops. "Aside from making you feel better about yourself when you kick the bucket, what else could I have a use for?" he asked, resting one of his arms on the table in front of him to support his head.
"Despite my being what you young people would call the wise elder, there is still much that is unknown to me, and the entirety of who you are, my young boy, is one of those things," the man said, sliding his queen piece across the table, and placing it in the center. "As far as I know, you are just a boy that visits me twice a week on the weekends in between your time in school, and you are a fairly prolific trainer yourself in the ways of ghost pokémon," he said, looking up, readjusting his glasses, to stare at two floating figures above Natsu. "That Lampent makes me nervous every time it comes here," he said, making Natsu chuckle as he moved his rook in the same spot where the queen stood, and removed it from the board.
"Check," Natsu said, the man looking back down at the board, finding that he was right, and that it was probably closer to the end of the game than Natsu was anticipating. "But I know you're right, and you have no idea of who I am outside of my life with you, and maybe that's for the best."
"You should be entering high school this year, right?" he asked, Natsu nodding as his answer. "Well, I think you should consider that school up the road where all the really great trainers go," he said, pointing towards a large steeple that could be seen from where both of them sat. "If you can make a good impression on them in there, you might have a chance to be a very successful battler in the future. You may even be able to take over a gym, or even become a champion," he said, Natsu almost bursting out in laughter at the notion.
"I admit I'm good at battle, but there's no way that I could ever become a gym leader, or anything higher than that," Natsu said, placing one more of his pieces towards the back corner of the board. "Checkmate," he declared, the man studying the board as he had to concede that his young friend had, indeed, finally won a game after three years of visiting him. "That school would never accept me anyway, I don't even have the confidence to show my face in battle."
As the man stared at the boy in front of him, both he and Natsu, along with a large portion of the residents heard a low rumbling sound as a large cloud of black smoke began to engulf the entrance to the nursing home, making way for a burly man, as devoid of hair as Natsu's friend, only he seemed to take pride in the fact, as it let off a gleam in the entering sunlight. As the dark smoke dissipated into the air outside of the entrance, the man was shown to be the basic example of a biker, with the leather jacket's sleeves ripped off, his jeans ripped at the knees, and his shoes tipped with actual steel.
"WHERE IS HE!?" he shouted at the top of his lungs, walking into the main room of the senior center, making sure to intimidate every person he walked by with that ever present evil sneer. "I KNOW HE COMES IN HERE TO PITY ONE OF YOU OLD GEEZERS! SHOW ME HIM NOW!" he continued, flipping over one of the tables as he reached the place where Natsu and his friend sat, the old man suffering from Parkinson's shaking uncontrollably, the biker thinking it was from him. "Scaring you, old man?" he asked, his voice finally coming down to a point where it was almost tolerable. "Then show me to him," he said as Natsu began shuddering at some of the artwork on the man's massive shoulder.
The biker noticed the small movement from him, and instantly let out another sneer, running his fingers along his cheek, assuming that Natsu was a girl. As the feeling of his massive hands made him cringe, Natsu made a large swallow that didn't go unnoticed by both his friend and the thug.
"Am I scaring you?" he asked, quietly into his ear. "Little girls like you should just be good, and then you won't get hurt."
"Leave my friend alone!" the old man shouted, the biker turning around, enraged by the old man's bravery as Natsu was able to relax slightly, but was met by a sight that horrified him; the biker was holding his friend at least three feet in the air by his collar. "If you're going to hurt me then do it!" he said, motioning at Natsu with a small flicker of his eyes as he began to back away to one of the back areas. "An old man like me won't quench your thirst like it would if you were picking on a young boy, though."
"Boy?" the biker asked, bringing the man to his face, spitting slightly as he asked the question. "That girl was a boy!?" he asked, definitely beginning to succumb to his rage. "ENOUGH OF YOUR GAMES, WHERE IS THE ONE I SEEK TO DO BATTLE WITH!?" he shouted throughout the rest of the nursing home.
"If you wish to see me, then turn around," a young voice instructed, the biker sneering as he turned around, finding a figure wrapped completely in a cloak standing in the passage to the hallway. "If you truly believe yourself to be strong for attacking an old man, why not try something who will surely best you?" he asked, motioning for him to come forward.
The biker scoffed, and threw Natsu's friend down into the chair below him, the latter almost down to the floor on his back, had it not been for a medium sized figure behind him. Turning around, the stone body of a Golett stood, straightening the man's chair, and walking back to its trainer's side. As the man looked above him, he found that the Lampent hanging on the ceiling was no longer there, but instead, floating by the figures shoulder. The old man smile slightly at the sight of the Lampent and Golett he had known for so long, but couldn't help be saddened, knowing full well who stood beneath the wrap.
"So, you are the one they call 'Reaper?'" the biker asked, the figure simply nodding as the former prepared one of his pokéballs, but seeing the one called Reaper hold up his hand to keep him from proceeding any further. "What now? Afraid?"
"Not in the slightest," Reaper answered, still refusing to move at all. "But I must ask that this conflict happen outside these walls as these people have nothing to do with your conflict with me. If you do not comply there will be no battle with me."
"Like I'm gonna listen!" the biker shouted, readying to throw his pokéball, but suddenly felt a heavy impact on his gut. Gagging slightly at the feeling as he fell down in front of the Golett as it returned to its master, the biker looked up at Reaper, and pointed an accusing finger. "That's a cheap shot!"
"You did not wish to fight on my terms despite you being the one to come to challenge me," Reaper explained as he walked towards the man. "You must be prepared to face any consequences that come with not complying to my terms of fighting. Otherwise, this will be the end result," he started, tilting his head for Lampent who slowly floated towards the biker. "Heat Wave…" he commanded, his voice dimming as he did.
As Lampent's body began to radiate more heat, it quickly released the power, producing a large wave of hot air that proved to be extremely dense on its own for the biker to withstand, trying to rise to his feet. As he finally placed one of his feet on the ground, holding himself up on the other leg with his knee, Lampent still forcing him back with the attack, never showing any signs of actual fatigue. Finding one last burst of strength in his legs, forcing himself to his feet, but then began to feel the entirety of the attack's force on his body. As he tried to shield himself, the biker found his arms to be too weak from bringing himself up to do any more, and was quickly knocked back down, tumbling out of the nursing home door, the residents turning to stare at Reaper.
"A wise man recently told that even when you may not think that your life is worth the time it took to create it, the memories of those you love will always be mirrored in your own face, no matter how much you may despise it," Reaper said, turning to face the old man at the chess board who waved goodbye as Reaper slowly walked out of the senior center.
Outside with the wind blowing on the rolling hills, Reaper stood in the center of the grassy plain, and removed the hood of his cloak, revealing his own face to be Natsu's who's expression dimmed all too quickly as he fell to the ground rolling on the ground while holding his head, both of his pokémon looking down at the pathetic face of their trainer. Both stared at each, and seemed to shrug their shoulders as this seemed to be a regular thing for him
"How could I be so stupid!?" he asked, rolling into a fetal position while gripping onto the grass in front of him, his eyes easily succumbing back into depression. "Since when did I have to get so noble!?" he asked pounding his fist on the ground, thinking of his friend. "How am I going to face him now?" he asked, small tears appearing in the corner of his eyes as he laid flat on the ground.
Like Natsu said himself, he wasn't exactly the most imposing figure out there, given his overall height, build, and facial structure was at least two years younger than his actual age. When he would stand, it would be close to five foot three, a fairly rounded face like a lot of younger children, and a build that was just beginning to actually develop. As described before, his hair was a light, almost sandy, brown color, and layered so his hair was brown on top and black underneath, reaching past the base of his neck towards the center of his shoulder blades, and the sides being the same length, reaching over his ears, but with the same style that made him appear as a girl. His bangs curled just over his sky blue eyes, and in them the only emotion you could feel from them was, as said several times before, depression. Natsu wore a pair of dark blue jeans that ended over his black tennis shoes, a grey t-shirt and a black blazer left open as he laid on the grass, both of his pokémon, Lampent and Golett, staring down at him.
"Don't give me that look," he said to both of his pokémon, despite neither having too much of a face to create expressions with. "I know what you're both thinking, and you're thinking that since I don't have anywhere else to go for school, I should just take his advice, right?" he asked, both of his pokémon giving a simple nod, as Natsu let out a small groan as he looked over at the sight of the large steeple, and only thought of the terror it would be should he actually go to school there. "Why do you guys always take his side?" he asked, both pokémon appearing as though they were chuckling.
As the three moved down the hill towards the steeple topped roof, Natsu couldn't help but look back up at the nursing home where we was sure the man he had seen as a friend for those three years was looking down at him, knowing full well who he really was.
"Please don't think any less of me," Natsu said, as though in prayer. "He helps me be the person everyone wants me to be, but am just not capable of becoming on my own. Had it not been for who the Reaper is, there is no way that you would ever know of me, and if it was really true that he is the greatest thing to ever happen to me, you, of all people would understand."
Back in the walls of the nursing home, the man, shaking uncontrollably from his conditions looked out the window with a smile as though he could hear what Natsu was saying. "You need the Reaper as much as the Reaper needs you, my friend. I had only heard of him in the news as a ruthless man of the ghost pokémon, and one that never shows kindness to any. When I saw that Lampent of yours join with him, I knew in my heart that nothing said about the Reaper could be true. You are different people, but you both are able to help each other; your kindness and humility, and his strength and confidence together are what will make you a whole person, my young friend."
Prologue complete. Obviously, this is back to my normal stuff with a bit of a twist in that I'm actually using the element of pokémon I want. For those of you that don't know me, I'm a big ghost type user, and in reality, I almost feel bare without one in my battling party whether it be Hades my Chandelure or Sparta my Golurk, I just love ghosts. My first technical pokémon was a Ghastly card, and my whole pokémon life has just revolved around the creepy dudes. So, obviously another twist is that I didn't explain a whole lot about the premise of this story, and that will be explain when I get the form up, and I know that some of you are going to tell me to get my act together, and to stop writing new stories and such, and I write this one with a solemn promise, that I will not write another new story until the release of the other generation six pokémon, because you'll know I'm just gonna go off on that like a frenzy. Natsu is definitely a character I'm more used to using, maybe a bit more depressed than usual, but the more effeminate males are starting to become a regular thing, and it's more of a psychological deal for me, don't ask me how it works, so just go with it. I like to put a bit of myself in my characters so I know something about Natsu will pop up in my life, so we'll have to see. Again, eleven spots open, and the form is on my profile. Until next time, ja nee.
