Arceus' head reared back as the book he had been staring at for so long finally collided with his face.
"For my next witness, your honor," Mew cleared her throat and looked back to the large doors leading to the gallery. "I call the late Glory For Sleep!"
Before Jack even had time to object the doors swung open, and the entire courtroom was treated to the sight of Hideyoshi single-handedly trying to lug a coffin into the room, and somehow succeed in hauling it onto and balancing it on the witness stand.
"Now, Glory For Sleep," the prosecutor continued without skipping a beat - seemingly oblivious to the bailiff passing out right after letting go of the sarcophagus - holding up a small dossier as she began her questioning. "You were, in fact, one of the earliest writers of Arceus, were you not?"
The reply came from behind Mew.
"Prosecutor!" Keldeo shouted, standing up on his hind legs and slamming his hooves into the judge's bench for emphasis. "What is the meaning of this!? You can't just dump a corpse in my courtroom and call it a witness!"
"Actually, your honor, we got a nice casket for the body beforehand," Mew gesticulated to the varnished wood behind her. "And Sleep's not completely dead m'lud, just not at all well."
Jack opened his mouth to object, but Mew quickly cut him off.
"No, we're not going to force-feed anyone any medicine," the Psychic Type turned back to the witness. "Now with that settled; Glory For Sleep, you were one of the earliest writers of Arceus in Fanfiction, correct? Just knock once for yes."
A knock from within the casket echoed throughout the courtroom. Jaws dropped.
"Very good," Mew continued, completely unfazed. "Now, would you say you wrote Arceus with any tendencies to mimic or copy?"
"I fail to see the relevance of this witness, Prosecutor," Keldeo grumbled.
"We're getting to that, m'lud," Mew replied hastily before settling her gaze back on the casket. A few seconds of uneasy silence passed before she cleared her throat uncomfortably.
"Is the witness contemplating the question, or simply dead?" more silence. Mew chuckled nervously and started tapping her paws together.
"I think I better go have a look, your honor," the New Species Pokémon said hastily, zipping over to the other side of the coffin as Keldeo gave a gruff grunt and narrowed his eyes. Arceus only rolled his when Mew opened the coffin lid and peeked her head inside. Half a minute or so of looking inside the casket culminated in Mew climbing inside of it and closing the lid behind her. She came out a handful of seconds later.
"No further questions, your honor," the prosecutor said without missing a beat, closing the lid and pushing the casket onto the semi-conscious bailiff below; Hideyoshi barely managed to keep it from crushing him in time. Jack facepalmed.
"Great," he muttered. "There goes yet another chance at a cross-examination."
"Oh, it's not so bad," came the hushed reply from above. "It keeps her from asking whether or not we actually did parody Nine in the Afternoon."
Jack felt tempted to shush Arceus, but he felt he had already pushed his luck enough the past two chapters.
"Well, unfortunately, I doubt we'll ever know what Sleep might've said," Mew bemoaned as she floated back to the center of the courtroom, paddle-shaped tail drooping behind her.
"Actually," Arceus stepped over the defendant's table one weight-clad hoof at a time. "I believe I would have a fairly good inkling."
"Will the defendant return to his counsel?" Keldeo quietly ordered. Arceus didn't seem to hear him.
"Glory For Sleep was one of the earliest writers of Legendary Pokémon as we generally conceive of them today..."
"Oh great, he's back on it," Mew grumbled. Jack gulped as Arceus continued to ramble.
"In fact, I would even say that Glory is responsible for- You know, I think I can make this into an editoral..." more groans echoed from all sides of the courtroom.
"Will the defendant return to his counsel," Keldeo was a little louder this time.
"Yes, in fact, I think I will. It's about time I spent some time to talk about Sleep and the rest of the Old Guard, and inspiration just-"
"If the defendant will not return to his place I will hold him in contempt of court!" the Judge finally shouted. Arceus' eye twitched for a brief second, and his head snapped back.
"If the judge continues to interrupt I will hold him in contempt of me," the two legendaries found themselves in a standoff, neither budging in the intensity of their glares, and Keldeo was saved from being vaporized by Mew suddenly floating up between him and the monolith of a Pokémon.
"I would like to motion for an intermission, your honor," Keldeo blinked in disbelief.
"Why?" Mew cleared her throat, looked back down at her dossier, and produced a pair of spectacles from underneath her robes. Altogether, she looked very scientific.
"Because, m'lud, if we do push the defendant too hard we run the risk of him suffering a full-scale mental breakdown-"
"I object to that!" Jack shouted. Mew ignored him.
"And then the defense would be able to plead criminal insanity and put off the trial until the defendant has received sufficient psychiatric care."
Arceus' attorney quietly snapped his fingers, but before Keldeo could reply a large clap of thunder came from above.
Note From The Author:
There's also the fact that this review is supposed to last six chapters, but at the rate we're reviewing Rising Storm we'll only get five out of it.
"We...?" Jack silently wondered. Arceus' eye twitched and drifted upwards.
"Shut up!" he shouted at the ceiling. Mew cleared her throat and Keldeo sighed.
"Very well," the Colt Pokémon brought his gavel down. "Thirty minute intermission. The defendant has the floor."
"Thank you, m'lud," the reply came from Mew as she floated back to her side of the courtroom, leaving Arceus alone. The Alpha blinked.
"Now, where was I? Ah, yes, the Old Guard. Now, while it was incredibly arrogant of me to assume I could start definitively naming the best authors of Pokémon fanfiction-"
"Yeah, if there's something we really should put him on trial for, it's that," Mew quickly shirked back from the glare Arceus sent her, and the Alpha reassumed his placid demeanor.
"Regardless, for the half-hour recess I have been given, I would like to examine the authors of the Old Guard and their impact on the fandom," Arceus' head turned towards the back. "In fact, I have Genesect to thank for inspiring me with his editorial on Yoshizilla."
Jack facepalmed while the Legendary Pokémon in question blinked and scratched the back of his head with a sheepish smile. The Normal Type blithely carried on. "And so, without further ado..."
Arceus the Critic
The Old Guard of Pokémon Fanfiction
"This is a term I've coined to describe a certain clique of fanfiction authors who joined around 2007 or 2008; when Generation IV was just kicking off and had introduced complex and immensely underrated storytelling to Pokémon - and more or less created many of the tropes we see nowadays in fics involving the Legendary Pokémon. Almost all of them were interconnected with each other, and were all some of the best writers of the day, both mechanically and artistically; especially impressive when back in those days Fanfiction's reputation was still reeling from My Immortal," Arceus blinked up. "And despite being some of the most notable writers at the time when Pokémon fanfiction was booming, only one or two are still well known today. So, why don't we start off with the one all of you are due to be most familiar with by now?"
Mew quietly turned to the gallery while Arceus materialized a projector in front of Keldeo. "For those of you having doubts about this whole thing, now is the perfect time to go to the restroom, get some snacks, consider getting into a better fanfiction..."
In the two seconds it took for Arceus to turn back around and begin his monologue in full, half the gallery was empty. His non-existent brow furrowed, but he carried on without missing a beat.
Glory For Sleep
If anyone left in the room had a hat on, they had immediately taken them off at mention of the author. A few moments of quiet passed before Mew coughed.
"Uh, Arcy," she muttered as the powdered wig covered most of her forehead again. "We're on the clock here."
Arceus just nodded. "Yes, Glory For Sleep; the best known of the Old Guard today. While Sleep's more recent Cadence Of Their Fear trilogy and Just Beyond Hate Street have proven to be popular, it was of course Sleep's earlier works that have made the largest impact on the fandom as a whole. After all, anime fics, no matter how well written, are dime a dozen. But Glory For Sleep's earliest fics were written at the height of Gen IV; when Sinnoh came with all its new Legendary Pokémon and everyone was raving about them. And it's probably thanks to him that I'm floating here today for all of you."
The Alpha's eyes glanced up at the ceiling, which remained suspiciously quiet. Satisfied, the Legendary continued. "Yes, Glory For Sleep was in many ways the progenitor of much of the conventions we see today with the Legendary Pokémon. The Hall of Origin being a giant temple? Sleep. A Council of Legendary Pokémon convening there? Sleep. Myself being a grumpy old loner? Sleep. Enduring as Sleep's works might be, the concepts they created have permeated almost every level of Pokémon fanfiction, often unwittingly. But, of course, while the ideas might have been original for the time, they would have never taken off had the stories themselves not been good."
Arceus gave an absent nod in the direction of the half-asleep juror box. "What made Sleep's stories so truly lasting, however, was not technique or mechanics, but simple heart. Take Nine in the Afternoon, for example; most readers either loved it to death or dismissed it over Mew - Sleep even had a love/hate relationship with it - but at the end of the day at only six chapters it's as enduring as his other works. Why? Well, it wasn't due to originality by any length; the premise is fairly simple and used, and we all have a feeling for what the ending will be before we even reach it. But all the heart Sleep poured into it - and even those who disliked it disliked it over Mew because they appreciated Arceus' character - is a definitive mark of Sleep's and what made Nine and the other works so enjoyable. We might already know what will happen, but we don't care; the characters are reward enough themselves."
"Overall, it was a combination of loveable, engaging characters, perfect timing, and technical refinement in a time where it was uncommon that allowed Sleep to forge most of the fandom's conceptions of the organization of Legendary Pokémon - and my archetypical personality at that. Lesser achievements also include the formation of Rayquaza's popularized personality in Skyway Avenue and other oneshots, and being one of the first writers to demonstrate that members of a legendary trio could exist as independent entities as important as their trio master with Exile."
SilverUmbra
"And now for something completely different."
Mew blinked and looked up in surprise, only to drop her head as Arceus just spun around and continued his rambling. She let the coffee mug in her hand spill over - despite her best hopes, Keldeo was too asleep to chide her for it.
"That phrase can be said to describe SilverUmbra; writing crack before it was popular or before it became trite. Much like Sleep, Umbra devoted herself to focusing on the Legendary Pokémon; except whereas Sleep had tried writing them as being orderly and sensible for the sake of world building, Umbra intentionally deconstructed it for the sake of humor; nothing made sense, and because of that, everything made sense. She focused on the interactions between the Legendaries; bringing them down to the human level while still retaining their status and prestige - in some ways, and if perhaps unintentionally, Umbra brought many of the conventions that were being formed at that time to their natural and logical conclusions precisely by ignoring logic."
The Normal Type shrugged. "Confusing as that sounds, crack is only entertaining if it adheres to its own logic or acknowledges it in some way, and the benchmark Umbra set would prove to be quite ahead of her time. Being one of the earliest writers of that genre, however, was not Umbra's only accomplishment; while her Romantic stories were usually just cover for either a distinctive brand of comedy or a surprisingly deep character introspection, they proved to be more lasting than knowledge of her was; she was an old enough author to have written the first LunarEclipseshippping and Dracoshipping oneshots, both of which have become background staples of larger stories featuring legendary Pokémon."
"All in all, Silver Umbra was the second shortest-lived of the old guard, and arguably the second most-influential on the fandom as a whole. If Glory For Sleep demonstrated the potential of the institution of Legendary Pokémon as a whole, Silver Umbra was the one to show the potential of their individual character and interactions. Everyone got screentime, unique personalities and even bizarre pairings in her stories; from Registeel's obsession with conquering the world and Cresselia being a homicidal maniac, to Palkia being a brickhead, she could be rather aptly described as being the Brawl in the Family of Fanfiction."
Quaystor
"Call me Ishmael..." Jack muttered from behind his desk. If Arceus heard, he didn't make any signs of it.
"Quaystor was the shortest lived of the old guard - a mere three years - and yet the impact he left was both more subtle and about as large as the previous two. What did Quaystor do different from Sleep and Umbra you might ask? Simple; he focused on regular Pokémon."
Arceus turned around to face the gallery. Most of them were already asleep.
"Now, that might not sound too outstanding at first, but what should be understood is that was a relative first for the time; previously any fics dealing with Pokémon themselves and not trainers were almost exclusively within the domain of either Mystery Dungeon, dealt with the Legendary Pokémon, or just had the Pokémon in the background to the trainers. Even Sleep and Umbra, who were original in their approaches, weren't original in their topics - and while Quaystor also dabbled with the Legendaries, they were never his main focus. This is what made Quaystor stand out; though starting out as a parodist, he was more important the first to focus on regular Pokémon in the regular anime setting, with most of his fics dealing with Ash's Hoenn team and May's; instead, the trainers take the background to Pokémon themselves. All the Pokémon got some attention too; from his favorite of Sceptile to something as simple as giving Corpish his Explorers counterpart's speech patterns. In short, Quaystor was one of the early pioneers in focusing on individual, and altogether normal, Pokémon in a relatively normal setting as well - and much like his contemporaries, still made it all engaging."
Blazing Sceptile
Zinnia discretely elbowed Steven and started opening and closing a loose fist while mouthing gibberish in a vain attempt to keep awake as Arceus continued to drone on. The Hoenn Champion cracked an eye open, found a grin on his face for the few seconds he could keep it open, and then found the lull of sleep to strong to resist. Zinnia quietly chuckled to herself, dropped her hand, and soon followed the rest of the jury box.
"...not as active originally on Fanficton as elsewhere, nor did he stand out in one area like Umbra, Sleep or Quaystor, but he instead dabbled in all of their fields and sought to refine some of their concepts, and did so with some relative success. Unlike the prior three, however, he would be able to progress beyond his era; he was one of the earliest writers of the admittedly bland Kalos Legendary Pokémon, bringing a bit of an old school touch to the new and empty- I mean, Kalos was hyped up about as much as possible and the anime was blindly loved by the fanbase as a whole for its blatantly obvious pandering, and don't even get me started on how disappointed X and Y were as a wh-"
"Arcy," Mew coughed quietly enough to get his attention. "You have thirteen more minutes."
The Alpha blinked, coughed, and then nodded.
"Right," the Normal Type, began, floating around and dragging his ankle weights behind him. "Moving on."
Goldeneye101
"Man, look at that action..." Mew muttered. Palkia - the only member of the creation not out cold - craned his long neck over the juror box and peered at his rambling father, and then looked down at Mew with a cross between hesitation and mild disgust. She blinked and scratched the back of her wig sheepishly.
"Eh, no, I mean there are ants all over the coffee I spilled," the Spatial Pokémon blinked his half-open eyes and looked over the edge of the prosecutor's table.
"Oh, yeah," he said with a slightly more alert mien than before.
"Look at them go," Palkia said with a yawn. Mew followed.
"... focused on the new world that rotated with the Sinnoh Legendaries at its epicenter, Goldeneye instead broke from the tendencies of the contemporaries' and instead focused on how the new world - Sinnoh's being immaterial - focused on the more material Legendaries. It wasn't theology by any stretch, but it did offer a bit of a difference perspective on the changing scope of the times and how it could be used to further some interesting - if not exactly original - premises."
Attila12
"Attila was..."
Arceus took a long blink and looked around the courtroom; quiet snoring was coming from all directions. The jury booth, the bench, the prosecutor and defendant's table, and even the gallery - though he was fairly certain some of the inhabitants of the latter had stopped breathing altogether. The Alpha then took a tentative glance up at the ceiling; even it was perfectly quiet.
Perfect. Event the author was asleep.
Though no amount of wishing or lecturing could put, yours truly, the narrator to sleep. Yes, I'm the unsung hero in all of this, having to read out all-
"Shut up," Arceus hissed in the direction of the blank wall behind him. "The Author's bad enough alone."
"I can't believe that actually worked..." he muttered like nothing had happened as he floated back around to the prosecutor's table; Mew was slumped over it, wig obscuring her face, but the cooking timer she had set next to it was perfectly readable; four minutes left.
"I might have been a bit skimpy at the end, but it bought me enough time," the Alpha concluded under his breath as he floated out of the courtroom, taking care to mentally lift up his ankle-weights as he hovered silently out of the courthouse and into the demonstrator-filled streets of Bournemouth.
Four minutes later, the timer went off.
Right in Mew's ear.
"HIIYYGGHAAA!" if anyone hadn't been woken up by the impromptu alarm clock, Mew's startled yipe and shooting a dozen or so feet into the air did it.
Keldeo just yawned disinterestedly and ran his hooves through his eyes - it would take a lot more to startle him.
Like not seeing a the defendant in the courtroom.
"Biscuits!" the Colt Pokémon would've snapped his fingers if he had any, but settled for slamming his hoof onto the table a few times to bring the panicking courtroom back to order. Under the relative privacy of the back of the gallery, Genesect begrudgingly passed a twenty to a smug-looking Kyurem as the courtroom finally started to settle down from its incessant and not really quiet whispering.
"Bailiff! Prosecutor! Defense! Find the defendant at once and bring him back in the next half hour or I'll find him in contempt of court! You too, jury!" The impromptu police force quickly huddled out of the courtroom over Guzma's objection of 'Y'all are stupid!'.
"This shouldn't be too hard," Jack commented cheerfully, pushing open the doors to the courthouse, even as he was sweating bullets from the glares around him. "I mean, how hard could it be to find a ten and a half foot tall, white and gold Pokémon with ankle weights and a god complex?"
And the sight they were greeted with outside the courthouse was a sea of Arceus' of different sizes and shapes. Some on baseball hats and t-shirts, some in the form of balloons actually large enough to be the real deal, and some in the form of individuals or even entire groups outright dressed up as the Alpha. The trainer-turned-lawyer swore there were even some Ditto that had transformed into copies of Arceus. And altogether there were hundreds of them. Jack's jaw finally dropped.
"You just had to ask..." Palkia hissed. Jack blinked; partly from an epiphany, partly out of nervousness from having a clearly unhappy Legendary Pokémon who happened to be the equivalent of a god leering down at him.
"C-Can't one of you single out your dad?" Giratina snorted.
"Please. The three of us combined could barely buy enough time to keep him from destroying the world. You think we can just find him if he doesn't want to be found?" the Renegade Pokémon's crimson eyes narrowed.
"Still, this doesn't feel like his style," Giratina's gaze shifted down to Mew. "Does it, Mew?"
Mew blinked and looked up from the stack of cash she had been busy counting. Giratina smirked as a dozen additional pair of eyes quickly zeroed in on her - the New Species Pokémon stashed the money underneath her wig and steeled her features.
"Hey, it's not like I knew Arcy was going to get arrested or anything, so I might as well try to get enough money to make bail for him in case he does get found guilty."
The sandy-haired attorney blinked. "So... You're profiting off Arceus' trial to help him? That's pretty noble... in a really twisted sense."
Mew blinked in shock, but quickly shooed it away by crossing her stubby arms and pursing her lips into a thin line again.
"Well, someone has to cook, and Arceus has everything in the pantry under lock and key," she said absently with an equally indifferent shrug. "Something about not trusting me near flammables."
Jack's face dropped, but then another thought came to mind. "Wait, if you can just generate Arceus-themed merchandise out of thin air, why not just make the bail money that way?"
As the Psychic Type's arms were already folded across her robes, she settled for huffing indignantly and looking up. "Are you asking me to inflate the economy?"
"She really should consider continuing her career as a prosecutor..." Jack deadpanned, and then felt a knot slowly form in his stomach as Mew's sapphire orbs began peering into him with increasing intensity.
"W-What? Is there something on my face?" Mew put a hand to her chin and - for a moment - looked quite deep in thought. Everyone around her took an instinctive gulp.
"The Creation Trio might not be able to find Arcy, but I bet you could teleport him back here."
Jack felt his heart skip a beat.
"What!?" the pink legendary below him nodded with enough gravity to convey a modicum of seriousness.
"We saw your power of teleportation last chapter, and I bet Arcy won't be excepting it. Besides, your powers grow and change as the plot demands it, and the plot is demanding it now."
"We couldn't go one chapter without lampshading that, could we..." somehow, Mew shrugged.
"Well, you admit it in your own summary." Jack blinked in shock.
"Hey! Get out of my head!" Mew grinned and floated an inch back for emphasis, while the lawyer let out a breath. "Not even Phoenix Wright had to deal with a psychic prosecutor."
"All right, I'll bite," the blonde said, finally recomposing himself. "Even if I can teleport Arceus back here, how will you convince him to come inside quietly?"
Mew shrugged. "Eh, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. Now chop chop."
"I'm under a retainer contract, not indentured servitude!" Jack exhaled and closed his eyes. After a few prolonged minutes - they felt like hours to him - of probing through the aura of Borunemouth, he finally found it; something so radiantly bright it was almost impossible for him to look at. And it happened to be stowed away in an internet café, enjoying a cup of tea and some buttered scones. Jack then gulped, and with all his might, tried to envision it next to him.
Everyone around him tried to shield their eyes within a second of the flash - when it died down, a very confused Arceus found himself surrounded by the jury. Mew had a second to note the newspaper he had been hovering in front of his face only moments before - the headline would have read 'Dewey Defeats Truman' had Dewey not been crossed out with Clinton - before quickly throwing herself onto the hard stone that made up the courthouse steps.
"Hit the dirt, everyone! Now, Professor Rowan!" if Mew had a plan before or was just expecting the geriatric to understand whatever she had concocted, no one had time to ponder as they quickly followed suit. Arceus turned around - partly in confusion - to face the elderly Professor of Sinnoh.
Only to come face to face with the infamous Rowan glare.
Arceus returned it.
A small crowd started to form as neither side backed down; Mew even looked up and gaped, but said nothing - she knew the slightest distraction could cause this whole impromptu staring contest to go south. But that didn't keep a smile off her face as she could make out the subtle cracks forming in Arceus' façade under the continued pressure from Prof. Rowan's t-zone. Zinnia, on the other hand, didn't have the same inhibition or knowledge of his subtleties as her - and, Mew was willing to wager, the patience.
"Nobunaga, catch!" Arceus blinked and quickly broke off eye contact with the elderly professor before anyone could tell he was actually on the verge of sweating, and turned around to face the Warlord of Dragnor. Nobunaga had a small smirk on his face, holding up the object the Draconid had tossed him in his obsidian gauntlet; globular, obtuse, greyish and filled with more holes than Swiss cheese, it didn't take the Alpha too long to put two and two together and realize Nobunaga was now capable of producing a Pokémon more overpowered than even himself. Arceus noted rather dryly the Warlord also seemed to be enjoying his triumph. The Normal Type finally sighed and hung his head in obvious surrender.
"It's a fair cop."
Mew nodded and motioned to the Warlord of Ignis. "Well, now that that's settled; Bailiff."
Hideyoshi snapped to attention and wrapped an arm around one of Arceus' hooves. "Yes ma'am! All right, back to the hot seat with you."
"You know," Steven whispered to Zinnia as their group headed back into the courtroom. "You could have just asked for the meteor instead of ripping my suit jacket open. They're not cheap, either."
The Draconid folded her arms behind her head as they resumed their seats in the jury bench. "You don't exactly take good care of them yourself with all your spelunking."
"Quiet you two," Guzma hissed, waving his hand out for emphasis. "The show's about to start."
"Now that the defendant has returned-" Mew coughed loud enough for Keldeo to stop. "Yes, Prosecutor?"
"Well, your honor, don't you think the defense should get a penalty of some kind?" Jack slammed his hands onto the table and leaned forward.
"Hey! I brought him back!" the Psychic Type crossed her arms and grinned.
"After letting him leave to begin with. If this trial were any less high-profile Arcy would be in the crowbar motel by now instead of behind that table," Jack slouched over, trying to resist the urge to wipe off the sweat pouring down his face.
"She's got me dead to rights..." the lawyer's eyes glanced up to the judge just in time to see him nod in agreement.
"Yes, you do have a point. I think a double penalty will suffice for this negligence."
"Better make it a triple, m'lud," Mew said absently, apparently being busy with looking over her nails. Keldeo's nod didn't help Jack's increasing panic.
"Just who's side is she on!? At this point I'd have a better chance with Edgeworth... No. I have one chance to save us."
Jack postured himself and cleared his throat. "The defense would like to motion for an immediate continuation of the review!"
The lawyer in blue could practically feel the look of surprise that had broken out on Arceus' face, but Keldeo leaned back in his chair and mulled over the question.
"It'd be the best way to get this trial over with, that's for certain. Do you have any objections, Prosecutor?" Mew shook her head.
"No, m'lud."
Keldeo nodded and sat upright.
"Very well. Court is adjourned for another thirty minutes to allow the defense to construct the next part of their review!"
Jack let out a breath when the Sword of Justice brought down his hoof.
Will Arcy get off scot-free?
Will Jack learn to stop relying on plot convenience?
"Objection!"
Will the Author ever stay in his notes?
Will the Spanish Inquisition make another appearance?
Will Ash finally win a league and get the girl?
Will we review Pokémon Sun and Moon?
Will Phoenix Wright get his suit back?
Will these questions become more sensible?
Will the next update be on time?
None of these and less, in the next installment of Arceus the Critic!
"Mew! Don't-"
To Be Continued...