Greetings. Today I will be reviewing a friendship story involving one of the most kind-hearted and likeable characters in the games... Silver.
(Arceus rolled his eyes.)
At least if you are a rabid fangirl.
Regardless, I believe I have found a story that is something of a foil to a story Genesect once reviewed called Golbat is Evolving. If that story dealt with Silver's developing friendship with his Pokémon, then this one deals with his developing friendship with other humans.
Arceus the Critic
"Unown Friendship" by SpiritofSilverWater
Unown Friendship
By: SpiritofSilverWater
Silver begins to question whether his friendship with Ethan and Lyra is a good thing or not. Ethan realizes this and takes Silver to some ruins, where he finds a clue to that question in a very strange manner. (Gameverse. Warning, Silver swears)
And no, Unown is not a typo. As for the swearing, well, frankly it all depends on the content and amount. But since this is only K+, it shouldn't be too bad, though it still ought to be rated a T. Regardless, we start off with a battle between Ethan and Silver.
"Hmp! Weak!" Silver shouted at Ethan, as he knocked one of Ethan's Pokemon out.
"Yeah, well I already beat three of yours! You just got my first one down!" Ethan shouted back, sending out his Togekiss next.
"Hmp! Sneasel, Faint Attack!" Silver shouted. Much to his surprise, it didn't do as much as he thought it would!
Is 'Hmp!' Silver's catchphrase now? Admittedly I can see him saying that, but he's already proving to be more pompous than Victini and that accursed wheel.
"Togekiss, use Dazzling Gleam!" Togekiss gave a happy cry, and glowed in a harsh pink light. When it faded, Sneasel lay defeated on the ground.
"The hell was that?!" Silver shouted.
"Haven't you heard of the new Fairy classification? It resists Dark, Fighting, and Dragon!"
First, it is sadly immune to Dragon Types, not resistant. Second, you cannot convey the future upon the past in such a manner; if a Dark Type attack worked perfectly fine before, it would still be effective since HG/SS took place before Kalos. That would be like saying:
Gates to Infinity Developer: Hmm... I don't like how the Swords of Justice are portrayed as competent and admirable Pokémon... so I think I'll just take out two of them, turn Virizion into a glamor girl and Keldeo into someone more neurotic than George Costanza! That way all the established canon that I have no control over will have to conform to my wishes! Ha-ha-ha!
Silver growled, and then sent out Gengar. "Sludge Bomb!" Gengar obeyed, and Togekiss was defeated.
"Aw! You found Fairy's weakness…" Ethan pouted, causing Silver to smirk at battled for a while, and when they were done, they noticed that it began to storm very hard.
"Crap! Well, time flies when you're having fun, right?" Ethan said.
"Shut up!"
Well, Silver seems to be in a good mood today.
"Jeez, someone's cranky…" They proceeded to run through the storm, attempting to find shelter. They ran under a large tree.
"This is a really bad idea…" Ethan remarked uneasily.
"What are you whining about now?"
"Branches fall in the storm, and this tree has some pretty big ones."
(Arceus blinked in confusion.)
Then why on earth did you pick that one!?
(Masamune: Imbecile!)
"Then you can stop being a wuss and find a better place to hide." Just then, a loud boom of thunder sounded, and Ethan made a pathetic squeak under his breath. Which Silver unfortunately heard.
"Seriously, you're scared of thunder? What are you, five years old?"
"I'm not scared!"
"Sure, and Magikarp live on land."
"Fine, I'm scared? Can you let it go now?"
"Hmp. Fine. You're such a weakling."
"Shut up!"
Another boom of thunder sounded, and Ethan squeaked again. Silver just barely contained laughter. After about fifteen minutes or so, the storm started to move on. Then, a rainbow appeared.
"Wow! It's really pretty, isn't it?" Ethan asked with sparkles in his eyes.
(Michael Palin: Sixteen stone of... Pure man.)
(Arceus chortled.)
I'm sorry, but the thought of the womanizing and mischievous Gold having a counter part in this... this pansy, is laughable. Is the author trying to make Ethan into a girl? Sure he has a Marill in the games, but that trait is shared with Lyra should the player choose him. But I think giving him a Togekiss, having him pout, squeal at lightning and be fascinated by rainbows is pushing it a bit.
"What are you, a five year old girl?" Silver responded, personally thinking that the rainbow was an annoying shade of happiness.
No! Rainbows are just awesome!"
"Whatever helps you sleep at night…" Did I really just get beat by this girl? Silver thought.
You know, I think I might just leave this review to Silver. He seems to be doing a perfectly good job on his own.
A few days later
Silver was at Ethan's house because Lyra wanted them to watch a movie with her. Personally, Silver had better things to be doing, but Lyra forced him into it, and he's learned by now that it was impossible to say no to her.
How is it impossible? You clearly had no problem berating Ethan, so why would you have reservations in letting marshmallow hat have it? Unless... No, I'm thinking into this to much. It can't possibly be a contrived method of slipping in some SoulSlivershipping that will have no effect on the greater plot.
Ugh. Sometimes I wish I could do things without them interfering. A few months ago, I would have just kicked them andwalked out. Since when have I gotten this soft? Is it them making me like this. Are friends really for the weak after all? Silver questioned himself. Maybe it was weak. After all, if he didn't have those two as friends, he could be training and getting stronger, right? What would they say. They would- wait, when have I become so dependent on someone else's judgment? That's it. It must be them making me weak. He was about to ditch on the movie, when Lyra ran up to the TV and started the movie, then sat next to him and held onto his arm. So much for ditching.
Well, it's not forceful so I won't complain.
After it was over, Lyra went home. However, Ethan saw the look on Silver's face.
"Hey, man. I know the movie wasn't that interesting, but come on! It wasn't that bad!"
"Hmp. The characters were so weak." He replied. Honestly, he hadn't payed the slightest attention to the movie, and didn't know a thing about the characters, but he needed an excuse. If Ethan found out what he was really thinking, he'd be in for a huge lecture, and he'd rather not sit through one of those.
Damn it! I really am getting weak! If things were how they were before, then I would have just kicked him when he started
to get annoying! What happened to me?!
You usurped my position in pointing out flaws?
"I don't know, you got a life?"
Damn it, he just said that out loud, didn't he?
"Yup."
"Screw you."
(Arceus snorted.)
I am not sure whether to find that amusing or disturbing. I wonder what other thoughts Ethan has read?
Silver's thoughts: I'm getting a little hungry... I wonder what Ethan has to eat?
Ethan: I have a few slices of pizza in the fridge.
Silver: Thanks... Wait! How di-
Ethan: I can read minds.
Silver: Really? Then what am I thinking of right now?
Ethan: That I can't read minds and that your favorite color is silver.
Silver: That's obvious idiot! if you're so smart, then tell me what I'm thinking now.
Ethan: You're trying to think up stuff that doesn't make sense to confuse me.
Silver: Darn it!
Ethan sighed. Just when we thought we were getting through to him… "Hey man, I got something that will show you that even Pokemon know how valuable friendship is. Tomorrow, you're coming with me to Sinnoh.
"Wonderful…" Silver said sarcastically.
That's it? No objections? Someone just says off the cuff that they're dragging you off to another region tomorrow and all you can muster is an indifferent and sarcastic remark?
The next day
Silver was seriously thinking about finding a place to hide. Knowing Ethan, he'd probably bring him to a rainbow field or a natural Skittles factory or something girly and disgusting like that.
Both of those are an oxymoron. But if Ethan truly wanted to take you to an effeminate place where you can learn friendship is magic-
(Arceus suddenly gulped as a red dot appeared between his eyes.)
For my sake, I believe it would be better not to finish that statement.
But hiding would be weak. So he faced Ethan like a man, and swore him out while getting on the plane. He didn't even know why Ethan would buy plane tickets instead of just using their Pokemon to fly, but Ethan was weird.
After a few hours of a freezing cold plane ride, they landed in Hearthome City. Ethan took him north of it, and into these weird ruins. This was certainly strange, because as far as he knew, rainbows don't appear in caves. But a lot of weird things have happened that week.
That week? Did the author forget to add in a few scenes? Well, I suppose we can just summarize the missing portions with this:
(Jerry Seinfeld: Yada, Yada, Yada.)
Ethan led him through a lot of staircases. Having nothing better to do, Silver mapped out the route in his head. Top right, lower left, top right, top left, top left, lower left. They finally got to the bottom. Ethan led him to a carving in the walls.
"Read it." He commanded. "It was made by the Alphabet Pokemon, Unown."
Silver snickered. Unown were weaklings. Their stats were low, and they could only learn one move. However, seeing as he wasn't getting out of there until he did what Ethan wanted, he read the symbols.
Friendship
All lives
Touch other
Lives to create
Something
Anew and alive
That was it? Weak. Ethan led him back up to the top.
Well, I have to give the author credit for bringing back an obscure episode of the anime to use as part of the plot.
"Ok. Now I want you to go down and catch one of every Unown you see on the way."
"What?" This was really, really stupid and annoying.
"You heard me. You aren't getting out of this until you do. Better get going."
Silver gritted his teeth and went down. It wasn't hard to catch those things. They were weak.
When he got back up, he threw the Pokeballs at Ethan.
"There, happy? Now that you've wasted my precious time for nothing-"
"Look." Silver looked back, and saw the the Unown have arranged themselves in order to spell the word "friend".
Didn't Ethan say one of every Unown? So what are the other twenty-two doing?
"Weak." He said.
"Maybe alone they are, but look at the Pokedex."
This is so pointless… Silver thought, but he looked anyway.
"When alone, nothing happens, but when there are two or more, an odd power is said to emerge."
"These things swarmed together once and managed to deal damage to legendaries. There's strength in numbers after all, and the more you have on your side, the stronger you are."
For once, Silver was silent. It was hard to believe that something like that happened, but something inside him knew it was true. Damn it, why does Ethan always have to be right?
Because this is a friendship story, and the end justifies the means when writing these.
He looked back and saw him wearing that familiar, infuriating grin.
"I'm pretty sure you got the point by now. Let's go back to Johto. On our Pokemon this time."
"Speaking of which, why didn't you just use Pokemon to fly over here in the first place? Scared I was going to run off?"
"Well, that's a small part of it."
"And what was the bigger part?" Silver asked expectantly.
Ethan gave a dorky grin. "They have great food on that plane!" Silver nearly facepalmed hard enough to leave a dent in his forehead.
And on that amusing note, Unown Friendship comes to it's conclusion. So what is my Judgement? It was enjoyable. While not the best in terms of character (cough *Ethan* cough), it was enjoyable for the most part and even funny.
Though it certainly has its share of discrepancies, this story was purely about friendship and can suffer them as a result. After all, this isn't a serious novel about life and death, just a short story about someone trying to get his friend to lighten up. Well, with that out of the way, I feel that some rest will do me well.
The End
Credits:
The Angry Bug Show
Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Gates to Infinity
Pokémon Conquest
Monty Python's Flying Circus - Historical Impersonations
Seinfeld - The Yada Yada