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 30 2007, 07:50 PM
TeH g00fy admin (I wonder why no one takes me seriously...) Posts: 749 Group: Admin Member #1 Joined: December 14, 2006	Chapter 43 "I'm not 'TRAINER'," I corrected slowly. "I'm... May." Lies, lies, lies. Sidney looked confused. "But... it says 'APRIL' on your TRAINER's Card...." "Oh, don't even get me started on that..." I grumbled, shuddering slightly. "Good idea!" he said with a nod, the single, bizarre tuft of hair bobbing absurdly with his motions. "Instead, let's get started on this battle!" "Can and will do." The battle.... Not much to say for it, really. Due to my lack of Fighting and/or Bug-types, I just made due with Rayquaza, who butchered Sidney's Pokemon. Those it didn't make chop suey out of simply became mincemeat (or sushi, in the case of Sharpedo). "Urg." Sidney paled, but he did his best to follow the script. "Man, I got own-- I mean, it was fun, so it doesn't matter who won or lost. Especially me losing. Er, that is, there's nothing hard about beating the first member of the ELITE FOUR, right?" I smiled and nodded, keeping my sarcastic commentary to myself. Sidney rubbed the bald part of his head (which was most of it) and muttered, "Shouldn't've used SWORDS DANCE..." to himself as I passed him to go to the door and down another hallway. Phoebe was a joke as well, more so than Sidney, even. Ghost-types weren't exactly the best building blocks for a team anymore, courtesy of the sudden on-set of large numbers of Pokemon that know/can Bite, and/or other Dark moves. That, and Dark-types were extremely easy to come by. I could count on one hand the number of Routes that didn't have Poochyena and/or Mightyena, not counting water Routes. And of course, I had my Absol. And Rayquaza knew Crunch. Not even the "no-attack-is-Super-Effective-against-me!" Sableye stood a chance. "So, wait," I said after the battle and after Phoebe had finished talking about deep links and the like. It took all my restraint not to interrupt. "Why is Sidney before you if he could beat you?" "I don't know!" she retorted, as though she had been offended for God-knows-what reason. "Er... ask Drake. He'll know." "Okay," I said brightly. I might have been mistaken, but when I walked past her, I think she gagged. Next was Glacia. I was glad there was no such thing as temperature in this game, otherwise I likely would have gone through rigor mortis with out even dying. What is this, a room sized freezer?! Glacia introduced herself in such a pompous, holier-than-thou manner that made me want to smack her. But that's not what "May" would do, so I toughed it out instead. Finally, she stopped talking, and we entered battle-mode. Thinking she would open with one of her Water/Ice Sealeo, I sent out Minun. As if by spite, she started instead with pure-Ice Glalie. Still, she was obliterated in two hits, but it gave her enough time to cast Hail, effectively ruining my day, or, at the very least, making it worse. In a matter of minutes, the rest of Glacia's team were crispy critters, the other Glalie included. Another victory, another hallway. After emerging from the one linking Glacia and Drake, I followed Phoebe's suggestion and immediately began questioning Drake, the last of the Elite Four as soon as I saw him. The response was much shorter than I had hoped. "So... if Sidney can beat Phoebe and Glacia can beat you... why are you four ordered the way you are?" Drake shrugged. "I dunno. Prolly 'cuz the CHAMPION can barely do jack to me Dragons. 'Cept for the whole 'ICE BEAM' thing...." "Wow.... That was intelligent." Where did that come from? I clapped my hands over my mouth. Keep it together, keep it together.... When I returned to Earth from my own little world, Drake was giving me the evilest glare he could muster. It wasn't that impressive compared to some of the ones Stephen had given me, but I hurriedly tried to cover my error nevertheless. "Er, nothing, nothing! Just talking to myself is all. Uh, stupid question y'know...." More lies. It was all too obvious that it had been an insult. Drake didn't seem convinced, but there wasn't much either of us could do for follow-up because the battle had begun. Rayquaza, the speed-demon that it was, took out all but Shelgon in one hit with Dragon Claw. Shelgon only took two because the coward kept using "Protect" instead of attacking like a sensible Pokemon (not that it would have made much of a difference in the end). Drake scowled as we returned to the overworld. "N-not cool...." "I didn't come up with the type advantages. Hey, it's not like I took on Phoebe with Ghost-types." But before Drake could respond, I'd taken off at a sprint for the Champion's room. Some unseen force--other than the PTB--was urging me on. Perhaps... myself? The hallway to the Champion's room was impossibly long. Flashy, too, to top it all off. I flew down it's length, feeling slightly schizophrenic as I argued with myself. Once I opened the doors at the far end of the hall, there was a brief pause, then I was automatically escorted forward to... ...Wallace? How did he become Champion? I didn't dwell on it for two long, for as he began to speak with his ever-so-faint British accent (which I didn't understand either), he answered my question for me. "Hey there, May!" I twitched slightly. "I bet you're kinda, um... surprised to see me here." "To say the least," I muttered to myself. "Remember how I told you about how I use to run the Sootopolis Gym? And that Juan was my mentor? Well, the student surpassed the teacher, if you don't mind the cliche." He laughed nervously. "Then who was Champion before you?" "Stephen," he spat. "And he's still the best TRAINER in the game. Er, aside from you, of course," eh amended quickly. "Of course," I amended without emotion. "Well, let's skip the tired formalities. You'll likely hear them again, eh?" Another nervous laugh. Apparently he knew he was going to lose, and several times out that. "Yeah," I agreed softly. "Well! Let's see who dances the best with Pokemon in Hoenn!" he exclaimed, lifting his hands in a practiced way that also managed to make his cape flip up in a showy manner. "You sound like a bad shojo manga," I informed him. "No sane person could say something that cheesy normally unless it was scripted." His outraged response was cut short by a dialogue box: "CHAMPION WALLACE would like to battle!" it declared in its typical, "insert-NAME-here" format whenever a battle started. I just sighed, garnering another angry reaction from Wallace. "May" was falling apart at the seams. Already? I wondered, though not alarmed. But life rolls on, and Wallace sent out Wailord, so, naturally, I lead with Minun. Wailord used Rain Dance, thereby sealing its and Wallace's next four Pokemon's dooms. Thunder, now infailable, wiped all but Whishcash out in one hit. Whishcash went down to Lombre's Absorb in one hit, which is rather pathetic, when you think about it. Finally, Milotic. At first, it didn't seem that it would be tough, but it had ridiculously high Special Defense and knew Recover. Thunder ran out of PP because it kept missing, and, in the same turn, Minun was poisoned by Toxic. Thing's seemed grim. That is, until I figured out that a level 61 Minun that uses Thunderbolt--and gets a Critical Hit--can take out a level 58 Milotic in one hit. It might have been because my previous endeavors had glitched the game. Or it could have just been dumb luck. I'll never know for sure. Wallace didn't seem surprised. In fact, he seemed almost relieved. "Thank God!" he sighed. "Battles with Milotic usually take forever!" But just as he was about to go into his congratulatory speech.... Cue Brendan. And Prof. Birch for good measure. The first of whom had dogged my forever, the second I'd barely seen since the very beginning. There seemed to be a bit of a generation gap. "Are we too late?" asked Brendan. "Yup," chorused Wallace and I. Neither of us seemed to care about Brendan's punctuallity, or lack thereof. "Aw, crap. I wanted to see Wallace get his a--" Brendan looked at Birch quickly, and changed what he was about to say, "--butt... kicked. Wallace didn't say anything, but a vein bulged on his forehead. "Well, congrats, May! Now that's you're CHAMPION, you can do all kinds of things! The BATTLE FRONTIER, the--" "No," I said, quietly, but firmly. I looked at Birch, then Wallace, then my eyes lingered the longest on Brendan. Looking back at Birch, I said, "I-- I lied. I never was 'May'." "What are you ta--" "I only pretended to be nice you you would tell me how to get out! You would never have told it to APRIL!" "But--" said Brendan, confused and alarmed. "Does that mean...?" I nodded, though I myself only just know understood everything. APRIL was a cruel, heartless being. A robot, even. A puppet, but with a mind of it's own. Supposedly, she could do whatever she wanted, but in the end, she was still ruled by the PTB and nothing could change that. And because of that, no matter how much she wanted to, she couldn't clear the Adventure Journal. She lived to torment the PTB, a never-ending task. She had to stay. As much as she hated it, this game was where she belonged. May. May was a hoax. She never really existed in the first place. She was just a cover-up, and a bad one at that. The "real" me occasionally showed through, and was there the entire time, from the very beginning. Ever since the PTB mislabled me as "APRIL"--so yes, technically, the PTB created APRIL, which is why she's only a puppet in the grand scheme of things--my real name was there. Stephen was right, I thought ruefully, on multiple accounts. I would always be APRIL, in a way, but now.... Well, the PTB didn't rule me anymore, that was for sure. That was the only thing separating me from her. And a few extra capital letters. I guess it meant I had a heart. Small price to pay for being free. "May..." Brendan said slowly. "You're... crying." I touched my cheek and was surprised to find that it was wet. "What the--" "Come on," Wallace urged me, bekoning toward the door at the far end of the room. "I'll talk to her," he told Brendan and Birch. "May, don't!" Brendan cried desperately. Almost to the door, I turned around and smiled at him sadly. "I'm not May," I told him softly. "I'm April." As I walked through the door, Brendan could only watch, dumbstruck, and jaw slack. Birch did likewise, but kept control of his jaw. Wallace and I walked across the highly polished Hall of Fame floor in silence. He seemed to be at a loss for words. When he finally found some, he spoke up. "So.... 'April', huh?" "That's me." A brief pause. Wallace turned sharply as we reached a machine at the end of the room. "April, you can't," he said, looking my dead in the eyes. I couldn't meet his gaze. Looking instead at my reflection on the floor, I said, "Watch me." Wallace closed his eyes, furrowed his brow, and put a hand on his forehead. He probably cursed himself as well. "April, please," he said tiredly. "You won't remember me anyway...." My tear ducts prickled again. APRIL had usually only felt malice. Never sadness. Never remorse. "April...!" He was almost a the point of begging now. "If you do this... it won't change anything! It'll just repeat. Nothing will have changed! The PTB will just be extra mad, but--" "I--I can't not do this, okay? It's not to get back at the PTB. It's for me. I can't live this kind of life." I looked up at the screen above me. Somewhere up there, a very happy PTB was thinking that they had adventures waiting for after the Elite Four. I pursed my lips and looked back down. "You won't remember. It'll be like nothing happened. Nothing will have happened. You won't have any memories at all. A-all this, I'll never will have existed. I--" I tried to swallow past the rapidly developing lump in my throat. If you can't remember, for all you know, it never happened. "I won't have existed, except for the PTB, and even then...." I shook my head. "Existence is probably over-rated anyway," I concluded with a nervous laugh. "But--" Anything else he would have said was lost forever as APRIL's records were loaded into the Hall of Fame. How pointless. * Filled with pride, the PTB viewed the GameBoy Advance SP's screen with pride. Sure, other Championships had been won in the past, but there's something special about the first win in each version. The PTB smirked, seeing Mud Mud being loaded. It was hard to resist evolving it, but it had been worth it in the end. Not evolving one's starter was, in a way, proof that Pokemon battling is about more than levels. And Marshtomp and Swampert were just plain ugly. It was better to keep Mud Mud looking cute. Unexpectedly, the PTB yawned. "Bah. Stupid credits. I'm not waiting through those. The power button was flicked uncerimoniously to "OFF". * I was suddenly flung back into the Save Room... alone. Trying not to let the emptiness get to me, I quickly summoned the Adventure Journal. Through this was a much stranger and more mysterious version of the Save Room, it was the Save Room nonetheless, and my hacking powers came to me much more readily. Waving one hand over the book, I erased everything inside it. The all-too-familiar darkness enveloped me for the last time. And then there was nothing. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- I'd be cruel not to add the Epilogue right now, wouldn't I? ^-^; -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Epilogue The PTB was no longer filled with pride. In fact, the feeling was closer to shock. Or outrage. The screen on the GBA SP contained a box with two lines of text: "NEW GAME" and "OPTIONS". Because the game had been used, the PTB had never seen this screen in particular before. It had always had a "CONTINUE" choice as well. Biting back tears, the PTB chose "NEW GAME", jabbing the "A" button furiously, and decided to make a post on a forum about this. Maybe it had happened to other people as well. That was the hope anyway. It's always good to know you're not alone. *** I found myself in a desolate black place, entirely alone. Just as I was about to call out for help-- "Hi! Sorry to keep you waiting!" "Wh-what?" Anything else he might have said was drowned out by a repetitive beeping. Shortly, I was in a box next to the words "YOUR NAME?" Below me, a cursor rapidly selected the letters "A-P-R-I-L" and moved over to a box that said "OK", then paused. It moved up to another box above it that said "lower". The characters below me turned into lower case letters, and some of the letters to my left vanished, leaving only the letter "A". The cursor below me reselected "p", "r", "i", and "l" to form my name. April. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- ... ... ... sigh It's hard enough to end a story, let alone kill of your main character. Try it someday. Work on a story for nine months and end by killing your main character. You might then understand how depressed I am. -_-; It's not like I didn't know the ending was coming. I had it planned since chapter 9. 0.o I didn't realize how hard it would be until I actually did it. April: Buck up. nya: Listen you little wisea-- Wait a sec! I just killed you! You're dead! April: Do I look dead to you? nya: B-but.... April: How do I have to prove it to you? Smack you over the head with a folding chair? nya: Who do you think you are, Writer's Block? Well, I had a big, long ending speech, but it was twice the length of the Epilogue. One thing I do want to say, is that there is truth behind the ending, and Emerald versions are particularlly prone to deleting themselves unless you watch the credits all the way through the first time you best the E4. However, I've heard of it happening to Saphirre versions as well. nya: Of course, no story can be completed without the support of its readers-- April: What?! You're going to thank the people that launched rockets at me? nya: That was only a few of them. >.>; Thanks to: Anthezar, Arctic master, and Ramzam. That was so much more impressive on Crater.... Well, thanks again everyone! I definately couldn't have done it without your support. Yup. But don't worry. You ain't seen the last o' me yet! sly smile nya_chan out!


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