A/N:
Emosewa: AWW YISSSS! Finally, after weeks of planning and writing on Google Docs; after plenty of spreadsheet editing and setting; after many conversations until the disgustingly awesome hours of morning; it is finally here! The modernized TS:SoS! The dystopian PokePowers! The not-pokemorph-but-have-pokemon-powers pokemorphs! YES, WE'VE GOT A COLLAB WITH ONE OF THE CHILLEST PEOPLE HERE! Anywayy. Yeah, this is a SYOC, form on our profiles, please send to both of us. :D I'm super-duper excited for this, guys! AHHHH! *ahem*
Skittlinq: Heyhey guys! I'm an idiot so I've decided to take a go at juggling three fics! Yay! BUT THIS TIME I'M COLLABORATING WITH THIS super awesome, amazing, cool as author (who gives the best tips ever). This is kind-of new to me. I don't have Emo's awesome, humourous, writing style, nor have I ever written anything outside of school in first POV. SO YEAH, I THINk Emo's already covered everything, but I'll just repeat it all so I don't look like a useless sideliner. This is (another) multi-POV SYOC story. An academy one, actually. But I swear it's not cliche, okay? The form will be at the bottom, and on both of our profiles. Make sure you read the rules and follow them! c:
Full Summary
Evanescence, noun: the act of disappearing gradually; vanishing; fading away.
Faders, noun: survivors of a deadly disease known to mutate it's victims. Deemed dangerous by the government and locked down in concentration camps.
The Faders…what's left of the victims of the Delta Virus. The war persists, the land ravaged, the Faders to blame. Playing in the deadly hunt against the government, they are captured, one by one. Their only sanctuary: a clandestine school in the heart of it all.
Maybe… this is just a terrible nightmare conjured under a moonless night. The sorrow and anguish… all an illusion, ghosts of the past, a game we'll all escape... or maybe not - then we've just walked into a living nightmare.
But even as we wait… even as we fade, the world goes on...
These are the lies and hopes birthed from our despair.
...What about you?
This is a song of your demise. This is a crimson ball in a scarlet fairy tale. A masquerade over a mosaic floor of broken dreams. Behind the masks are truth and lies, friends and enemies. What unfolds under the chandelier will transcend everything you've ever known.
Care to dance? Be careful not to trip.
Evanescence: A Harsh Violet
Prologue
If your heart can be broken, then it means it's still working.
Rain pounded off the roof of the laboratory. It was the type of rain that seeped through clothes and skin; that sent an insistent pat-pat-pat across the pavement; the kind that sent mist spiralling through the air; the type of weather no one would be out in. Wind whipped wildly around, scattering loose trash and blowing leaves off trees. The moon was barely visible under the layers of clouds, but that didn't matter. The sun would be coming up soon. Which basically meant everyone was asleep.
Well, all except for one man.
He was in his mid-twenties, with neatly combed jet-black hair. His light lilac eyes were sunken, but sparkled at the thought of his discovery… at the thought of what he could create.
At the thought of what he could avenge.
Selena...
Everything he wanted was in the notebook he held in his hands. All he had to do was give life to the drawings.
Which... in turn, would reverse what couldn't be undone… until now.
"Soon," he said aloud, in a low whisper, speaking to the ones that were no longer with him. Speaking to her.
The papers described his ambitions to the tiniest of details, carefully laid down in the late hours he spent when the moon was up, to the moment the sun peaked above the horizon. He had bided his time. He had waited and observed patiently as the preparations were being completed. Everything had gone exactly as he wanted it to.
It was all flawless. Perfect. Without a mistake.
Nothing could go wrong this time.
He glanced at his notebook, his eyes blinking as he read the words already well-rehearsed in his mind.
Reunite. Redemption. Revenge.
The three words drove him on. They had shaped the print and outlines inside his notebook… they were the foundation of months of careful and tedious planning. They made him who he was, then and there.
He couldn't let this escape from his grasp. He was done with fleeting dreams. He was going to make this work
He looked up, still clasping the notebook with his numb fingers.
The core of his scheming... the heart of this crisis was right there. Waiting for him to put it into good use.
The twisted, humanoid, orange-and-blue shape stood in the room before him, strapped tightly to the metal surface, a web of wires and sensors racing across its skin. It was still and unmoving, only raising its head slightly when he peered at it through the tempered glass to meet his gaze with its own, white eyes. He felt the challenge it was proposing to him.
You dare try to tame me?
He knew he was the only one it ever spoke to in the lab from within its glass confines. He was the only one who had heard its low, deep voice, often alternating between a facade of calmness and fierce aggression. He refused to cower.
The creature too, had the same resolve as him.
"Of course," he whispered softly, seeing the grotesque smile on his face in the glass's reflection. "It's only a matter of time until you're free to go."
Its thoughts echoed in his mind, with a trace of longing. Freedom…
He nodded. "All you have to do is cooperate."
Liar!
He flinched as the telepathic word pierced into his thoughts. Well, at least the creature knew the truth. He wanted nothing more than to completely destroy that thing.
Except… he couldn't. He needed it to achieve his goals.
He needed it to bring Selena back.
There was a tiny beep next to him. He turn his head to face it.
"Aggression level, rising," the object said in a mechanical voice, the red light flashing warningly. But...
It was the machine next to it that caught his attention.
PROJECT-D.
"Ah," he said. "Yes."
Three buttons were set across it, divided evenly into a triangle shape, closely resembling a ruin painting he had seen in Sinnoh. It was connected to wires and tubes, snaking under the door and into the room that held the figure. He looked at two buttons briefly, before setting his eyes on the last one, set above all the others.
Fuse.
It was there. All he had to do was press it. The preparations only had minor touches to get through. He didn't know if leaving any of them out would give the final result any unfixable effects, but…
He had waited long for this.
Could I do it?
"Aggression level, rising," the mechanical voice warned.
The orange-and-blue figure behind the glass was trembling, its eyes glaring at him with repulse and anger as the beeps from the machine got louder. You are playing a dangerous game with the higher powers in this galaxy, little human.
He heard footsteps pounding outside his door, getting closer, barely audible above the rain pounding on the roof and windows. He disregarded it. It was almost time. He wouldn't let anything stop him.
"You'll get your freedom soon," he promised. "It's been awhile since you've seen the stars, hasn't it?"
The figure looked at him with contempt, but he could see that his words had shaken it. I long to touch the sky again.
"You'll get exactly that, after we're… done with you." Let's hope you'll still be able to fly when this is over.
The footsteps only got louder. They were headed straight for the room he was in.
"Aggression level, rising." The beeps were faster and louder. "Rising!"
Pitiful, the figure sneered. Humans think of themselves so highly.
He ignored it, still staring at the top, green button.
Release me, it demanded.
"Aggression level, rising!"
The word etched above it tempted him.
Fuse.
He reached out with his hand, his fingers numb from the cold air. The sky was lighting up outside the window, turning into a veil of pink and yellow where the skyline was, misty from the rain. His colleagues would be waking soon.
They couldn't stop him.
The notebook dropped to the ground, landing with a light thump. He strode over to the machine, moving his focus down to the smaller buttons. His hands pressed one button, then two, then it was moving swiftly and expertly across the panel, well-practised from weeks of preparations. A green light on the machine flashed, glowing dimly, signifying that it was ready to use.
He was almost there.
"Aggression level, rising!"
All he had to do was just...
The door swung open, snapping him out of his trance.
"What the hell are you doing, David?!" A man burst through the doors of the lab, wet hair flying, amber eyes blazing. Light reflected off the object in his hand- a pistol.
David's smile was crazed, his eyes gleaming. He pushed one more button.
Click.
The machine was sent into a violent motion of whirs and clicks and rising liquids and glowing lights. The creature could no longer be seen, nothing more but a storm of glowing orange and spinning blues.
"Aggression level dangerously rising."
The man rushed toward him, his black cloak swirling behind him, gun pointing straight to David's face. "Don't make me do this, brother!"
He laughed, the sound echoing through the walls of the lab. Strangely, he didn't feel scared, nor was he trembling from trepidation. Before this all happened… he would have collapsed at his brother's feet, begging to be spared. He had gone too far to back down now. "Ah, you're late, Garrett."
His brother kept the pistol level to David's head, only a step away from killing his own blood. "Stop. Now. It isn't ready yet."
David shook his head, the smile never leaving his face. "Uh-huh. By the time you would've deemed it ready, we'd all be long gone. Just like Selena."
His kin flinched. "Selena? She…"
"She'll come back," David vowed. "Me and her. I'll give it all up, even if the world is reduced to just us two."
The voice of the alien being hissed inside his head. A hopeless cause.
The gun faltered, its aim dropping. "This… this…" Garrett's face was strained with concentration. "This mess won't bring her back. Just turn it off. You'll only end up regretting it."
Regret?
Reunite. Redemption. Revenge.
I'm so close.
"I'm sorry, brother, it's too late now." His gaze dropped to the floor, his voice barely a whisper.
Realisation struck Garrett. His eyes widened. "No-" He shoved his brother under the cover of the nearest desk. The gun clattered to the floor.
Explosions. Light. A shockwave of sound. The supposedly impenetrable glass cage shattered, the whole area blasting into rubble.
A chunk of concrete and twisted iron flew straight at the desk, smashing through wood.
"No signal, aggression… level… dropping..." The machine blew up, and its beeps ceased.
David didn't notice his brother beside him, blood staining the back of his head, mouth barely taking in shallow breaths that created brief-lasting fog in the cold morning.
David didn't notice the dust swirling around his feet as he stood up to survey the lab. He didn't notice it creep up to his throat and send him into fits of coughing.
David didn't notice the shattered glass and sparking equipment as he made his way to the room where so many tests where held.
David didn't notice the orange-and-blue photographs, which once neatly decorated the lab, now reduced to ashes and torn scraps of paper.
David didn't notice his notebook, once a valued treasure, slightly burned and coated in dust as his leather shoe slowly pressed down on it. Rain drizzled, dotting the white papers... like tears falling from the sky.
David didn't notice the hole that had burned straight through the two lower floors. He didn't notice the broken bodies jutting out of the debris, covered in dust and the pieces of his brother's lab. The remnants of everything he worked for.
What he did notice, though, was one thing.
"He escaped."
A/N
Skittlinq: LMAOO. I had my laptop confiscated in class for writing a bit of this when I wasn't supposed to… );;; sedlyf. Er… if any of you follow my other stories, I probably won't update them until mid-June (coughcoughexams), so yeah. sozzie. My main focus on FFN for now will be co-writing Evanescence: A Harsh Violet with Emo. Send your OCs to both of us! Read the rules. :D ALSO. Emo lied. He wrote most of the amazing parts, and made sure everything flowed and stuff.
Emosewa: YAS! YAS! We did it! Collabs are so fun! Coincidentally, I got myself grounded when my mom caught me writing when I should've been designing modern houses. D: I really really feel this story's gonna be big. Many thanks to Skitt, for designing this awesome summary. I'll just claim credit for that descriptions. D: Also we might as well thank SDProductions for editing it. And while I'm at it, thanks to Roses for Ghosts and LakeStream for being really enthusiastic about this project.
