Written for the WA Broken Object challenge. If you come from the Writers ANonymous forum and aren't familiar with the pokémon fandom, it's recommended that you read some info on the pokémon Banette before starting, specially pokédex entries. For example, google "bulbapedia banette" and click on the "pokédex entries" section on the Contents menu on the left.
"Five-nil, man! Five-nil. Are you even playing?"
"Shut up, man! That's just because you chose Nimbasa Zebstrikas. Using best team is for noobs."
"Yeah, that's why you got Casteila United. Face it, man, you just suck at this game, big time."
Steve huffed in annoyance, then swore again after I scored a sixth goal.
"Ooh, six-nil, man, six-nil!" I laughed boastfully. "Seriously, just get five players sent out, that's just a two-nil!"
"Yeah, whatever, man," he grumbled annoyedly. He then pointed at the screen with his right index. "Can't you just make the commentatopr shut up? He's really pissing me off with all the crap comments he's saying." I paused the game and reached out for the remote, and then pressed the mute button before resuming. Steve let out a satisfied grumble. "And isn't this the guy who lent his voice the one who humiliated a beggar live before the Cup Final?"
"Think so," I answered. The virtual match ended, and I threw up my arms in victory. "Oooh, six-nil, man. Tore you to pieces there, Steve."
"Yeah, whatever, man," he answered with indifference, and stood up from the bed.
"Hey, want a rematch?" I asked, and put the cursor over the "New Match" option. After the beating i had just inflicted him, offering him a rematch was only fair.
Steve turned his head left to look at the clock over my nightstand, and shook his head no.
"Nah, I think I'll pass. It's seven thirty, and I still haven't finished that stupid essay on pokémon fighting and cruelty towards pokémon."
"Oh, yeah, that Haven't finished, or haven't started," I teased.
"Finished, you idiot! I've already got three pages down."
I laughed and told Steve I was just joking, and he shook his head with a small smile on his lips. Talking and joking between us, we got to the house door. we said oir goodbyes, and he bent down to pick up his school pack. However, just before grabbing it by the straps, he got back up with a decomposed face, and quickly raised again.
"Sorry, man, gotta use the bath. It's an emergency," he quickly whispered in my ear, before stroming off for the bathroom.
I looked at him make a desperate dash for the bedroom door while trying to maintain a straight face, and I broke into a fit of laughter as soon as he'd closed it. Oh, man, the face he'd put on. It was just so good. If only I'd had my mobile phone on me to catch it...
Still laughing, I entered my room to unplug the game console and order the things on my desk. I'd teased Steve about the esay, but actually I hadn't even started it. Nor did I have any idea about what to write, for that matter.
"Nah, I'll just copy-paste something from the Internet and rewrite it or something," I thought to myself, and I pressed the on button on the computer. The green and yellow lights lit, and the computer came to life with some mechanical sounds about a second later.
"Giving in somebody else's essay as your own?" said a sardonic voice inside my head. "That's plagiarism, you know. And a sure way to fail the subject if you get caught."
"Hey, shut up, conscience. It's not like the teacher actually checks or anything."
"Conscience?" the voice asked, half surprised and half mocking. "You think this is your conscience speaking? C'mon, Al, we both know you don't have one."
I felt my blood turn into ice inside my veins and my muscles turn into stone. If it wasn't my conscience speaking to me, then who could have...?
A pained grunt sounded in my brainand less than a second later an immaterial string coiled around the inside of my throat. Terrified, I tried to scream, only to discover that my voice was completely gone.
"Don't worry," the voice said in my head while my hands touched all over my throat, trying to find whatever was preventing my voice from escaping. "It's only temporary, while we talk. You'll recover your voice after we are finished." And how did he expect us to have a conversation if I wasn't able to say a word? "I will hear anything you think, so be very careful with your thoughts."
My vision started trembling. Only after looking down did I realise that it was because my legs were shaking.
"So... You know everything I think, right...?" I started, trying my best not to seem terrified, even though deep inside I knew he already knew I was. "First off, who are you, and where are you?"
The second I finished thinking those words, a demoniclaugh came into my mind, so creepy and sardonic that it made all the hairs in my body stand on end and my teeth to start chattering.
"Well, of course you want to learn about me, don't you? I'll be fair. I am sitting right on your nightstand."
Immediately, I turned around, and my eyes shot open when I finally saw who I had been talking with the whole time.
On my nightstand, a pokémon was sitting, and it was unlike any other pokémon I had ever seen. It was small, and its body, whose shape reminded me of a plushie doll, was completely black, except for its fluffy yellow tail; and the way his head stretched and became thinner almost reminded me of a Santa hat. Some stitch marks were clearly visible on its belly, almost as if it had originally been two different parts that somebody had sewn together. Tens, no, dozens of short black pins were pinned all over its body. Its mouth was a row of yellow teeth, the one most on the right longer and thinner than the rest. Above them, its two big red eyes shone with fury, almost as if they wanted me to die right where I was standing. It was so intense, I could not hold it.
I would have swallowed, but the fear that clutched my body had made my mouth dry. I looked at it again, its strange shape, its yellow teeth, the various short pins stuck all over its body; and decided it had to be a nightmare. It was the only reasonable option.
And once more, my thought was received with a loud and mocking laugh, the very same laugh that I was hearing since I entered my room.
"A nightmare, you think?" it said, exactly in the same tone as its laughs, and then tried to cross his legs, which were too short to allow him. "No, Al, dear, this is not a nightmare."
Suddenly, five short, black pins appeared floating in mid air, seemingly out of nowhere. They spun around their axis for a minute, and then charged towards its black body and driving into his body until only their heads were visible. The second they made contact, the pokémon gave a piercing scream of pain that went right through my soul, and fell to the floor with a soft thud, where he just stood on four legs, panting.
I just continued looking at it, terrified by what I had just seen, not knowing whether to help it or not. A few seconds later, it raised its head and looked directly at me. Its eyes were even redder than before, and burned with such fury that for a moment I feared it would kill me there and then.
"The nightmare," it whispered with a crazed expression and a broad yellow smile on its face "is about to begin."
An icy pit opened just brelow my stomach, and my legs finally gave way. With a loud crash, I fell to the floor, a jolt of pain radiating from my left arm, though it didn't seem to be broken. Gripping it with my right one, I lifted my head, only to look directly into the two bright red pits of fury that stared straight into my soul, and I instantly lowered my head again.
On all fours, and looking at the floor, it almost looked as if I was apologising to him. But I wasn't. I was silently begging for anything, anybody, that could save me from the wrath of the infuriated pokémon in front of me, and trying to hold back the tears that were wetting my eyes.
I didn't want to cry in front of it. It could have me shaking in fear and my legs clattering, but I wasn't going to give him the pleasure of seeing me cry. It was an honour thing.
"You want something to save you from me?" it asked, and accompanied his question with a loud laugh. "Stop wasting your time. Nothing in this world will."
I took in a sharp breath and covered my face with my hands.
"Why are you doing this?" I asked in a weak voicenot daring to look at him. "What have I done to you?"
A wave of sheer wrath traversed the room. I curled up into a ball, hyperventilating and begging to make it out alive. Then, after a few seconds, its laugh, mocking and ominous, reached my mind. Terrified, I covered my ears to stop hearing it, but it was in vain.
"You don't know? You don't know?!" it roared, and I curled even tighter, trying to hide all my vital points from the furious pokémon. It remained silent for a second, and after that it laughed once more; but this time it was neither creepy not mocking. "Of course," it said, furious. "Of course you don't remember me. After all, I never meant anything to you, did I?"
But how could I know? How could I know why it was in my room, terrorising me and talking about it mattering to me, when I didn't even know who it was? Just how?
"Oh, right," it said suddenly, as if it had just remembered. "I never told you who I was. Tell me, do you happen to remember the name 'Pashy'?"
My body froze in an instant, the same instant in which my pupils shrunk into two blank pin heads. No. It couldn't be. It was impossible.
Again, his mocking laugh echoed in my mind.
"You think it's impossible, don't you?" it said. Less than a second later, a muffled moan of pain reached my mind. "I'd love to nail you for that, but I'll be fair." It panted at least twice per second. Sticking pins in itself sure had to be traumatic for the poor creature, so why did it go on doing it? Did I even want to know? "After all, who would think that their 'beloved' Lillipup plushie that they threw away as if it were rubbish would come back for them?"
And in that instant, my mind connected the dots. And I felt a shameful warmth inside my trousers.
It was a Banette. Pashy was now a Banette. We didn't have them in Teselia, but I'd heard about them in the Internet. It now despised me and longed to have its revenge against me.
I could feel the warm tears going down my face. I didn't want to die. Not at fourteen. Not before being able to get my hands on the car my parents had promised me for my eighteenth birthday. Not before banging Katie.
"Pashy... Pashy please don't..."
"Shut up!" it roared, so violently that my mouth colsed instantly. "Don't you dare to call me Pashy! You don't deserve to use my name!"
Instantly, I did as it ordered and closed my mouth. Furious pants echoed in my mind. If I so much as ticked it, I was an instant goner.
"You know what has brought me here? Do you know?!" I didn't dare to move a single muscle, even though I knew. "My hatred for you. It has fueled me me for weeks, months, years; from the trash bin you threw me in after breaking me to your room. And now, seven years, four months and seventeen days later" it said ominously, and I had no doubt that it was raising its stubby arms "the time to exact my revenge has finally come!"
As soon as I heard its maniacal laugh, panic possessed me, and even more tears fell from my eyes. Everything was over. The Banette had gone completely crazy with power, and it was gonna kill me. I was going to die. I was dead. At fourteen. A virgin. At the hands of my own plushie.
"I have waited so many years just for this moment," it said, and laughed again. "Just to have a chance to take my revenge against the human who broke me!" it barked, and I winced. "Don't you remember? You tore me in half when I was old and worn down so that your mother would buy you a new plushie! You broke me, and then you threw me away as if I were nothing more than useless garbage!"
Unable to hold back my tears, I cried even harder. I did remember it. I did remember seeing a brand new Zebstrika plushie, and tearing old Pashy so that I had an excuse for my mother to buy it. If only I had known it back then. If only I had known that, seven years later, Pashy would be back in my room, furious, half crazed and wishing to destroy me.
"But you know what? I'm not going to kill you."
What?
"I'm not going to kill you," it repeated. "Killing you doesn't fit my revenge plan."
I should have known there was something wrong in that instant. Pashy had plotted its revenge for seven long years, it had scared the crap out of me, making me believe I was going to die just there, and it suddenly said that it didn't want to end my life, like I had done to him when I tore it apart. But I did not. Because I was a stupid fourteen year old boy who couldn't just believe he was not goint to die.
"Thank you," I blurted out, trars of joy mixed with fear going down my cheeks. I got up from the floor, and went to hug it. "Thank you thank you thank you thank you thank y-"
"Shut up!" it roared, and I froze where I stood. "You! Shut! Up!"
In that moment, I heard the toilet flushing, and water running right after it. I turned my gaze to the door. Steve was going to come out of the bathroom, and I had a furious pokémon bent on revenge in my room. What could I do? Should I try to hide it, or to get him to help he against the Banette?
"You are going to shut your mouth about me, Al," it said in my head. "If you speak about me, I won't hesitate to kill you on the spot."
A cold shiver went down my legs. But hadn't it just said...?
"My revenge plans aren't set in stone." It half-closed its eyes and fixed its gaze at me. "You are going to go out, and be with your friend till he leaves, and not speak a word about me. If you do, I won't hesitate to kill you." Its long, slit-like pupils became fixed in mine, and I swallowed. "Is that understood, Al?" it asked, violent and threatening, just like a mafia boss in a movie I had seen not long ago.
I nodded weakly, and propmtly ran out of the door and to the entrance door. A few seconds later Steve appeared, an expression of complete relief in his face. I would have laughed at him, but I was too terrified for laughing.
"Sorry about that, man, don't know what hapened there." Steve stopped, and pointed at my face, clearly worried. "Something wrong, dude? You look as pale as a Bearctic."
My legs quivered. Oh, shoot, he'd realised. He'd realised.
"Pale?" I asked back, acting as if I hadn't had a telepathic conversation five minutes ago, and too afraid to realie that I had just got my voice back. "What're you saying, man? I'm perfectly fine."
Steve didn't look at all convinced, and for a second I feared he would press me with more questions. However, after a few seconds, he shrugged and shook his head.
"Yeah, whatever you say, Al," he said while grabing his school pack, and put it on his shoulder with a grunt. Steve turned to me and we bumped fists before he opened the flat door. "See you tomorrow at school."
"Tomorrow, man," I answered, and closed the door so fast that I slammed the door.
In an instant, I turned around and prepared to run to my room to tell the Banette the news. I had kept my end of our deal. It was time for it to keep its.
"Good job, Al," I heard in my mind, and I instantly stopped. The Banette was now in the corridor, merely half a meter in front of me. It smiled dangerously, and a shiver went down my back. "Time for me to maintain my word, isn't it?"
The Banette threw itself to the ground, and I saw four oins disappear from its yellow tail just before a roar of pure pain escaped from its mouth. Less than a second later, all the lights in the house went out.
"Hey, what the heck?" I heard Steve shout. I lived in the thirteenth floor, and he was too lazy to go down the thirteen storeys on foot.
Holding my breath, and unable to stop trembling, I look at the Banette, who was still on the floor, panting and clearly in pain.
"What... what are you doing?" I whispered.
The Bannete lifted its head, and its yellow zip-like teeth curved in the creepiest smile I had ever had. I heard Steve's first step as he went down the stairs, and right in that instant the pokemon's laught returned to my mind. It sounded so violently and crazed that I knelt down and covered my ears, trying in vain to get the sound of it out of my head.
A second roar of pain, ten times worse than the previous one, echoed inside my brain. When I directed my gaze at the pokémon, I noticed that the pins that covered its top half were gone.
And my heart sank when I realised what its actual plan had been all this time.
"Steve!" I shouted, springing to my feet and running to the door. But it was already too late.
A panicked scream pierced the walls of my home, and the sound of something falling down the stairs followed it. With cold sweat running down my forehead, I bolted to the top of the stairs. It couldn't be. It couldn't have done it. Steve couldn't be...
I screamed when I saw his body at thye bottom of the stairs, his neck bent in a position not een a yoga trainer could manage. He wasn't moving.
I fell down to my knees, and broke down. I cried for him for hours, asking him to forgive me. It was my fault. Everything had been my fault. Steve was dead because of me.
And while I cried my heart out, the Banette's demonic laugh echoed in my ears.
The strange deaths of people around me didn't stop there. A few months after that, Katie died, run over by the school bus. Oficially, the bus had got a flat tyre because of a strange black pin and lost control before running over her. Everyone believed it was an accident, and the driver didn't even get prison time. Only I knew the truth behind it.
A few months later, it was my grandparents, burnt to death in an unexplainable fire on their home in the outskirts of Terracotta Town.
And three weeks later, I was on Skyarrow Bridge, on top of the railing and ready to jup. I couldn't bear it anymore. I couldn't bear that, because of me, everyone I loved was in danger of dying.
I looked at the water, hundred of meters below the bridge, with teary eyes. I didn't want to die. I was just fourteen. But I knew that, as soon as I was gone, the strange accidents caused by my actions and Pashy's desire for revenge would stop happening.
It was only fair to them.
"Read to take the plunge, Al?" Pashy asked in my mind. I didn't know how it had found me, but I didn't care. All I wanted was to burn it to ashes, but deep down I knew it would be no use.
I tried to stop a sob, and failed miserably.
"This is what you wanted, right?" I asked, furious. "To destroy me like I destroyed you. Well, it looks like you made it."
The biggest smile that I had ever seen appeared on its face. For a moment, I thought about pushing it off the bridge, but decided against it. It's just return and made me die the most horrible death it could think of.
"You will stop killing people after I've jumped, right? My life for theirs. Do we have a deal?"
For a second, Pashy closed its eyes, as if thinking intensely. After a second, it opened them back again, and smiled.
"I have no interest in destroying your family, only you. We could say we do. However, I want just one little change on it."
No sooner had Pashy finished saying it, I felt a strong push on my back. With nothing to stop me, I lost my balance, and fell off the bridge.
The last thing I saw through the veil of tears on my eyes before hitting the water below me was the silouette of Pashy standing on the rail of Skyarrow Bridge.
The last thing I heard as I fell to my death was its demonic laugh, violent and delighted, echoing through my brain.