Viewing Single Post From: APRIL--or, How the Video Game World Fought Back

Viewing Single Post From: APRIL--or, How the Video Game World Fought Back
nya_chan	Jun 20 2007, 06:56 PM
TeH g00fy admin (I wonder why no one takes me seriously...) Posts: 749 Group: Admin Member #1 Joined: December 14, 2006	Chapter 41 Stephen glared at me as I approached. I wasn't sure if it was because of my swagger, broad grin, foolish wave, or greeting of, "Howdy, Pardner!" that set him off. Or maybe it wasn't any of those. It could have been my method of arrival. "You weren't supposed to be able to use FLY," he growled. Bingo. But the greeting may have had something to do with it too. "It can't be helped now, I guess. The damage is don-- Are you even listening to me?" "Wha? No, I'm more preoccupied by the fact that Groudon somehow managed to levitate a ginormous rock into the middle of the lake-- er... pond. Puddle. "Eh? That's not import--" "And can you really even call those 'attacks'? They're not even hitting each other!" "APRIL...." "Wouldn't Kyogre have the advantage anyway? It's Water versus Ground!" "APRIL!" "Don't interrupt! Do you have any idea how annoying that is?" Stephen only rolled his eyes. "I haven't the foggiest. Let's just go. I need to take you to the CAVE OF ORIGIN to talk to Wallace." "So all things in the universe originated in that cave?" "I don't know!" he exclaimed as we walked in a northerly direction in a follow-the-leader sort of way. Or maybe it was just "up." "You seem to be knowledgeable in the ways of the world. Or.... Knowledgeable may be a bit of a stretch, but you at least have the impression of having more than air between your ears. But for all I know, it could just be dust bunnies." He somehow managed to furrow his brow and raise his eyebrows at the same time. "Why do I put up with you?" "You liiiike me..." I teased, trying to be as obnoxious as possible by poking him between his shoulder blades. "Do I look like Brendan to you?" he snapped, slapping my hand away. "Well, your hair is very--" "Oh, shut up," he said, subconsciously fingering his hair that was a similar darkness (or lack thereof) to Brendan's. "Ever heard of rhetorical questions?" "No." "Apparently," Stephen said with a groan. "Oh look, here we are. Not a moment too soo-- er, what a shame." I chose to ignore his intentional slip of the tongue. "What's with the old geezer?" I asked in reference to the senior citizen standing to the side of the cave entrance. "He guards the cave." "Not doing a very good job, is he?" "Just ignore it and don't let it bother you. The PTB aren't the brightest beings out there. And you have to talk to Wallace, 'member?" With that and a strong shove between my shoulder blades, I was in the Cave of Origin. "That's what you get for poking me!" he yelled through the opening, obviously annoyed. Success! I traveled to the back of the cave, trying not to lose my balance as the ground shook periodically, courtesy of the disturbance outside. At least the weather in here was stable. Wallace awaited me in the lower level. "Talk about your late-game characters," I muttered, causing Wallace to jerk to attention. "What up, dude?" he asked in an exaggerated surfer-voice. "Erm...." At this point, I should have known that abnormality was the norm, and more people had strange speech than plain, Mid-western-United-States-esque, yet they still managed to catch me off guard each and every time. "The... ceiling? Look, there's an issue outside and--" "I know, dude! Isn't it gnarly?" I'll make your head gnarly, I thought, hands forming fists. "Are you people trying to infuriate me?" I roared. "Yes, actually," Wallace said in a much less "radical" tone and one closer to a British accent, though faint. "Stephen warned me about you in advance. He said 'revenge' was in order." He examined me from head to toe. "But the way he described you... I expected you to be have horns in your hair, be ten feet tall, and spit acid." "Yeah, I get that a lot," I said, unfazed. "Really. We have some sort of calamity thing outside that, according to popular vote, meaning everyone but me, needs to be resolved. Stephen said to talk to you about it, and... how did he talk to you before hand?" "Even before I'm in the Save Room, I'm still programmed into the game. And about the two..." he waved his hand vaguely as he searched his mental Webster's Dictionary for help finding the appropriate words, "'warring parties', so to speak--" "Me an' Brendan?" "No, they're--" "Me and Stephen?" "No! GROUDON and KYOGRE!" "What about them?" Wallace's eyes reflected my own evil grin, but radiated exasperation. "You infuriating little--" he began, loosing his composure and semi-British accent. "I oughta--" he cleared his throat. When he next spoke, he was back to his old self. "Ahem. Have you ever heard of RAYQUAZA?" "Does it matter?" "It might. Legend has it that RAYQUA--" "Does it matter?" "Yes! If you would just let me finish! The legendary RAYQUAZA supposedly has the power to quell GROUDON and KYOGRE, for it supposedly did at one point in the past." "Gnarly. By all means, let us find the wee beastie and becalm the raging infernos of, uh... rage, outside." "You're not funny. And I think I've narrowed down RAYQUAZA's location to three places." A box popped up with the list. "CAVE OF ORIGIN MT. PYRE SKY PILLAR" The PTB, being stupid, had to choose the first two options before arriving at the third. "I must say. I'm disappointed in you APRIL. It can't be the CAVE OF ORIGIN because that's where we are now, and it can't be MT. PYRE because that's where the two orbs were before those buffoons took them, thinking they knew how to use them. I think you could see with your own eyes that there was no enormous green dragon there." "It was the PTB that chose, not me!" I defended, then scowled in thought. "So... wait. When you said you had narrowed it down to three choices, really--" I let my voice trail off. Wallace shrugged and finished my sentence for me. "I already knew. Sorry, I'm not the one that wrote the script. Ah well, off to SKY PILLAR." And just like that, he up and left. "What the--?! Stupid jerk...." I followed that up with a random string of gibberish and pulled out my map. "Sky Pillar, Sky Pillar.... If I were Sky Pillar, where would I be? Ah, Route 131," I said, prodding the elusive tower's approximate location. I went back to the surface to once again brave the weather. "Surf's up," I murmured to Linoone. She gave an unenthusiastic bark. "Yeah, I thought so." Many wrong turns later, I finally reached the monolith full of angry, green dragon. Wallace stood in front of the building, as conspicuous as a late-stage tumor, and just as wanted. When he noticed me (that is, when I stood in front of him, eye-to-eye, waiting for the PTB to press "A"), he nervously scratched the back of his head and said, "Um... my bad? I kind of left without you." "Aiming for the 'Understatement-of-the-Year' Award? The PTB can read maps as well as a monkey can run a country. Though we did find this weird island that only had a bunch of Wynaut...." He looked at me blankly. "Right.... So, RAYQUAZA is up at the top of the PILLAR and I need you to go up there and convince it to come down to SOOTOPOLIS and calm GROUDON and KYOGRE." "Wait... what? Just walk up to him, he-who-is-one-the-most-powerful-Pokemon-ever, and flat-out tell him what to do?" "APRIL, now!" "Yes, master," I sighed and trudged through the doors and up the stairs to the top of the pillar. And there was RAYQUAZA in all his pixeled, Eastern dragon glory. With a cry like a rusted door hinge opening for the first time in either centuries or millennial, Rayquaza tried to take flight. "Oh, heck no. I got up here once, I'm sure as Hell not doing it again. I refuse to Surf all the way back out here even one more time." The battle... began, much to the PTB's surprise and no doubt joy. A well-tossed Master Ball ended the battle as quickly as it had begun, again, much to appeasement the PTB's various blissful emotions. The emotions probably weren't as blissful as I summoned the PC out of thin air, along with all the Bad Eggs that were crowding it. Trying to imagine It's face, I bit back a laugh, then replaced Pelipper with Rayquaza. "Sorry, bud," I told the unfortunate seagull/stork, "but it had to be done." We'd petrified many a Slugma together in the past. But time stops for no one, and a team only needs so many Flying-types. Case in point: I opened the TM/HM section of my fanny pack and pulled out my HM 02, Fly. I was going back to Sootopolis in style. *** I think Groudon and Kyogre were stunned, to say the least. Stephen, Wallace, Maxie, Archie, and the rest of Sootopolis's denizens certainly were. How often do people Fly into town on the back of Rayquaza, bursting through the clouds and changing the weather as they went? Given my reception, not very many. Rayquaza swooped low enough to the ground to let me off, then set about giving Groudon and Kyogre a severe talking-to then sending them to their respective "rooms". And just like that, it was over. The weather calmed and the Continent and Sea Basin Pokemon went off to... wherever they lived. "That was amazingly unimpressive," I said, recalling Rayquaza, now that he had fulfilled his purpose. "Oh, shut up," groaned Stephen. "I agree. Here, have this HM 07 WATERFALL. Maybe it'll keep you quiet," offered Wallace. "Yeah right. I sing along with my CDs." I took the disk anyway. "And you need to get the RAIN BADGE before you can use it," Wallace explained, seemingly under the belief that that tidbit of information would shut me up. "And...?" "And you can't get to EVER GRANDE CITY and the ELITE FOUR unless you have it," concluded Stephen, much closer to the success Wallace had been trying for. I shot him my best poisonous glare. It actually made him recoil slightly. "...And...?" "Uh.... And I know you want to beat the game, but to do that you have to beat the ELITE FOUR. Any questions?" My mouth opened and closed several times before my brain successfully transmitted instructions to my vocal cords. "N-no," I managed. I regained full control in time to say, "Well, that's maddeningly unhelpful then, isn't it? The door's locked." "Not anymore. Archie picked it." Stephen pointed with his thumb over his shoulder to where the leader of the former Team Aqua was waving sheepishly. Maxie just look ashamed. "Er.... I know the LEADER. H-he was my tutor, and I actually ran the GYM for a while, but... that was quite some time ago, and I lost the key." "Your patheticness is awe-inspiring in a sad sort of way." Surprisingly, that didn't come from me. It was pretty good though. "Thanks, Stephen," Wallace grimaced, temple throbbing. "No problem," Stephen replied with a egotistical smirk. I brushed past the pair of them and tried to hide my grin behind my hand. After asking the ever-present helper at the entrance to the Gym, I figured out the secret to reaching Juan quickly: Only step on each tile of ice once, or you'll fall prey to the Juan-worshippers down below the fragile ice, not to mention have several broken bones. In simpler terms: Don't screw up. The last section was a little harder, but I managed to shatter the one tile I had missed from a distance. The ice ramp converted itself into stairs, which I then ascended to face the Leader. After giving him a quick look-over, I asked, "So... 'Juan'.... Is that French or Spanish?" He responded by tilting his head in confusion. "Erm.... Parlez vous fran�ois?"* "Eh? Non." I narrowed my eyes at his hypocrisy, then responded with some of my own. "Ssssure, I guess that's a good thing though. I don't either. Um... habla espa�ol?" He brightened. "S�! Prefiero hablar espa�ol en lugar de ingles, y--"* My eyes widened while all the while giving him a blank look. "Yeah, sure. En �ngles por favor."**** "Bien..." he sighed. "You want a battle, no?" "Indeed. That would be spiff-tackular." With that odd start, my final Gym battle began. Minun quickly laid waste to Luvdisc, Sealeo, and Crawdaunt. Gardevoir took out Whiscash, not by type-advantage, but by sheer force. As for Kingdra.... The average, non-cheating PTB would've had a heck of a time easily getting their hands on a Dragon-type that could swiftly wipe out Kingdra, short of hunting down an elusive Bagon and leveling it up as if their life depended on it. Me... not so much. "Juan, there's something you're not going to like about my next Pokemon...." "And...?" "I mean, you're reeeaaally not going to like it." My warning fell on deaf ears, probably due to the fact that I was also sporting a malicious grin. "Prove it," he retorted in a thick, Spanish accent. I smiled without saying anything, then sent out my illegal Rayquaza. "Outrage," I commanded. Kingdra went down in one hit. Not much can stand up to a raging, level 70, monster of Pokemon. Especially not level 46 Kingdras. Juan said nothing after we left battle-mode. The only response he made was his right eye twitching involuntarily. There was a pause, and finally, he handed me a Rain Badge. "H-here. T-take it. It's a RAIN BADGE.... Was that monstrosity yours?" "S�!" I responded brightly. "Fighting the system is what I do best." With that, I turned on my heel and walked back toward the entrance, sliding down the ramps of ice. But as soon as I got back outside, the PTB saved and turned off the game. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Two inside jokes: The "mid-western-United-States" thing.... Have you ever heard a person from Ohio talk? The only accent we have is we say "pop" instead of "soda". And "monkey running a country".... Pres. Bush does have some pretty massive ears.... XD Translations: Do you speak French? (Juan said "no", but in French. That was the hypocritical part) Do you speak Spanish? Yes! I prefer to speak Spanish instead of English, and-- **In English, please. Eh, let's face it: I like all of the chapters near the end. XD


APRIL--or, How the Video Game World Fought Back · Finished Stories