Locke and Key: A Nuzlocke Story
When dawn breaks again, we'll say our farewells
Our dreams become distant phantoms
The times we were embraced
In the light that chased you
Relying on the warm winds
-"Shiki no Uta", MINME/Nujabes [English translation]
There are stories that are only worth telling once.
Stones were falling, clattering uselessly to the arena floor.
Wind stirred my clothing and battered my face as Pidgeot circled Frederick, wings spread to fullness. Its crimson hair streamed behind it, a banner threaded with dawn-gold—a war flag flying to the sky.
Frederick spread his feet, stone toes curling against the floor.
"Finish this!" I called. "Rock Slide!"
There are stories that should never be told—secrets, if you will.
This time, the Graveler loaded all four of his worn hands with heavy rocks, and Pidgeot's magnificent wings were pinned.
Frederick cried out in triumph.
"One down," Green said.
We locked eyes, as we had many times. This time, we felt the tug—the tug of destiny. It was the end. Not the end of our lives, or our dreams—but the end, all the same. The end of something great. The end of something terrible.
He recalled the faithful bird that I had been fighting since our Pallet Town departure. I recalled Frederick as well.
"Arcanine!"
The Poke Ball shone under the lights. The beast that emerged was magnificent—its regal face was framed with a mane of white-gold, and it was a cross between the puppy I'd met before and a lion.
There aren't many stories worth telling again, to tell you the truth.
"Lyrica!" I relied on my faithful Nidoqueen. Upon release, she smiled brusquely at the Arcanine, curling her paws into fists.
Green leaned over the rail on his platform, face hard as marble and just as frozen.
"Use Extremespeed, Arcanine!"
Before I even had time to think of a move, it disappeared, a flash of red lightning. When it reappeared, pummeling Lyrica into the ground with swift feet, I stiffened.
"Earthquake!"
She rose shakily, brushing off the quick blow. Her steel-blue fists—still tight with aggression—slammed into the arena floor.
Arcanine tried to dodge it with dancing paws, but succumbed to the earth all the same.
"Blastoise."
I can only think of a few.
"Flitz!"
The new fighters locked eyes. Blastoise towered over my Electrode, the mighty top evolution of the little Squirtle Green had chosen in his grandfather's lab.
"Rain Dance, Blastoise," Green said, confidence dripping from his voice.
It brought a familiar gush of dislike to boil under my chest. Even then, I couldn't dislike him. The champion—the boy I loved.
The boy whose life I had to destroy, in order to keep some sanity in mine.
Water began to drizzle from the ceiling. Blastoise's blue skin was beaded with rain, as his rich dark eyes regarded Flitz with unspoken promise.
"Thunder!" I said forcefully. The rain made it a sure hit; Flitz spun, his face grim, electricity pulsing from his red and white exterior. A crashing bolt of lightning fell, jagged, from the ceiling.
But—what are stories?
"Blasss," the massive tortoise moaned, its massive weight hitting the floor with an indescribable noise. His voice echoed. Green's starter Pokemon fell to its knees, shaking in the rain. I could see tiny white sparks jumping from the cannons on his shoulders.
"Blastoise, come on," Green said. There was a trace of desperation in those blue eyes—the cocky boy I'd despised had become a serious trainer.
"Hydro Pump." It was almost a plea.
I shook my head. The rain…It was pounding now, drenching the field, my hair, my clothes, Green opposite me. "Flitz, Shock Wave!"
He was quick, but Blastoise had fired off his shot—superpowered by the Rain Dance—before he could finish charging. The cannons were cocked and loaded. A gush of water fired with enough force to break a human child's back in two was blasted straight into my Electrode's face.
Flitz rolled, as any ball would do, but the expression on his face was one that I'd never seen on any of my dying Pokemon.
I'm sure now that I was crying, but the rain disguised my tears. And yelling, well—who knows what cacophony there already was? This was a champion battle, filmed live.
Stories are parasitic.
"Trode," Flitz said. The impact had sent him into the base of my platform, so I could stare down at him, rain falling around us. He was smiling, but it wasn't that smug smirk I'd loved on him. It was soft. A smear of love.
"I love you," I told him, sobbing once. My throat felt like a mine that was caving in, killing and crashing, filling the air with smoke and coal dust.
I looked up, saw Green tending to his Blastoise, staring at me with despair on his face.
"Leaf," he said, and I barely heard him through the rain—and through my agony. "Leaf, god, I'm so sorry. I… I had to…"
"CeeCee, go!"
Stories are insulting.
The Dewgong slid into the rain-soaked field, and when he saw Flitz, turned over and dead, he turned up to look at me.
"Surf," I said. The rain was blinding.
Blastoise—weak to the point of exhaustion from Flitz's Thunder—was taken by the tidal wave.
"Leaf, please." Green looked at me, but I wouldn't meet his eyes.
CeeCee howled once. His cry was like a glass bottle hitting stained concrete. The rain stopped. This is what it's like to have your heart completely broken,I thought.
"Exeggutor, go," he said, resigned.
I recalled CeeCee.
"Kashen!"
You want to suck all of the meaning from my life?
My starter's mouth flamed around his fangs and snout. The Exeggutor—a towering tree-shaped Psychic type with several faces—cinched its mouths tight as a wall of energy was thrown up before it, barely saving it from Kashen's Flamethrower.
"God damn it," I hissed. "Fly!" See if Light Screen will save you from this, you son of a bitch.
"Leaf… please, listen to me…" Green was calling to me, and when I finally looked at him—as Kashen smashed into Exeggutor from the air and sent it sprawling—his face was despairing. "Leaf, what are we doing?"
Wipe the blood from your mouth, and listen to me.
"This is the Champion battle," I said, by way of answer. The cameras rolled. Kashen stood, triumphant, spreading his wings and letting loose a ferocious roar as embers danced. I felt empty—maybe he was feeling my victories for me.
It seemed like Kashen carried most of my feelings in his heart, and expressed everything I could not.
"Leaf, I can't… I can't keep doing this," he cried out. "Look at you!"
"Send out your next Pokemon, damn it," I said. I realized, too late, that I was shouting, yelling, almost on the verge of tears. Kashen roared again, in unison with my bleeding voice.
"I… no, I… if you want the championship that bad… take it." He tried to avert his eyes, but they found the dead orb that laid on my side of the battlefield—my Electrode.
It never had much meaning in the first place.
"No. No, you son of a bitch. You send out your next Pokemon. I came this far. THEY DIDN'T DIE FOR NOTHING!"
I couldn't stop the escalation—one moment I was shouting, only wanting to be heard over the din of the battle, and the next I was screaming in unspent anguish, my throat raw.
Green took a step backwards, bumping into the closed gate that encircled our respective platforms. I could see him hit it, see him shy away from me, a hunter from a rabid beast. He chose his next Pokemon, avoiding looking in my direction at all.
"Rhydon!"
The beast was massive, a stone giant with a spinning drill for a horn. It smashed a fist into the arena, sending a crack through the floor that stopped shy of Kashen's feet. They met eyes, burning rage and stone-cold challenge.
"No, return! CeeCee!"
There was no more rain, but it seemed to me that the arena was still damp from the showers Blastoise and Flitz had danced in—the last dance, it turned out.
None of our lives mean much.
"CeeCee, Surf!"
"Leaf, stop this," Green cried.
"STOP TELLING ME TO STOP!" I slammed both of my fists onto the railing, hitting bone and sending shocks of pain up both arms. "This is the last battle! We can't stop,damn it! We are in this to the fucking end!"
As I screeched this back at him, CeeCee slid, his belly lifted by the massive tidal wave that had defeated Blastoise.
Rhydon braced itself, letting the water rinse over him and cleanse his side of the arena.
He didn't fall, though.
Green's eyes glinted, hard. He looked at me with all of the bitterness in the world. I hadn't seen that look—not since he told me his Raticate had died. Not since he'd tried to convince me to stay away from Team Rocket and Giovanni.
"You're right. We can't stop. Because we already started. Rhydon." He nodded to the massive stone behemoth that still stood, dripping wet and shaking from the blow. "Rock Tomb."
The beast grabbed handfuls of stone, and flung them at CeeCee with all of its force.
They hit him hard—hard enough to crack something, hard enough to make him arch his back and squeal in pain. The stones fell all around him, caving in, creating just what the move promised to do—a tomb.
"CeeCee!" I searched the mess of stone, saw him move. The cairn shifted. He wasn't dead. His eyes burned as he emerged, dark with tears and fire. He'd defeated dragons. Blastoise. He could finish this. The Elite Four be fucking damned.
"Ice Beam," I told him, and, slowly raising his pale head, he finished Rhydon with a glacier-cold blast to the heart.
Green stood, his face deep in the anguish he was feeling. He was destroying me, even as I was defeating him.
Not mine. Not yours. Not theirs.
"Alakazam," he said.
The last one emerged. The Psychic type, fox-faced and lean, clutched a spoon in each hand, narrow, energized eyes searching the field for its final opponent.
I looked at what remained of my arsenal. My family.
Kashen—I don't know if he could survive a Psychic… Frederick, there's no way… CeeCee is weakened… Lyrica is weak to its moves…
I had to do it.
I had to throw my dice, draw my cards, leave the fate of my victory and my Charizard up to luck.
Kashen opposed Alakazam, and Green bowed his head.
"Fly, Kashen!" I cried, knowing two things—that Kashen was faster, that Alakazam's defenses lacked the ability to take on the full-bodied throw, and that while flying, Alakazam couldn't hit him with his mind-blowing Psychic move.
The Charizard took to the air, circling with a predatory gleam in his blue eyes.
Green commanded, "Future Sight."
Not much time now…The mind-reading Pokemon bowed its head, energy flowing from its body into the battlefield.
"Kashen, dive!" He tucked his wings, folded into himself, and barreled into the frailer Pokemon. The two of them crashed into the floor, and skidded towards Green's platform.
The two of them both rose again, Alakazam staggering.
"Psychic," Green ordered—it was quiet and it echoed.
Maybe that's the point.
Kashen screamed in fury and anguish as blue psychic energy swamped his physical form, driving him to the ground, to his knobby orange knees as his wings collapsed around his body.
The flame on his tail flickered.
Alakazam's head rose, and Green frowned.
"Leaf. I'm... we…" He stared at Kashen, lifted his eyes to mine. Whatever he saw on my face must have startled him, or confused him—because he asked my name-as if it were a question. "Leaf?" I hadn't answered him once, not to his satisfaction, and yet his trailing pleas and fragments were unrelenting.
"Kashen," I said softly. My starter, my best friend. I wanted to run down, feel the cold scales, feel the fire within flicker and then die out.
Because when my heart broke, I didn't want to be standing.
"Leaf, I'm so sorry. Damn it. Damn it!" He was screaming now, and I just watched him as he did as I had—smashed his fists into the rail. "They pit us against each other, make us murderers, make us killers… just for a title…"
I said nothing.
He slowly raised his eyes, and Alakazam backed away.
"Leaf… wait-"
"Blast Burn, Kashen," I whispered. It carried. Kashen rose, eyes burning, mouth burning, skin burning, soul burning.
As he unleashed his furious red attack upon Alakazam and ended the battle, I thought, exalted, Fire is life. I still have four who burn strong. We'll burn for you, Xander and Flitz. We're still burning...
And as Alakazam trembled, then fell, and Kashen collapsed in exhaustion, Green fell to his knees, staring at the scene in shock.
I did the same.
Our eyes met again, and I hoped he couldn't see me cry—but then we were both crying, weren't we?
Then again, we all know there's no point.
There's never a point.
There is a blank canvas, and we can write what we want on it. Calligraphy, graffiti, obscenity.
We can paint over it in watercolors, in pastels, in blood.
We can sing of victory or tragedy, and we can go to our graves fearing sin and craving redemption—
But there was never a point.
Life is what we make of it.
Our lives—and the lives of those we control.