I totally posted this according to the schedule I said I'd adopt

My excuses: migraines that last more than a few days (the last one lasted 9 days), school work, writer's block, and trying to connect with fellow human beings in person. Also, Warframe.

The validity of my excuses is not up to question.

Usual disclaimers: don't own Pokemon at all, nor do I claim any ownership of officially copyrighted Pokemon merchandise, product, or whatever. Just writing a thing for funzees. Also love the critters with burning adoration.

Hooray for anxiety! Let's see how our Nobody continues to exist in this intended world of joy and beauty.

Also I might use this to try and convey my weird dreaming trends but I'm sorry in advance

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"Don't do it, Bro!"

He was in front of me, the only barrier left….no, the only member of our family left. Mom and Dad were gone, I didn't see how or when or where but they're gone and so are Jamm and Kuku and Frezc and the only ones' left were me and Bro and my youngest teammate and he was crying and I was trying to be quiet and Bro was bleeding from his shoulder.

His shoulder

Not his arm

I was holding his hand

And he was holding his shoulder

A partitioned pink, as if soiled by the turmoil around us, was all that kept life between my hands and his.

Taro was hungry. That's why he was crying. We named him because he hatched right when Dad finished a taro desert for Jamm's birthday because Jamm loves taro and Jamm loved Taro too but he doesn't love him anymore because his strength wasn't enough to hold up the roof he had four arms and he just growled at us to go and we left him behind and the others tried to help but they couldn't last and Bro can't attack as hard and Taro is crying Taro is crying Taro is crying Taro is

Biting off the last of the white. Nothing is white anymore. A quick burst of red, Bro bites his shirt, I can't move. Taro isn't happy, I'm not happy, Bro isn't happy, Bro's missing an arm, his right arm, we used to play Ping Pong but Frezc would always win because he could move the ball with his mind so we made him leave his spoons behind but he was really smart anyways so even four-on-one with Jamm holding four paddles and Kuku cancelling out any cheating that Frezc did he would always win he always won he always won he iron won iron iron iron

Iron in my mouth. How long was that there?

No, my hair's in my mouth. I pluck the blue strand out, but more are there. I try to get all of it out of my mouth, but the stench is still there, the taste is still invading me, violating me, I don't want to be violated like this Bro, please make it stop, make the bad Pokemon stop.

Taro isn't crying anymore. He's a Larvitar, and just a baby, but he knows things he shouldn't know, he's a smart kid, Taro, perceptive, able to see through the layers and masks and titles and pretense and he's just a baby and he's heavy as my pain and he's stopped crying. His eyes are red, a knowing crimson, standing out from the blood staining his jaws and face, too sharp and bright among the blackness that is life.

That is my brother's life. He turns to me, a smile cracking through the reality around us, the facts trying to force their way through him to my sweet dream. His hair was blue, like mine, a free blue, the sky was a prisoner trapped to his scalp and begging for freedom, now there was only a void. Shouldn't blue and red make purple? Shouldn't evil be purple? Bro isn't evil at all. He has his tattoos to protect him, to help him be like his starter, to be like Kuku, his Tyranitar spiraled and coiled from his neck and around his torso, all the way down to his hand, maw widened and ready to launch a Hyper Beam.

Bro has eyes like Taro, I realized then. Too red and too bright to belong among the blood, his sharpened grin too white among the bones that used to be our family. He smiled, his eyes gleaming with safety, keeping me in my dream, keeping me away from the present and instead in a beautiful world. I'm a little girl again, Taro hatched again, Frezc and Jam and Kuku are helping Mom and Dad with chores and taking care of me and teaching me Ping Pong and I'm smiling. My blue hair is out of my face and I'm smiling with Taro and everyone. I'm smiling like Bro.

Bro smiles at me with life, the only amount left in our family. Taro is trying to drag me away, his weight almost pulling me with him, but I can smile again, I can smile with Bro. I wish Taro would smile too.

My Larvitar is gone, I don't know where. He probably found someplace safe, hidden away from the monsters that killed me. I don't remember the monsters well at all.

I remember the side of Bro's face I saw, his left side, where Kuku's tail started right below his angular jawline. Tyranitar are usually green, but Bro wanted Kuku to be red on him, because red and green are opposites, complimentary colors, so they would be the best partners ever. His eye was still shining, a beacon, a lighthouse in a maelstrom, Arceus and Mew and all the legends granting life for the first time, and it slides down and away, the only living parts of Kuku pulling away from Bro's skin, tearing its restraints to run, leaving a gaping space where his smile used to be.

"Everything's gonna be fine."

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Children's laughter should be good, right?

I don't know where from—maybe a book I don't remember reading or a conversation I don't remember having—but I've heard that children exhibiting any form of joy is somehow…godlike? Legendary, even? By no means do I mean that happy kids are a rarity, just that it's supposed to…I guess elate people; bring a smile to the faces of the down-trodden; allow those at their absolute lowest portion of life to laugh for just a little, at the mockery of life that is their own; "Things cannot possibly be that bad right now," I'd imagine them say, liquid sarcasm oozing like a pus from deep within their throats as they revel at how pitiful they seem, "at least children have a reason to laugh."

That morning I awoke to the squeals of my Pokemon, and an unprecedented fear wiped whatever else there would have been out of my system, a teacher erasing yesterday's lesson to make room for today's goriest news headline. My blankets were soaked, my throat a salted and burned landscape made rough and irregular by screams I never made.

` My Ralts and Absol were only children. That's what the giggling was, just my Pokemon being the kids they were. The room was a mess yet again, furniture and other (surprisingly durable) loose objects strewn in a context that allowed for their favorite game of knights; Dayne would play-act as a swordsman, sitting atop his trusty steed of an Absol, who'd purr and rear and gallop through the room as she imagined equine species would. Thankfully, they didn't break anything or track any dirt on the room's carpet; I'd be forced to pay if either occurred.

This time around, however, I could afford it.

Without distracting my team, I sauntered to the rooted nightstand where my wallet rested. My trainer card, contact information for the Birch Lab, and my…I can only call it a prescription for fully potent, naturally occurring revive medicine were all present. There was also an excess of cash. We won that battle, sure, but I didn't remember receiving the money.

Or why the paper money was all creased and wrinkled around their middles.

Or why there were trace stains of blood on a few of them.

Considering how much my Pokemon really needed to romp and play for once, how exactly I procured my prize money wasn't near important enough to consider. I hoped not. We all needed a break.

From what, I wasn't sure, but a break from the journey was necessary. We were all children, after all.

Whatever light I was shining on the morally-questionable currency, I promptly switched it off when I could hear the muted muttering of my team behind me. Turning to face them, the muttering between the two stopped, followed by giggles and chortles only children couldn't suppress. It made the two look more innocent than their first trainer battle would insinuate, their youth and naivety so present I didn't know what to make of it. Dismounting as a knight in a fairy tale would, my Fairy-type starter gracefully hopped down into a saluting bow, his one arm crossed before his chest while his other reached across his back to his opposite shoulder. My Dark-type attempted something similar, albeit only crossing a front paw to her opposing shoulder and bowing her head. Both grinned with the more disturbed acquaintances of Giratina, their laughter leaking through the whole while.

It was ridiculous enough of a situation for me to play along. I adopted Dayne's bow...salute…both? Kneeling to their eye level, I crossed my arms accordingly, on opposing sides of my torso, before bending at the hips. Their mania had transmitted itself to me then; I was starting to giggle myself.

Two hours later, we departed from the Center and made a quick trip to the Pokemart. Housekeeping services would be appalled at the scene we three left behind: pillows strewn about naked, their casings made into capes; the collapsed remains of a pillow fort with the blankets and pillows, one even incorporating the mattress itself and some chairs; all extraneous furniture pushed to the sides of the room, sparse few of which were righted at all.

Apparently, natural revives don't last for too long. Once I showed the cashier my Trainer Card, they gave me my supplies and a new set of revives. "They only last a few weeks," they…she told me, "the factory-made ones have something in them that keeps them stable for basically forever. The only downside is that they aren't nearly as potent as the natural ones."

Before I finished my purchase, Tex sauntered over with something twirling on her horn. With a snap, she tossed at me. Of course, I didn't notice the projectile until it rebounded off my skull into the air, where my Starter teleported to make the catch. Landing with grace, Dayne donned the item in question, a black set of plain headphones, adorned solely by a white stripe the back of each speaker. My silvery Pokemon purred—her tone was something jovial, something so light and caring and nonchalant that I couldn't describe it if I knew every word possible—but her words were carried by my other companion, She say's you'll like them. There was the crimson-pink glow in her eyes again, only for an instant, and she smiled with a knowledge she was too young to have.

Those headphones would become a crutch I didn't know I would need in the very near future.

Before leaving the PokeMart, realization dawned on me, crucial information that was tantamount to the very validity of our journey. I turned back to the cashier, a light fear beginning to roost in my chest and occupy parts of my lungs that usually hold oxygen and some other gaseous compounds. With lethargy clouding my mind and muddying my thoughts, I mumbled and mustered together what little I could with what little I had at my disposal, with my somehow impeded mental faculties and lung capacity crushing my neck into nonexistence with a double lariat.

"Sorry, but where are we again?"

"Why, you're in Rustboro City. Can't you tell?"

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That didn't take me forever…

Okay, maybe it did. I think I've been lazing around this entry since August. Oh well.

Thanks again for reading my stuff! If you want to be super-special-AWESOME(!), please leave a comment or review. If you want to be an editor or something, please do send me a chat/message/thing, any and all advice is more than welcome!

Let's see how long it takes me for my next chapter. Until next time!