The Sardonic Adventure of Briar Casey
Author's Note: Oh, my dear beloved readers! For a little under a year I've been trying to find themes for Cilan and Dina, and you guys go and give me TWO PERFECT ONES. risen truth ruthless lies, I don't think that you know how incredibly perfect that song is for Cilan. Like, you can't, because you don't realize it until the last chapter. And Agent Walrus... ahh, you came through for me again!
Briar: Boulevard of Broken Dreams by Green Day (I was proud of this one. Not gonna lie.)
Dina: The Middle by Jimmy Eat World (SO. PERFECT. AGENT WALRUS, WHY U SO GREAT?!)
Earl: That's Not My Name by The Ting Tings (He's a crack character, so I figured I'd give him a crack song.)
N: God Save Us The Foolish Kings by House of Heroes (This is the very first one because I saw the title and was like "N!")
Jazelle: Pumped Up Kicks by Foster the People (This especially works in the sequel, but it's fine here too.)
Cilan: Never Too Late by Three Days Grace (Once again... SO PERFECT! My reviewers are better than yours!)
Graciela: Dream on Dreamer by Cascada (This was Briar's original theme, but when I thought of her new one I decided that this would work better for Gracie.)
The Sardonic Adventure of Briar Casey (fanfiction): Home by Phillip Phillips (It makes perfect sense if all the Unovians are talking to Briar)
Disclaimer: I don't own Pokemon. There's a change of pace.
Chapter 24
This Resort Is Just A Desert
"Briar... you probably shouldn't sleep so long..."
"SCREW YOU CILAN."
"Oh, poor little Briar!" the chef said, irritated. "She's the hero that's destined to save everyone and have a legendary at her service! She's such an unlucky person."
"YOU BET I AM." Cilan had been trying to coax me out of this hero-induced depression and, as you can see, failed. Not like he was doing that great a job, though. I refused to look at him and was curled up in a ball, facing the wall. I heard the door open and thought nothing of it, since doors will be doors and open for people. This door opening, however, shut Cilan up and I heard a new set of footsteps approach.
"LEYER NEEDS A BATHROOM!" I heard Earl shout. Whoops. Someone caught up to us.
"Hello, Briar." I flipped over. Wait, no, don't be mad at me, Dina! I hate it when you're mad at me!
"Hey-ey," I said in that way that girls often say "hey" to each other. Wait, why are you not laughing, Dee? You always laugh when I say it like that!
"So how was Dragonspiral Tower?" she prodded, her arms crossed.
"Oh, don't give me that!" I protested. "You could've come if you'd wanted to bad enough." And then Dina laughed. And not like a "Haha, you're my best friend Briar and I have no desire to kill you" kind of laugh. This was a "I'm laughing because I'm super ticked off at you and I can't believe you dared to just say that to me" laugh.
And then she suddenly stopped and gave me the death glare. Oh, Arceus, this was worse than I thought.
"Briar, I just spent the past two days caring for my brother, who had influenza, in another town. After he finally stopped puking long enough to talk, he started yelling at me for kissing N without his 'consent'. Then, to add insult to injury, I leave the restroom to breathe some air that wasn't contaminated by the smell of throw-up and find that my boyfriend and three of my best friends skipped town without leaving so much as a note.
"I promptly had to leave Mistralton with Earl, who lamented about how it had too many 'painful memories', practically carrying him across Route 7 and Twist Mountain. Most of the trainers were merciful, but I had to fight off the ones that weren't with my weak Pokemon while listening to Earl rant about how awful a sister I was. And when I finally get to civilization, I discovered that I missed my hot boyfriend flying away, hero of Unova, on a dragon. I wanted to be here pretty bad, Briar." There was silence for a moment as Dina fumed and I was eaten alive by guilt.
"She has a very valid argument, Briar," Cilan agreed.
"Don't you think that you're getting away with this either, fruit cake."
"Fruit cake? How dare you call me something as low-brow as fruit cake!"
"How dare you totally leave me hanging!"
"She has a very valid argument, Cilan," I tossed right back.
"Don't you have hero-ly duties to perform or something?" he snapped.
"Wait, you're one too?" Dina asked, surprised.
"Hey, whose the protagonist here?"
"EVERYBODY SHUT UP!" And everyone did. All the occupants of the Pokemon Center shut their traps and looked at who their verbal assailant was. Alder, who would've guessed? "Briar! We need to talk!"
"I will happily talk to you." We didn't get any privacy, though. Cilan and Dina followed me, glaring at the back of my head. I tried to act cool and not like their disappointment made me feel like bashing my head against a table.
"We need to go to the Desert Resort near Route 4. Cedric, Brycen, and I think that's where the Dark Stone is, and you need to awaken Zekrom." I threw up my hands.
"Oh, right, you want me to do that, too. Awesome. Why a resort, anyway?"
"There's an ancient castle there," Alder explained. "All the wise grown men decided that that was the most likely place for it to be." I cocked my brow and crossed my arms.
"Oh yeah? So where did Brycen and Juniper think it was?"
"Actually, the castle was Brycen's idea. I suggested the depths of Twist Mountain and Juniper thought it was Chargestone Cave. But that look that Brycen gives you... It's not even a look, since it's beneath his mask..."
"Yeah, I know," I replied. Dina and Cilan were still glaring at my head. "Are you coming with us?"
"I'm going on ahead," he explained. "I'll pave the way for you. Maybe there'll be some trainers that I can battle. It's... been awhile."
"Yeah, three years, we know." And we all just stood there for a moment, the teenagers brewing and Alder feeling a bit self-concious. Finally, he murmured something along the lines of "I need to go" and left. Around this time, Earl came out of the bathroom, said something in third-person (he was Leyer now, if you didn't notice), and walked obnoxiously up to Dina and Cilan's hate-fest.
"... What'd I miss?"
"They're mad at me!" I exclaimed, pointing at them. They didn't move.
"... What'd you do?" Earl continued with a yawn. Thank you, Earl, for your apparent interest in my life.
"I complained about being the hero."
"Wait, whoa whoa whoa, you're the hero?!" All three of us nodded. "Well then it's understandable that you'd be upset."
"Thank you!" I shouted as Cilan and Dina shouted other things along the lines of "What the crap man?!"
"It makes sense," Earl explained, sounding completely practical for what might be the first time. "Being the hero isn't a walk in the park. You've got the weight of Unova on your shoulders. You've got a legendary breathing down your neck. It's alot of stress, guys."
"I'm conflicted," I responded as Dina and Cilan digested this. "On one hand, that was uncharacteristically well-worded and even I'm beginning to admire me. On the other hand... that just doesn't make me feel better."
"He's right, Briar," Dina admitted. "I didn't think about it that way. Sorry."
"Me too," Cilan piggybacked.
"It's fine," I muttered, the Butterfrees consuming my stomach. "But I suppose we should head to the Desert Resort now. Is Jazelle coming?"
"I think I heard her talk about staying with Brycen," Cilan replied.
"Okay then. Let's go."
"This resort sucks," I said as Dina, Earl, Cilan, and I stood in the midst of a raging sandstorm. Where was Chloe and Rae and her freaky Zorua when you needed them? "This is just a desert. There's nothing resort-like about it."
"Let's just go find this castle," Dina begged. Poor girl, she was getting positively sand-papered.
Surprise surprise, the Desert Resort wasn't that popular with the tourists. Most of the people were trainers, suffering through the sandstorms and infinite Sandiles to train. Jazelle was able to scope out most of them, and we avoided them at all costs. There was one Backpacker that was able to spot us, but Earl sacrificed himself with a "SAVE YOURSELVES!" He caught up to us a few minutes later.
"I think the weird frozen Pokemon signal the entrance," I said, spitting the sand out of my mouth. Since no one else wanted to have a smoothed-out throat, we hurried inside. When we got inside, I saw the Yamask things floating around, disappearing and reappearing to the point where I knew that, if Dina were to release her's, even N might not be able to find it again. A couple trainers were about, but they were mostly hippy psychic people and took no notice of us.
"So... what do we do now?" Earl asked. No one knew the answer.
"I would ask Psychic Hippy #1 over there, but then he might want to battle," I replied.
"Hey guys! It's quicksand!" We all looked in the direction of the statement and saw Dina standing over a funnel of sand.
"Dee! Get away from there!" Earl exclaimed, and he would've tackled her away if it weren't for Cilan, who grabbed him. This was good, because then they both would've just fallen in the sand from the impact of Earl's attack.
"Okay, okay, I wasn't gonna swan-dive in or anything-" Suddenly, a Sandile appeared at her feet and jumped up to her face. I'm sure it was just because he'd seen her and loved her, like every other Pokemon, but she screamed and fell backwards, right into the sand that she and her brother had been arguing about.
Well crap.
"DINA!" Earl yelled. He stomped Cilan's foot (poor guy, he needed to learn not to hold people back) and did dive into the desert death trap.
Okay, screw all of Cilan's hard work.
Cilan and I rushed to the edge of the whirlpool, looking down as hard as we could, as if we could elicit them with our gaze. But that sand just kept on swirling, and I was beginning to feel the sting of tears, something I hadn't felt for over seven years.
"Cilan! Briar! Come here!" We spun around- almost tumbling in, might I add- and were overjoyed to see Dina and Earl, sandpapered by the funnel but otherwise unharmed. Go away, tears! Go away before they see you!
"Wait, what just happened?" Cilan asked, confused. His gaze constantly shifted between the twins and the whirlpool.
"It drops you into another room before it can do any harm," Dina explained as they picked their way towards us. "But this isn't the quicksand we want to be falling through."
"To think, there's quicksand you want to fall through," I muttered.
"We saw where we needed to go," Dina explained further. "I think we need to get to that one." She was looking past me and pointing at another funnel, this one past the thinnest ledge I'd seen in my entire life. Seriously, if Earl decided to give himself a new name while we were crossing it, I bet the little brainpower it required would be enough to send us spinning into the whirlpool it dropped off into.
"Just another reason to hate my life." And, like the good protagonist I am, I took the lead and began inching my way across.
It was a fairly suspenseful minute of all our lives. I was right; just about anything was enough to send us back to the start. Once again, I felt like my choice of shoes was the worst decision of my life. Seriously, the heel was a little over an inch. Why did every step feel like my last? Especially since this quicksand wasn't deadly?
"I'M ALIVE!" I screamed as I jumped off the ledge and onto precious solid land. Though my exclamation logically could've sent the rest of them tumbling, they all managed to hop on as well, and we did all but kiss the ground.
And that was when we realized that the only that waited for us was another spinning whirlpool of quicksand, and rather reluctantly we continued on our journey.
Alder had done exactly what I hoped he would do: he took out the grunts. There were clumps of them here and there, all complaining about the champion, saying they couldn't wait until their beloved Lord N defeated him. That was the one good thing about the unreasonable volume of all of Team Plasma's employees: it helped us walk right on by without them paying us any mind. It took alot of sandpapering and splitting up, but we finally found exactly where we were supposed to be. We fell in uncomfortable positions, but looked up and saw Alder and Ghetsis.
"Alder!" I greeted happily. "This would be a great time to be champion-ly and say you found the stone!"
"No," he said sadly. Oh, darn.
"Ah, Briar Casey!" Ghetsis exclaimed, spreading his arms out. "I must say, you have done a very good job at interrupting my plans, time and time again. But that is all you are, an interruption. So now I shall resume talking."
"Well crap, guys," I said light-heartedly to everyone, even though I was genuinely worried. "Everytime Ghetsis monologues, a Lillipup dies."
"Lord N shall be the hero of Unova!" Ghetsis screamed, his face turning into a tomato.
"Plus one dead Lillipup," I said, more to lighten my own mood than anyone else's.
"N will defeat your weak champion," he continued. "Yor beloved champion is lesser now. He lost not only his Pokemon partner, but his wife as well." Everyone turned to Alder, surprised. He looked down. "N will beat him easily. Then, with Reshiram at his side and the title of Champion, he will be able to influence trainers all over to release their Pokemon. First, it will be a couple of gullible trainers. But then, other trainers will follow their lead, until it will be a bad thing to have Pokemon. Anyone that keeps them will be considered cruel. The Champion will release his Pokemon, the most powerful in Unova, and even you, Briar Casey, will release your beloved Snivy, given to you by your now deceased best friend. That's how much influence he will have. And you can't do anything to stop him." Everything was silent for a moment, and I was looking down, dismayed by the thought of releasing Forget.
"Plus a hundred dead Lillipups," I murmured. Nobody laughed.
"You joke all you want," Ghetsis said as he neared me. "Just wait for the day, Briar Casey. The day that you will look your Snivy in the eye and crush her Poke Ball. There is simply no avoiding it." Where was Jazelle? I don't think Cilan would hold her back if she killed Ghetsis right then. We could say it was self-defense...
"She's a Servine now," is all that came out, when I had much nastier things going rampant through my head. Ghetsis smirked. I considered sending out Harvey to burn it off.
"Good day, all of you," he said, waving. "I look forward to seeing you again."
"Hey, you're not jus-"
"Earl." Everyone, even Earl (who would've gladly taken Jazelle's place as the bringer of Ghetsis' end), turned towards the champion. He was looking at his Xtransceiver. "Come. We need to go to Nacrene."
"Nacrene?!" Earl exclaimed. "Ghetsis is getting away!"
"And he won't win," Alder said sternly, with such confidence that Earl withered and I began to think that things might actually be okay.
"This better be the Dark Stone," I muttered as we neared the mueseum. "I hate walking. Cilan, stop looking at the restaurant like it's a beautiful woman you have no chance of ever being with!"
"I can be with anyone I choose, thank you very much!"
"Briar!" Okay, serious Alder. Can you go back to the excited, arrogant Alder from before? Lenora came out, with both the Junipers. Oh, a party.
"I always wondered what this did," she murmured, fingering the obsidian-like stone from my first visit. After a moment of everyone looking at it, she held it out to me. Everyone looked at me expectantly. Me, the hero of Unova, the protagonist, the one that was destined to awaken Zekrom.
I backed away.
"Briar?" Dina asked, though I knew it was a plea.
I backed away again.
"I'm not the hero," I whispered. "I promise." And then I ran away.
When the doors to the Pokemon Center opened and I felt certain that it was for me, I half-expected it to be Cilan, sighing "Not this again!"
It wasn't.
"Ghetsis is right, you know," Alder told me. "I'm weak." Oh, great, now I was the one with deja vu. "I wasn't always weak. In fact, I was once the best trainer in Unova. Well, second best- you remember that one that I said could beat me, right? That's not the point, though. I'm the Champion. I'm taking on N."
"Congratulations," I said, not feeling like saying anything else. There was an awkward silence.
"Briar?"
"Yes?"
"Do you... think I'll win?" I finally looked at him, right in the eye. He looked like a child, lost and worried. What could I say?
"Of course, Alder," I assured. "You didn't get the title of Champion by losing to prophets like N." Suddenly, a dark, smooth object was pressed into my palm.
"Then you probably won't need this, Miss Hero," he told me before leaving. Once he was gone, I uncurled my fingers and looked at the object.
The Dark Stone.
Zekrom.
My destiny.
I got up and left, wondering what type the final gym leader was.
Author's Note: Another long chapter, woot woot! LIBBY! I thought you were going to be like all the other people I've asked to read this and just not... read it. And yep, I'm Sushi and the other one's Fabula. Thanks for not naming names.
Maquerea, you reviewed! I'm glad you liked that chapter, I'd been looking forward to it for a while :) Alright guys, you have GOT to read this guy's story. It's original, well-written, the PUNCTUATION... I'm sorry, I'm a punctuation Nazi. Anyway, read it.
Thanks for reading and please review!
