The Great Paradox of All Life
Bring me all your love… cause only you can save my world.
Arising within a beam of blinding light, I felt forced into an inter-dimensional space of opposing, unrelenting forces. Never had I felt as light – lighter than the whispers of deceit within the windless hearts of humanity – yet heavier than the worlds I'd fought to defend across a plethora of clandestine and futile lives.
Futility and delight… It's all a regret unbound in a cosmos of plight.
I reveled in it, man. Free at last. The uncontrollability of my fate laid bare. It was at last all out of my hands. Finally, I saw that I could let go. That I didn't have to hold on so tight. That nobody is chosen in this world. For anything. That no matter what you may choose the world will break and mend, as it is wont to do.
There was light, man. The light. Starlight. Bathing me. The starlight came through a crack in the ceiling of this infernal cave of destiny, of pasts merciless and wicked, of futures aflame and tempestuous. I journeyed thru that crack in the universe and came face to face with the world again.
No. Arceus Above, no – it was about to face me.
My strength. My might.
My myth in the making.
It was about to face a conviction beyond man, beyond possibility; a strength forged by an indomitable will, of which only Eternity could equal.
My innocence had been lost across thousands upon thousands of unfound years, experienced in a locked room beyond the clutches of time, seen by all yet unseen and forgotten by man.
I had been here. Caught in a life without hope. Caught and fucked by my deceiving brain. Forever in a loop of infinite time.
Fuck. I'd been here too many times before. Seen it all too many times before. Too many to count.
And so the world turned… to ash… to Ash…
The curtain of stars which dotted the sky was fading, swallowed by the dawn, and replaced by a burnish streak of sunlight that of which could reawaken the soul from a slumber so deep it defied the ends of worlds.
The sun tore asunder nights, always and forever. It clenched darkness as swiftly as any force of kindness I'd ever known.
It could not touch me. Not in the muddy waters in which I now resided.
The Suit scanned the skies, the enclosure of towering mountains, and found the trajectory of its final destination.
Saffron City. Riley's – along with Sabrina – last toss of the fucking dice.
Once upon a time, not long ago and forever ago, I'd race across the world to stand against them. Now I was on my way to aid them in their quarrel.
A quarrel against the world, supposedly for the betterment of the world. Only the mad and lost can see sense in the senseless, I guess.
And after the business there, after all this was said and done, maybe I could find peace at last. Lest this night and day and life never ended, lest I'd be trapped in its everlasting deadening embrace.
Lest I'd never awake from the dream. The Dream.
Fuck, I'd cherish sweet oblivion.
At least until the day awareness would find me again. In another life. Upon a different plane of existence.
Only to battle this same fight… again and again…
Eternity. Fuckin' drug of all motherfuckers. Fucking shit. Fuckin' dammit.
Fucking eternity.
Tears streamed freely, ugly and disgraceful, shameful and maddening, lost and mourning, down my face, hidden from the eyes of the world beneath an infernal helmet. And that helmet carried with it souls running in overabundance, souls which screamed against the oppression of time, the compression of dark spaces… souls which festered and withered in Eternity.
Undying souls of which belonged to me.
And souls do wither. But they don't die. They stretch and scream and burn… stripped to their wispy essence. Cast aside, into a meat-grinder – this meat-grinder… this harvester of ambition and awry idealism… where they dream. Dream. Dream of a life unrealized. Dream of a time before life. After life. A life during their existence. Reaching. Never realizing, man. A dream they had inside their minds. The dream. The dream of a life worthy of the storms. Of living a life worthy of the despair. Of having a life worth the admiration and of praise. Of being someone.
A person. That mattered. Somewhere. Somehow. To someone.
Anyone.
Souls are like leaves. And the year is their lifespan. You blossom into the light, and whither away into the dark. And in that darkness, it's molded out of the same clay you came from.
And you're reborn into that same light. Only to die in that same dark and dank existence you always die into.
It's an act of futility. Living. Dying. All of it.
Fuck it, I thought as I ascended the sky, mountaintops of icy splendor littering the landscape below my manifestation. Fuck it all.
I wanna watch the world burn.
Look at them… they're eating each other!
Cruising miles off shore, life seemed breakable. Southwest of Saffron City, Riley rode his mighty bird of thunder, Zapdos, awaiting the moment, awaiting the fight.
This morning was the moment.
The pain must end here. Now. Forever.
He thought he could engineer a way in which one could gaze upon their dreams, but only found a way to hear their screams.
He sought ideas, but only found reality.
Smoldering ash…
How long can one last above the horrors?
Shit. He left it behind in tears long ago, for nothing could last against the tidal wave of grief released upon your heart. His heart. His grief.
His child. In front of him. Dying. In front of him.
His goddamn reality. Smeared and etched into his memory.
The ocean stretched beyond the sight of man behind him. There was a calm sense of purpose in the air, barely a wind, and the waters reflected his serenity.
His calmness.
His surety.
This was his moment.
Ash had fallen into these waters the last time they fought here. Off the back of a Fearow, if memory served him right.
Ash… what a lovely, perfectly contradictory soul. On this day, Riley – and Ash – would know closure. Either must die at the hand of the other, like prophecy, or live together in sordid but necessary understanding.
God, he wished for Sabrina to pull through. He'd rather have done all this without her, but if there was even the slightest chance of realizing his greatest ambitions, to turn dream into reality, and spare Ash's life at the same time, he had to go for it.
He had to.
He loved that kid.
And afterwards, if everything went according to plan, he'd kill that bitch, too. She was hardly an innocent in all of this. She didn't deserve the coming world.
His world.
The plan was set to go in motion any minute now. And it had to be precise. It had to be. All that had gone before had been child's play compared to today.
This would be a slow, meticulous grind. Measures would have been taken to ensure the city and its citizen's safety. Sabrina, of course, knew what kind of quarrel they were about to face.
She had sat in with Lance and his damn League of fools when they concocted their plans. She'd been part of the workforce who had implanted these plans for the past couple of weeks.
Riley smiled. He knew where to strike – and when – to ensure that nobody – nobody! – got out of this city without his consent. He knew where to drop down an ocean of flames, where to amass his forces, and where to stealthily implant his base of operations.
He knew their every thought and every move and every plan. As he'd known long ago that he would. This was a corruptive world, easily susceptible to personal ambition, and with a propensity for violent solution.
This was a desperate world.
He had infiltrated almost every level of infrastructure. Even all the way up to Lance's inner circle. Even Sabrina. Fear. Power. Vengeance. Personal greed. All of them – emotions, concepts of the human existence – had been invoked to ensure the cooperation of whomever he needed.
How easy it was! Everyone have something to lose. Everyone have something to gain.
"It's a matter of perspective." Riley beheld with half-lidded eyes, almost lazily, as Sabrina, floating by her own power, came up to meet him.
"You seem cheerful for a man about to commit genocide."
Her voice was a throaty whisper, but there was no trace of a smile upon her lips. No hint of emotion touched her eyes. Yet Riley could see the appeal. There was something dangerously arousing about her. Beyond her obvious good looks.
"Isn't my first time trying, is it?"
"No. It certainly isn't."
"Did you tie up our loose ends?"
"Hmm? Oh. Yes. They're in my Gym."
Riley furrowed his brow in thought. That hadn't been part of the plan. "Any problems with them, then?"
"No more than with Misty. It's funny, really. People who think themselves decent always assume that their love will elevate them above the darker corners of their hearts." She smiled. Riley knew it was a cruel smile and, in a kinder time, it would have fazed him more than it did now. "Love degrades them. Every sense of moral, of dignity, is thrown aside when their love's existence is in question or jeopardy. For love they're willing to throw aside every notion of right that they cherish… so much. It makes them easy prey, because it is a refusal to acknowledge who they truly are. Look at them… look at my city… they'll eat each other."
Riley nodded along. Really not interested. Sabrina, like all beings of wrong intent, went to great lengths to justify her nature. Riley knew better, of course, knew that the true method was to not try and justify it at all. To not give it but a moment of thought.
"And Ash?" he asked instead. "Things went smoothly, I take it?"
"Assuming he survived the experience, yes. He took the bait. Didn't really have a choice, did he?"
"What will he find?"
"The truth."
"The truth?" Riley echoed.
"The truth." Sabrina nodded. "I know some of it. Yet I can't see it all. Nobody can. Except him. He can see. See everything. It will break him."
"Forever?"
"Forever?" Sabrina laughed. "How oddly apropos. Was that intentional? How very appropriate, indeed. No. Nothing in this existence can break Ash Ketchum forever. Nothing. But it will be enough for today. For a very long time."
Riley found a smile. The first, genuine smile in a long while. Ash, in time, would be all right. And hopefully, also in time, would see the reason his mind knew but heart refused. In time – oh yes, in time – he'd be whole and unbroken again.
And, perhaps – who the fuck knew, right? – he'd be with Riley again. Side by side, saving the world.
As he was always meant to be.
"Dad," his youngest child, youngest daughter, whimpered beside him, tugging at the hem of her mother's dress, beneath the table they were hunkered down under as the world around them turned on its head. "What's happening?"
He hesitated to answer. Frankly, he wasn't sure. Looking around in heart-stopping panic, the faces of all the strangers who had happened to dine at the same restaurant as them provided him with no answer.
One thing was obvious, though. And loud. And burningly clear.
"They're fighting now."
"John-" His wife began before an explosion of pure force rocked her sentence away. The wall off to the far side of the room – at least from where they were hiding – yielded and gave way to a spectacular vision of a world aflame.
They were fighting right on top of them now.
"We can't stay here!" she yelled.
"We can't leave!" he yelled back, furiously. Panicked. She was right, but the damn thing was, so was he. "We won't make it across the street."
"It sounds like the building's coming down, too!"
"I know, I know – we have to wait it out. No wait!"
One of their waiters for the evening – merely a few years older than his eldest, Michael – made a panicked, exhilarating jump across the dinning floor, and sprinted for safety through the hole of the missing wall.
Joanna, his wife, elevated by the boy's apparent success, grabbed their little girl and made to follow.
"No!" John yelled, a panic truly horrifying seizing his heart. He grabbed his wife around the waist and with all his strength, a kind of strength he'd never possessed in his life before, dragged her down by his side.
His wife was incensed. "John! It's now or never! For once in you life act like a… oh god…"
A sound of steel moaning, earth-shattering and heart-stopping deep, resonated across the street and he felt something massive topple outside their vision, only to crash into view across the street mere seconds later, burying the teenage boy beneath a billion pounds of steel debris.
It was their fucking hotel building. The one they had left not an hour ago.
Now it lay splayed across the street, a boy burrowed beneath it. A boy died beneath it.
It could have been his boys…
Eternity, he found, could be found in a single second. Never had he perceived reality in such a profoundly clear way. Most of his being could not quite comprehend the mercilessness of the scared boy's fate. He most have looked upon the last spot in which he saw the boy for hours – if not days – until he heard his own voice scream for attention to all those nearby.
The world was silent for but a moment, and he knew.
This was their chance.
"We have to go now!" he yelled as he dragged his wife by the arm, surely to leave a bruise. In her other arm, she carried their daughter, and in his other arm, he dragged along Michael and Jacob, his two boys.
"No!" Joanna screamed, fighting against his pull. "Did you not just see…"
"There's no time, woman!" he yelled, pulling harder. "Stick to the debris and run for the metro station!"
It was two street blocks away, through a war zone or three, and they were gonna make it right now.
The fallen debris – most of a skyscraper, really – littered handsomely across the street, covered their retreat for half a block before the road cleared, and then they ran naked of protection against the monsters fighting in the skies.
The world was of uproars unbound again. Uproars heard only in the hottest places in hell.
"Shit!" John yelled, diving for the ground and pulling his family down with him, as a grey mass fell like a projectile and crashed through a building mere meters away from them.
Rattled and afraid, bones quaking, heart thumping away, perspiration stinging in his eyes, almost blurring all sight, John looked up and beheld a crater the size of a bus where which the grey thing had disappeared into.
Barely seconds later, with bathed breath, he beheld a monster of a man stepping out of the darkness and onto the street, wearing a grey skin-tight suit and looking as calm as a kite upon a windless evening.
It was the legend of the news. It was the man who had combatted the monsters invading their cities.
It was Red. The Guardian.
The man, the thing, cast a single glance at John and his family as he walked by, and John felt like he had been looked upon – looked thoroughly, really – by a deity the likes of which he'd never lay eyes on again in his living days.
"Get to the station below ground," it said over its shoulder, as it walked by them. It rose off the ground, ever so slowly. It was fucking floating right there in front of them. "It's a solid plan. I cannot save you for long. In the end, I can only try and kill 'em."
A blue dome, crackling with the energy of a screaming city, enclosed around them as a giant bird donning thunder and rage swooped down upon them, but the shield acted as a sort of barrier… and it stopped it.
It stopped it!
Then their savior rose out of the dome, into the fray.
The monster of a man screamed in what John could only describe as pure ecstasy as he engaged a bird thrice his size in mortal combat.
The crazy thing, John realized, was that the man was vastly superior. Knocking the creature about, weaving past attacks, landing multiple strikes of his own, until birds of equal size and of fire and ice joined the fray.
Then it became a stalemate. Three and on one and they were equals. Equal to those… those gods!
How could that be a man? Of flesh and blood like him. How did a man shape himself from a man of John's might to that? Could it be attainable by all men?
Was this the destiny of mankind?
"FUCKING MOVE, DAMMIT!" the Guardian yelled seemingly at no one, but John got the message as the dome-like shield of blue energy faltered and died away. As the Guardian's skill and luck slipped and he got hit. Hard.
He had tried to protect them… and they'd just stood still and looked in wonder and fright.
They needed to run. Now.
Not capable of words, John got to his feet – unable to recall when he had fallen – grabbed his boys and wife, who still held onto their daughter, and ran for the metro station.
Behind them, explosions of light and sound flickered and resonated in equal measure to the cascade of collapsing buildings.
The world was coming to a violent end, it seemed, and only a seemingly unyielding man stood in its way.
Ahead of them, behind great heaps of dust and wreckage – and just a few maimed corpses of the unfortunate – was the entrance to the station, which would lead them below ground and hopefully away from the fanatical above.
He, John, almost fell about the entrance in his eager to get his boys, daughter and wife to safety. And in his eagerness, he made a mistake so costly he'd never forgive himself.
In his eagerness, he stumbled upon the threshold of the entrance and fell through and down, dragging his boys along for the fall, and letting go of his wife and daughter, who fell beside the heaps of corpses.
As he fell down the stairs, instinctively grabbing onto his boys and breaking the fall for them, he heard his wife and daughter shriek and gag, retching hoarsely. He got his bearings, pained and bruised but kicking, and looked up, finding Joanna with little Isabelle still on her arm, both pale with fright as they tried to gain their feet.
And there was light behind them. In the sky. Sordid lights aflame like malicious stars…
And he could see it, like the world had simultaneously slowed to almost a standstill and speeded up to inhuman velocity. Like he was caught in the moment, forever unable to do anything but fall.
He saw the giant man in the grey suit and the birds of legend, locked in combat, fall towards the entrance to the station, towards where his wife and daughter lay and couldn't quite find their bearings. Their great, incomprehensible powers locked in plight and flight.
They were gonna mow them down.
He saw it and stopped thinking. He saw it and started moving, letting go of his boys and running as fast as he'd ever run up the stairs. The pain in his back that had haunted him for years was forgotten, the deadweight of fat he'd gained in his adulthood little more than a nuance. He forgot all and ran to save his daughter and wife.
He ran faster than a man of his physical capabilities had any right to… and it still wasn't quite enough.
"NO!" he yelled, hoping that somehow the Guardian would hear him. See them. Stop it. Stop, stop – please, oh god, stop…
Pokémon and Guardian, beasts of fire, ice and thunder against Aura colliding, crashed through the entrance and beyond, bouncing along on the ground above, obliterating everything in sight and sending John flying backwards by the sheer force of their collision. The entrance was blocked by the trailing debris of their quarrel, and John knew the horrible truth as he lay there in mid-air, waiting for the world to make sense again, contemplated it with repulsion as he waited for the floor to break his fall.
His wife and daughter, he knew, never even felt a thing. They were simply gone. Incinerated within the vortex of power. But they never felt it. They didn't. They couldn't have. They mustn't.
But he did.
Oh god, did he ever?
I fell thru the cracks of a city's light, hovering upon an intent forged throughout years of steady dissent and subsequent deliverance. I hovered gently, cruising miles off shore, feeling the rain on me.
I gotta break the world.
Riley was beside me. He'd obviously been expecting me.
"You made it, I see. I'm glad."
The helmet slid off my face, revealing the defeated countenance of one Ash Ketchum, man of the hour turned fallen star.
I felt my tongue click into place, as nerve banes reactivated between my brain, my nervous system and my tongue.
"Oh…" I licked my lips, tasting, well, something again, feeling something, being something. "I'm allowed my own voice…"
"I'm sorry, Ash. Truly. You must know this was never what I wanted for you."
"Spare me, fuckhead. Fuckstick. Whatever." I found within me a last lance of rebellious energy. "How should I know what you want – why should I care? You wanted me for – what, be part of this genocide? For that's what it is, right? A fucking slaughter…"
"If it makes you feel better, I never planned for things to go this far back then."
"Why should that make me feel better? Explain that logic…"
"Because it's eating away at you. The guilt…" He paused, searching my eyes for some kind of glow, of defiance, of fire. There was only dull acceptance, lethargic nihilism. "You wonder, as you have ever since you learned the truth, why you didn't see my supposed madness… my intentions. Well, you couldn't see it, for I never intended for things to turn this way. I thought I could scare… that if I could somehow reveal their errors…"
"They would stop… Riley, nothing stops. The wheels keep on spinning, the money keeps on flowing, man will always be in the pursuit of something greater. For better or worse. You and I – we cannot change that."
"Yes we can. Look down, look at the city, look around us, look at you. We have the power to change the world, city by city. Your Suit even agrees with me. We have the power to reshape the world, free it of greed and ill intent."
"It's not up to us to decide such things," I whispered, a little fight left in me. "Those who can win wars well, seldom has the capacity for making a good peace. We're men of war, for better or worse. We come when needed, and slither back into the shadows of the world when it doesn't."
"Can't you see, Ash? This is the last war. The last dark time this world will ever have to know. After this, we decide. We. Decide."
"I don't want to, and you shouldn't want to, either. I don't want the world to see me, see what's really inside me…"
"Why? There's truth in your mind. If you do not want to affect change, then why set out to start all of this?"
"I never sought the bleakness you seek. There's hope in my heart. Somewhere. It may not be much hope, but… it defeats whatever truth my mind may know."
"Don't. Don't stand here before the end like a coward. You're not like them. You're better. Truth, however ugly, will set you free of all constraints."
"Maybe. Or maybe we need some type of constraints. It's an imperfect world, but trust me – it's the best it can be for now. It may be the best it has ever been. Maybe I know the truth – I probably do, if I'm being a tad immodest – but… I think the world deserves more than the truth. I think it deserves my hope. I'm just too fucked and tired and old to fight for it anymore. Maybe… maybe in the next life – where all is said and forgotten again… maybe then…"
He gazed at me, long and hard, and found the truth he'd apparently tried to conceal from himself. I was never going to become like him. Ever.
"Nothing can ever truly break you, can it, Ash?"
I shook my head, though I knew it was a lie. I was already broken. Time had broken me. Time had broken me again and again…
Time had delivered me, broken and scattered, onto the everlasting lanes of Eternity.
"No matter," Riley said, and it looked like he'd finally accepted that he was now alone in this world. "You must die, too, then. After you've led my army to victory against this city, against Lance, against the world. I'll force you to strike down upon this world in my name, city by city, until there's nothing left of this godforsaken place that you love so much. It will kill me… but I died long ago."
I stared dully down upon the city I was about to drown in flames and might. "There's nothing down there that I love. Nothing."
"That is where you are wrong, Ash Ketchum." Sabrina, on the wings of her powers, floated up beside me, Zapdos and Riley. Her smile was white and wide, her teethes impeccable – and I wanted to fuck her and kill her in equal measures.
A man is never too dulled to have his desires quenched completely. And I really, really enjoy killing.
Wait… Sabrina was here. I knew that, had known since I left that god-awful fucking cave. But seeing her now, a thought manifested itself. I was reminded of something, someone. A part of me the Suit was trying to erase but couldn't.
A dream.
The Dream.
I could feel lances of the Suit's will imposing itself against me, against my memories, against certain memories.
Somehow, without effort, without any semblance of will left, I was conquering it. Somehow, whatever was still inside me, fought the silent fight.
The good fight. The only fight truly worth it all.
I'd left Sabrina with someone. I'd left her with…
Fuck.
"Sabrina…" There was fright in my voice, loud and clear. But fuck it, there was also life. And love, man! And I swear it was pure.
And there was defiance, burning everlasting, building into a crescendo, a spark of rebellion against time and space and Eternity, against all I'd ever been, all I might become, all I am.
None of it mattered, save for the two people I might remember from lives lived and lives died.
"Yes, my love…" she whispered, knowing where I was going with this. And she couldn't help it, she needed to see where I might go with this, what might happen. It was simply too much fun not to.
"Did I not leave you with someone a couple of hours ago?"
Serena and May. Had I known them in this life or was it simply memory, a remnant of a different life across the multi-universe of Eternity.
"Yes. Ash." She smiled winningly. Seductively. Even as Riley, somewhat perplexed, looked on with a growing sense of dread in his eyes, as if he'd suddenly realized a grave error. "You left me with May and Serena. Why, your supposed love for them really can't be that strong if you've already forgotten about them. I mean…"
An explosion of sound resonated across the synapses of my brain as the hold the Suit had enforced in the wake of my madness was broken asunder. Tears streamed down my face anew, only beautiful and free, mingled with the rain I now felt as if for the very first time.
Tears in the rain…
I remembered – and what a blessed feeling that was – that I'd been in love throughout the years. Was still in love. And that love, however horrible it was, was the closest thing to destiny I knew. It was bound… to you and me. To us. We. And we, as human beings, cannot help it. We share it amongst each other. Every day. Somehow it lasts us through the fucking day.
I saw Serena and I, sitting together on the fields behind Oak's ranch. He'd die moments later, but somehow that mattered very little. It was a moment of love. And somehow, I couldn't remember if it was this life or another or both or all my lives that we'd lay there, together – but that mattered not either. It happened. It was eternal. It was more.
It was love.
And it was real. And I swore that I loved.
"Where are they?" I asked, dread and jubilation filling me, for I knew the answer and it'd set me free. And Sabrina would deliver, she'd save me, not out of kindness, but because she was a rabid dog that wanted to see how much chaos she could wreak upon the world.
Riley, eyes wide with horror, realized where this was going. Soundlessly, he steered Zapdos towards Sabrina, intending upon smiting her the fuck outta the sky.
He was too late.
"Ash Ketchum…" That damn, fucking insane smile was back on her lips, playing me, playing Riley, playing the world. In a mad world only the insane are truly sane, and for once I loved that smile dearly. "I left them right here for you, in Saffron City. There're in my Gym. You just have to save the city and fight your way through. Good luck, boys. Be nice."
And, soundlessly, she was gone, like she'd never existed in this moment, and a bolt of lighting screamed through the space in the air she'd just been.
None of that mattered any, for the noise of the Suit, noise I'd hardly heard, died away and I was free at last. In control. Stronger than I'd ever been. Stronger than the worlds I'd fought and saved and broken and burned.
I remembered all. Everything. And I endured it. Now I'd conquered it. Now… I had become… it.
The Guardian.
The man I'd fought to become. Not destined. There's no such thing as destiny. There're only choices.
And I'd chosen to fight the good fight. And the bad.
And all of them.
Across Eternity. Against Eternity.
Love. Damn – what a fucking drug. What a cliché, but how it fucking hurts, man!
The true horror of love isn't that it hurts, though.
No – even a teenager can tell you that. The true horror is that you forget. No matter how painful. You forget. I've lived loveless lives without someone. Anyone. Years upon years toiling away in solitude. But I remembered, impossibly, that I loved. I remembered that I used to love someone. But you forget. You forget her. Sort of. You forget the way she looks. Looked. You forget her smell. You forget the way she'd smile at you – like you were the most important thing in the world to her. You forget her eyes. Maybe not the color of her eyes, but the shape of them, the look behind them, the kindness, the yearning, sexually and emotionally, for you. The little nuances that only you saw. I saw. You forget her voice. Damn. Do you ever? You even forget how she was. Truly. I'm here to tell you it doesn't really matter. No really. None of it. You may forget all of that. In time, you will forget all of that. In time, there may be no single thing you can recall of her with utmost certainty. But there's one thing that will always sustain you. One thing you'll always remember.
You'll always remember how she made you feel. That feeling, deep within your very soul… that… love… lasts forever.
And that will sustain you, and – should you be in possession of tremendous courage – that will give you strength, when others falter and fall.
That love can save you. And with that love, maybe, impossibly, you can save another.
But it all starts with love and courage. Courage, especially. It enables all other qualities you may posses to shine.
It enable us to fight…
And I shall fight.
And I shall fight on your broken streets.
And I shall fight for your cries of love.
And I shall fight against your voices of dissent.
I shall fight for tomorrow. After all, tomorrow may be the day in which we find the answers to today's questions.
I shall never surrender.
"Riley," I said, raising my hand against him, against all I'd ever lost, against all I'd ever fought, against Time, against Space, and against all fucking Eternity. "Fuck you!"
A blast of pure kinetic power, concentrated from the palm of my hand, rocket his bird of thunder right outta the fucking sky, and saw Riley plummet towards the ground.
And, as if the world had been waiting for my move, screams started resonating from the city of Saffron, explosions in the distant corners of darkened streets filled the air with its promise of death and despair, and I knew war had just begun.
I must never surrender.
Moltres, blasted bird, swooped in below me and caught Riley, carrying him towards the city. He was swallowed and obscured by a swarm of flying Pokémon, a fraction of Riley's army, which was coming to intercept me.
I saw a feed on the side of my visor. It seemed Clement had been trying to contact me for a while now, and with a single thought, such had my control of the Suit become, I answered his call.
"Clement," I said, cutting straight to the chase. "Send me every Pokémon I have at my disposal. Re-upload my Suit to… to Oak's mainframe. We have work to do and a war to win."
I shall fight to the end.
Feeling movements abound, John felt sets of small hands trying to hoist him to his feet. He felt numb, though. His wife, his daughter… in a flash…
His sons' faces flickered into existence above him, like whispers of deceit across a reality that belonged to a monstrous nightmare.
And suddenly the clashes of horrendous, unseen sounds made a helluva lot more sense. The pain in his back from the impact of his fall was inconsequential, the pain of his heart, of his loss, of his sons' loss, was blinded by the sheer need to protect the flickering faces above him.
He had to move. They had to get down. Down and safe.
Away from here.
They said something, he thought he saw tears round their eyes – eyes so much like his, so much like hers.
He'd never forget. Never.
He stumbled, almost fell, caught himself, and turned about for a second upon the dirt-ridden, corpse-littered broken floor of the station. There were fires, gentle as if taunting them in their turmoil of fear and need for survival.
Cling on to life, mate. Live. Breathe. Fight.
Survive.
Words spilled out of his mouth as he pushed through the pain and ventured into the station, down where the trains woulda and shoulda departed on nights like these.
His words were meaningless, but he was alive. And his sons needed him.
He could hear them above, sense their powers clashing, and every time it got close, every time he felt something vast and horrible clash with the grounds above, his children flinched away as if beaten.
They'd never recover from this, he thought. Not sure of where that thought came from or how it made him feel, he chose not to pursuit it. But he knew.
They'd never recover. They'd be scarred. Forever. Forever caught here. Forever scarred, scared little boys, caught in that same war. Again and again. Across time.
Eternally.
They conquered fatigue and fright and pushed onwards after the staircase, pushed onwards into the darkness of the grounds below the earth's greatest quarrel.
The greatest slaughter human civilization had ever laid eyes onto.
"Don't come any closer!" There was a click, resonating in the dark, and John felt it close by, almost as a beat of his own heart. He knew that sound, but only from works of fiction and television.
It was the sound of a loaded gun.
Immediately, almost insanely, suddenly with love in his heart, he jumped betwixt the wicked sound and the bodies of his kids, shielding them.
"Wait! Wait, wait, wait… We're not looking for trouble! Please, we're just trying to escape the fighting!"
"Then you came to the wrong fucking place, didn't you, pal? Pichu, give me some light."
A little rotten, no bigger than the size of a grown man's shoes, exhaled deeply and released a surge of light, which crackled around like wheels of a car, bouncing off the walls, providing a small measure of light for their little corner within the station.
The rotten looked almost cute, despite the situation.
The same couldn't be said for the owner of the rotten.
I shall fight on the grounds. I must endure the storms of the air.
I must raise my will against all that I'd ever seen, against all that I'd ever faced.
I must. I must.
I…
Conveying on me, covering the sky in blackness so thick it blocked the sunlight from reaching the streets below, I braced myself for the fight. Hordes upon hordes atop mountains of winged flesh and awry intent filled the scope of my vision, of Spearow and Pidgey, of Fearow and Pidgeotto, of Pidgeot and other creatures of the air, we shall fight for supremacy.
I was alone against the masses gone wild, gone wild in enslavement.
Breathe. Deeply, son, you'll need it…
I focused my will, free at last of all timely constraints, and I pushed that insurmountable will – aided by knowledge of impossible things of an intangible past – through my hands.
Out of the scooped together palms of my hands blasted a wave, sizzling with light and quaking with energy. The world saw red and the light imploded inwards like a black hole upon contact with my beastly foes, swallowing everything within reach, creating a momentary, irresistible pull against reality, pulling in creatures all around it like gravity suddenly bent the wrong way. Pulling it in, swallowing them whole, and crushing them to nothing.
Black holes. There was no crueler fate.
I was bending the world around me in half.
Letting go of my flight, I fell backwards and away from the pull of the blackness. Falling fast, winds becoming all-consuming of space and sounds, I descended past foes of all kinds and man-made mountaintops of steel.
With a thought, precise and articulate, I gained control of the air anew, and swooped past buildings in pursuit of my loved ones.
"Clement, give me the quickest route to the Gym! Throw it up on my screen."
A second of anticipation, and then…
"Here you-"
A sound like thunder cracked open the world upon me, as Clement's words were swallowed, as the world was blurred red to my vision, and I was cast aside, perfectly inconsequently, in the face of such violent opposition.
Zapdos, I felt rather than heard, cried in utter triumph as I was flung through a sheer wall of a building, cast upon the face of a maimed and broken street, bouncing, bouncing, bouncing along the grounds.
Debris and dust and broken metal and cracked stone fell round me, upon the grounds, through buildings. Everything broke asunder as both Zapdos and now also Moltres crashed through skyscrapers in hot pursuit of me.
There were screams below, of human fright, there were cries of the insane and triumph above me, of beastly might, and I moaned and raged in raw agony, in chaotic flight, in a never-ending nightmare.
And I screamed. Bloody fuckety fuck, man, I screamed against them.
I cast my hands, blindly and yet with an all-seeing eye, unfound and precise, and bolts of Aura screamed through the fabric of reality and struck down Moltres and Zapdos.
And we fell together. I felt them crash through an office-building of some kind, where they'd wind up upon a different street a couple of hundred meters away.
"Shit!" I thought I heard someone scream as my violent descend was intercepted by the strength and mass of a steely skyscraper. I broke through the wall, creating a massive hole in the fucking building and making it moan in a pain-like fashion before I came to a skidding stop by a wooden desk in some sort of fashionable lobby entrance.
Knowing there was no rest for the wicked – and I'm as wicked as they come, baby! – I jumped to my feet and trekked outta the hole in the wall.
Face to face with the street, calm as you'd like for a man who had just about broken everything in his body, I strolled leisurely down the road, awaiting, awaiting, awaiting the arrival of Moltres and Zapdos – and where was that fucking Articuno anyway?
"Clement, I'm being held back here. Probably gonna be awhile. Sent Pikachu and Charizard for the girls. Get them out."
"Will do. They should be arriving to aid you any second now."
"No. Aid the city. They're no match for what I'm facing."
The sight of what looked to be a family of five made me pause ever so slightly. They just stood there, right in the middle of the street, man and wife and small children, scared out of minds.
I looked upon the father, scanning him for all he was worth and found him the decent sort. The kinda man I'd never be.
"John Clay," the Suit said, providing me with all the intel I'd ever need. "Married to Joanna Clay, father of four. Currently on vacation in Kanto with his wife and three youngest children, Jacob, Michael and Isabelle. Dawn, his oldest, is currently enrolled at Jubilife City College."
A ton of useful and useless information followed, processed and digested quickly by my overtasked brain. I had more pressing matters to attend, for Zapdos arrived.
I walked by them and they all but flinched at the mere sight of me.
"Get to the station below ground," I said over my shoulder, having grasped the concept of their escape plan off their minds. I rose off the ground, ever so slowly, looking ahead, calculating. "It's a solid plan. I cannot save you for long. In the end, I can only try and kill 'em."
My statement rang true, but it was also hollow and I knew I had within me something of monumental strength, a capacity to protect – at least for but a moment. Maybe just enough to allow these good folks the time to escape.
Maybe. Just maybe.
Hoisting a strand of will, meager yet infinite, I yanked a globe-like dome of power out of non-existence and onto this small mess of a world, ablaze and howling. Guiding it by the intent of my heart and will, I let it flow over the street, covering the innocent from harm.
Zapdos, chipping away like a mad child of the apocalypse, clawed and raved against the light as it made its way over the building and onto our street. The shield would hold for a moment or two – not long enough, though.
"I need to buy them time, then," I whispered to myself, half-smiling, half-crying. Half-mad, motherfucker, and half-fucking-delirious – it is a most glorious life.
I felt along the rim of my power-dome, searching for any imperfection, found none, and looked to Zapdos – the creature of never-ending nightmares. My target, then.
Breathe.
Face it.
Come on!
I took a step forth upon the air, felt it was right and took another. And another. And another. And suddenly, almost without contemplation of survival or plan of action, I'd left the enclosure of my protection, standing face to face with this creature of might.
One of the Three Legends.
Fight!
I screamed with my all, heart, muscle, soul – everything I could possibly become – and lurched with great haste against Zapdos, pools of destructive lights in the palms of my hands.
My scream carried itself through the street, airborne upon an unseen wind, as I threw my pool of Aura into the fray, manifesting it in a lance with which I grabbed round Zapdos neck and yanked it towards me.
Surprise evident in its cloudy expression, it was pulled right off its thin feet, dragged the twenty meters at me, where I stood ready with another pool of sizzling energy in my other hand.
Driving my hand forth, palm stretched outwards, I yelled a jet of red light into existence, striking it in the center of its abdomen.
Realize that that beam of light could carve a hole through the fuckin' world, could erase entire city blocks, and set fire to the rain, and all it did to this creature was bulging its skin inwards for a second before flinging it away like a pinball.
My sensory feedback picked up on the danger behind me before my conscious awareness knew anything was amiss.
An ocean of flame, barely a second away from me, clashed against my quickly-erected shield as it swallowed me whole. Thinking quickly, I'd cloaked myself in a similar man-shaped dome of protective properties. But it buckled beneath the fires, as did the shield shielding the family.
I took flight, rising above the fire, looking towards where the family had been, hoping they'd be gone so I could take down the shield and focus all of my powers on my own survival.
They stood, completely motionless, in the exact same spot I remembered from last time I laid eyes on them. Transfixed with equal measures of disbelief and sheer terror.
They hadn't moved at all!
Now that just pisses me off!
"FUCKING MOVE, DAMMIT!" I yelled as I was swooped off again, this time by the sudden arrival of Articuno, as it connected a lance of pure ice, colder than the emptiest space of the universe, right to my chest.
My shield meant no goddamn thing against such a concentrated and precise attack.
Which meant I couldn't ever stand still again.
I fell to the ground, freezing and feeling like dying all over again, as my shield protecting them faltered and died with my dwindling resolve.
They were on their own, I felt. Hopefully they'd run, for now I had enough.
Skidding and tucking, I did a series of acrobatics with my hands and feet, dancing and swirling over the rubble of the streets and evading the attacks of sickly-looking crimson spiders the size of a ten-year old. They had festered in the flames, probably scooping out that family of five as prey, and now they ran at me, snapping at my limps.
Landing on both hands, I flexed and pushed, twirling in loops high up and upright in the air. Then I threw my hands outwards, blasting them apart with a force of locomotive strength.
The wave of energy tore the nearest to shreds and pushed back the rest, but there was no time for jubilation, though, as I had to gain flight to evade Zapdos from forking me in half with its beck.
I danced past Moltres, too, before Articuno hit me in the leg, sending me spinning sideways right into Zapdos for a rebound, who drove me, beck to abdomen, right into the concrete street floor.
Only my hands quickly acting against its persistent shove prevented it from piercing me like a chicken-stick.
Oh, the fucking irony of that.
Fuck that! With my hands on its beck, I turned the heat up to hellish warmth and fried it.
"FRY, CHICKEN! FRY!" I yelled into its face, as it chipped away in utter agony.
It relented, the pain becoming too overwhelming to endure, and I punched it off me, but Articuno and Moltres immediately confronted me. Acting quick, quicker than my thoughts could comprehend, I blasted force out of my feet where I lay, and dragged myself a few meters up the street right before they crashed into me.
They hit the ground instead but immediately set in pursuit of me, even as Zapdos, who had gained its courage again, swooped at me from the side.
I gained my feet instantaneously, like I was born for this shit, spun about upon the broken street, and started firing jets of concussive force at random, aiming at nothing, hitting everything.
Zapdos took a beam to the neck, making it fly a tad off course and missing me by a wide berth. Articuno was struck right in the eye, destroying it in a glorious splatter of gore, making it falter altogether and fall to the ground, pained and fucked.
I missed Moltres by less than a hand's width and took about a thousand pounds of chicken right to the fuckin' chest.
I came to a violent skidding stop seconds later. Wind knocked outta me, the world spinning onto another plane of existence as far as I was concerned, I rose to my feet almost habitually, delirious and half-drunk on pain.
And was knocked right back on my ass by another blow from Moltres, I think. I couldn't see the fucker. Couldn't see shit.
Thighs burning in sheer extortion, lungs fucked, sight delirious and wavering, and arms almost immovable and heavy, I rose anew with a challenge in my heart.
"COME ON, DAMMIT!" I yelled, wasting precious air, but gaining an attitude. "IS THAT ALL YOU GOT!"
It wasn't. Of course it wasn't. Not even close.
Moltres, screeching nonsense, drove its beck straight for my bleeding heart, but I was, impossibly, ready for it. With strength of parts unknown, I lifted my hands, centered my strength into the ground, looked upon the blurry world through a small spec of clarity, and caught the beast between my fucking hands.
"YOU'RE MINE, FUCKER!" I yelled as I started twirling about on the spot holding on tightly to the creature. Sensing completely – with an obvious lack of sight – where my other two main foes where around me, I took aim with my heart.
And twirled about and about, gaining momentum.
And as Articuno and Zapdos zeroed in on me, I threw Moltres right back in their fucking faces, knocking them out of all kinds of sorts. They crashed through a concrete wall and disappeared down a small dark alley.
Leaving me all alone with a moment to breathe.
Then you spoke.
"All League personnel are to report at their designated rendezvous points immediately. Plans have been pushed a little ahead of schedule. Saffron City burns – there is no other way to put it – and I understand your terror. And if your instinct is telling you to run, fret not, mine does as well. But the people of Saffron need us. Everyone of us."
"Is it really true, Lance?" Misty said over their comm. Thank god, she woke up and made it, man. "The chatter we're picking up? The Three Legends?"
"The Birds of Fire, Thunder and Ice have all been awaken, yes." Lance paused, never without a sense for the dramatics. At that moment I quite liked him – you – for that. "But so is the other part of the chatter we hear. Red is amongst them. Somewhere. Upon the streets, he challenges those beasts. Should you happen upon their quarrel, aid him if it is within your power to do so, otherwise stay clear and let him fight where we cannot. Where no one else may walk, he will. He must."
Put me through to him, I thought, and watched fascinated as the suit complied. A little picture of Lance, from the interrogation room earlier when Sabrina had his mind bent and he had wetted himself.
I almost chuckled. Almost. The Suit seemed to have gained a sense of humor.
"Was that a compliment I heard?" I said, almost yelled over the sudden silence that reigned like a heavy cloud over the burning, bruised street. "I could have sworn it sounded like one."
"You just focus your efforts on the matter at hand, Ash Ketchum," he said, and I dearly hoped that this was a somewhat private conversation.
"Did you at least change your pants?"
"Fuck you!"
"All right, all righty, all right." I focused upon the alley in which my three friends had disappeared in, setting up a perimeter with my Aura, scanning for their presence. There was the family of moments ago, behind me, still making their way to the metro station below ground. But otherwise there was no one at all. No soul alive, at least.
No dice, then.
How the blue fuck did they do that?
"How can you hide from my senses like that? Are you not of this world? Like I… Are you like me?" I licked my lips. Kinda nervous as fuck. This suddenly meant something, didn't it?
Then I raised my voice to a shout that reverberated down the street. "If anybody's out there, you can come out. And if you're a monster, a ghost or any form of immensely frightening being, you can stay where you are, and I won't bother you."
Of course they didn't listen. Nobody ever truly listens, do they?
Have you ever seen that Lion-like Pokémon, ah, what was its name again? Oh yeah! Pyroar! Have you seen those hunt? The speed in which they go from a standstill to full-out run?
Trust me, Lance, its nothing compared to the Three Legends.
One moment everything was quiet, too quiet, of course, and the next a wall was coming down and three blows had been dealt to my all-too human flesh.
I was sent flying through the air, without idea of where or why or how, and I felt them pursue me through the air, almost fighting amongst each other to get at me.
And then I sensed them, the family, a mother and her daughter, caught upon the ground where I was to lay momentarily. And I began to fight, fight and fight like I'd never fought before and shall never fight again, I imagine.
Fucking life.
Life is so damn futile, is it not?
Nothing I did in that moment mattered. I crashed along with three beasts alight in otherworldly power, violent and swift, into the ground in a blaze of shame, gore and fire. I saw the girl, as if in slow motion – as if time itself was mocking me with my failure – I saw how her body was gutted by the sheer power of our impact, how the mother was thrown into the air, head and body and limps separated as if she'd been executed repeatedly.
I saw the father, who had rushed to safe them, being thrown back just before the broken concrete of the street sealed the entrance to the station shut, and he disappeared from my gaze. And my senses.
In a sort of non-existent moment, between one labored breath and the next, from where I existed, he simultaneously lived and died.
It was the grandest of thought.
It was the great paradox of all life. I saw it all and I saw none of it in that microsecond of a squandered life.
The birds didn't care, though. I think, even without the mind bending, they wouldn't have cared shit.
And neither did I really, not presently, at least.
Ah, fuck it. Not presently. At all. Not ever. Never, man.
I was thrust straight back into the fray – the only quarrel that ever I knew – as the beasts of ice, thunder and flame drown the men of the streets in their wicked embrace.
Hate. Or maybe it's dissatisfaction. In some cases it's both, I imagine.
Isn't that the curse of great men? Owners of troubled, ever-lumbering-onwards minds… Dissatisfaction. Have you ever looked upon your live, judged it with impartial eyes, and felt utter content with where you were, with where the world around you were?
Maybe you have. But I'm telling you… it's a lie. A lie you told yourself, forced yourself to believe in. Because the truth kills, man… kills the spirit.
Men of deeds, men of fortune, men of greatness… I don't think they ever felt that for even a moment of their lives. Content. That they had realized their potential. Seen all they could. And if they ever did, then that's when they stopped growin'. That was the limit of their greatness.
I am of greatness. Of greatness unbound. There can be no denying. I must be. Whether I like it or not. Whether you like me or not.
I think hate and dissatisfaction are the greatest driving forces behind some of our most renowned deeds. Behind the intent to fly, there was the hatred of our bounds to the ground. Behind the intent to enter space, there was the notion that the world was perhaps not enough. That, somewhere, there was more to have. More to see.
To be, in fact, more than you were born to be.
Behind every creation of man and act of defiance, there was always the silent acknowledgement that life as it was wasn't satisfactory enough.
A singular thought…
I've never been without that sentiment. Across all lives. It always sustains me. Drives me.
It's what I am… what I believe.
That thought may make you sad – it should, I guess – especially if you pursue its implications… but, man… it really shouldn't.
You see, I'm not without the spirit to endure against the torture. Not without the strength to hold off against the madness within my border.
But, man… fuck… how long can I bear this descend into the abyss?
Being a good solider – and lets face it, in most lives I aim to be more but miss – comes down to one thing, to one single decision.
How much can I sacrifice?
Can you give… of yourself… of others… what is necessary? Stop viewing yourself in such pretentious a light, Lance, and bear with me – you are not noble and likely won't ever be. Sacrifice isn't noble. Not mostly. No, mostly, you sacrifice others. You sacrifice lives. You have to… you gotta live with that.
There is an order, a greater good out there – only attainable if you're prepared to lay down all notions of fairness and happiness. Nothing can last.
Nothing can last.
Except… love… except…
I can. I've shown that. Lived that. Lives that. Will live that. It's a treacherous slope.
But so what, everything is treacherous at this point.
I didn't always though. It wasn't always that easy. I was… once… so damn… merciful.
Gullible.
Kindhearted.
There was none of that within me now.
And, standing in the middle of a city under siege, world aflame and screaming for a mercy that it yearned for undeservedly, that thought scared me more than any of this god-fucking-awful mess.
I mean, I hadn't at any point sat down, taken a moment, a break, since breaking out of the League. Since Oak passed…
I'd been running non-stop for almost three days straight. Without even feeling the weariness that should have clung to my heart, or the fatigue that should have clamored through my bones.
I felt nothing. Not even that anger or dissatisfaction. Man, it drives me! It has always sustained me! Across time! It is I! Even wearing these otherworldly threads. Not even a sudden jump of a pulse, man, synapsis on fire with fear – something to revel in, baby, to show that I was a life beyond merely a beating, rebellious heart. There was nothing left to show that I was still human. That I was still afraid. That seeing this shit happening before me got to me…
Nothing, man!
Fucking nothing!
And that scared me.
You know, I'm resilient. Proud and stubborn as fuck, if I'm being honest. Not necessarily good, redeeming qualities, but qualities that offered me a defiant, mean streak. I'm not easily broken.
Shit… I might just be unbreakable…
For how long have I been wearing this Suit now? Three months? On and off, of course, but three months seems about right.
Three months and three thousand lifetimes…
What I'm getting at… I mean, what are we, as humans, as cognizant beings – what defines us, makes us unique even amongst each other, but our own personal fears, memories, dreams, quirks…
The little things that only a lover can tell about you. What am I without it?
What if I'm losing that? I can remember – if I strain myself and defy the silent, benign monster within – the discontent and the anger, but it's an afterthought at most. What if suddenly, the Suit decides that a certain phobia is only holding me back from completing the objective? Will it erase it? Scrap it like a spare part and I'll be none the wiser.
What if it's already done that? I just didn't notice because I stopped fearing it – thinking about it. What then… I've got the controls in my hands, but what if it's no longer me – as I am, as I've made myself – who's controlling me?
What if it's not even my head anymore? Or the way my head used to be… used to think…
Would I even notice?
Mad men still run abound inside, after all.
What if I wake up one day and am no longer here – inside…
Would I even notice?
Tell me how should I? If I'm no longer there… how could I?
I'll not only cease to exist, but I will have never been.
It will be an existential erasure.
See, you as you are, unique and beautiful and such flowery nonsense, and only exist as you are because you can recall the important details of what makes you, well, you.
Intricate and unexplainable, as you probably are, there's something, some things, within you that makes up all of what you are.
No one else can know with absolute certainty what resides within you. No machine can read all of what encapsulates you, what you see, how you see it. What you believe. Why you believe. And what that belief does to your thoughts. Your drive. What you chose to do because of all that is… within you…
It's too complex to just psych-evaluate, man – that's too general…
And fighting on these burned-down streets, going through the motion, it was clear that the Suit had at least dulled some of what made me who I am.
My fears…
My quirks.
Maybe it removed parts of me that I no longer needed. If I'm not sure, then who the fuck knows, right?
Right.
The fucked up thing is that that thought occurs to me whilst I fight, in the moment between ducking for cover, scrambling across the streets of downtown Saffron.
It's a moment… and then that, too, is gone. And I'm fighting on autopilot again.
Guess who's work that is. And somehow it didn't even bother me.
Again – guess who made that happen. What made that happen.
But there's a paradox in there. Existential paradox. Of life. Simultaneously there and not there. As if it can and may not exist – at the same fucking time.
It's bounds intangible in its entirety. Only viewable when you look beneath the box. Like John Clay and his two boys beneath the earth…
You'll see, man.
But… hear me out. Say you stand on the brink of existence… between dimensions, gazing through all the doors, seeing under all boxes, knowing the obvious and the unknowable, simultaneously… could you from that vantage point… see?
See it all.
You'll see. I promise.
You will.
And you will be astounded. It'll be puzzled over, gazed upon with frighten wonder as they realized that death long since stopped touching me.
There rests a shadow over me, you see. A… wraith-like presence shielding me from the gaze of mortality. We're all dying. Every last one of us.
We run from it. Fearful that our light dims before we can make our mark. We want the world to miss us, after all. Some part of it, at least. Someone. We're cruel and selfish that way.
But then life reverse-engineer itself. It wears you down, eats away at you, sucks you dry of everything you have to offer, then spits you out into the cruel world that we all know and endure… with nothing left to offer.
And then you yearn for it to end.
You still haven't accomplished shit. You're worth shit, but at least now you understand. Now you know, man, know that you never really stood a chance. That life throws its rays of sunshine on you only to entice you to continue just that little further… so the end will be all the more painful.
It'll let you think that you have a chance. At anything. Anything is possible, man.
And fuck maybe it is.
So, tell me, how can I clear the smoke of my madness and sculpt a life that's worthy of my dreams and of praise? Of admiration. Of the screams of the oppressed…
I don't know the way. The Way. Yet within me I feel a yearning that bears onwards despite the malice of our hearts.
A wonder of the corners of life. Of the unknown. Of the path…
For I'm not without the spirit to endure, not without the will to survive amongst the horrors.
We found ways to capture creatures of fire, but can they capture my screams? Can they understand them?
If we can see the world as it truly is, then why can't anyone see my scars?
And if some can cure their ill will with a needle to the arm, then maybe… maybe sweet oblivion will serve me nicely, as well.
Fuckin' oblivion.
And I was thrust straight back into the fray – the only quarrel that I ever knew – as the beasts of ice, thunder and flame drown the men of the streets in their wicked embrace.
Fuck oblivion. Escapism is not the solution.
So I lift myself above the quarrels of within…
I let the cynicism fall by the wayside.
Let the darkness go in favor of the will to persevere.
And I fight back.