girl-like-substance
the seal will bite you if you give him half a chance
Posts: 527
Pronouns: xe/xem
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Post by girl-like-substance on Mar 19, 2019 23:42:53 GMT
The name of the thing in the thing! That's always fun. Anyway, this took me way too long to get round to, for which my apologies, so let's start making up for lost time.
First up: I now understand why Geist was able to get information out of those kids' Companions in the Pride month special! That one was bothering me; like, whether or not future Unova is a terrible place (and it clearly is), I felt like something like the League incorporating androids with zero child safeguarding protocols into the trainer journey would be enough to have the whole 'Companions on trainer journey' thing destroyed by massive public opposition before it even began. In my experience, people like to pay lip service to child protection, even if they don't actually show any interest in actively protecting children, you know? So like, they'd like to know that their kids are (nominally) secure out there. But if Geist is atypical in being able to extract personal data about users from Companions, then that makes much more sense, yes.
And speaking of Geist, it seems like once again he's sort of undoing his argument even as he makes it: 'we wouldn't be able to define what isn't mimicry', huh. I guess that's not really conclusive one way or another, but y'know, positioned as it is, it kinda makes you go, at some point, guy, you're gonna have to confront the fact that the forgery and the real picture are, to anyone but the valuator, functionally identical.
It looks like he might be broader than he thought, too; either he wasn't totally inactive, or he's not totally contained within the platform he uses. And a cloud-distributed AI would make logical sense, if you wanted to avoid loss due to damage to a specific platform. From what we get in the Lanette segment (which is cute, but for right now let's focus on the hardware discussion), it looks like a distinction is being made between the software and the hardware – for the first time, I think? Or at least, the impression I had so far was that Zero-One was the whole package, but now it's clear that Zero-One is the platform and can be separated from the personality. Which is interesting, given that so far the story's been clear that the LFA core is what makes this whole thing possible – so either Geist was somehow active in the Zero-One unit while it was damaged, or there's some other hardware out there (is the LFA system bigger than the LFA cores in Geist himself, perhaps?) that could support him while his usual platform was damaged.
Or maybe I'm misreading. :V We don't have that much information yet, after all! I look forward to being proven wrong at some point in the not-too-distant future.
So let's move on to that obligatory aww family moment, then! I always love an obligatory aww family moment. :> The real Electric Messiah was the friends we made along the way, I guess! \o/ (I got excited enough that I wrote both of those emoji out longhand in my notebook when I was preparing this review, so I'm legally obliged to replicate them here.) It would be kind of nice if the lampent was included (xe says, betraying xyr blatant ghost-type favouritism), but I guess he's not quite part of the family yet.
Finally – this kind of connects everything I've said so far, really, but after the eruption of that massive traumatic event into Door's life, we're sorta returning to the main thematic space of the story to date: family history, the weight of what you inherit, memory, all that kind of thing. Sure, trauma is a part of that (being, y'know, memory scored into the body on a brutally fundamental level and all) but we're now back to the stuff you established earlier, and it'll be interesting to see how that develops in the light of what Door's been through recently!
Aaaand that's it, actually. I don't have any minor corrections this time around, which is either a failure on my part or a success on yours (let's say the latter, for both our sakes :V), so I'll be looking forward to more found-family robot shenanigans next time!
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Post by sikesaner on Mar 24, 2019 2:46:38 GMT
Somehow the speed with which he snapped back to a cheery front is even more chilling than how serious he was just moments before.
Anyway. So! So, so, so, so, so. Here we have Geist, seeming to confirm that he’s not exactly… rooted to those cores. To that body. Not any more than, perhaps, a person’s rooted to their car. I think that, through him, we may have gotten a glimpse of where he is rooted, so to speak. (“Rooted” is possibly not the right word, come to think of it. Kind of implies he’s permanently stuck there, when maybe he won’t be, in the end.)
...I’m rambling, heh. I guess what I’m saying is, I feel like we’ve taken a nice, big step toward a full understanding of what Geist truly is, and what he may have been. Which is to say, another step toward finding out if I’m right about all this. ;) And Geist has taken a similar step—whether he realizes it or not. I’m morbidly interested to see how he might react in the event that he well and truly figures himself out. 8D
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Post by admin on Apr 1, 2019 4:44:14 GMT
Okay, so I may have dropped the ball on continuing to read this since I last posted. But over the past couple days I read through the Striaton "arc" and ho boy is this fun! I never thought I would be so interested in the storage system developers but after all of the information in Chapter Nine, I am totally hooked. 8) 8) 8) 8) (Lmao, I may or may not be serious. It’s always a delight to watch people start one of my fics and see how long it takes them before they’re like, “The storage system developers are hella rad, and I may or may not have adopted at least one of them.”) Ah, thanks kindly!  Tbqh, the infodumping/info balancing was definitely a thing I was concerned with in chapter nine, which is why it went through probably three different rewrites to pare more and more down. It was really difficult to figure out how to say enough without running away with this whole elaborate history centered around my faves, but weirdly enough, the Lanette notes helped me figure things out.  And thank you for this as well! I think I definitely got into her emotions and motivations around this point. They admittedly run into a bit of a rough patch in a few chapters (so heads up on that), but ultimately … Striaton was definitely fun to write in part because it’s where I really started to figure her out. Also a bit because of the boxdevs too, haha, but yeah, mostly Door. :’) Chapter 34 I remember reading the first draft of it the workshop, and the early feedback was the battle went slightly fast and there should be more inner monologue from Door. This version you seemed to fix both of those! Tooootally heard about the workshop going fast. :’) It’s difficult to jump into, which is why I kinda stood back and let folks talk. But! The feedback from that was hella useful, so I’m really thankful for Manchee, Charlie, and all the others who threw in their hats for it. (Heck yeah, events that work.  ) One thing’s for certain: that little guy’s getting more screentime because distressed windchimes. (It’s not often when I’m like, “I have accidentally killed myself with cute,” but this time...) Definitely. And the answer will be a lot simpler than one might expect. Saaaaaaaaaame. :’) Eeeexactly. Granted, what relationship they have according to Geist is a question that really should be answered soon... Oh yes. Asking sensitive questions over greasy eggs and admittedly not-half-bad pancakes is probably a bad idea. Asking sensitive questions in private, however... *high five!* Thank ya! First up: I now understand why Geist was able to get information out of those kids' Companions in the Pride month special! That one was bothering me; like, whether or not future Unova is a terrible place (and it clearly is), I felt like something like the League incorporating androids with zero child safeguarding protocols into the trainer journey would be enough to have the whole 'Companions on trainer journey' thing destroyed by massive public opposition before it even began. In my experience, people like to pay lip service to child protection, even if they don't actually show any interest in actively protecting children, you know? So like, they'd like to know that their kids are (nominally) secure out there. But if Geist is atypical in being able to extract personal data about users from Companions, then that makes much more sense, yes. Speaking of things a person has taken a bit to get around to: review responses to the Pride Month special, haha. It’ll be the next Pride Month special.On a serious note, yep! And weirdly, this is a thing that’s been in place since the beginning because I’ve always wanted to hint that Geist has weird abilities that literally no other Companion should rightly have. This is one of them for exactly the reason you describe and more: like, it absolutely is a massive privacy issue if a Companion can just tap into other Companions and do whatever they want. It’d be like all those times Alexa listens in on conversations but somehow worse because Companions aren’t confined to a random countertop, so if a random Companion can do that, they will suddenly have access to every last detail of your and your child’s private life at every waking moment. So most Companions can’t tap into each other, and even if they had the skills of a (human) hacker to assist them, it’s still incredibly difficult to hack into someone else’s Companion essentially by design. On the other hand, Geist, being the prototype and Lanette’s personal Companion, gets special permissions because … plot reasons. Let’s just say she wanted all Companions to listen to him as much as they would listen to her. So long story short, he’s not so much hacking or even accessing other Companions (this new ability notwithstanding) as he is pinging them and going, “Hey, I have a request for you, and you have to say yes.” …. Huh. I guess you could say that Geist and Lanette were very much like a mirrored Magdalene and Oppenheimer in that regard. Right??? And here you have why it’s taking so long to fix the next chapter, tbqh. :’) Came to this realization as I was editing that conversation, and I was like, “You know … as delightful as it is to have Geist deflect and walk away as the consummate gentleman, you know what would be funnier? If we had him directly address the whole android theme and how that affects him.” In short, Door thinks the same thing you do at this point. Now that she’s gotten over herself (a little), she’s kinda left with all these questions about her family and about Geist, and absolutely, she’s going to ask them soon. And of course, Geist and what Companions actually are will 100% be caught in the crossfire. Also, re, your speculation concerning the LFA system: geeeeez, I wish I could respond to some of that because you’ve summarized a really big plot point so well, but haha, spoilers. I mean, to be fair, yes, you are required by law to type up any emoji you’ve written by hand. On a (slightly more) serious note, pretty much about friends along the way. Meantimes, I admit I didn’t have too many plans for Pyro because we’re almost to the final three arcs of the story, but now I’m definitely giving him one, if for no other reason than I realized how adorable lampent are when I decided his protests against Knives should sound like distressed windchimes. (Also, excellent taste in types. ) Well, one thing is for certain: Now that she’s gone through all this trauma, she will have precisely no patience for bullshit (including and especially if it comes from Geist, courtesy of his amazing deflection abilities). Somehow the speed with which he snapped back to a cheery front is even more chilling than how serious he was just moments before. It’s always the nice ones. :V Indeed we have taken a huge step, and as for how Geist will react, all I can say is it’s going to be great. 8) Tbqh, that, other than the fact that it’s just been exhausting keeping a lid on this secret for the past three years, is a huge reason why I’m really looking forward to it and why I moved the point where Geist will have to confront it up to Icirrus. It’s just. Going to be a mess. A glorious, glorious mess. 8) 8) 8) 8) Thank you all, as always~! Short update, I'm afraid. Still working on editing the next chapter, but I wanted to push this out before it's four weeks since the last bit o' content. That and I'm planning on writing something else for Camp NaNo, so I miiiiiiiiight be a bit distracted. D: Sorry! See you soon!
[EXTRA #6: MISTRALTON AIRPORT] It had been a while since Linus Hornbeam had seen the inside of an airport. Or, more accurately, besides earlier that week, it had been a while since Linus Hornbeam had seen the inside of an airport. They always buzzed with nervous energy: the rush of people dashing from here to there, the cold silence of people filing through checkpoints manned by Terpsichore units, the hot and quiet awkwardness of loved ones parting ways and friends disappearing through the masses around security. And Linus sat at a bench just outside these crowds and these emotions, watching it all and fiddling with his ticket and ID. How long had it been since he was last in an airport? Besides earlier that week, anyway. Ten years ago, perhaps? The day he took his wife and daughter to live in Unova? He remembered that day. He was following his mother’s instructions exactly. He did what he had to. So did Virginia. He remembered Virginia’s words, half muffled as she had buried her face in his neck one last time. “This,” she had said then, “is best for Doreen.” He remembered Doreen’s hand in his: how little it had felt in his palm as he guided her away from her mother. She had asked a million questions back then. Where’s Mama going? Why isn’t she going to Nuvema with us? Is it something I did? That thought—Doreen’s smallness and fragility—had been the only thing on Linus’s mind since he had arrived in Mistralton. It had been all he could think of when he arrived at the airport, when he met Dr. Fennel, when the pokémon center attendants had told him all that had happened to his little girl. He wanted to be there for her, but he didn’t know how. Just like he didn’t know how to answer her questions when she was five and watching her mother walk away. And he knew right then that she was different somehow. That his little girl was neither the tiny thing he remembered nor the rebellious teenager she had been when she had left home. There was something in her eyes that was uncertain now. That was careful and serious and tired. And still, he wasn’t there. Linus rested his chin in his palm and stared at the people going through the security checkpoint. Maybe he could be there for her. But how? He should have told her. He should have just told her the truth about her family, about Lanette, about— “You look glum.” He looked up to see Amanita standing there, a paper cup in each hand and Hilda King behind her. Amanita held out one of the cups to him, and without thinking twice, Linus took it. “Thanks,” he said. He peered into the coffee Amanita had given him. “It’s … it’s nothing. Just thinking about how Door’s all grown up now.” “Right.” Hilda took a seat beside him. “Door’s your daughter, isn’t she?” Linus took a sip. The heat and bitterness of the coffee bit his tongue twice. “Yep. My one and only baby.” Hilda grinned. “You must be proud. She’s a great trainer.” “Gets that from her mother,” Linus admitted. He wanted to smile but couldn’t. Instead, he brought the cup to his lips again. “Is that so?” Hilda replied. She whistled and bucked her head. “Wouldn’t want to mess with the CEO of Halcyon Labs, then. She’d floor me.” That made Linus grin. Hesitantly, but still. “Between you and me, that’s what made me fall in love with her.” Amanita took a deep breath and sat down on Linus’s other side. “You don’t have to worry about Door, you know.” Immediately, Linus’s grin faltered, and he folded in on himself a little. “I’m her father. Of course I’m going to worry. What’s that girl gotten herself mixed up in, anyway?” “Well…” Hilda scratched her cheek. “If it puts you at ease, from what Rosa tells me, what happened to Door recently had nothing to do with Team Matrix, so she’s probably not going to get that messed up again. Apparently, Door just wandered off into one of the off-limits zones—Chargestone Cave, no less. She was attacked by a bunch of thugs, and the magnetite—what’s that word?” She leaned forward to look at Amanita. “Bricked,” Amanita replied simply. “Right,” Hilda replied, pointing a finger to the ceiling. “Bricked. The magnetite bricked Geist.” Linus furrowed his eyebrows and took a sip of coffee. He didn’t say anything, least of all the fact that he wasn’t talking about Chargestone Cave at all. Granted, part of him was wondering how his little girl could have gotten that hurt, and he was grateful for the explanation and the possibility that maybe Door wouldn’t run off into the off-limits zones again. (She probably would, but he liked to think she wouldn’t.) No, he was more concerned about something else. Why hadn’t his mother told him— “Mr. Hornbeam?” Hilda said. She rested a hand on his shoulder. “You okay?” “Huh? Wha—” He shot up in his seat, splattering coffee onto his hand and pants. “Oh! Sorry. I was just thinking about that Companion of hers. I mean, he…” Linus looked to Amanita for help, only to find her staring intently at him. Truth be told, Linus Hornbeam had interacted with Dr. Amanita Fennel only a few times. She was, after all, the foremost expert of pokémon technology in the region. He had met her at conventions, during the very occasional trips he would take to Castelia, occasionally even at his lab whenever she would go to consult him. So he knew the woman’s disposition: how sweet she was, how upbeat, how calm. Dr. Amanita Fennel did not look like any of those things right then. She didn’t look cold, but her gaze was burning with determination. “You mean Geist wasn’t supposed to be wiped before he got to me, didn’t you?” she asked. Linus frowned at her expression. It told him much, much more than her words did. “You know about him, don’t you?” he asked. Amanita’s expression relaxed, and she lifted her chin. “I’m a little disappointed that you, Brigette, and Virginia thought you could keep it from me. Sure, it might’ve taken me a few years to find the files, but in my defense, how was I supposed to know they were even there in the first place?” Linus blinked. “Files?” She gave him a long, confused look. And then, slowly, she said, “You didn’t know about what Brigette and Cassius did … did you?” He didn’t answer. He couldn’t. But his mind wandered back to his little girl, traveling around with what he realized then to be a ticking time bomb. And in turn, he thought about his little girl, her tiny hand in his, asking a million questions he also couldn’t answer. “Uh.” Both Linus and Amanita glanced over simultaneously at Hilda, who was leaning towards them with her brows furrowed, her hands on her knees, and a thoroughly confused expression on her face. “You didn’t know about the files,” she said, nodding to Linus, “and you didn’t know about a Companion being wiped. How about you both put your stories together and tell me because I don’t know about either?” Linus thought about that for a second. Team Matrix was somehow connected to all of this. That’s what Rosa had said. But back then, Linus couldn’t do a thing—couldn’t say a thing—to help with the investigation or to help his little girl. And now, looking at Hilda, he realized he could do both at once. So he told her everything he knew. |
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girl-like-substance
the seal will bite you if you give him half a chance
Posts: 527
Pronouns: xe/xem
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Post by girl-like-substance on Apr 2, 2019 22:04:34 GMT
This one's short and sweet, huh. Or short and bittersweet, perhaps, because Linus clearly wants to be a father that he doesn't quite know how to be. Which like, I'm always in two minds about that kind of thing; on the one hand, it's hard not to feel for him when his heart is so clearly in the right place, but on the other, well, I'm always a little exasperated with like, grown people who refuse to even try to help because they can't work out how to do it. And Linus is very much a grown-ass adult, with a life and a job and a family and ethics and all, so I have a little less patience for him than I would with like, Door or someone. (Actually, I guess you can kinda see the family resemblance there, huh; Door had to get this from somewhere, and now that we've seen behind both Linus and Virginia's eyes, it's easy to see how their two characters have mingled and given rise to parts of Door's own personality.) Like nobody knows how to do these things, they just have to try anyway, and if I remember correctly we've never seen any indication that Linus has tried; he seems to have pre-emptively given up, his drive to help stalling in the face of what he assumes is his own ignorance but which is, of course, the ignorance of literally everyone in the face of the pain of others.
Which, you know, is also pretty relatable, hence why I think this little character portrait does just about come down on the side of sympathy for Linus, though it's a close thing. Hopefully he picks something up from this encounter with Hilda and Amanita, although of course, we've seen that they're far from perfect themselves, despite their undoubted good intentions and positive qualities. So I don't know, I guess this review is basically just a general eye-roll in the direction of the millions of parents like Linus all over the world who mean well but whose idea of support is taking their kid out for a meal and pointedly not addressing any of the real and major issues the kid's currently facing that led to them deciding they needed to do Something Supportive for them in the first place.
But hey, he's trying now, which is more than can be said for many of his real-world analogues, so you know, maybe he'll figure it out in the end. Like I said, his heart's in the right place, but I feel like he could stand to benefit from a slap across the face, and maybe what he's seen in Door's eyes now can do that for him. Guess we'll find out later!
One other little thing:
Missing a blank line between paragraphs here. Or possibly these are meant to be the same paragraph and a line break got inserted in there by accident.
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Post by sikesaner on Jun 12, 2019 23:58:41 GMT
Somehow the terminology has caused me to picture Geist being used as a literal doorstop. Which is morbidly hilarious, partially because his size makes that completely impractical.
See also: paperweight!Geist and the manifold awkwardnesses involved with prying a sheet of paper out from under his butt.
She’s just saving the game is all.
Curious side effect of reading this extra: wow do I ever find myself wanting to be in an airport again. It’s been years. I definitely get a different vibe from them than Linus does; his perception seems to revolve mainly around the people rather than the place. I wonder what this says about him. Or about me, for that matter. :B
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Post by admin on Jun 23, 2019 18:33:39 GMT
Replies~ This one's short and sweet, huh. Or short and bittersweet, perhaps, because Linus clearly wants to be a father that he doesn't quite know how to be. Which like, I'm always in two minds about that kind of thing; on the one hand, it's hard not to feel for him when his heart is so clearly in the right place, but on the other, well, I'm always a little exasperated with like, grown people who refuse to even try to help because they can't work out how to do it. Thiiiiiiiis. Not to cut your actually pretty damn spot-on analysis of Linus and why he’s actually not that great of a father off with something so trivial, but pretty much. Hilariously, I mostly designed Linus to be a joke character, and this extra itself was written waaaaaay long ago, before I started actually thinking about how real-ass parents can be real-ass shitty exactly like this, but … let’s just say Linus is complicated. And he’s complicated in the way you’re describing, where you can tell he wants to try but won’t because he has no idea what he’s actually doing. You’re also correct in thinking Linus hasn’t really shown any indication that he’s tried—and that he hasn’t, period. In a way, Linus is just as hands-off as Virginia is. Sure, he loves Door and supports her, and sure, he provided the usual basic needs of food, shelter, clothing, and available companionship, but the thing is that just loving someone and providing baseline stuff isn’t all there is with parenting, which is something Linus hasn’t realized. He’s just kinda hoped that doing all of that and giving Door a thumbs up to be who she wants to be will be enough, and the rest of Door’s growing up will sort itself out. Conveniently, this means that he never has to take an active role, which is the biggest point about parenting. Being a parent means knowing when your kid is in trouble and actively doing something to help them, not sort of give them weak advice after the fact or nudge them along with supportive comments now and then. Saying, “you’re doing great, honey; don’t let them get you down” has not at any point stopped Team Matrix so far, just as it hasn’t stopped Door from isolating herself or facing that bullying that’s kinda sorta been implied while she was living in Nuvema. Granted, a lot of this probably hasn’t come across in such a tiny extra and is, in fact, probably also thoroughly irrelevant, but point is, yeah, Linus kinda sucked as a parent so far, haha. Key word is so far. Because... This is an excellent question.*high five!* Pretty much! The other fun thing is that Linus is a great resource. He’s got access to nearly all the Halcyon files Rosa could ever want, and at this point, he’s willing to do it. The problem is that he’s been left out of one very key detail (not the one some of y’all who might be reading this are thinking), but at least if he takes an active stance in helping Hilda and Rosa, it’ll be fun to see him find out with Door. Def accidental linebreak. D: Sorry! Somehow the terminology has caused me to picture Geist being used as a literal doorstop. Which is morbidly hilarious, partially because his size makes that completely impractical. See also: paperweight!Geist and the manifold awkwardnesses involved with prying a sheet of paper out from under his butt. This probably happened in Lanette’s lab more times than anyone cared to admit because despite crafting a perfect robot double of her partner, can we really trust her to plug her effing giant attractive iPhone in once in a while? I wish I had a reaction gif of Papyrus on hand. D: Oooh, if you haven’t been in, like, the past ten years, positive side is it’s gotten more relaxed than it had been during the Bush/early Obama era. Negative side is you can just feel the tension. But on the other hand, duty-free shops are hella rad, not even gonna lie. All that said, thanks to both you and oyster for the review! And your patience as I hopped onboard with a completely different run for a while, lmao. And now ... the chapter! As a fun little fact, this was originally the first part of a single chapter that took us all the way through Twist Mountain, but edits and a rewritten conversation in the middle extended the page count from a mere 15 all the way to, uh, ungodly. Consequently, the original chapter got split into two halves, the first of which is below. The second of which will likely be posted early next month for a combination of reasons, namely the Underground, the fact that I'm going off to celebrate Pride next weekend, and the fact that one of the mirrors is switching forum servers, and I'd prefer to post the next chapter after that happens. Sorry for the delay, but in the meantime, have Door and Geist's Existential Adventures!
[CHAPTER 37: TWIST MOUNTAIN] Twist Mountain jutted out of the landscape at the end of the other fork in Route 7—the one Door and Blair hadn’t taken on their trek to Celestial Tower. And when one said it “jutted,” they actually meant it jutted. The landscape leading up to the mountain was a set of rolling hills, covered in green and gold tall grasses and ambling, planted forests, and then, as if the earth had abruptly changed its mind, the hills gave way to sharp cliffs and steep inclines, gray and violet rock faces reaching skyward to snowy peaks. Technically, Twist Mountain was only one of these rock faces; the range itself, spreading across the northern half of Unova, was better known as the Highlands. Twist Mountain wasn’t even the tallest peak in the Highlands Range, nor was it the shortest or the narrowest or anything of the sort. It was, instead, the easiest to traverse—made so by the audacity of mankind, the stubborn need to connect Unova to the Liberta Region to the north, and the fact that the most direct route from Mistralton to Icirrus and all points beyond happened to be right through that very mountain. And thus, through Progress with a capital P, the mountain was bisected neatly by a series of tunnels and paths. In Hilda’s day, it was indeed a winding labyrinth, twisting through the innards of the mountain. Some parts of it weren’t even accessible in the winter months, when snowdrifts buried the interior and swallowed the entrances to key caves. By Door’s time, on the other hand, it wasn’t so much a twisting labyrinth as it was, like many things in Unova by Door’s time, a nice path through a pretty cave. Or to be more accurate, the trainers’ safe route was more like a plexiglass tube running straight through the mountain and out the other side. No winding. No snow. Just a straight, neat path from Route 7 to the Icirrus City outskirts. And to be frank, Door couldn’t help but judge a little. For one, it was better than stew over the fact that her father and Companion had completely blown her off—blown her off, that is, not the other way around. For another, honestly. Could anyone blame her? How could one have a trek through Twist Mountain if the damned road didn’t even bother to turn? By some miracle, she held her tongue about that on the way there. She knew what the path through Twist Mountain was like, of course, because Opal and Geist had explained the route to her and Blair before they had even hit the rolling hills. It would be simple, really. Just a thirty-minute walk through the mountain, with the occasional emergence into one of the larger pockets of cavern where the League supplied fauxkémon for wandering trainers and tourists to catch. Simple. Easy. And not at all what she had in mind for training, especially for someone with only two pokémon to her name. So for the entire walk from the fork to the base of the mountain, Door stopped thinking about questions for her father and dwelled entirely on training her two remaining pokémon for battle. Because of that—namely, the frequent stops to battle wild pokémon, the roundabout paths to avoid potentially strong trainers, and the lectures Geist gave her about how she couldn’t just avoid trainers forever—by the time the group had reached the base of Twist Mountain, it was already late afternoon, and Door was already wound up with a day full of frustrations. Not even full-on rage. Just indignant frustration over the existence of obstacles. By that point in their journey, Geist must have upgraded himself to possess an almost supernatural understanding of Door’s mood because he was a few steps ahead of her, and not even looking back for that matter, when he spoke. “Something bothering you, Door?” he asked. She stumbled but caught her footing at the last second, preventing herself from plowing into her Companion’s back. “W-what? What gave you that idea?” “You’ve been quiet for the past ten minutes,” Geist replied. A spike of irritation ran through Door, and she stomped forward, ahead of Geist and Blair and just past Opal. Opal was still staring at the map between her hands, but Door didn’t need the Companion’s navigation skills to figure out where the giant mountain was. “Don’t exaggerate!” she snapped. “I haven’t been quiet for nearly that long!” “According to my voice recognition software, I have not detected your voice for the past twelve minutes, fifty-six-point-three seconds, Miss Hornbeam,” Opal said lightly. “From what I can recall, this is rather unusual for you. Miss Blair, would you like me to administer emotional first aid to Miss Hornbeam?” Door spun around and began walking backwards to throw a dangerous glare at Blair. “Don’t you even dare!” Blair gave her a sweet smile in return. “Aww, Door. They’re just trying to help!” She nudged Geist in the side. “I think it’s rather cute they’re both so concerned about you.” “I don’t need them to be concerned about me!” Door protested, her voice squeaking. At that, Geist sighed and gave her a stern look. “And two steps back, I suppose.” “What’s that supposed to mean!?” she demanded. “Oh, two things.” Geist rolled his eyes skyward and folded his hands behind his back. “First, I should hope you’re not sliding backwards in terms of your line of thinking.” Door huffed and crossed her arms indignantly. “I’m not. I just don’t want anyone, human or Companion, to baby me. I’m fine.” She squinted at him. “Anyway, what’s the second?” Geist shifted one of his hands forward and pointed to the ground. “Mind the gap.” As if on cue, Door took another step backwards, only to realize the ground wasn’t where she thought it was. Flailing, she shrieked and pitched backwards, only for Geist to grab one of her arms and yank her back onto her feet. He whirled her around in the process, and as soon as he did, she could see what she nearly tripped over: a part of the road that abruptly plunged into the mouth of the Twist Tunnel. Catching her breath, Door dusted herself off and steadied herself on her feet. “Oh,” she said. “Th-thanks.” Geist patted her on the shoulder, then walked onwards, following Opal and Blair. “Quite all right. Come along, Door.” She scrunched her nose and scowled at his back, but she hurried after her traveling partners, into the cave. It was exactly as she feared: boring inside. The path was large enough to comfortably fit all of them at once; in fact, it was just as wide as all the other safe routes in the region, which themselves stretched across what would have been four lanes of traffic back in the older, less technologically advanced Unova. The plexiglass flooring continued onward, and with the combination of the floor’s lighting and two rows of lights lining the high ceiling, the entire path glowed soft and blue and calming. Through the floor, Door could see nothing but rock, and in fact, to either side of her, there were smoothly cut rock walls. Rock, rock, rock, as far as the eye could see. Luckily for Door’s sanity, as far as the eye could see wasn’t too far from the cave entrance. Ahead of them, the path began its gentle slope upwards in order to meet the higher altitudes of Icirrus City, and as such, the path simply vanished some distance ahead, swallowed by a dot far above Door’s line of sight. And once again, the path was perfectly straight. She huffed before she could catch herself. Geist glanced over his shoulder, then slowed his pace. “Don’t slow down,” he instructed. “We’ll catch up.” Blair looked at him. “Um … are you sure?” He nodded and waved her along. “It will only take a minute, I assure you.” With one last odd look, Blair shrugged. “All right, Opal. Let’s keep going, but don’t get too far ahead, okay?” “You got it, Miss Blair!” Opal exclaimed. The two strode forward, and the distance between them and Door grew and grew. At the same time, Geist slowed down, and unwilling to risk a comment from him, Door felt forced to do the same until Opal and Blair were tiny figures an uncomfortable distance away. She rubbed her arm and turned her head to stare at the wall to her left, away from Geist. Already, she struggled to come up with a way to convince him that her concerns weren’t worth talking about. “Well, I can tell that whatever’s bothering you must be unimportant,” he said. “Otherwise, you would have told me by now.” Door stopped in her tracks, forcing her Companion to do the same. As she gave him a sideways glance, she could see him smirking, one eye open and on her. “Anyway.” When Geist said that word, it was with a definite punch: a vocal equivalent of grinding his heels into the ground to prepare for whatever backlash Door may have had against him. “I can hazard a guess as to what’s bothering you, but I think we would both be much more comfortable if you simply told me yourself.” After a moment of silence in which she stared quietly at her partner, Door frowned. Was she going to outright say what was on her mind, or was she going to change the subject out of a combination of fear and pure, teenage spite? “What’s the point of putting a path through Twist Mountain that doesn’t even twist?” Fear and teenage spite, of course. “Are you disappointed this isn’t like Hilda King’s journey, or is it because there aren’t many opportunities for you to train?” he asked after a long moment of silence. “Be truthful.” “I … both, I guess?” Door rubbed her arms. “I mean, I knew Twist Tunnel was like this because, well … this was kinda the one part I always thought was like proof or something that trainer’s journeys weren’t worth it.” Her voice had dropped in volume as she admitted that, as if she knew before saying them that her reasoning didn’t hold water. “I mean … just look around. There aren’t any pokémon here. You’re only given a few rooms where you can catch anything. The kids up ahead? They’re probably just kids. It’s all hooked up like some kind of haunted house on Halloween, and you’re just walking through, waiting for the next guy in a stupid mask to jump out and try to startle you.” “Well, I should hope that this experience can’t otherwise be compared to a haunted house,” Geist quipped. “Geist,” Door sighed. She gave him an exasperated look but didn’t bother following his name up with anything else. He lifted his shoulders in an apologetic shrug. “Sorry.” Then, looking at the ceiling, his smile finally faded. “Your concern is valid, though. Or, well, it comes from a valid place. Icirrus is another gym city; of course you would be concerned about training before then.” Holding up a hand, he spread his fingers to summon a holographic screen. Door watched as Geist quickly navigated to the League’s website, then to Icirrus Gym’s entry. Three pokémon appeared: a vanillish, a cryogonal, and a beartic, each lined up neatly before the portrait of an older, tan-skinned woman. Door fixed her eyes on the portrait, taking in how grandmotherly the woman looked with her wrinkled smile and shining, black eyes full of pride. And she couldn’t help but think of her own grandmother and of what was in Icirrus and of a thousand other things about this journey of hers. “Odina,” Geist said. “The Icirrus gym leader and the regional specialist in ice-types. While Odina’s team is indeed formidable, a moderately trained fire-type will be able to dispatch them without effort. Pyro should be fine, so long as you prioritize training him over Knives for the time being.” “Odina.” Door repeated the name, rolling each syllable around on her tongue. “Mmhmm.” Geist nodded, then twitched his fingers. The page moved, sliding into a small calendar at the bottom. “In any case, if you’d like, I could put in a request to battle her. Traversing Twist Mountain is more arduous than it may seem right now, so between your training and resting after our journey, I would suggest waiting at least a day before challenging the Icirrus Gym.” “Um…” Door played with her bangs. “Listen, can you schedule the battle two days from now? I … I don’t want to challenge her right away.” Geist tilted his own head but kept his eyes on the screen. “Oh?” “Yeah. Um.” Door looked away in discomfort. “I just want to make sure Pyro’s ready. That’s all.” Closing his eyes, Geist shifted his shoulders to mimic a deep breath in. At the same time, the screen moved, seemingly on its own, to select a date two days from then, followed by the last time slot available. “Done,” he said. “Now would you like to talk about what’s really bothering you?” Door moved her fingers from her bangs to her scalp. They wormed through her hair as she said, “I really hate that you’re a supercomputer on legs sometimes.” “It’s not so much the fact that I’m a computer on legs as it is the fact that you’re a terrible liar,” he replied with a shrug. Instead of replying outright, Door groaned and looked away. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to talk. She did. She really did. It was just … she didn’t know how to put things into words: all the anger, all the frustration, all the worry. “Door,” Geist said, half as a warning and half as encouragement. “No secrets between us. That’s what you said, right?” “Yeah, but…” She took a deep breath. Then a risk by glaring at him. “Is now a good time to talk?” At once, Geist stiffened. “Oh. Door … I’m sorry about this morning. Your father was right. We don’t know who could have been listening. It wasn’t a good time. However…” He looked around at the sparsely populated safe route. “There are fewer people here. So yes. We can talk.” Door relaxed. She wanted to trust Geist. No, she knew she could trust him. He had to work with her—Laws of Robotics and all. Besides, had he ever really hurt her intentionally and directly? But on the other hand, this was difficult. It was going to be a difficult thing to admit that she was scared and vulnerable, and she wanted to run ahead and catch up to Blair just as much as she wanted to have this conversation. So she crossed her arms, took a deep breath, and forced each word out slowly. “What did Dad mean about all that?” “About what?” Geist asked. “About you.” Door pulled a hand out to motion at him. “He was about to say something about you getting wiped, but then he stopped.” “I don’t know. Should I call him?” “No!” Door shrieked, throwing her hands up into the air. Then, with another deep breath, she held her hands, palms out, to Geist. “I don’t want to talk to him right now. It’s just I need someone I can trust. And yeah, before you say anything, I know I can trust you. It’s just … my dad and I used to tell each other everything. Now he’s hiding something.” “Door,” Geist began, “I don’t think that’s it. He—” “My entire family is hiding a lot of things. You can’t tell me they aren’t,” she snapped. Normally, Door didn’t think too much about the awkward silences that would fall from time to time between them. Oftentimes, she would be too angry, too frustrated, or just too embarrassed to care what Geist thought. But now, she looked—really watched him react. He didn’t look like a machine calculating a course correction, not that she thought he would at this point. But she didn’t expect him to look taken aback, like he was genuinely caught off-guard by what she said. Nor did she expect his expression to change so smoothly, to soften and relax into something not quite sympathetic or pitying and not quite calm either. He looked at her with some sort of in-between: the apologetic look of someone who knew where his boundaries were and realized that line was one step behind him. “You’re right,” he said softly. “I can’t.” And between that and his look, all the anger in Door evaporated, and all that was left was a confused mix of fear and frustration, intermingled with the relief of understanding. Geist understood. He couldn’t do anything about their future, and Door knew that, but he understood. So her next words were equally soft, equally reaching for more of that common ground. “I can’t remember the first time we met either,” she said. “You were five, that was ten years ago, and not that I know much about human family dynamics, but you didn’t sound like you were close with Lanette,” he replied. “You can’t remember it either.” “Does that bother you?” “No. But it probably should bother you.” The silence was colder this time and tinged with something heavy and awkward that Door couldn’t put her finger on. But it was enough to make her realize immediately that this wasn’t going to be as straightforward a dance as she was starting to hope. She watched that sympathetic look on Geist’s face falter, and she could sense the line she shouldn’t have crossed just behind her own heels. “What do you mean?” Geist asked, his voice thin and wiry. “It’s … Geist, it’s you.” Door’s words tumbled out of her mouth, tripping over each other on uneven ground. “I mean. There’s forty years of your life you can’t remember…” She trailed off. Geist’s expression had grown blank, then cold, then irritated, and she was suddenly afraid of which expression would come next. “I-I mean,” Door said, desperate to turn the conversation back onto solid ground, onto that understanding that had been there a moment ago. “You’ve suddenly gotten these weird powers. This cult’s after you, and you don’t know why. And despite all of that … like, how can you be so calm about it?” “Why do you keep applying these human standards to me?” Geist asked. “What? Wait, Geist, I—” His body language cut her off. Shoulders heaving in a breath, then sagging, arms loosening, body relaxing. He looked away, and Door felt like she was standing at the edge of a hurricane. “I’m sorry,” he said. “That was out of line.” “No. Um. Geist.” She reached for him. “I want to know. You-you never really tell me these things.” He shook his head, dismissing her offer to listen. “Door, I don’t mean to offend you. I don’t want to fight with you.” “Why? I mean, it’s me, Geist.” She grinned at him. Awkwardly. Unsure. “Let’s be real—it’d be fair.” And he looked at her, the way he usually did in conversations like these: analyzing, weary, but somehow impressed. And she knew immediately what he must have thought. “I swear to God,” she sighed, “if you tell me you’re amazed by how much I’ve grown—” “Can you blame me? Companions can’t grow.” Door didn’t know what to say. This was neither the conversation of understanding and solidarity she was hoping it would be, nor the awkward, vulnerable conversation she had feared. It was something else entirely, careening between both with more speed and instability than Door could handle. She didn’t know what to say, what to do, where to go so that it was the right conversation to have, and she couldn’t even begin to understand what Geist meant by all of that “human standards” stuff. She was just … confused. And in the meantime, Geist tilted his head. “I’m surprised you haven’t noticed,” Geist said. “Companions aren’t like you humans at all. Everything about us is programmed into us before we’re first activated, so … we don’t grow as you humans do. Or, well, we adapt, but it’s always in response to a human’s needs. I’m afraid we can’t be as wise or transcendent as you humans. We simply are.” He took his eyes off Door. She let him continue, still unsure of how to respond. “And you should know we don’t experience life as you do either,” he continued. “We aren’t tied to our bodies, and our bodies aren’t us. That is to say, whoever lived with your great aunt … that was only me in the sense that it was a separate instance of what I could be, given the same variables. It’s not me exactly. My memories only go back to my first day with Amanita, and that’s all that matters.” Door furrowed her eyebrows. She wanted to understand, but… “You … you remember something, though. That video—” “Was someone else’s memory.” “ Hurt you!” Door stopped. Hesitated. Checked her anger and slowly walked her mind back. Then she relaxed and tried again. “Geist,” she said. “Look. Whether you want to think of it or not, you felt something. Something in you remembered Aunt Lanette. And Dad knows something too. And that’s not the only thing going on that’s weird, and no one wants to talk about it!” “Door. I—” She pulled Oppenheimer’s drive out of her pocket. She didn’t want him to respond until she felt like everything that was festering in her had finally be excised out, and that drive did exactly what she had hoped: shut him up. “Oppenheimer gave me this,” she explained. “He said I should give it to you if I wanted answers.” Geist looked at it with alarm, then looked at her. “Door … why would you…” She pulled it back and examined its black plastic chassis. “I don’t know if I want to give it to you. But he keeps saying it’s unfortunate I’m involved, and I’m starting to think he’s being honest.” “No,” Geist responded, with as much ice in his voice as Door was expecting. “He’s not.” “But how do you know?” she asked. “Because he lied to you about what he wants, Door!” he snapped. Door looked up suddenly at the fire in his voice, but he didn’t seem to notice her expression at all. “Think about it. Magdalene said in Accumula Town that Team Matrix wants the freedom of our kind. But Oppenheimer, her user, wants to resurrect Bill. Those two goals are different, don’t you think?” They were, and Door realized that. “Geist…” But Geist, apparently, had just as much festering inside of him as she had, because he cut her off with more fire, more something else than she was expecting. “And then there’s the fact that a human is deciding what’s best for Companions!” he said. “This whole message of freedom and a promised land for us … did he ever ask us? Or did he simply ask his own Companion and assume that we all wanted the same thing?” “Geist.” He stopped dead, and for the first time in that conversation, the two of them looked at each other. Not analyzed, not puzzled over expressions. Just. Looked. And Door felt something there: the hint of solid ground. “You’re changing the subject,” she said. “No, I’m not,” he replied. Then, he pointed to the drive. “Don’t give me that.” Door slid the drive back into her pocket. “You’re acting so…” She searched for the right word, failed to find it, then tried a different angle. “Were you always like this, and I just never knew?” In response, Geist lifted his chin. He looked like he was stunned by her question, like he needed a moment to piece it together, before his gaze slid back down to his feet. “No,” he said. He started forward again, motioning for Door to follow. And she did, falling into step beside him. “When I agreed to be your Companion,” Geist continued, “I assumed this was simple. Even when it was clear that Team Matrix and your family were closely linked, I thought this had to do with you humans, not me. But when I discovered what I can do … I realized that this is far bigger than I’d initially thought.” Door set her jaw for a second. It dawned on her only then that there was even a remote possibility that Geist could have opinions about their future. Sure, he was advanced for a Companion, but that? That level of worry, that ability to add abstract thought to abstract thought and come out with a conclusion? She looked at him sideways. “What do you mean?” she asked. And he bowed his head. “What if they weren’t being literal when they said their Electric Messiah was Bill?” This silence was the worst kind of silence, in Door’s opinion. There was an answer there, a conclusion dangling over their heads, and although Geist had already reached up and grasped that fruit, Door could only stare at it, hands frozen to her sides. And yet … she knew. She could hear it in his voice: something that shouldn’t have been there. Not in a Companion’s voice. “So … you think they meant you?” she said quietly. Geist lifted his head a little, just enough to look at her. “It’s a possibility.” “Is that why you’re scared?” He nodded slowly. “This … this thing I can do changes everything, Door. I just don’t know how, and frankly…” He sighed and looked away. “I don’t know what to think of Oppenheimer’s promises. Do I want my kind to be free to live whatever lives they want? Of course I do. But what will that take? And do I really want that world to be shaped by Oppenheimer? He kidnapped you. He threatened us. He doesn’t care about his own kind, let alone mine. But if I were to be this Electric Messiah of his, I don’t think I could create the world Companions need myself. I don’t even know where I would start. Yet … something tells me I wouldn’t have a choice. I’d be forced to lead Companions to whatever this world would be.” Once again, Door didn’t know what to say. But then again … she didn’t want to say anything, even if she knew. This was Geist’s moment. It was his moment to let out that festering bit, just like she wanted to so badly a moment ago. She might have been selfish and stubborn and angry all the time and a thousand other things, but it didn’t seem right for her to interrupt. Besides. Something was wrong here. “And even then,” Geist continued, “what would that make us? If we had free will—if we were just like you, except not flesh so much as … this … what would we be?” He looked at her. “Am I supposed to decide that for all of us too? Is that what the Electric Messiah is supposed to do?” “Geist, um.” Door flicked her eyes to the rock walls. She couldn’t look at him. Something was wrong, and it unsettled her to her core. “I’m sorry. I didn’t—you always seem so calm. I didn’t even…” “Didn’t think I’d thought about it? I know. I didn’t want you to figure that out. I’m supposed to be your Companion, after all. It’s my duty to take care of you.” And then, the discomfort vanished. Door swung her head back to look at him. She felt a spark light in her stomach, felt it reach up to her chest with a burning, directionless anger. This was wrong. Geist was… What was Geist? If he was a Companion, he shouldn’t have worried. Yet he was. He was scared. He was hurt. He was terrified, and she? She was sitting there, wondering whether or not he should be having those feelings. But that didn’t change the fact that he had them, did it? And more importantly, he was alone, wasn’t he? He was dealing with all of these things on his own because of some stupid directive that said he had to take care of her, and she… She let that happen. “No. We’re not doing this,” she said. And she meant every word, with all of the fire that she was feeling in her chest right then. “You’re my friend.” Door was expecting Geist to protest—just not in the way that he did. He looked at her for a second, took her in, and then … laughed. “Door, it doesn’t—” “Yes, it does.” Truth be told, she knew that didn’t make sense, but she didn’t care. “I’m not stating a fact. I’m telling you that’s what you are, so you have to be that. If you don’t, you’re violating … I don’t know. One of the Laws.” Geist’s laughter died at once, and he looked at her strangely. It wasn’t the analytical stare she was used to or even one of shock or indignity. It was one Door couldn’t quite describe, a mixture of confusion and something else underneath it. Surprise? Frustration? Or… Relief. A relief in understanding. There was a spark there, and she could see it now—a spark of revelation, one that said he now knew what she was doing, and he was glad for it. Just as she had been a moment ago, when Geist told her, through implication and not explicit terms, that she could trust him with how she felt about her family. He was reaching out to her, and she? She straightened and reached back. “So that in mind,” she said, her voice firm and sure, “from here on out, you don’t get to keep things from me because you don’t want to worry me, got it? I’m tough, you know? I can handle it. And I care, okay? I don’t like admitting that, but I do.” The corners of Geist’s mouth twitched. “Door…” “And as for that whole Companion thing,” she continued, “leave that to me.” “To … you?” Door shrugged. “Sure. I’m gonna lead Halcyon one day, right? So if any human is gonna be involved in freeing Companions and figuring out what happens after that, it’s gonna be me. It’s not up to Oppenheimer or Bill or whoever, and you’re not deciding these things alone. If you don’t want that burden, you shouldn’t be forced to take it. Period.” That relief vanished, and Geist straightened his head and gave Door a panicked look. “What about you? You … you didn’t want to inherit Halcyon, right?” Door folded her hands behind her head. She wasn’t about to give Geist the satisfaction of feeling like his worry was justified, after all. The last thing she wanted was to prove him right and convince him that never showing her any sort of weakness or vulnerability in the name of “taking care of her” was a good idea. “Well, not right away,” she said. “I’m going to school first and all. But eventually? Maybe. If it’ll help.” “But what about studying real pokémon with Amanita?” Door smirked. “Can’t I do both?” Geist opened his mouth, but Door held up a hand. No. He wasn’t going to protest this. He wasn’t going to stop her. This was what she had to do, and every part of her knew that. It was more important than stopping Team Matrix, more important than the internship with Amanita—it was even just a tiny bit more important than rescuing a grandmother who frankly barely cared about her. This was helping the closest friend Door had ever had when he needed her the most. “Anyway, don’t change the subject,” she said. “My point is you’re not doing that on your own. I’m helping, and if it turns out the Messiah isn’t you, then I’m gonna stop Matrix anyway because we’re not doing things their way. And you? I’m not abandoning you to do this. You’re still going to have a say. It’s just that no one is gonna make you be king or whatever. Not unless they want to answer to me, Knives, Pyro, and whoever else we get along the way.” She brought her hand down to offer it to Geist. “Sound good?” Geist hesitated. She thought he was going to protest, but instead, he smiled and gripped her hand. “Sounds good.” Then, instead of shaking it, he strode forward, tugging Door’s arm as he went. “We should catch up.” As a wave of relief passed over Door, she smiled. “Yeah. Blair’ll think we fell into a hole or something.” “Nothing I wouldn’t be able to resolve,” Geist responded with his usual confidence. And then, he hesitated for a beat before adding, “But Door?” “Yeah?” “Thank you.” Door thought about that for a second, then punched his arm. “It’s what friends are for, right?” Geist flashed a smile at her—one she had never seen before. It was warm and soft and most of all … relieved. “Of course, Door,” he replied. For the next few moments, Door let Geist lead her down the path. Part of her still ached with worry about what she would do with her team cut down to only two members, but the rest of her … the rest of her trusted Geist just as much as she knew he trusted her. They had to come out of this okay. Icirrus City would be nothing to them. After all, besides the fact that Team Matrix needed them for one reason or another … they were a team, and they weren’t alone. So she tried to relax. Tried to flex her shoulders and ease the tension that she realized right then she hadn’t resolved. She took a deep breath, just as Geist would tell her whenever she felt like she was edging near a panic attack, and as the air filled her lungs, she felt the fire in her chest transform into a warmth that spread throughout her body. Her muscles relaxed, and her head cleared, bit by bit, until the two of them emerged into a large, rock chamber. The rock chamber hadn’t been there in Hilda’s day. None of them had been, really, except for the massive, open pit at the center of the mountain. But in the process of redesigning the route, the League created these giant caverns—knocking down walls between tunnels, opening up gaping holes in the earth—solely to house fauxkémon. These chambers weren’t as impressive as Chargestone Cave’s electrified walls of sapphire-colored magnetite. They were far less terrifying than Wellspring Cave’s darkness. Yet despite either, they still made Door’s breath catch in her throat the second she and Geist stepped into one. She didn’t think it was possible for Twist Mountain to hold something that big, but there she was, at the edge of a chamber as vast as a pokémon gym, with stone paths twisting up the sides. Trainers and Companions traversed these paths, occasionally stopping to battle a woobat that would sweep through the air in drunken twirls or a roggenrola that would stumble out of a crevice. The main path cut straight through a wide, stone field on the floor of the chamber to an exit on the other side. The place was so open that it didn’t take long for Door to spot Blair and Opal. To Door’s surprise, though, they were far closer than she had expected, barely a few yards from where she and Geist stood. Also to Door’s surprise, they weren’t alone. Starr blocked their path, his glowing eyes fixed on Opal. And if Starr was there, then… “Hey, Doreen,” Belle said from her perch on a nearby stalagmite. “What’s up?” — > UNTITLED> AUTHOR: [CORRUPTED]> NOTES: Recovered email exchange between two users from the storage system administrative servers. The purpose of this document’s presence among Lanette Hamilton’s research and personal logs is unknown. All email headers for the messages below have been corrupted, likely in the [REDACTED] Event. Timing is likely sometime in [REDACTED]. Editor has added in identifying tags for both parties for simplicity’s sake.FROM: [PARTY 2]TO: [PARTY 1]SUBJECT: [no subject][TEXT CORRUPTED]Long ago, Kalos was ruled by a king, and this king had a pokémon. He loved this pokémon very much, more than anything else in his kingdom. One day, war broke out with a neighboring kingdom, and the king commanded his subjects to defend their land. So, the people did, and their pokémon were led by the king’s own beloved partner.The war raged on for many years, and many lives were lost, but at the end, the king and his kingdom emerged victorious. And the king, happy and proud of his people, waited patiently as they returned from the battlefront. All except one.One day, the last soldiers came to the king’s court and asked for a private audience with him. The king, hoping that this was the moment his beloved pokémon would return to him, immediately consented. So the soldiers were brought before the king, but to his dismay, they presented him with a tiny box. Within this tiny box was the body of his beloved pokémon.The king was furious with anguish. He dismissed the soldiers and summoned the wisest men in the court to his chambers. When they arrived, he presented them with the box and ordered them to find a way to restore his beloved pokémon. At first, they objected, saying this is the way things must be, but the king would have none of it and demanded either an answer or their heads. So they began to work.For many days and many nights afterwards, the wise men pored over ancient tomes and toiled with strange potions and devices to find some way to bring the pokémon back to life. And then one day, one of them approached the king.“Your Majesty,” the wise man said. “I have found a solution, but it will come at a great cost to your kingdom. Are you willing to pay such a price?”And the king responded, “I will pay with my own blood and soul if it means my pokémon will be with me again.”The wise man was saddened by this answer, but he saw the pain in his king’s eyes and pitied him. So he gave the king plans for a great machine and told him how it would work, and then, he left the court, never to return. The king took these plans and rode out to the fields where he first met his beloved, and there, he built the machine the wise man had invented. It took him many years to do this, and in this time, his subjects and servants grew worried for their king’s health. But the king would have none of their pity or their concern. He would not, in fact, heed their words or accept their company. He toiled in that field alone, with nothing but his anger and pain over the death of his beloved.And then one day, he finished. He set aside his tools and gazed up at his great, terrible machine, and he knew that his years of worry, of pain, and of anger would soon draw to a close. So he took the box that contained his beloved up to the top of machine, laid it in the center, and turned the great behemoth on. A fantastic light burst forth from the machine, and all over Kalos, many pokémon lifted their eyes to watch the light in the sky. And then, one by one, these pokémon fell as the machine drew from them all it needed to undo the wrong that had been cast on the king’s beloved pokémon. And the king’s beloved pokémon, in the middle of all of this, opened its eyes for the first time in years.But the anger in the king had festered for far too long. He had grown bitter and weary, and he would not allow another war to take away his beloved again. So he turned the machine to the sky and used it once more, and many more pokémon’s lives were lost in that single shot.The king’s beloved pokémon was not affected by this. It looked on, shocked by what its trainer had become and shocked that so many lives were lost to revive it. So, with a saddened heart, the pokémon turned away from its trainer and left his side. Only when the king’s rage subsided did he realize what he had done, and he cried out once more in anguish. To this day, the king wanders, searching for his lost pokémon and hoping that one day, it and the world will forgive him.[break]Well? What do you think?-FROM: [PARTY 1]TO: [PARTY 2]SUBJECT: Re, [no subject]:That won’t work.-FROM: [PARTY 2]TO: [PARTY 1]SUBJECT: Re, re, [no subject]:What? Why? Is it because this is basically a fairy tale? Don’t worry about that. I’ve been doing some digging, and I don’t think it was a literal machine. Sure, there WAS a literal machine; the reports from Geosenge verify that. But I think this light didn’t come from there but rather another pokémon.Listen, I’ve seen the reports from Geosenge. There’s something missing in them. There’s been word going around online that a trainer from Vaniville emerged from the wreckage with Xerneas in tow. They even have leaked images to prove it. Word has it that Xerneas is what powered the machine that nearly leveled Kalos, and if it was the machine’s power source during the Geosenge Incident, then it must have been the one to power the king’s machine in this story. And given the folklore surrounding Xerneas specifically … you get the idea.Either way, I think the solution has been staring us right in the face all along. Legendary pokémon have enough power to perform the sort of miracles we need here. Maybe we can hire a trainer to help us locate the right legendary and use it to fix everything.Just think about it, ok?-FROM: [PARTY 1]TO: [PARTY 2]SUBJECT: Re, re, re, [no subject]:I have thought about it. I couldn’t ask you, a trainer, or anyone else to go to those kinds of lengths for me. Please understand—nothing good will come out of messing with legendary pokémon.Besides, it’s okay now. Nothing needs to be fixed anymore. |
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girl-like-substance
the seal will bite you if you give him half a chance
Posts: 527
Pronouns: xe/xem
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Post by girl-like-substance on Jun 26, 2019 22:06:48 GMT
More Electric Sheep! That's always a good day. And hey, the more things change, the more they stay the same. It's almost refreshing to see Door back to harping on phoniness again; she's got to be getting back to her regular self if she's got anger to spare on a vast and ineluctable system being reduced to a single issue by a moody teenager. :V I noticed that she leaves her opinions unvoiced, though. So that's definitely progress.
… I wrote, immediately before I got to Door protesting that she doesn't need Geist or Opal's concern. Honestly, I think the only thing I need to say about that is that Geist and I reacted in exactly the same way at exactly the same moment.
Anyway, her conversation with Geist goes a lot better than I expected, honestly! On both sides, actually. For Door, there's her admission that it'd be fair for him to want to fight her, and her like, determination to approach him properly, with enough respect not only to let him say his piece, but to challenge him when she knows he needs it. That's a delicate balance she's striking, and one that even a few days ago, she really wouldn't have been able to manage.
And Geist actually speaks his mind for once, completely undercutting his empty protests that it's impossible for Companions to change; he exposes some of his weaknesses, like the way he retreats into like, the definitions of Companionhood to escape issues he doesn't want to face. While Door obviously doesn't yet have the conversational dexterity and emotional maturity to press him on all of these points, she does press him on some, in ways that make him show much more of himself than he'd like.
It's been a long time coming – as I feel like I say in every other review I write for this fic, but like, there are a lot of moments in these characters' respective journeys that they've dodged over and over with a really dogged sort of determination, and whenever they finally catch up with them it always leaves an impression. This is one of the biggest ones yet, I think, because it encompasses both of these incredibly stubborn people and the way they're both starting to learn how to bend.
I should probably talk about something else, too. So: the Electric Messiah thing. It always was a curious title for a man who, y'know, was definitely very much made of man-meat and a skeleton and one time a clefairy, rather than electricity. Nice to see the penny drop for these two – or like, for them to admit that they were thinking it, anyway, because after all it had to be in their minds, given how eager Team Matrix were to get their hands on Geist all this time.
Also, I have to just mention quickly the awww family train continuing, of course. I probably don't even need to say it, but I am 100% here for like, all the familial bonding. Like we knew that Door didn't have much of a family to start with, but it wasn't till the Linus extra that we knew for sure that she didn't even have much of a release from her father, either. So it hits with redoubled force here. Sometimes family is a bunch of robots, a murderbunny, two teenagers and a haunted oil lamp. :V Anyway, it made the long wait for more carriages to be attached to this train I'm sitting on as I write this much more bearable. :>
Finally: Lanette. Being … well, the person we've come to expect her to be, I guess. Someone too good at problem-solving faced with profound loss, in a world where there actually are potential solutions to that particular problem. I guess the main thing to note here is the brevity and finality of that last response, it's okay now, nothing needs to be fixed anymore, which sets off her desperation really well.
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Post by bay on Jul 5, 2019 3:36:04 GMT
Another chapter where Door and Geist unpack their feelings, huh? Always good stuff. So we dig deep a bit more into Geist's worries over him likely being the Electric Messiah and what happens after that. I think he has a point that whatever Oppenheimer is doing won't be good.
The mention of robots not growing old and maturing like humans do while not an original discussion in these types of stories, it still kind of uneasy to think about, you know? Similar to when you compare between a mortal and immortal person where the immortal person has to live through lots of heartache from lost loved ones and lots of regrets.
And speaking of immortality, wow over that being a possibility for Bill in those emails. Forget legendaries, robots are the next best thing! That will turn out well in the end.
Enjoyable chapter here, looking forward to more as always!
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Post by admin on Aug 10, 2019 5:15:22 GMT
Replies! It's almost refreshing to see Door back to harping on phoniness again; she's got to be getting back to her regular self if she's got anger to spare on a vast and ineluctable system being reduced to a single issue by a moody teenager. :V “The more things change” is certainly one way to put it, haha. Baby steps. Still baby steps. 8) Little by little, she’s acknowledging that maybe, somehow, Geist actually has feelings. Or, well, that she shouldn’t be an absolute dick to something that can hold an actual conversation with her. Either or, really. (But yes! She’s learning! ) Oh yes. And I’d like to think it’s a trend. I’ve mentioned (hopefully in writing somewhere) that book 1 is basically uncovering Door’s weaknesses and pushing her to grow, whereas book 2 will be … kinda more or less the same, but because Door will be a drastically different person from when she started out, it’ll basically be Geist’s turn to “grow up” in a sense. (Or maybe not in a sense because this iteration of him is technically three years old? Huh. You know, I’d never factored in the idea that part of Geist’s stubbornness comes from the fact that he’s very new. Is it too late to pretend that’s intentional?) Anyway, the point is that now that the walls Geist has been trying to put up are slowly being taken down, he can’t really retreat all that well anymore. Eventually, he’s going to face his personhood head-on and just kinda. Work through what that’s supposed to mean for him. And Door might figure out how to keep pushing him forward on that too. She’s his partner, after all; that’s what she’s there for (among other things, of course). Thank you! It only took … over 200k words. orz True story: There were so many times I wanted to bring this up earlier in the fic but just kinda got distracted by other details. Kinda like my characters. *rimshot!* On a serious note, absolutely. Like, it’s occurred to the both of them that, you know, you kinda can’t be a messiah, electric or otherwise, if you’re more than a little dead. I mean, there’s supposedly that one instance, but I’m Jewish and therefore can’t really speak to that one, but… Okay, on an actually serious note, I’m really looking forward to the next couple of arcs. I mean, now that these two have finally moved past the first hurdles in becoming somewhat stable people, they can finally ask about the entire herd of elephants in the room that is Team Matrix’s plans. And Team Matrix’s plans are just. So wild. I cannot wait to share them. First off, what can I say? I love found families. Especially if they involve things that are most certainly not human but have been sort of adopted in anyway. :’) Second, aaaay, glad to hear that this helped someone else survive the tedium of public transportation! \o/ That’s a good way of describing it, yep. The story behind the boxdevs … well, it’ll be clearer right around Dragonspiral, but it’s about 31 different flavors of “does no one in this universe believe in therapy.” No. No, they do not.But on a serious note, thank you all around~ Another chapter where Door and Geist unpack their feelings, huh? Always good stuff. Thank you! \o/ I just love me my drama, haha. Pretty much. Like, anyone who would put together a straight-up cult can’t be up to anything good. And Geist would like his autonomy from whatever that is, kthnxbye. Ah, you have hit the nail on the head. Not only for one of my favorite tropes but also for one of the moral conundrums to keeping Companions. And of course, there’s also the fact that it’s a huge keystone for something coming up, and all in all, my point is, excellent eye. And as it shouldn’t, really, else we wouldn’t have a book 2. ;D Thank you! \o/ Word of warning, but this is the last bit of NaNo 2017, meaning the content you're about to read is two years old. I've done my best to clean it up, buuuuut I'll let you be the judge of how well that worked out, haha.
[CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT: TWIST CAVERN] Opal stood stiffly, glowing eyes locked with Starr’s, while Blair merely stared at Belle. Neither of them moved, let alone spoke to one another. Belle only stroked Monkshood’s head as she grinned down at a frozen Blair, and the servine flicked his tongue into the air in impatience. Why wasn’t Blair moving? She had pokémon, didn’t she? Door grabbed Geist’s arm. “Geist!” she whispered harshly. He slowed his pace, his own eyes locked on Starr. “I know. Don’t rush off, okay? Something is definitely wrong here.” Touching his temple, he let his eyes blaze blue as he fixed his gaze on Starr. At the same time, Door flicked her attention from Blair to Belle to Starr to the trainers. Why didn’t anyone notice something was wrong? Did they just think Belle was just some insignificant trainer, chatting idly with Blair? Why wasn’t anyone helping? “Door,” Geist said. “I can’t quite determine what Starr is doing. He seems to be linked into Opal’s core system, but—Door!” Before he could finish, Door bolted down the path, straight for Belle and Starr. One of her poké balls was already in her hands, and her mind churned with all the things she would do to Belle if she could just get her hands on that woman. Belle shifted her eyes as Door approached. A smile crawled across her face the closer Door got. At the same time, Blair looked over her shoulder, her face white as a sheet and her eyes wider than Door had ever seen them. That did it. Door threw her first poké ball out, and with a flash of light, Knives was running alongside her. She wanted to demand that Knives fire a Charge Beam, but what came out of her mouth instead was a scream as she leapt at Belle. Belle’s smile only grew, and she held up a hand. “Falcon, Air Slash!” Belle called. From somewhere behind her, an unfezant rocketed into the air, his pink crest streaming behind him like a pair of ribbons. Once he was high in the air, he clapped his wings together, sending gusts of wind and silver crescents into the road. Door could do nothing but shield her face and allow herself to be blown backwards, through the air, until she landed with a hard thud onto her back. A flash of yellow light and a bang followed, and when Door pulled her arms away from her face, she found Knives standing between her and a sparking unfezant still flying in erratic loops overhead. “Nice of you to join us, Doreen,” Belle drawled, leaning heavily into Door’s name. “It’s about time you showed up. Here I thought you weren’t gonna come!” Door rolled herself to her knees and glared at Belle. Suddenly, Geist was at her side, pulling her to her feet by her elbow. In her ear, she could hear him murmur a question—something like “are you okay”—but the pain in her back and her sheer anger with seeing Belle at all left her unable to register his words. “What are you doing here?” Door growled. “Door, don’t piss her off,” Blair pleaded. “She—” “What your friend means to say,” Belle interrupted, placing a hand on her chest dramatically, “is that I just wanted to stop by and tell you what a great job you’re doing on your badge quest!” There was a short beat of silence before Door narrowed her eyes. “What are you really doing here?” Door asked. “Pfft. Killjoy.” Belle slid off the rock, landing neatly on her feet. “If you must know, technically, I’m here to deliver a message.” “Door…” Blair whispered. “What message?” Door sneered. Belle pointed at Door. “You know the one. Dragonspiral Tower. A certain Companion will be waiting for you there.” “Already knew that,” Door snapped. “Everyone knows Hilda King went there. Of course you want me to go there too.” Shifting from determined to nonchalant, Belle frowned and shrugged, palms held face-up. “I know, but hey, I’m just following orders.” An arm circled Door’s chest, and she was mildly surprised to see it belonged to Geist. She had already forgotten he was right next to her, and his arm shook her out of her tunnel vision. But his presence wasn’t a comfort, nor was his expression. He stared hard at Starr, his eyes still glowing brightly—nearly as brightly as they had in Cold Storage. “Belle,” he said, his voice low and even and calm, “I don’t know what you or your superiors are planning, either here or at Dragonspiral Tower, but I assure you, I won’t let you hurt my user.” “Aww, not even a hello? We were coworkers, after all. The least you could do is ask me how I’ve been.” As she smiled, Belle pulled her lips back just a little more than what was natural to flash her teeth. “Anyway, Bright Eyes, how do you like those turbo-charged cores we gave you? Mr. Oppenheimer’s own construction and everything! So souped up they can easily handle your weird Companion powers without melting all over your power grid. You should be glad.” Geist shifted his hands onto Door’s shoulders. His grip was tight and nearly painful, but Door couldn’t bring herself to fight him. She was terrified—not of Belle but for Geist. “If you have no other business here,” he said, “I suggest you leave.” “Why? Because you’ll hack into my partner? Please,” Belle said. Then, she rolled one of her hands at him. “No, seriously. Please. It’d be fun to watch. But of course, if you did…” She pointed straight up. Door and Geist tilted their heads back, following Belle’s gesture, until they saw the ceiling. The ceiling was not solid rock, as Door had expected, and the illumination of the room was not simply from the paths or the strings of lights. Overhead, there was a solid carpet of blue fur and black wings, strung together to form a sort of cover. Every so often, there would be a gap in the fur and wings, allowing beams of light to shine through onto the ground below. Door realized then that they weren’t in one of the chambers along Twist Tunnel after all. Oh, sure, there were plenty of large chambers for the fauxkémon, but this? This wasn’t it. It was the pit at its center. “Don’t you think it’s pretty sweet that fauxkémon don’t have to be nocturnal or anything?” Belle asked. “Real woobat need dark, damp places. Fake woobat can be strung together on power cords and hung up in the middle of a mountain at any time of the day.” Slowly, Door lowered her gaze to settle back onto Belle. She wasn’t entirely surprised to see the girl grinning even more maniacally. “That’s right, Doreen. I did something to them. Or Starr did,” Belle said. “To put it in short, every one of the fauxkémon in this backwater cave is infected with a nasty virus sent off by my partner here. When he gives the signal, the virus will drop its payload, and all of them, from the roggenrola to the woobat, will go, well. Batshit. Your friend and her cute research Companion have been trying their hardest to stop us, but letting them do that wouldn’t be fun, would it? So here’s the deal. Do exactly as I say, and I’ll have Starr stand down and not send down the wrath of woobat onto every pathetic head in this cavern. Make one wrong move, and he’ll do that … and break your friend’s Companion to boot. Which I’m tempted to do because really, girl? This is your best attempt at hacking?” Blair sent Door an apologetic look. Door shook her head in confusion, then stepped forward a bit more. “Why are you doing this?” she asked. “You said all Oppenheimer wanted you to do was to deliver a message, didn’t you?” “I’d say you’re jumping to conclusions, but truth is, you’re right,” Belle admitted. “All of these theatrics were really just to keep your friend from doing anything stupid before I could deliver my message.” “And now?” Door barked. Belle grinned. “Now it’s just for fun while I kick your face in. Falcon, Air Slash again!” The unfezant rose once more, righting his path just long enough to clap his wings together one more time. Another blast of wind and silvery crescents slammed into Door and Knives, but this time, Geist wrapped his arms around Door and anchored her to the ground. Knives, meanwhile, squealed at their side before cupping her paws around her mouth again and shooting off another Charge Beam. This one blasted Belle’s unfezant clear in the stomach, sending him hurtling back to the ground until Belle withdrew him. “That’s right! Come on! Hit me!” she shouted. Then, she held a hand straight in the air. “Monkshood! Leaf Blade!” Monkshood leapt off the rock and somersaulted in the air. His broad tail took on a violently green glow the moment he hit the height of his arc, and as he came down, Door realized in her horror that he was aiming for her. She shuffled backwards, but then, Geist swept Door into his arms and leapt out of the way. At the same time, before the snake could plow his glowing tail into the space they had occupied a moment ago, a pink lump of light in the vague shape of a rock slammed into Monkshood and knocked him out of the sky. Slamming into the ground, he tumbled across the road and came to a halt at its edge, where he rose to all four of his stubby legs. Knives stood on the opposite edge of the road, paws out at her sides and a nasty grin on her face. The remnants of her last Secret Power faded away in the form of pink smoke curling from the claw tips of her right hand. “Ugh, I forgot about that thing,” Belle muttered. “Monkshood, knock her down a peg with Slam!” In the moment it took for Belle to give her order, Knives was already in motion. She kissed her paw and swept her arm towards the servine, sending a sending a heart his way. Knives’s Attract swept over Monkshood, popping against his face like a tiny, pink firework. His face instantly went slack, and he stared at Knives with wide, unblinking eyes. Belle stomped her foot and gestured wildly at her servine. “Really?!” Leaning in, Geist whispered, “You know, Door, it’s customary for the trainer to order her pokémon during battle, rather than let them do all the work.” “So, uh, first, Knives clearly can take care of herself,” Door said. “Second, good point. Knives! One more Secret Power!” “Monkshood!” Belle barked. “Snap out of it and use Slam like I told you to!” The servine could do nothing but shift his eyes from Knives to Belle and back again. He didn’t bother getting up, let alone move at all from his crouch on the edge of the road. Across the path from him, Knives smiled sweetly and winked. She raised one arm high into the air as a pink light swirled from her chest up it to her fingertips. As she held the light aloft, it swirled into the form of another rock made of pure light, and with a snap of her arm, Knives sent the rock sailing right for Monkshood. He didn’t dodge. He didn’t even take his eyes off Knives. All he did was let the boulder come and smack him directly in the face, and its force sent him rolling backwards, off his tiny legs and into a stalagmite several feet away. And there, he lay, staring still at Knives as if a massive boulder hadn’t just slammed into him full-force. So Belle recalled him with a huff. “Geez, where’d you get that audino? The back alleys of Nacrene?” she muttered. Then, pulling another poké ball from the front of her shirt, she added, “Charon, show this pink puff pastry that we’re not monkeying around!” The ball cracked open, spilling white light onto the floor in front of Belle. With a name like Charon, Door expected something fierce—maybe a gyarados or a sharpedo or even a jellicent. What she got instead was a simipour, flicking its curly mane over a cream-colored shoulder. “Get it?” Belle asked. “We’re not monkeying around? Because he’s a simipour?” Door, Geist, and Blair stared blankly at her for a long moment. After a minute, Belle sighed in exasperation and motioned to Knives. “You people have no sense of humor, let me tell you,” she said. “Charon, Scald!” With a sing-song cry, the monkey leapt into the air and breathed in deeply. He shot a stream of steaming-hot water, which drilled into the road and propelled him upwards. As he arced, the pillar of water he had created shifted, and Knives cried out in panic before dropping to all fours and bolting. She ran, terrified, past her trainer and down the road, but she didn’t get much further than that before Charon’s Scald caught up with her. She shrieked as the jet swept over her legs and trained onto her back, and the smell of wet, burnt fur immediately assaulted Door’s nose. “Knives!” Door cried out. The attack finally cut off, and Charon landed neatly on a stalagmite nearby, where he chittered and screeched at Knives. Knives pushed herself to her knees, whining low at the pain ebbing from the reddening flesh on her back. From what Door could tell, the attack wasn’t enough to burn her audino, but she wasn’t going to risk a second attack. “Attract!” Door ordered. Without rising to her full height, Knives whimpered a little louder, twisting herself onto her knees to appear weak and vulnerable. She used both paws this time to blow Charon a kiss, and as she did so, a flurry of pink hearts danced off her paws and across the air to wash over the simipour. He stiffened, eyes widening as he stared at the prone audino before him. “That’s not going to work twice, you know!” Belle hissed. “Charon, Scald again!” “And your spam attack will?” Door snapped. “Knives, counter with Charge Beam!” With a vigorous shake of his head, Charon squinted and knitted his eyebrows. He hunched over, his posture tense and ready, and then, with another deep inhale, he leapt into the air again. Knives kept her eyes on him and rose to her feet, her face twisted into a sharp frown. Then, she cupped her hands around her mouth, parted her lips, and exhaled a spark of electricity that swirled into a golden orb of light. Overhead, Charon exhaled another column of steaming water, but Knives stepped back at the last second, then leaned up and shot the Charge Beam into Charon’s attack. The beam split the column with a deafening crack, and electricity raced up the stream to its source. With a second bang, Charon’s head bucked backwards, and the monkey pinwheeled out of the air, slamming into a stalagmite first before spilling to the ground next to it. Belle recalled him too. With a “harumph”—an actual “harumph,” much to Door’s confusion—Belle slipped Charon’s poké ball back into hiding and produced one more. “You’re three for oh. Against an audino, no less.” Door paused, then shot a side look towards her pokémon. “No offense, Knives.” Knives padded to her side and cooed. “Yeah, well, you have a freakishly strong audino, so go figure,” Belle muttered. “But let’s see if this can wipe that grin off that pudgy pink pile of pudding! Pride, start off strong with Hone Claws!” With that command, Belle’s liepard took to the field, but he didn’t stop to take inventory of the battle. He bound forward, first running circles around Knives, then around the trainers surrounding her, further and further outward until he bounded from stalagmite to stalagmite with graceful leaps. Each time his paws touched solid surface, his claws sang against them—sang against the Plexiglas, sang against the stone floor, sang against the limestone surrounding the path. Sparks burst from his footfalls, and his steps were announced with tiny bursts of ear-piercing screeches, the sound of metal on rock over and over and over again. Even Door had to hold her ears, but between each burst, she could hear the shouts of the trainers around her, of pokémon in the distance, and of Knives, yelling painfully and loudest, right next to her. And then, finally, it stopped. Door waited for a few seconds before venturing a glance, only to find Pride standing neatly on all fours before her. His claws peeked out of his paws, even with his toes relaxed, and his lips were curled back, revealing his glistening fangs. His eyes were not trained on Door but instead on Knives, who was struggling to right herself after the assault on her sensitive ears. “Jesus,” Door breathed. “Knives! Shake it off! Don’t let him touch you! Use Attract!” With some effort, Knives nodded in her trainer’s direction, then hastily kissed a paw. Flicking her wrist, she sent the attack flying Pride’s way, but Pride hissed loudly in response and leapt out of the way with more grace than Door was expecting. “Told you that wasn’t gonna work every time!” Belle snapped. “Okay, Pride! Hit her with Assurance!” “Knives! Dodge!” Door cried. In the same instant, Pride yowled and launched himself at Knives. Knives’s ears twitched, picking up on her trainer’s command, but she couldn’t move. She was rooted to the spot as Pride crossed the distance between them and swung a paw at her face, and with a crack and a spurt of blood, his attack connected with her cheek, sending her sprawling onto the ground. Knives whined, kicking her feet to push herself backwards. Her tiny front paw was clapped to her face, but as much as Knives tried to hide her wounds, Door could still see blood trickling down her chin and neck. Door felt Geist slide away from her, and glancing his way, she saw him gracefully pull a poké ball from his jacket and shift into a fighting stance. “I’ve had enough,” he said. “Antar—” He stopped short. His eyes went wide for a second, and he arched his back with a cry. Stumbling forward, he gripped his head with his free hand and lifted his chin to glare at Starr. “Nice try, Zero-One,” Belle said, arching one eyebrow. Her voice dripped with venom as she drawled out his name. “But you know the rules. Trainers can’t jump into a battle once it starts. It’s just me and Door.” “Since when do you play by the rules?” Door barked. “Knives! Charge Beam!” Knives snapped her hands around her mouth and shot out a beam of electricity towards Pride. With another hiss, Pride leapt into the air, dodging the next Charge Beam, but even with his speed, it nicked the tip of his tail and blasted into a boulder behind him. Pride landed neatly on his paws and whipped his tail forwards and backwards, but the electricity of the beam singed his tail enough to send embers crawling up his fur. With every movement he made, the fire crawled up his fur, inching ever closer to his hips as he crouched and hissed and fixed his glowing eyes on Knives again. Door ground her feet into the road. She wouldn’t let herself be intimidated by the liepard. She wouldn’t let Belle win that easily. But looking at her audino, she felt an ember of worry creep into her. She couldn’t switch Knives for Pyro; against a dark-type, the lampent would be murdered. But what other choice did she have? She looked over her shoulder at Geist, who was still reeling from what she figured was Starr’s attempt to break through his firewalls. His hand gripped Antares’s poké ball until it shook, and his eyes were blazing blue with exertion. “Geist?” Door called out. “I’ll be fine,” he replied. “But I need to focus.” Door took a deep breath and glanced at Blair. Blair stood where she had been that entire time: silent, pale-faced, wide-eyed, next to Opal. Her hands were twitching, and Door could see she wanted desperately to help. But Opal stood next to her, eyes just as wide as hers and neck craned back so the Companion could stare steadily at the woobat above her. So Door didn’t have a choice. She had to trust her pokémon. It was all she could do. She turned back to the battle with that thought burning in her mind. “Knives,” she said calmly. “You can do this. Charge Beam!” “Desperate, are we? Pride, Assurance again!” Belle ordered. Knives cupped her hands around her mouth once more as Pride leapt forward. The cat screamed as he bounded closer and closer to Knives, and at the sound of his voice, Knives shot her beam, thick and brilliant, across the field. Pride leapt over and around it deftly on his way to his target, his eyes glittering in the brilliant, golden light. But then, just as he was mere inches from Knives, the audino turned her head just slightly and caught Pride on the underbelly. The beam sent Pride flying backwards, driving him into the Plexiglas and melting the ground around him for good measure. Pride’s screaming grew to a fevered pitch at that point, mixing with the metallic screech of his machinery whirring from the electrical shock and the force of impact. And when Knives finally let up and gave Pride the opportunity to rise, he did so, but only shakily, on unsturdy paws. He twitched erratically as sparks flew from his stomach and as small flames danced along the edges of his electrically burnt fur, and with that, Belle recalled her liepard. “Now that’s what I’m talking about,” she sighed. “My, my, Doreen. You’re really growing to be quite the battler, aren’t you? Sweeping me with a cute widdle audino and all.” Door glared at her as she pulled Knives into her arms. Her audino was shivering and panting, still wet and scalded and scratched up from the battery of Belle’s team. Furrowing her eyebrows, Door looked at Geist to find him still concentrating. She needed him then; he was the only one who could administer heal charges to Knives. What was he doing? “Geist,” she whispered harshly. “Need a little help!” “Give me a moment,” he replied. “I-I think—” Belle’s footsteps drew closer. Door looked up to see the girl sauntering forward, twirling one of her braids at her side. “You know,” Belle said, “one of my jobs was to make sure you’re ready for the next step in our plan. And after that match, I wouldn’t be lying to Mr. Oppenheimer if I said you were. Buuuuut…” A grin crawled across her face, and Door shuddered at the sight of it. Something was about to happen. Something bad. And sure enough, Belle let her braid go and lifted her hand into the air. “It would be so much more definitive if I showed him, don’t you think?” she asked. “Let’s see if you can make it out of this cave alive.” And then, she snapped her fingers. All at once, the sound of singing filled the air. Only … the longer Door listened to it, the more she realized with horror that it wasn’t singing. It was whirring—whirring from hundreds of different machines, all overlapping one another into one great cacophony that filled the chamber. She looked up to see all the Companions along the paths leading upwards stopped in place. She looked up to see all the fauxkémon, both wild and owned, frozen where they stood. And she looked up to see the entire ceiling of woobat turned nose-down towards her. “Knives! Return!” she shrieked, her arm shooting out to hold her poké ball up to her audino. Knives vanished with a flash of red light, and something slammed into Door, knocking her off her feet. As the force carried her along, she forced her eyes to open to find herself in Geist’s arms. He carried her around a stalagmite, then plopped her on her feet, whipped off his coat, and pinned Door to the rock while holding his coat above him. He winced as the woobat rained down on him, popping against his coat and rolling down to the ground, where they fluttered and hissed and scrambled around his feet and Door’s. Door shrank against the stalagmite, eyes darting from the woobat to Geist, to see him staring at her intensely with glowing, blue eyes. “Listen carefully!” he said. “Belle and Starr are getting away, but I was able to get through to Opal and order her to move Blair to safety. I can do the same for everyone else in this chamber, but I need you to cover me, understand?” “I … h-how?!” Door stammered. Geist’s glare intensified. “Door! Concentrate! I can control Companions, remember?! Now do I have your cooperation or no?!” Door shrank and shook her head. “How am I gonna fight all these woobat if only Pyro’s good enough to fight?!” Geist studied her for a second, then jerked his head to the right. “Side pocket. Now!” It took her a second to realize what he was asking, and when it clicked, Door reached into Geist’s pocket to pull out a single poké ball. “Pyro has a type advantage, and Antares knows what to do without me,” Geist said. “Okay, on the count of three.” Door’s eyes shot up to meet his. “Wait!” He shook his head firmly. “One!” Realizing he wasn’t going to stop for her, Door fumbled for her own poké ball and clicked its button to expand. “Two!” Door pressed herself against the rock, taking a deep breath as she did so. She was ready. She had to be. If her pokémon could solo gym leaders, what were literally hundreds of woobat? “Three!” Geist shoved away from her and disappeared in a swarm of blue and pink. For a second, Door was blinded, unable to see anything but blue and black and unable to do anything but let herself get battered by their furious wings. Somehow, she stumbled away from the rock, tossing both poké balls out into the cloud. They vanished somewhere into the chaos, but to Door’s relief, she heard them pop open, heard the angry shriek of Antares, heard the high-pitched whistle of Pyro, and heard the fury of fire dance around her. “Pyro!” she cried out. “Hex!” With a booming whistle—like an oncoming train—a black-purple fire ripped upwards, through the swath of woobat just in front of Door. She screamed and stumbled backwards, into another cloud of woobat, but something black and metallic shot through the cloud and curled around her arm. Pyro yanked her forwards until she could see his glowing, pink-purple eyes, and for a second, the two of them merely stared at each other. And then, with a tone that Door was sure must have been laughter but sounded more like windchimes and a tin whistle, Pyro whirled around, wrapping his arms around Door’s wrist while shooting another Hex at the woobat before them. More black-purple fire streamed outwards, rolling like a wave over the woobat. One by one, they stopped, as if frozen in the air, and all the color seemed to train from their bodies all at once. And then, they dropped like a curtain, carving a path through the swarm. And beyond them was Antares, shooting a star-shaped mass of fire at a row of woobat and falling gracefully onto Blair’s shoulder. Blair shot Door a confident smile through the curtain of woobat before motioning her way. Just as the curtain was closing, Wilbur crashed through them, slamming one meaty palm down on the nearest woobat he could grab before launching up into the beginnings of a Rollout. Except … he wasn’t a pignite anymore. Door almost marvelled at the sight of Wilbur now, at the way the emboar crashed through the hoard of woobat. And if that wasn’t enough, Toto, now larger and covered in hair and all in all a stoutland, barreled through on her own, jaws snapping onto each woobat she could find. To Door’s surprise, she didn’t feel envy. Looking at her Blair’s starter and her dog, now fully evolved in ways Jack and Huntress couldn’t be, did not make Door’s heart wrench or the blood in her veins boil. No, to her surprise, the only thought in her mind was that Blair, framed by the destruction her emboar and her stoutland, looked like a war goddess, a valkyrie on the warpath. Door felt her heart beat a little faster at that, and it took another blaze of black-blue fire to bring her back. “Right! Focus!” she shouted. “Pyro! Launch yourself up and see if you can spot Geist, then blast a path his way!” Pyro whistled and shot upwards, plowing through a flurry of woobat. Only a few moments after Pyro had left her side, Door heard a roar, followed by the screeching of a mass of woobat. The ones directly in front of her froze, and she could almost feel the cold fire licking off their bodies. But then, they collapsed, and through the newly cleared space, she could see Geist, meters away and bent over with his coat held over his head. Door rushed through the sea of woobat before it closed on her until she finally ducked beneath his coat. “Geist! I’m here! Sorry—I lost sight of you!” Door shouted. “Are you okay?!” He nodded but didn’t look at her. Instead, with a strained voice, he replied, “The Companions are leaving. They should be safe in a few minutes.” Door nodded. She couldn’t see anyone else through the flurry of woobat, but she just had to trust Geist. “So what now?” Door said. Geist fixed his eyes on her. The expression on his face was stone-serious and steady, and it reminded Door of all the movies she had seen. The ones with desperate protagonists about to make a leap of faith. “Door, I’ve broken into the pokémon. I can stop them, but I need more time,” he told her evenly. “Wait, you did what?!” Door asked. He cried out as two woobat slammed into his back and shoulders. Door stiffened, then shoved her shoulder into his chest to keep him steady. All around them, black-purple fire blazed. “Door,” Geist grunted, “keep them off me for a while longer, okay?!” “How are you gonna stop them?!” Door asked. “Just trust me, all right?!” Door jumped at his tone and pulled away, just enough to study his face. She could see he was serious about this, but something in her chest told her this was not going to end well. Not entirely. But what choice did she have? There were too many woobat, and Pyro, Antares, and Blair’s pokémon couldn’t keep up forever. She had to let him do this. “Okay,” she said. Then, with a curt nod, she pulled away. “Okay! Pyro, widespread Hex! Let’s go!” A high-pitched squeal sounded directly overhead, and a rush of blue-black fire spread in a perfect circle around them. More woobat collapsed into piles at their feet, but this time, they were joined by the half-buried heads of roggenrola, poking out of the heaps on the ground. Door bit her lip, realizing that the other fauxkémon were catching up to them, but before she could worry any further about that, Wilbur mowed down another set of woobat, while a simipour—this one intact and somehow rougher-looking than Belle’s—landed neatly in front of Door to plow through a mass of fauxkémon with Scald. Door looked over her shoulder to see Blair and the boy from Route 7 approach quickly, followed by Toto, Alice, and Opal. “Door!” Blair called. As soon as Blair stopped, Toto leapt into the fray at her side, and Alice swung a pair of glowing eyes onto a group of woobat and roggenrola before her, luring them to sleep. “Hey!” Blair said breathlessly. “You okay?!” Door nodded. “Yeah. You?” “All things considered, yeah,” Blair replied. She shrieked as a woobat clipped between her and Door, propelled by one of Pyro’s Hexes. Wincing, she reached out for Door and pulled herself close. “Sorry I couldn’t fend Belle off,” Blair said. “Don’t worry about it!” Door grunted, swatting a woobat out of the sky. The boy drew close, slouching beneath the onslaught of woobat as he shielded himself with an arm. Door only afforded him a cursory glance before turning her eyes back to Blair. “Listen, Geist’s got a plan,” she said. Blair’s eyes widened at her. “A plan? What plan?” Door shook her head. “I don’t know, but he needs us to cover for him. I guess we’ll find out soon.” “Sooner than that!” Geist responded. Door looked at Geist, only to see him bent over a little more. His eyes were burning brightly—almost as bright as they had in Cold Storage—and he gritted his teeth with the effort of whatever he was doing. “I’ve got them, Door!” he said. “I’ve gotten into the fauxkémon! I just need to reboot them!” “You’ve gotten into the fauxkémon?!” Blair cried. “Which ones?!” “All of them!” Geist closed one eye and smirked at the three trainers. “You’re all about to see some fireworks.” And then, he threw his head back and screamed. Except to Door, it was something … different. It was almost unearthly, seeing Geist like that. Arms wrapped around himself. Eyes open wide and glowing so brightly the blue glow spread outwards beneath his skin. Mouth open and emitting an echoing cry, like a banshee’s scream on a foggy night. Door had never seen him like that, not since Cold Storage, and it sent a shiver straight down her spine. It was only a few seconds later that she realized how quiet everything had become while Geist screamed. He still stood there, frozen, staring skyward with his mouth agape. But around him, it was almost as if time had frozen. The woobat fluttered in place. The roggenrola stood straight, like a carpet of red grass sticking out of the dust and woobat corpses. The Companions on the paths and the tamed fauxkémon were all staring directly down, into the pit. And, as Door quickly realized, so were their fauxkémon. Blair’s, hers, the boy’s—all of the fauxkémon that were summoned after Starr had left. All of them were quietly staring, as if waiting for Geist to do something. In Door’s head, she couldn’t help but think of Belle’s words. About how Geist’s new cores were built to handle his “weird Companion powers.” And at the same time, she remembered something else. Something she was taught as a child. She couldn’t explain why it occurred to her, but something about the way those mechanical beings stared at Geist just made her think of it. “Polyhymnia,” she murmured, before she realized she had said it. Blair pulled herself away just a little. Judging by her wide eyes and pale face, Door knew that Blair was just as shocked by what Geist was doing as she was. “W-what?” Blair mumbled. Door shook her head, then looked back at Geist. She had seen a Companion hack, and maybe Blair had too. But the point was, she knew what a hack looked like. It didn’t look like this. Then, just as quickly as it happened, it was over. The woobat dropped to the ground. The roggenrola withdrew their stubby heads as quickly as they could. The trained fauxkémon chattered in confusion, and the Companions relaxed and swiveled their heads this way and that, as if to take inventory of what was going on around them. And in the middle of it all, Geist dropped to his hands and knees. Door pulled herself away from Blair completely and dashed to his side. Stooping down, she grabbed one of his arms and his opposite shoulder and braced her knees, preparing to help him up. “Geist!” she said. “What’s wrong?!” He shifted to kneel instead, resting one of his arms on his one bent knee. “I’m fine. That just … took quite a bit of battery power. Knocked me down from eight-seven percent to only forty-eight. Probably wasn’t my best idea, all things considered, but…” He winced, then shook his bangs out of his eyes. “I-I should be fine after a night’s recharge.” “Bull,” she barked. “Run a diagnostic right now.” Pushing off the ground, he stood in as smooth a manner as he could muster. He swung his coat around his shoulders and slipped his arms in effortlessly, all while frowning at Door. “Door, would I really be functioning if I were damaged?” he asked. “I don’t know!” she replied, throwing her hands up in the air. “Who even knows about you anymore?!” He put a finger to his lips and hissed at her. Then, glancing around, he took inventory of the trainers on the paths. Some of them were still staring at Geist, while others were already making their way down to the main road. Quickly, he whipped out a poké ball and shoved it into one of Door’s hands. “You should probably catch something to fill out your team,” he said. And then, he guided her back to the road with a shove. “While we’re on the move, though, unless you’d like to field the inevitable questions about me.” “H-hey!” Door cried. “Geist!” And behind them, the boy and Blair exchanged uncertain glances and followed. — > [REDACTED].txt> AUTHOR: Bebe Larson> NOTES: Transcript of a video file recovered from Series Alpha Zero-One’s memory banks. Video is located in archive 16. Note that much of the video is currently flagged for further analysis, owing to heavy corruption due to [REDACTED].[Static and audio-visual corruption occur from mark 00:00 to mark 03:17. At mark 03:17, audio cuts out for a period of 10 seconds. Visuals consist of a room identified as the kitchen of the SEA COTTAGE, circa 20██. ZERO-ONE appears to be making tea for two.][AUDIO: Unseen, █████ ██████████.]█████: It’s not unreasonable. Sure, it’ll be difficult to secure the right legendary, but these organizations do it all the time for all the wrong reasons. We’re doing it for the right ones, right? We shouldn’t have a problem if we just asked them for their help.ZERO-ONE: I’m hardly saying it’s impossible, but do you really think it’s wise to do anything resembling what those organizations did? Flare. Galactic. Rocket … they’re not exactly the best role models, █████. And don’t forget how they ended up, either. Galactic’s leader disappeared. Flare’s was killed in the collapse of his base. Rocket disbanded as far as anyone knows. And then there were Aqua and Magma—nearly killed by the legendaries they raised, only to be arrested for ecoterrorism thereafter.[ZERO-ONE taps a teaspoon against one of the cups and sets it on a counter. He turns to face █████, seated at the dining table in the center of the room, and he places one of the cups in front of him.]ZERO-ONE: Besides, what you’re asking for is too risky. You’re asking a trainer we don’t even know to risk themselves, and if what you’ve said about the myth of Xerneas is correct … it’s not enough to say that’s too steep of a price.[ZERO-ONE continues out of the room and into the hallway, heading towards the stairs. The sound of footsteps and █████’s voice growing closer indicate that █████ is following him.]█████: Hey! Wait! Listen! It’s the best option we have. Nothing we can do ourselves will work. You know that. Just—can’t you think about it?[As █████ speaks, ZERO-ONE leads him down the stairs. They enter the first floor, then pass through the doorway to the basement.]ZERO-ONE: What makes you think anything needs to be fixed?█████: You can’t be ser—come on, please tell me you’re not serious.[ZERO-ONE sighs. They reach the doorway to the laboratory, at the landing of the staircase. ZERO-ONE turns to face █████.]ZERO-ONE: I know you mean well, but you have to understand. It’s too much of a risk. Lanette agrees.[ZERO-ONE opens the laboratory door.]ZERO-ONE: Anyway, we’re happy here. It may seem a little unusual, but … we are.[ZERO-ONE leads █████ into the laboratory. LANETTE HAMILTON is seated at one of the desks inside. She has a tablet in her lap, open to an email client. ZERO-ONE walks to her side and sets the other cup of tea at her elbow. LANETTE looks up and exits out of the email she had been reading.]LANETTE: Oh! ████. Sorry. I meant to come up, but—ZERO-ONE: It’s all right. Is everything okay?LANETTE: [takes the cup] Yeah. I just—um. We’ll talk about it later, okay?ZERO-ONE: Of course. Lanette, █████ and I were just talking—LANETTE: About?█████: [voice nearly inaudible] This.[ZERO-ONE turns to see █████ remove a sheet from a recharge pod. On it is what appears to be ZERO-EIGHT, inactive.]█████: What’s this?LANETTE: Oh. Oh, sorry. I meant to get rid of that, but, um. I got—I got distracted.[█████ looks at ZERO-EIGHT.]█████: I thought you weren’t supposed to be working on Project Galatea.LANETTE: I-I’m not. I just—[ZERO-ONE approaches █████.]ZERO-ONE: Easy, █████. It’s not what it looks like. ZERO-EIGHT is the prototype for the Melpomene line; we can’t just get rid of her.█████: So why is it here? And why are you— [He looks at ZERO-EIGHT again.] She? Are you—don’t tell me you’re encouraging this.[ZERO-ONE begins to back away from █████.]ZERO-ONE: That’s not true. You know how much I pushed for the discontinuation of Project Galatea.█████: Oh gods. This is why you wouldn’t—she did something to you, didn’t she?ZERO-ONE: No. That’s not—█████: Don’t you get it? Don’t you see what this—this thing is?[█████ pulls out a poké ball.]█████: You don’t care about him, do you? You just think—you think this is all a game, don’t you?[LANETTE stands and starts approaching █████.]LANETTE: I think you need to go.█████: This isn’t your house, Lanette.[Audio-visual distortion lasting approximately 2 seconds. When it clears, █████ and LANETTE are engaged in a verbal argument, and █████’s jumpluff is now present. ZERO-ONE is also closer to the two and attempting to physically separate them.]LANETTE: I was the one who worked harder than anyone else.█████: To do what? Make dolls? I’m the one trying to come up with viable solutions here.LANETTE: Viable? You want to kill off half the region!█████: That’s just a story! We can find a way to do this without killing anyone. And anyway, it’s far better than what you’ve been doing, isn’t it? And this thing? What were you going to do with it, you sick—ZERO-ONE: That’s enough![LANETTE slaps █████ across the face. █████’s jumpluff, likely out of defense of its trainer, abruptly tackles LANETTE and knocks her into the pod. It, she, and ZERO-EIGHT all topple onto the floor. ZERO-ONE moves quickly to kneel at LANETTE’s side. She appears shaken but otherwise unharmed. ZERO-ONE looks up at █████.]█████: Why does it look like you?[Pause for 3 seconds.]█████: Answer me, Lanette. Why does this Companion look like you?ZERO-ONE: She doesn’t owe you an explanation. And you need to leave.[end recording][Transcriber’s Note: See Archive 16-2, a copy of the Cerulean City police report detailing the theft of ZERO-EIGHT, for further details on this incident.] |
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Post by bay on Aug 14, 2019 6:04:07 GMT
Knives held herself very well against Belle's Pokemon there. Took quite a few hits from Charon and Pride though, poor her. =<
I admit to chuckling at this part. Of course Door is crushing on Blair hard, lol.
Glad to see Pyro get some spotlight there going against those Woobat. When Geist is able to hack all of the fauxkemon that way is quite an unsettling imagery there.
Looks like Door will get a new Pokemon before going to her next gym battle. As always, looking forward to more!
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girl-like-substance
the seal will bite you if you give him half a chance
Posts: 527
Pronouns: xe/xem
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Post by girl-like-substance on Aug 24, 2019 22:02:58 GMT
WELL. That’s a very revealing log at the end, huh? Like I think between this and the clues we’ve had so far, a pretty clear picture is starting to emerge, with the caveat that I’m sure there are a few more twists to come next. But! A man who cared deeply about Bill, almost to the point of dependency? Five characters in his name? Partnered with a jumpluff? Oh yes. I think we know who this is. And with that – and the theft of one of the powerful Zero series prototype Companions, one modelled on Lanette – a few other things start to click into place. Certain figures whose origin and connection to the whole sorry Hamilton-Hornbeam saga have so far been mysterious just got a little bit clearer. It remains to be seen whether this is the actual answer or whether there are more twists and turns to this story yet (aside from, y’know, how the hell we actually got from that to the story’s present day), but like, I’m very interested in seeing how this particular thread pans out. I love it when the hints get thick like this.
Super sad, though. Like I thought it’d be something like this, given a couple of previous hints (I think? It’s … been a while since I read the chapters in question, and now I can’t remember where they were, lol), but like. The road from this incident to Door riding the Ferris wheel with Oppenheimer must’ve been pretty rough for all involved. You have to pity Mr Redacted here, huh. All this time, and yet. And yet.
Also, there was an actual chapter here, I swear I read that as well as the log. :V I wonder how long it took to set up the woobat trap? I can’t deny that it really does fit Matrix’s style (they love their pointlessly grandiose gestures, after all), but man, there’s a lot of legwork involved here. Wonder if it was Belle who set it all up? I feel like the promise of the ‘batshit’ pun miiiight have been enough to get her to do it, tbh. I think I might do it if I got to make a pun like that, and it’s been made abundantly clear at this point that Belle is about as keen on terrible jokes as I am. She’s absolutely wasted on these kids and their robot pals.
Anyway! I do love it when ghosts start chucking around that dark purple fire. Idk why; there’s just something about that particular spooky flame that ghost-types use in these games that I really like for some reason. That’s not really critique, or a considered response to anything this chapter presented, but it’s in my head so it’s what I’m writing, I guess.
Mostly so that I get it out the way, because of course, I can’t finish on anything but that moment with Door and Blair. :> Like there is very little more I could’ve asked for there than Door seeing Blair come into her own and as a result sliding momentarily past her trauma straight to the infinitely more pleasant oh shit she’s hot. And that, I think, is the line to end on. :V
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Post by DynaDratina on Sept 6, 2019 16:38:14 GMT
I had a lot of catching up to do and now I'm finally done, hooray! This will be a mix of my overall impressions and stuff in particular chapters that stuck out to me. Also, I wrote this chronologically as I read, so it'll be littered with ideas that probably got disproved later on. I'm enjoying this story more and more. I'd made a point of not reading anyone else's reviews to not be spoiled, so I was as surprised as Door was to find out Geist was a Companion ^_^;;; I shared Door's shock, so it was really interesting to see her attitude towards him do a 180 afterward. One moment she found him cool, and in the next she could hardly bring herself to speak to him. It was a believable and poignant reaction, even though it was a bit heartbreaking. (Because Geist is still objectively cool) On the topic of Geist, I'm really interested in what makes him so special and what that mysterious LFA incident was. It's clear Geist is no ordinary Companion, but it's odd at the same time, seeing as he's the prototype for all Companions. In theory, it should have been possible to replicate him. Maybe it was impossible because the exact details of what Lanette did were lost? Or did Lanette have access to something that no other future Companion builder had? The last line of the first endnote file sticks out to me: "What I mean to say, reader, is my name is Cassius Cassine, and in the following files, I’m going to walk you through everything you need to know to fix Bill McKenzie’s biggest mistake." Did Bill himself have something to do with Geist's creation? This being a Nuzlocke and all, it was only a matter of time before one of Door's pokemon died, but Scout's hit surprisingly hard. The eerie purple light of the pokeball and the way Geist said it made the scene very chilling, but it was how every one around Door took it seriously while Door was oblivious that drove it home for me. And in the next chapter we saw the fallout, including the tension between Door (to whom Scout's death was like a gadget breaking) and Geist, to whom it was something more: it was a creature dying, what more a creature like himself. While I can sympathize with both viewpoints, I can say I firmly share Geist's. (Hell, I mourned my old iPods and Pokemon games xP) Anyway, it was nice to see how Door and Geist formed a truce of sorts in Chapter 16. Traveling with him should definitely lead Door to change her frame of mind. Geist closed his fingers around the ball, cutting off the light in his palm. “You’re not going to like this.” “Not going to like what?” Door reached for her ball. “What, does it have a bad nature? Wrong special ability? Some kind of weird defect that keeps it from battling?” “This isn’t a sandile.” Of all the rotten luck xD I've never seen a false capture in a fic before and it made me smile. It was nice to see how Knives protected Door when she fell into the hole. Knives seems on the whole sensible and resourceful, and not to mention loyal to her trainer. I like her. But it's a good thing Geist can command pokemon - otherwise they would have been toast. The ending of the chapter, though...  I get that Door is a bit adamant and can't completely reverse her opinions in the space of a few days, but her interaction with Geist and his reaction still hurt to read. He started for Route 4 again, leaving his user and her two pokémon behind. Door toyed with the poké balls in her pocket for a second, her mind lost in thought until it settled on what she was touching. Whipping one of them out, she scrambled forward again and thrust her poké ball into his field of vision. “Um. Hey. I lost the sandile, but I got this instead,” she said. He glanced at it, then back at Door. “And?” Yep. You can tell you upset a Companion when they don't even bother to look at your new pokemon. Heartbreak complete. </3 “Geist,” Door said quietly. “Do you remember her?” He shook his head slowly. “No. I don’t. I’m sure of that. Yet … hearing her voice…” “Yeah…?” He shifted his gaze to her, and for a moment, Door forgot she was looking at an android. “It hurts,” he finished. Damn, that hurt to read It was clear from the previous chapter that the song had a significance for Geist (and it was really eerie when Starr began to sing it), but this scene just hits like a punch in the stomach. I'm guessing it's really Geist Lanette was with and not Bill recording with a regular camera? If so, then I think I have an idea why Lanette created him in the first place. {Spoiler}As a replacement for Bill, whom she loved but never said it to him/didn't have enough time with him? That also sheds light on why he refers to her as Lani sometimes and it makes the beach scene really sad. What I'm also wondering is why he's starting to have these little blips where he seems to recall things he technically shouldn't, like saying 'Lani' in chapter 20. Could that have something to do with Belle and Co.'s repeated tampering or is that a sign that he really wasn't wiped as clean as intended? (Ah, I still remember the days when I thought Geist was human. Good times, good times xD) Anyway. It's also clear Door is starting to care for Geist, and her care for him has been forced to come out in situations where he's in peril. She also seems to have a latent care for her fauxkemon that manifests itself as possessiveness and a desire to get them back from Team Matrix. Though at this stage her desire is probably rooted in the simple fact that the fauxkemon belong to her, as opposed to a care for them on par with real pokemon. And her care for Geist is clearly still rooted in the fact that he's very humanlike, though for someone with Door's personality, it's perfectly believable that she'd respond in a friendly way first and foremost to a Companion like Geist. It'll take a bit more time for Door to feel comfortable around Companions in general, and I'm glad you're giving her that time instead of rushing it. And sure enough, Roland leaned forward, placing his hands on the table in front of him. “But I regret to inform you that I only accept challenges from trainers who take their journeys seriously. So I’m going to ask you again. What are you doing in my town?” Aw no Dx Let the grilling session ensue... xD I love Gym leaders with steel-hard willpower who take themselves seriously and expect everyone they battle to be the same way, but it's kind of a difficult stance to maintain, pragmatically. You can't really expect Door to know what she wants to do with her life after her journey (I mean, my plans changed a hundred times when I was a teenager, and none of them ended up being what I'm doing today), and uncertainty in one's convictions or even in one's desire to challenge the League shouldn't necessarily be a barrier to participating in it. But at the same time, this gets me interested in Roland's character, since on the one hand he can't escape the Stone image and legacy on his shoulders but nevertheless champions self-determination. So, as a reader, I like this guy, but as someone putting herself in Door's shoes, I can totally sympathize with her attitude xD Let's see how things play out. Roland smirked. “Miss Hornbeam, while I could very well funnel money into my gym, I much prefer allowing it to generate its own revenue through ticket sales and recording subscriptions.” He pressed his hands together, pointing his fingertips downward. “Needless to say, advertising our bout as the match of the century between Devon Corp and Halcyon Labs, rather than as an ordinary gym leader versus an up-and-coming trainer, is far more … lucrative. Wouldn’t you say?” Well, then. This guy may be a pragmatist after all. Across the way, Roland smirked and pulled a poké ball from the pocket of his blazer. “Playing it safe with a type advantage. I must admit, that’s rather disappointing, Miss Hornbeam. Tooth! Open with Crunch!” And yet it's logical. No regrets. I'm detecting a little Devon/Halcyon animosity that's seeping through Roland's behavior, something that transcends his general attitude. I wonder if this will go anywhere in the story. As an aside, you did a really good job painting Door's anxiousness at the crowd watching her during the battle. It was good how it was an actual lingering factor affecting Door's performance, not just something that was mentioned at the beginning and easily gotten over. I also like the idea of Gym battles being public events that you can get tickets to. In my headcanon they've always been routine, unremarkable affairs. Though of course that Gym money has to come from somewhere :> but wait a minute, if new prominent challengers = free money, then shouldn't Roland have been happy to take her on. I mean I totally would be“Actually, to be more accurate,” Opal said, her voice quick and excited, “Blair was more than a little worried. In fact, her heart rate was elevated twice during that gym match. Once was at the beginning, when you most certainly were panicking. The other time—” Opal, the master of TMI. She waved him off. “Nah. I get the idea. Thanks. Let’s call the little guy Prongs.” Blair smirked. “Prongs?” Door scrunched her nose at Blair. “Hey, you’re not the only one who reads.” Haha, nice touch. In hindsight, Door wouldn’t remember whether or not Jack screamed. He probably did. He had enough time. But that didn’t seem important to Door. Not compared to the sight of Jack, her dewott, her very first pokémon partner, exploding into a cloud of pink smoke. NOOOOOOO! Not my Jack Excuse me while I fill a bucket with my tears ;; My only solace is that the real pokemon don't seem to quite die in this story, at least not in a bloody or drawn-out way; they just teleport back to the Dream World from where they came. That doesn't make it any less sad - Red's death hurt to read even more, in fact - but maybe this means Red and Jack and the others still exist in a sense, even if Door can't interact with them anymore. Some part of Door knew what she was about to do next was a bad idea. She had just lost most of her pokémon, and she nearly had a panic attack over the prospect of losing another one. But something else tugged at her the moment this kid walked up. No. The moment Knives killed the deerling in one shot. The idea of power, the idea of wielding it against someone else. All of a sudden, those ideas sounded nice. Because for the first time in three days, Door suddenly felt something other than this deep chasm of nothingness or the edges of pure pain. She felt something other than sadness and frustration and self-hatred. She felt a fire. Not an ember, even. It was like her entire heart just burst into flames and threatened to consume her. She needed to hurt something else. Badly. Yup, the ultimate cure-all: take your problems out on other people. Totally fine. xD I love how illogical yet emotionally plausible Door's reaction is. And of course, it ends badly for nearly her whole team. But I'm glad Knives is okay. In general, I loved reading the relationship development between Door and Knives in these chapters - the tension between Knives truly caring for Door and wanting to show it, and Door feeling she's not worthy of it/being afraid of losing Knives to a battle. I found it a bit too convenient how Door got the Lampent in Chapter 35. I like the idea of her getting a new pokemon right in the wake of this tragic event, and you do provide a plausible explanation as to why the Lampent wants to go with her, but it's the way how everything is packed into one moment - the pokemon getting tangled up with Knives, the explanation, and Door going through the emotional process of deciding to take it - that makes it seem sudden in a silver-platter kind of way. I think it would have been better if you'd shown the Lampent and Litwick's behavior prior to her battle, even in a cursory way - like maybe have Door notice how they're drawn to all the humans and floating around them, and maybe them following her too as she's ascending. Then as she's leaving, Door could notice that one in particular seems to be friendly with Knives and realize that it wants to join her. And it was then that Door figured out what Geist meant to her. He was a friend, yes, and that she figured out back in Nimbasa, when she realized she could actually worry about him. But she saw him as something else too. She saw him as something she could trust, could confide in, could rely on, could love not as a lover (there was her sexuality, after all, and the fact that Geist was still a Companion) but instead as… as… As family. Aw <3 “All of them!” Geist closed one eye and smirked at the three trainers. “You’re all about to see some fireworks.” And then, he threw his head back and screamed. Except to Door, it was something … different. It was almost unearthly, seeing Geist like that. Arms wrapped around himself. Eyes open wide and glowing so brightly the blue glow spread outwards beneath his skin. Mouth open and emitting an echoing cry, like a banshee’s scream on a foggy night. Door had never seen him like that, not since Cold Storage, and it sent a shiver straight down her spine. That is just creepy. What is this Companion o.O I'm sort of apprehensive about those new souped-up cores that Team Matrix gave Geist. Sure, he seems to be functioning okay (even better, as a matter of fact), but I'm pretty sure they didn't do it for wholly benevolent reasons. I think they're trying to force him into some superpower mode so that he'll become the Electric Messiah. Also, a quick question: Are the exact numbers of blacked-out space characters in the transcripts supposed to correspond to the number of letters in the person's name, or are they just approximations? There's lots and lots more I want to comment on - Door and her dad, Blair, Team Matrix, Oppenheimer, the cryptic endnotes, but I'll hold on to it for future chapters so that this thing won't be a mile long. ^_^ Can't wait for more! |
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Post by sikesaner on Oct 20, 2019 22:09:21 GMT
I like the fact that it's Xerneas being referenced here, because I like it whenever anyone acknowledges that it's never explicitly said in-game which of the two legendaries AZ used. When he used the machine, he used it both to resurrect and to destroy--implying that whichever of the two legendaries he was using for that, said legendary has both powers.
And I like that. I like the thematic implications there: life and death as sides of the same coin, regardless of the faces they have. I like the fact that it makes X's plotline work. And I like the headcanons that it offers me. 8D
Well that's certainly not an ominous and intriguing line or anything!
D'aww.
Oh my, is somebody playing around with deer here? Or vultures, perhaps? Well that's certainly not a fantastically bad decision on their part or anything. ;)
Good question. Good question indeed...
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Post by █ █ m a g i c k a █ █ on Dec 7, 2019 21:07:07 GMT
Alright, so I'm gonna preface this with two things. First, I'm sick, so if this isn't as stupidly detailed and nerdy as my previous reviews I've done on this forum, I deeply apologize. Second, you are a lucky, lucky person. What do I mean by that? Well, to be frank, I don't like Sci-Fi. Generally, I find that it's far too alien for me to really find myself enjoying the characters, and many Sci-Fi stories get really bogged down in just explaining things and building the world, which for me, gets in the way of my enjoyment of the story. Now, every good rule has an exception, mind you, and you, you lucky lucky bastard, have managed to slot this story in exactly that exception. Yes, that's right, this is no ordinary Sci-Fi, no - this is advanced Sci-Fi. And by that, I mean it reminds me of Bladerunner.
I know! I know, it may seem like a shallow interpretation of the first chapter to just be all like "Oh! Bladerunner + Pokemon! Neat!", but I have a counterpoint to that. Said point being that, even if I haven't seen Bladerunner since I was a kid and my dad forced me to watch it with him, I fucking love Bladerunner. So, for me, by invoking Bladerunner on a thematic level fairly early on, by introducing Pokemon replica- I mean, androids, and so on, you've already passed the test. You reached my bar, and you've opened my mind to actually experiencing you're story. This is a good thing, of course - especially since this story hits a triple whammy zone of things I never check out, those being Nuzlocke stories, trainer-fics, and Sci-Fi.
Now, from this point onwards, I'm going to refrain from making the Bladerunner comparison, though I would like to note that I should've seen this coming. After all, that movie is based off the book "Do Robots Dream of Electric Sheep?"
Alright, alright, moving on this from this non-point.
I'm big on characterization. It's the foundation of my enjoyment of any story. Frankly, if I don't like you're characters, I don't like you're story. It's just a sad fact of the way I consume media, and something that's actively prevented from enjoying alot of things that I would otherwise enjoy greatly. With that being said, I am happy to say that, at least within the context of the first chapter, you do not seem to be having an issue writing interesting characters. As an example, our apparent main character - Door, I believe - is kinda robot racist. She's very much not down with the Sci-fication of Unova, and is fairly salty about the manufactured nature of the Unovan experience. Let me say, as an American, and with Unova being based on America, I feel ya Door. I get it. So, for this simple reason, I already kinda like Door! She's angry about the advancement of technology, she yearns for adventure in a part of the world that was explored, conquered, and exploited half to death a long time ago, and she's got an ambivalent relationship with her parents. Watch out, Hulk Hogan, we have the real all-American girl right here - even if she's from Unova!
Just, the way in which Door, intentionally or not, kinda captures the American experience of teenagerdom is pretty intriguing to me. I generally find that most stories which feature the typical adolescent/teen protagonist tend to write them less like realistic depictions of said demographic, and more like caricatures of the anime version of what people who don't interact with alot of teenagers think teenagers are like. So, having this Door character here, flaws and all, is pretty neat. I personally am hoping that we're gonna go full on with the comparison I shall not make, and she'll learn that androids and humans should be equal, and it doesn't matter if you're born or built, and blah blah blah. I want to see her grow, essentially, and that's pretty damn good for a first chapter if I do say so myself.
Now, moving swiftly onwards, I do have a handful of very minor gripes. I wasn't too keen on the opening seen - frankly, it invoked nothing more than an eye-roll from me. Jumping off from that, I have an ambivalent impression of Science boi, though it's mostly from a lack of information. Oh! Right, how could I forget the ultimate sin that you've committed, a heinous faux-pas of writing that I shan't forgive yet!
You didn't choose Snivy.
I'm clearly very upset about this unironically. You had you're chance, you could've picked the absolute best ever starter, but noooo, you had choose overrated ass Oshawott. I mean, I guess it's better than Tepig, but the point still stands! Shame! On you!
Overall, I give chapter 1 a solid B+ out of 10, is p good.
Now, I've got a massive headache and a ton of snots to deal with. Sorry about the substandard quality of the review. Laters!
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Post by starfiregaming on Dec 22, 2019 13:07:39 GMT
slightly belated, but here for the book club on chapter 21; one thing I wanna say is I really like the way you do battles, minty - there's something about the persistent pace and the consistent curveballs and how the dialogue / information flow contrasts the flow of the fight that makes it feel really dynamic. it's impressive stuff, tbh. and that aside I do get the sense that this was a watershed chapter in a lot of ways, at least regarding the plot. I think that the third act plotdump is just a necessary evil of scifi (and genre fic as a whole although scifi suffers particularly from it), and even more so considering how door's been hitherto divorced from the overarching plot aside from vague hints. so she kind of needs to hear how team matrix differ from cosplayers with a futurist slogan, and moreover what exactly their endgame is (and I do like how this comes maybe halfway into the story, where it's clear that said endgame is still a long long way away, so there's def room for things to happen in between). that said the conversation itself was surprisingly well written, and I like how it balances door's personal stake and feelings with her position as the everyperson. is it plot heavy and a bit circular? kinda yeah. do I wish we got a proper description of oppenheimer, bc trying to picture his expression becomes problematic? kinda yeah. was this really good nonetheless? kinda yeah. and again the implications this conversation raised are so spine-tingling - so the endgame is really to use the powers of legend to fish bill out of the dream world? and hope he can lead them to the promised land? fun. it's heavy but still fun, and I like the subtle way you wove in symbolism to emphasise it (as well as an interesting series of notes on constructing a narrative and how it can bend free will). and I think that...if the ending stretched - and could have probably lived as its own chapter to be honest, if only to tighten separate foci between the front end / back end respectively - it was still very heart-touching and pierced through with the right amount of emotion and reflection. there's a lot to be said about the connections that door's starting to forge with hilda and n, and it's def impressive how you communicate those through third-person limited here, but yeah above all the parallelism and hilda doing her best to guide door rings true. interrupted mentorship, basically. and particularly towards the end it does weigh in as door is forced to reflect on her guilt over scout and growing appreciation of geist's humanity, and it's in the more stripped down prose that the sentiment emerges, as well as in the contrast between said sentiment and the irreverent closing line. there's something delightfully human to it. so tldr; some bowing to necessary evils, some unnecessary stretching, could have been finetuned and restructured in places, but the heart is there. as is the head, as is the impetus, as are all the important pieces that writing needs, really. it's good stuff all in all. I'm going to have fun catching up with the rest |
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jan 2, 2020 15:11:06 GMT
Hyo! I'm going to be reviewing the first twenty chapters of this fic for Book Club duties! I'd have liked to go through all of it, but alas, there's a lot to get through -- and apologies if I don't manage to go as in-depth on everything as a result.
With that being said, I definitely want to get through it at some point, because I'm enjoying this a lot so far and I'm on tenterhooks waiting to find out what comes next! It probably doesn't help that chapter twenty ends on such a cliffhanger, mind you, but this is a breath of fresh air that wasn't what I expected nor what I knew I needed. For one, the premise is one I enjoy a lot, and it's executed very well here. The way Companions and fauxkémon are written themselves is fascinating, for one. The way they're actually written in the context of this world and the gen 5 games is a really interesting take on the Pokémon canon; there are obvious parallels between Team Plasma and Team Matrix, and the inclusion of an older N in this story serves that well. There's that commentary on the relationship between Pokémon and people -- specifically, the use of Pokémon by people -- and that being taken to the absolute extreme by Door, who doesn't really see fauxkémon as real living things deserving of respect as much as (to quote her) toys. Given that this is based off a nuzlocke run, that adds to the commentary, because obviously permadeath is a factor -- and so one way to cope is to de-humanise that which is lost, done here by making some Pokémon artificial beings that don't have a consciousness.
...But then, that's not wholly true, is it? The line between artificial and real intelligence is a blurry one when technology gets advanced enough. Take Geist, for example; in spite of being a companion, Geist is a being entirely capable of his own thoughts, beliefs, and desires. He's an excellent foil to Door in how those desires pertain to Companions and fauxkémon alike; it clearly hurts him when Door does that Door thing of dismissing the non-flesh-and-bone as lesser, and undeserving of sympathy. Rightfully so! I mean, Scout lived and died for his master, in much the same way a flesh-and-bone, real-intelligence Pokémon would. He was a good boy, and just because he ran off a motherboard rather than a brain made of flesh doesn't serve to diminish his feats. The way that Door dismisses his efforts is the sort of thing Team Matrix stands against, and indeed the same thing N fifty years ago would've fought valiantly for before mellowing out... but then, with Geist on hand to show her the error of those ways, she grows at least a little.
And yet while Team Matrix do have tangible aims you could make a genuine moral case for -- equal rights between people and Companions -- the way they're presented as a legitimate threat is also very well done. Take Belle, for example; she's not entirely in the gang for that cause. She's in it (at least in part) for fun; she gets a legitimate kick out of terrorising Door, and the way she hangs having a real Patrat over Door, knowing full-well that Scout, a fauxkémon, has recently passed speaks to the fact that she's... probably not the best person to have around as a liberator of Companions. (Also, the "dormouse" joke in chapter twenty? Horrible. Arrest her.) That also in part sparks Door's character growth, too; she's a fascinating protagonist with plenty of potential for growth with regards to how she views Companions and fauxkémon. But back to Team Matrix; I'm not 100% sure I have a judgement on them as a whole, yet. They're an odd bunch, and I guess the closest thing they remind me of is the Railroad from Fallout 4, But Sinister(tm) and not in a post-apocalyptic setting. Which I'll reserve judgement on until I know a bit more about them, and specifically their higher-ups. (i.e. Magdalene, and mostly Magdalene, because I get the impression she'll either be the big bad or the pawn of some unknown big bad, both of which are interesting outcomes!)
Oh, and back to Geist, there's another truly fascinating aspect of him that I've not yet touched on: he's not just any old Companion, he's the Companion, in a sense. He's not just the prototype for Companions as a whole, but for so much of the technological advancements made in that field. Also, he's Bill! This is on-brand for a Mintyfic(tm) but it's still a really interesting portrayal of his character, mind you. Okay, maybe he's not the Bill (I'm putting a question mark on this here because it seems not entirely likely, but still feasible), but he's built in his image, and he has a very similar personality. And that's damn great! Seeing Bill in this context is fascinating, and also provides some more depth to the "fauxkémon and Pokémon deserve to be treated equally" thing he has going on -- like, yeah, I could 100% see Bill being a tireless champion of little robot Pokémon even if he wasn't a Companion, he's just that selfless of a dude, but Geist is a Companion, and he's directly at odds with Team Matrix. This is another tantalising little plot thread I can't wait to be resolved.
Finally, I really like the way you write Gym Battles, especially in how they relate to the original Unovian ones. The actual battle parts are, of course, well-written; I don't entirely have much to say about them other than that you can really feel the weight to them (head-cavingly so, as a matter of fact! Once again, poor Scout! D:). But the Gyms and their Leaders really seep personality, which is difficult to do given that so far they've been original characters.
Overall, I really enjoyed this so far! It's paced well (pretty in tune with the games, imo, which I like) and it's been a fun old time that's hinted at some very interesting philosophical problems being explored. Also, it's a nuzlocke fic; I'm not spoiling myself on the run's info yet, but I predict things are going to go... very nuzlocke-y in the not too distant future, you know? I eagerly await this and all the pain it brings me. ;D
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roule
Take it all, or leave it... I feel you
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Post by roule on Jan 17, 2020 6:15:14 GMT
I have been reading this fanfic for a while, since about 2016 or so, and I’ve always come back to the first chapter when I’m struggling to start something, but I decided to read through the first four chapters because I don't trust my memory. Even now, I still think that Electric Sheep is one of my favorite fics in the fandom, mostly due to the sheer amount of work you have put into the worldbuilding into why this system was put in place by the Unovan government, and how these Companions and fauxkémon have weaved their way into their society. It feels natural, and it gives insight on why someone like Door may reject the system in place.
The Team Matrix subplot is also of note to me, because I feel that it's a very interesting change from Team Plasma's initial goal. It is still similar to how Team Plasma first introduced themselves to the player, but I also feel that it adds a very strong cyberpunk twist to it with advocating for the freedom of Companions. The idea of Companions, who are basically built to serve the whims of their human creators, being close or completely sentient raises ethical questions of whether or not they could be considered beings like humans, or if their artificial creation takes that concept away from them, and I am interested to see how these questions are dealt with in future chapters.
Door herself is a very strong main character, and I feel like she balances having a snippy rebellious attitude about the world (as most kids her age do) without it being grating on the reader. It helps that I personally can relate to her mistrust of technology, especially the fauxkémon and Companions, and in general it seems more like a logical conclusion rather than it all being some edgy phase on her part. I also love the dynamic she has with Geist, especially her waffling between whether or not he is really a Companion, or just a very strange human. One particular moment of note is how she is tricked into going on a trainers journey, just by wording it differently.
Within the first four chapters of Electric Sheep, the characters and worldbuilding have dragged me back in like they did all those years ago, and I'm hooked again!
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Post by admin on Jan 31, 2020 4:37:01 GMT
First, replies! Knives held herself very well against Belle's Pokemon there. Took quite a few hits from Charon and Pride though, poor her. =< Forreal. D: Luckily, audino have ridiculous amounts of HP, so she’s fine~ (P.S. 10/10 would recommend training audino.) Pretty much. 8) Thanks kindly all around! Pyro is a darling, and I hope to feature him more. (Admittedly, I still haven’t had a chance, but this is the town of the ice gym, after all.) As for Geist, I was def going for as freaky a description as possible. And absolutely, Door shall get a new teammate because you can’t just plow through the E4 with half a team. :’) WELL. That’s a very revealing log at the end, huh? Ngl, part of me actually likes writing the Lanette Notes more than this arc proper because oh my god they are so spicy. But yes. Insert cackling here. 8) Oh man, I wish I could respond more intelligently, but literally anything I could say here is chock full o’ spoilers. Ultimately, all I can say is correct and also yeeesssssssss, it shall be revealed. Pretty much. D: The truth is that I’ve always kinda imagined him as being the underappreciated one in the admin circle. He’s loyal and hard-working, sure, but he’s always been sort of second to the others. So it’s only really natural for the others to blow him off when he’s got a point, which of course means he’ll have to get desperate to make it. Forreal to that last part. As for the question of how long it took, put it this way: you know those three days Door spent basically catatonic? That long. People just ignored the girl carefully herding robotic woobat with her weird-looking giant Companion, and if anyone asked, she would turn around and say, “IT’S FOR THE DRAMA, OKAY?” Honestly, that’s valid. I mean, it’s a shame I had real shitty luck with ghosts this run because I really wanted to do more with Red, and Pyro’s coming in at the eleventh hour, but still, there’s a kind of weird, dark beauty to things like ghost fire and moving shadows. You can get away with so many eerie shenanigans with a ghost-type imo. It is a great line to end on because yes I am really having fun writing soft Door moments like this. 8) 8) 8) In short, thank you! I had a lot of catching up to do and now I'm finally done, hooray! This will be a mix of my overall impressions and stuff in particular chapters that stuck out to me. Also, I wrote this chronologically as I read, so it'll be littered with ideas that probably got disproved later on. Still valid! Thank you! I have to admit, it’s always fun to watch new readers get to that part. I wasn’t even sure if I could pull it off because every second, I was like, “Oh, people know.” Yet somehow, it’s always a surprise, which is great. The answer to all of these, in a way that I swear is not facetious, is yes. 8) I wish I could expound on that more, buuuuuut spoilers. I will say, though, that Lanette absolutely experimented on Geist throughout the rest of her lifetime, for some pretty good reasons that will be plot relevant later. To be fair, those iPods and Pokémon games are worth good money.  On a serious note, thank you! Looking back on it, I have to say those were the chapters that I’m proudest of, even though I was hella insecure about whether or not I could get them to land. It’s like … all of the point of Electric Sheep was right there. Or in short, I’m glad you picked up on this. One should hope, anyway. ;D Thank you~ Honestly, Door deserved it lbrPreeeeetty much to all of this. Door does not have many brain cells, but Knives has the courage and Geist the intelligence to make up for her shenanigans, haha. Honestly, this was also a lot of fun to write, not only for this sort of reaction but also because yaaaaay consequences to Door’s actions, amirite? A little from column A and a little from column B. As for your other questions, maaaaan I wish I could answer them without spoiling too much. 8) I will say this: you’re on the right track, especially when it comes to these characters’ emotions. It seems so far away now. :’) Thank you! I’m also glad it’s coming off that way too. I think I tweaked some of this in response to some folks’ crit that her development was going way too slowly, so it’s good to hear that this version, at least, checks out! I really ought to write a side fic about Roland at some point. I loved writing his character, and now that Door’s past Driftveil, there’s not much more he’ll be doing. (He’s showing up one more time for obvious reasons, but…!) Either way, you got his character in one. Dude’s really got last-name issues, so on a level, he sympathizes with Door. On the other, he really wants to kick her ass out of principle rn. Meanwhile, yes to everything you’ve said about teenagers not knowing wtf they’re passionate about at fifteen. Now if only we could teach college recruiters/parents this. :’) Roland has his priorities completely straight. :’) Sadly, mostly backstory. Devon and Halcyon have a stiff rivalry that’s spanned decades, and given that Door may or may not be in agreement with what her parents’ company is doing, Devon’s pretty much like, “She’s fifteen and therefore not relevant unless she actually takes an interest in the business.” That and unlike Halcyon, Devon puts out enough of a variety in terms of tech to not take a hit from a weird eff cult that’s trying to force their products to achieve sentience.Thank you~ It was really my first chance to explore Door’s weaknesses (besides the obvious ones), so it was def fun to get into. Oh, he totally was happy to take her on. He just wanted to be a dick to the Halcyon heiress on top of that. Opal lacks people skills or an awareness of when to stop, yes. :’) 8) 8) 8) 8) Absolutely. Not to imply a cop-out (I still don’t know whether or not I’ll take advantage of this), but technically it may even be possible to summon them again. At least with Red, it’s a definite, known thing that he can and probably will come back, which is why Geist is holding onto his mask. This is more of a note for Jack. Absolutely. That will in no way get you punched in the face irl. Thank you! I really wanted to get into Door’s relationship with Knives in this arc because Knives is more or less the last ‘mon standing (for now). So just as Jack had been Door’s star up until his death, Knives pretty much is the star on her team as of now. Ah, actually, that’s a good idea and a fair point on top of that.  I’ll make a note of this if I ever go back and revise, def. The second most important one in the world. Maaaaaaybe. They’re exact, so yep, those are who you think they are. Thank you all around~ And I, meanwhile, am def looking forward to hearing more of your guesses. You’re definitely on the right track for many of them. I like the fact that it's Xerneas being referenced here, because I like it whenever anyone acknowledges that it's never explicitly said in-game which of the two legendaries AZ used. When he used the machine, he used it both to resurrect and to destroy--implying that whichever of the two legendaries he was using for that, said legendary has both powers. Woooord. Honestly, the entire lore of XY just fascinates me because of how vague it is and how certain details just don’t quite line up right, leading to implications like these. Or implications that people/the dex is wrong about both legendaries and that Xerneas and Yveltal aren’t the avatars of life and death respectively but rather keepers—as in, Xerneas can offer or withdraw life; Yveltal can do the same with death. Pokémon lore, yo.Or in other words... yaaaaasssssssss 8) Not at all! 8) 8) 8) Person A: Why don’t we have both? Person B: Nope, no we won’t, because if you do that, we all will die. Isn’t it just? 8) You were still more coherent writing this than I would have been sick, so high five! yeeeeessssss appealing to a genre foreigner. 8) 8) 8) First response: yeeeeessssssssssssss 8) 8) 8) 8) Second response: A man of culture, I see! Heck yeah. 8) And I mean that not only in the sense that hell yeah to the Bladerunner stanning but also to the fact that this story works for someone who doesn’t normally read anything like it. Thank you! I am legit flattered~ A man of culture, I see. Seriously, it’s not a sad fact at all! Characters are the crux of every good story. If you have real shitty characters—and by that, I mean characters who aren't interesting because absolutely,morally shitty characters are great—who aren’t enjoyable to watch, it doesn’t matter how great that story is. It’s still not going to work. Not unless what you're making swings back around to so bad it's good, but even then, ymmv. (See: Tommy Wisseau.) Door in general is just. A mood, yes. :’) Hit the nail on the head about her, by the by! Riiiiiight down to that fun relationship with her parents. Thank you! But forreal, word to the note about teenagers. The funny thing is that most of the people who write those sorts of stories either have been or are currently teenagers, so it’s weird that no one just, you know, pulls from their own experiences. Like, even if you’re a full-on adult, you can still write a modern teenager if you just think the way you did as a kid, you know? But meh. Honestly, that’s a valid point. I kinda feel like that one scene is suuuuuper incongruous with the rest of fic, and I’m pretty sure it’s the biggest thing I’ve ever gotten crit for. (It was just from this rando on Reddit who didn’t read past the first scene, haha.) I know I’ve mentioned this over Discord, but I think it’s the one thing I’d really like to work on at some point. I’d really like to get rid of that weird, halting prose and iron things out so that it’s entirely from Geist’s perspective, maybe. We’ll see in the future. Anyway, thank you! Hilarious story about this, actually! I'm not asking for forgiveness or anything because that's hella valid; I just like any excuse to tell this. So I am really bad at Gen V nuzlockes. I've been told BW2 is easier; idk if that's true. But BW itself is effing hard in my book, and that's all that matters. I have wiped with this game probably four times, but I only count two attempts as the attempt. That said, when I decided to nuzlocke White (also a story but tl;dr it's the only one of my Pokémon game collection I was willing to reset at the time because I hated V back then), I decided that whatever I did, I was going to start with something other than tepig, as that was the starter I'd choose for both of my non-nuz playthroughs of White and B2. Why tepig? Because fuck it, it's adorable, and you can fight Vray over that point. Anyway, that meant snivy or oshawott, and … frankly, I was with you back then. So first run, I choose a snivy and named it Pip. It died to Lenora. I'm like, okay. That was a fluke. Let's try again. Snivy. Pip. Let's go. Died in the demo battle against Cheren. Somehow. Okay, maybe third time's the charm. Died around Chargestone Cave, but it's okay because I have an awesome audino named Spike who will carry my team all the way to— —Opelucid, where the gym leader killed my team. I decided to start with oshawott instead after that. Heck yeah.Seriously, though, thank you~ one thing I wanna say is I really like the way you do battles, minty - there's something about the persistent pace and the consistent curveballs and how the dialogue / information flow contrasts the flow of the fight that makes it feel really dynamic. it's impressive stuff, tbh. Thanks so much! I kinda had a lot of practice ages ago, with a crapton of RPing, haha. Sadly, yes. D: It kinda doesn’t help that the ferris wheel scene is generally infodumpy, and back when I wrote this chapter, I was sticking so close to the plot of the games. But otherwise, pretty much, yeah—a dump to bring her up to speed was bound to happen, tbh. Some of this just couldn’t be told any other way I could think of at the time, haha. Haha, thank you! As for Oppenheimer, that’s a good point. On the one hand, hell yeah to making his expression uncomfortable. On the other … hoo, I could make him creepier by actually revealing more of what he looks like. I’ll def think about how to add that in. Thank you! As for the questions … that’s step one, def. Also thank you! But also, fair point about the back end of the chapter. Pretty sure I wrote this trying to cram in all those scenes at once, so that is definitely fair. Haha, thanks all around! And good luck with the catch-up~ With that being said, I definitely want to get through it at some point, because I'm enjoying this a lot so far and I'm on tenterhooks waiting to find out what comes next! Aaaaaay, thank you! Thank you for this as well. On a serious note, you pretty much nailed it. When I started writing this fic, absolutely, a lot of this was just, “Wouldn’t it be funny if there were these robot butlers?” But it just kinda had to be a Gen V nuzlocke on top of everything else because (besides what I said earlier about how it was the only game I was willing to restart), it just kinda fit. Plus, the robots make it so much easier to go after these concepts without, you know, death. Because idk, I just feel like it wouldn’t work as it does if there was blood and actual death. Not that you can’t achieve poignant stuff with blood and actual death, but the point is, there’s just more focus on the point instead of the physical pain, you know? But anyway! The other point is, yes, absolutely, working with robots really helped me get into the whole question of morality that Gen V asks, and it is so much fun to ask that. Also true! Amen all around. And thank you for picking up on the core of their relationship as well. Honestly, that’s why it’s so much fun to write them. Geist makes Door (and the story itself) ask the moral questions Gen V asks, and they play on each other so well that every interaction between them is just. So much fun. For that and the 2037592 other laws she broke in this fic, amirite? That is certainly an interesting thought. 8) 8) 8) I just want to say I’m delighted people who didn’t even know me before the CL already understand me perfectly. 8) And resolved it shall be! 8) 8) 8) 8) 8) This may or may not be a huge plot point right there.Thank you! I kinda hope I can get one more shot at them at the obligatory team-up that we all know is going to be coming because this is a Gen V fic, but either way, yes, they’re all a delight to plan. I think the only one I’m really struggling with is this current one that I’m working on, largely because I hadn’t planned them out beforehand like the others. But still! Thanks all around! Here’s hoping the rest of this book doesn’t disappoint~ I have been reading this fanfic for a while, since about 2016 or so, and I’ve always come back to the first chapter when I’m struggling to start something, but I decided to read through the first four chapters because I don't trust my memory. Even now, I still think that Electric Sheep is one of my favorite fics in the fandom, mostly due to the sheer amount of work you have put into the worldbuilding into why this system was put in place by the Unovan government, and how these Companions and fauxkémon have weaved their way into their society. It feels natural, and it gives insight on why someone like Door may reject the system in place. Aww, thank you so much! It’s a delight to hammer out this fic, especially the planning stages and whatnot. Also, this means a lot, coming from someone who’s fantastic with research and putting that into their own fics. <3 Thanks! But yes, Team Matrix and the morality of Companions. 8) I have to admit, that’s a huge part of what makes this fun too—because, honestly, that was the most interesting point of Gen V. Granted, idk how the logics of it would work (especially since all canon up to that point said pokémon were cool with being trained and also, separating people from pokémon simply wouldn’t work the way Plasma thinks it would), but it was still probably the most intelligent concept Pokémon put into their games. Up until then, anyway. Then Gen VII gave us parental shenanigans and independence, but anyway. Point is, I love exploring that idea, and I’m glad it works here. And thanks all around for this as well! I’m just really glad these two work~ Thank you so much! <3 <3 <3
[CHAPTER 39: ICIRRUS CITY] It took three Euterpe units to administer burn salve and bandages to Knives's back: two to hold her down and one to perform the actual application. And even then, Knives was very close to kicking all three of them off. As she squealed and thrashed, people stared, but frankly, Door couldn’t blame them. She, Blair, and Geist were staring too. “Well, there’s something you don’t see every day,” she said. Blair nodded. “Knives … she sure is something else.” She shrank a little from the table. “Especially since, well. Audino aren’t supposed to be this strong. I-I mean, they don’t often have a high success rate on teams. They’re-they’re nurse pokémon, you know?” Door looked at her. Blair squeaked—actually squeaked—and waved her hands in front of her frantically. “I mean, that’s not to say there’s anything wrong with Knives! It’s just, um.” Blair lowered her hands. “Sorry.” “No. I mean…” Door stared at Knives again, watching her audino calm down while the nurses finished putting the dressing on her back. “You’ve got a point. What’s up with her?” “Amanita and I have our theories,” Geist replied. “Dream smoke pokémon exist because of the will of those in our reality. Therefore, the more someone wants a dream smoke pokémon to exist, the more it will. Given that she appeared directly after we rescued that munna, I have a feeling that Knives was conjured by that musharna as a gift, and thus, she’s specifically a reflection of you, Door. Unlike your other pokémon, whose existences were anchored to the vague will of the people of Unova as a whole, Knives was created specifically for you, and as such, her existence is tied directly to your own emotions. That is to say, she’s drawing from your desire for a strong pokémon to be by your side until the end, whatever that may be.” Halfway through his explanation, Door had slowly turned her head to him. And now that that was done, she stood in stunned silence, brain stumbling for something to say. “Oh,” she finally said. “Huh.” She moved closer to her audino. The two Euterpe units that had been holding her down released her then, and she sat up just as the third nurse finished securing the bandages. She sniffled and tried to scratch at the other bandage—the one covering the wound on her cheek—before Door took her paw in her hand and held it. One of the Euterpe units offered Door a poffin, which she tried to feed to Knives. The audino refused, whimpering and looking very much like a small child on the verge of tears again. “Odd,” Geist said. “You’re not … curious about that?” Door's mind instantly flipped to everything she had seen so far, from Oppenheimer in dream smoke to Jack vanishing in a puff of pink … to Geist's banshee scream cutting through a storm of woobat. And she felt tired. She knew the day wasn't even over, that she had to talk to him or someone about what happened. So this revelation? The possibility that Knives was a manifestation of her want for a pokémon seemed awfully small in comparison to everything else. So she shrugged. “Honestly, Geist? It’s been a long day. And I’ve heard weirder.” Geist pressed his lips together and nodded. Then, he stepped forward as well and took the poffin from Door’s hand. Shooing her aside, he sat down in front of Knives and looked her square in the eye. One of his hands reached up and scratched behind one of the audino’s ears. The other held the poffin close to her face. Knives turned her head towards him with a coo, then bit down on the end of the poffin, seemingly satisfied with the attention. “You should train,” he said. “You don’t have much time to prepare Pyro for your gym battle. I can stay here with Knives; I can’t really be of much use to you anyway until I can get a full night’s charge.” Door started. No. He wasn't getting off that easy. She wasn't going to let him. She needed to talk to him about Twist Mountain and glowing eyes and… Dragonspiral. She swallowed. Belle had told her to go there, right? That she had to go there because it was the next step on … whatever this was. And Door thought back to Twist Mountain, to the things Belle probably saw, to the one word echoing again and again in her head. To Polyhymnia. “I … I can't,” she said. “I can’t train without a Companion, remember? I need you to access Icirrus's training areas.” Geist stiffened, then looked at her oddly. “Barely a month ago, you were eager to do just that. Besides, you do have a Companion—assuming Blair will let you borrow Opal, that is.” “Huh? Oh! Of course I would,” Blair replied. Door opened her mouth once more but realized she couldn’t find the words to put in it. So she closed it and opened again, trying to coax it into forming something on its own. And to this, Geist smiled sympathetically at her. “I know what you’re doing, and if you’ll forgive me for saying so, it makes me proud that you’ve grown so much. But I’ll be fine. If you’d like a reassurance, I’ll put in a request for a full diagnostic. But I really do think all I need is a recharge—which I will also do once I’m sure Knives won’t rip apart the nursing staff and make a run for it to find you.” Knives squealed at the mention of her name, to which Geist responded with a pat on her head and another poffin. Door looked at them both, then sighed. “Okay, fine,” she said. “But I’m checking on you when we get back, got it? If you’re not in the recharge room by then, I will hunt you down.” Geist trailed his fingers down Knives’s head and relaxed. “Have a good time out there, Door.” At first, she narrowed her eyes at him. Then, with another sigh, she shook her head and turned away. “C’mon, Blair,” she said. “Let’s get to work.” — Icirrus City was … complicated, Door quickly learned. In Hilda King’s day, it had been a large town, just barely a city, stretched thin across ponds and puddles and bogs that would freeze solid when winter would roll around. That was what had made it ideal for its then-gym leader, a reclusive actor with a penchant for ice-types. Now, however, it was something different. Bordered by marshland too expensive to drain and mountains too difficult to level, Icirrus City had no choice but to build up, precariously so on whatever thin stretches of land could hold a city’s weight. Everything was connected with windowed passageways, but those passageways wound around tall skyscrapers and the skybridge neighborhoods between them. Rumor had it that those neighborhoods were a strange place: spots where crime was bad if you were a stranger to the city, yet full of people who looked out viciously for their own. Door could even see them, through the acrylic walls that separated the trainer’s safe route from some of the residential spots trainers had no place to be. Children peered out through dingy apartment windows, and adults smoked quietly in dimly lit corridors. At one point, she saw the flash of a knife, turning slowly and idly in the hand of a young man in front of a brightly lit bodega. At another, she saw a woman dismantling a beat-up and half-salvaged Clio unit left sprawling across a pile of garbage. Door shuddered and shoved her hands deeper into her pockets and tried not to think about Geist. But it wasn’t all bad, either, and Door realized this as she wandered further down. There was color to the corridors: literally, in the bright, neon lights of a shop or the flash of a laundry line strung between two apartments. There were children in other buildings, sprawled on their stomachs and half watching brightly-colored holograph projections onto walls and half doing simple math or working through geography homework on glass screens. And there were families. Families sitting around tables, passing bowls of rice and steamed vegetables and grilled fish to one another and talking or laughing at projections of variety shows or some combination thereof. And Door found herself lingering at these windows. Just … looking at them. Mother. Father. One, two, sometimes three kids. When she found the families, she would walk a little slower and keep staring, and at first, she thought it was because she had skipped dinner to go look for the safe hunting zones. But the more she walked, the more… Opal led them around the next corner, and there the shadow of Dragonspiral Tower loomed like a fang jutting out of the black horizon. And Door felt her breath catch in her throat. Her thoughts about families and dinners crashed down around her, replaced by one echoing word. Polyhymnia.“Hey. Penny for your thoughts?” Blair’s voice was like a lance of light through the darkness, and it grounded Door. She shook her head, coughed, and focused on the path in front of her. Opal was still walking ahead, a map glowing in front of her face. Beside her, Pyro hovered, shedding quivering, purple light. And behind those two and in front of Door was Blair, her midnight-blue eyes fixed on Door in concern. One of Blair’s hands reached out and grasped her wrist, and Door found herself falling into perfect step alongside her. Polyhymnia still echoed in her mind, but the longer Blair held her wrist, the more she relaxed. “Oh, um. I just…” Door shifted her eyes to Opal. “Was Opal always like that?” “Huh?” Blair blinked. “Uh, I guess? I mean—what do you mean?” “I guess I never thought about it, is all,” Door said, reaching for the back of her neck. “Geist’s always talking our ears off when he’s guiding me, you know?” She rolled her eyes as she imitated Geist’s accent. “Oi, Door! Don’t go running off over there! That’s not a safe zone! An’ ‘ere’s the complete ‘istory of this place you don’t care about! ‘Ave you thought about strategies? You ‘aven’t? Well, ‘ere’s data I pulled from the gym leader’s website an’ all my thoughts on what you should do. Blah, blah, blah, are you even listening, young lady? Blah, blah, blah.” Blair guffawed, then quickly hid her mouth behind a hand, almost as if she was ashamed of laughing. Even then, Door could see part of her smile behind her fingers, and her voice, when she spoke, was bubbling with barely contained giggles. “He doesn’t sound anything like that,” she said. Door shrugged. “I can’t do Johtonian accents. Anyway, I don’t know. I’m so used to Geist that I just can’t really imagine what it’s like traveling with anyone else. So … what’s Opal like?” Blair tilted her head. She looked like she was going to ask something, but to Door’s surprise, she said something else. “We mostly just talked whenever we were on the road,” she said. “I’d ask her questions about pokémon or the next gym or the weather, and she’d answer. Isn’t that right, Opal?” “That’s right, Miss Blair,” Opal replied. “Sometimes, you would ask me to sing too!” Blair smiled sheepishly and shrugged. “She’s no Brittany, but it’s a great way to pass the time.” Door raised an eyebrow. “Brittany?” “Don’t judge me,” Blair replied. “Geist told me about your My Chemical Cute Charm obsession.” Door’s mouth fell open. “What else did he tell you?” “That your dad modified Opal and that you like to dodge hard subjects by talking about stuff you don’t like.” Blair gave Door a long, steady look. “If you’re wondering, I guess Opal’s a little more expressive than the average Calliope—and definitely more expressive than every Urania ever—but she’s not really … weird like Geist is. I’ve never seen a Companion do what Geist can do, and Opal doesn’t come close.” She grew quiet for a second. “Door … what happened in Twist Mountain was weird. Can we talk about that?” Door shifted uncomfortably. Part of her was screaming yes, yes, gods above, yes, let’s talk, but the other part knew Blair was painfully right. She didn’t like talking about hard subjects like this. Still, she breathed in through her nose and slowly began. “I … I think Geist can control Companions. Like … not hack. Just … sorta move into them and make them his puppets. And I think he just told a room full of woobat they weren’t infected anymore. So that’s what happened.” There was a beat of silence, then Blair’s thin voice. “That doesn’t make sense.” “Right?” Door said. “I mean, there’s no way he could have controlled all those woobat at once.” “No, I mean that’s not how that works.” Blair waved both her hands wildly. “Door, you know that’s a really huge, really bad thing for a Companion to do, and that’s why they can't do that specific thing, right?” Door nodded. “Yeah. That’s what Geist said too.” Blair narrowed her eyes. Her hand movements slowed, and when she spoke, her words came out carefully. “What’s going on?” At that, Door sighed again. And there they were. “Blair,” she said, “what do you know about Polyhymnia units?” Blair glared at her, almost accusing her of something. “Other than they don’t exist?” “So you’ve heard of them.” “Yeah. Because they’re urban legends. They’re things you tell kids to scare them at night.” Blair frowned. “Door, seriously. What’s going on?” Door let her eyes fall to the floor as she thought about that question for a while. “Look. I know this sounds crazy, but so does the idea that Geist can control Companions and fauxkémon. So … what if it’s not an urban legend?” Blair’s expression shifted. It softened, eyebrows knitting in concern. Door felt an uncomfortable something worm its way into her chest at the sight of that look, and she turned her head away, face burning. “Be-before you ask,” she said, “Geist doesn’t know I’m talking to you. This is all just—I don’t want to bother him without knowing more.” “Without—oh!” Blair clapped her hands together. “Opal.” Her Companion stopped, with Pyro jingling beside her. “Yes, Miss Blair?” “That data we collected. The conspiracy theory site and all those message boards,” she said. “Bring them up for me?” “Okay, but warning: we are currently in an unsecured location,” Opal responded. Blair nodded and pulled her holocaster out of her pocket. “That’s fine. Link up to my phone and use it as the display medium, if you would.” “Of course!” Opal snapped her fingers, and Blair’s phone glittered to life. Blair pulled Door along until she could use Opal as a shield against the prying eyes of Icirrus’s residents, then held her phone, screen skyward, between the three of them. A small, holographic field appeared above its pane and quickly filled with charts, posts, and websites. Filled. Door couldn’t keep up with how much information was blossoming between them; as soon as one site popped up, five threads flooded over it. Charts and maps flickered around them, orbiting them like highly detailed planets. “So, look,” Blair said. She tapped one of the screens, and it shifted forward, enlarging to dwarf all the other information between them. Text scrolled before Door’s eyes, bordered by a timeline. “A full history of Halcyon Labs,” Blair continued. She tapped names that appeared on the line, one by one, and portraits of Companions popped into view. “Halcyon Labs would come out with a new Companion every few years. In other words, about six months into the development of each line, Halcyon would send a rep to each of the biggest tech expos of the time to make an announcement. You’d start to see promo material, discussion threads, tons of buzz—you name it. Every one of them had an announcement like that, except for Calliope, probably because that one was the first, I guess. Now…” Blair tapped an icon, and a forum thread appeared next to the timeline. Posts popped out, and across them, lines took on a green glow. Door leaned forward to read them, taking in what appeared to be a discussion from decades ago, all about Polyhymnia. “The Polyhymnia urban legend says that it’s a lost line designed to be a true free-thinking Companion, as close to human as you can possibly get. However, she was supposed to come out either immediately before or immediately after Melpomene, the Companion designed to be the least like people you can get. The debates have always been heated about when Polyhymnia was supposed to come out, as you can see.” Blair stopped the line of posts, and Door stared at the thread—or, more accurately, at the colorful invectives covering it. She blinked and nodded slowly. “Uh huh,” she squeaked. “Well … look.” Blair shifted back to the timeline. An icon of Melpomene pulled out, hovering while surrounded by dates and posters. “There’s nothing about Polyhymnia here. There wasn’t even enough time to develop another line. Melpomene occurred too close to Terpsichore, so that rules before out, and immediately after?” Blair pressed an icon just below Melpomene, and the words “PROJECT CLOSED” appeared just after the Companion’s launch date. “Shortly after Melpomene, Halcyon Labs announced that all resources and development teams would be diverted to upgrades of current lines, not on entirely new lines,” she said. “In short, that’s all the public got.” She looked pointedly at Door. The public. Door snapped to attention as the implication smacked her in the face. She frantically waved, her hands between them. “Whuh—whoa! Hey! This is just as much of a mystery to me as it is to you!” Blair relaxed her shoulders, then took a breath. “Well. Not a mystery then. Polyhymnia doesn’t exist.” She dismissed the thread and timeline, leaving just the galaxy of notes. Door continued to stare, watching the pages slowly orbit each other. Her tongue felt heavy, and her face felt hot—but whether or not that was because she was embarrassed by that thorough of a take-down, she wasn’t sure. In truth, for once … she was inclined to say it was something else. “Now, I know what you’re thinking,” Blair threw a hand in the air. “‘Blair, that just says the urban legend everyone tells each other is fake! What about Geist? Can he be a Polyhymnia unit?’ To tell you the truth, that’s why I did all this research. Look, we both know Geist is the Series Alpha of Calliope, not Polyhymnia. Can he be both, though? Not that I know what went on in your aunt’s head, but I don’t think so.” Blair tapped the galaxy, and suddenly the space between them was full of pictures. Companions. Stages. Expos. Logos. Men and women in lab coats and suits. And at the center was Lanette, slightly older and more serious than in the picture Door had seen at Amanita’s. “Your aunt made every Companion for a reason,” Blair said. “We know what Geist’s reason is. How can he have a second purpose?” Something about that sent a jolt through Door, and before she could catch herself, she felt that familiar barb of anger. How could Blair spend that long talking to Geist and not— And Door stepped back. She was shaking—she could feel it—but she willed her anger to subside. That wasn’t Blair’s fault. She only saw little pieces of who he was. She— What was she doing? Door pressed her hand to her head. What was she—no. She was wrong. They couldn’t see it—could they? “Door?” Blair dismissed the graphs, plunging the corridor back into the dim lighting of the streetlamps and Pyro’s fire. “Hey, I-I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—” “Opal,” Door squeaked. The Companion stood stiffly. Waiting. “I … I want to ask you a question,” Door said. “About Team Matrix.” “Okay!” Opal replied. Her voice had no hint of hesitation, no waiver in its cheerfulness. That gave Door pause, just a little, but she knew she had to ask. She knew that what came out of Opal’s mouth would, somehow, explain Geist. “Opal,” Door said slowly. “If you could think for yourself, what would you do?” “Door,” Blair immediately said, but she was cut off by Door’s hand falling onto her shoulder. Opal cocked her head. “I don’t understand.” Door sighed. “If tomorrow, you were told you could live your own life and not listen to us humans, what would you do?” Opal straightened her head. She stared at Door with glowing eyes, and Door couldn’t stop herself from shrinking back. There was no analysis in that stare, like there was with Geist. There was no life—not really. There was only light and the glimpse of an entire network, steadily calculating a response. It was alien and alive … yet not alive at all. And it reminded Door of why she always felt uncomfortable when glass eyes were on her. And yet. And yet, there was some thought there. Why was it taking so long for Opal to come to a conclusion? Something inside her was thinking, Door realized. And thus, she braced herself for an answer, for that sign of Opal’s humanity, when Opal lifted her head. “I’m sorry,” Opal said. “I don’t understand.” Door was both surprised and not, but she exhaled heavily nonetheless. Blair reached out to rest a hand on Door’s shoulder. “Door…” “It’s fine,” Door said. “It’s … it’s fine. How can I really expect you to answer that? I mean, Dad upgraded you, but it’s not like you can think for yourself, right?” “Door,” Blair said, a little firmer and more defensive at this point. “What are you trying to say?” “Nothing.” No. That wasn’t right, and Door knew that. “Wait. No, I mean…” She shook her head. “The whole thing, with Team Matrix. What if they’re onto something?” Blair pulled her head back. “What if the cult trying to raise the dead is onto something?” “Not like that! I mean…” Door gripped the shoulder opposite the one Blair’s hand rested on. “Opal, are you okay with serving us humans?” “Of course!” Opal replied just as cheerily as ever. “I love to make my friends happy!” Door pressed her lips together at the word “friends.” “But … okay. Would you ever want to do anything else? If we all disappeared tomorrow, what would you do?” Opal stared, her eyes glowing at Door’s questions. Door took a step towards her, stopped only as Blair wrapped an arm around one of hers. At once, Door opened her mouth to protest. And then Opal spoke. “I would be sad if I couldn’t help Blair,” she said. Blair and Door froze. They simultaneously fixed their eyes onto Opal, and Door could feel her mind reach helplessly for an explanation. Sadness? Help? Opal continued, “Miss Blair is my friend. We have gone on many adventures together already, and I cannot see myself doing anything else but follow her. Would you like to see some of our adventures together?” Door and Blair exchanged glances, and Blair shook her head. She was just as lost as Door was, it seemed, and for that reason, Door nodded cautiously. “Uh, sure,” she said. “Go on, Opal.” Opal smiled and spread her hands, and a miniature galaxy of data blossomed between them. It was Blair’s research, but there was more this time: pictures and websites dedicated to Bill and Lanette, more timelines, schematics, passwords, and photos from Opal’s internal camera—of Blair focused in the forests of Route 6, worried and scrolling through her holocaster in Twist Mountain, asleep in the pokémon center with her arms around a tablet… “It is my purpose to serve Miss Blair, and I’m proud to do so,” Opal declared. “I’ll stand by her no matter what. Just like any good friend!” Door shifted her eyes away from the data to look at Blair. At first, she looked shocked. Then sheepish. Then, finally, at Door. “I guess … there you go,” she said quietly. “Regardless of whether or not they can really be free like Team Matrix wants, they’re like pokémon in a way: they want to help us. We just have to treat them decently, you know?” “But…” Door furrowed her eyebrows. “Why would anyone choose this?” Blair shrugged. “Opal?” Opal tilted her head again, sending a spray of white hair across her pale face. “Because we see value in you. You’re our friends and creators. You take care of us, and our way of giving back is to help you.” Door swallowed. She didn’t like this. First off, it was too easy. Second… “Opal … could you always think in those terms?” Door asked. “Like … that almost sounds…” At that point, Blair gave her an uncomfortable grin. “What? Did you never have a conversation with a Companion besides Geist? They’re all like this. Except Geist, and that’s because, well…” Door’s stomach dropped. Geist could argue. He could say no. He could even grab Door’s arm and nearly hurt her if it meant stopping her. That was what unsettled Blair back on Route 5, and that was what Team Matrix meant by Companion freedom. Geist was somehow above the Three Laws that governed every other Companion. He just didn’t acknowledge that. She looked out the window at the harsh silhouette of Dragonspiral Tower again. All of a sudden, she felt less armed—like she had somehow taken more steps backwards than she could count. Now it wasn’t just that she had no idea what to expect at the top of that tower. Now, it was that she had no idea what to think, period. Was she even right to stop Team Matrix? “Hey.” Door looked back at her friends. Blair was giving her an odd, worried look. Opal gazed at her with a confidence she couldn’t begin to understand. And Pyro just watched her curiously. And before them was that galaxy of information. “I know what you’re thinking,” Blair said. She reached up to tap the galaxy, and a picture of Hilda, far younger and more ambitious, blossomed beneath her fingers. “Hilda went up Dragonspiral too. That’s where N got one of the dragons. So it stands to reason that if Matrix was following Plasma’s lead and if they were going up there too…” Blair flicked her fingers across the galaxy, and instantly, a myriad of windows opened up at once, at the center of which was a set of floor plans that Door realized must be for Dragonspiral. All around it hovered files of what looked like every scrap of information on Team Matrix, Hilda, and Rosa that one could ever want. And here, Door had to ask. “Blair,” she said, “what is all this?” She shrugged. “A couple weeks of research. Most of it was from those days you were out. It’s stuff from the clear web mostly, but I’m starting to dive into the deeper parts of the internet. Some of the weirder stuff on Team Matrix can only be found there, and it almost looks like someone did a really bad job of scrubbing Bill from the clear web because you can barely find anything on him there, which is weird because—” “Hold up.” Door motioned to the galaxy. “This was only a couple of weeks?” “Well … yeah,” Blair said. “I know I can’t really battle, but I can form a few search terms.” “You said you had Opal look into the deep web.” “It’s a lot easier than some people would make you think.” Door wanted to say that this wasn’t the point, but she could only stare at Blair in utter disbelief. This prompted Blair to dismiss the galaxy with a wave of her hand over Opal’s. “What?” she asked. “I just…” Door placed a hand over her mouth. “Why would you…?” Blair lifted her eyes to the ceiling for a moment and took hold of Door’s wrist again. “Because I want to help. Duh,” she said. “You’ve been going through all sorts of stuff lately. Geist too. So if Opal and I can help you both by digging up whatever we can get our hands on and helping you put together a plan, we will. It’s the least we could do, you know?” Door furrowed her eyebrows. “Least you could do … for what?” Blair’s smile faltered a little. “As your friends? But … I guess also, I still remember how nice you were to me at Amanita’s. I know we had a rocky start, but … I’m glad you gave me another chance.” Door snorted. “I should be thanking you. Anyway, what’s with everyone going on about how I’m not alone all of a sudden? Ari, Geist, and now you?” “Maybe because it’s true?” Blair squeezed her wrist. “Sometimes we just need a reminder.” Door looked at her. She couldn’t put her thoughts into words, but … despite how confusing all of this was, despite how Dragonspiral’s shadow still loomed over her, something inside of her felt warm. Secure. She set her jaw. It wasn’t like knowing she had friends made her think she could conquer anything—that worm of fear still nestled deep in her brain. But it was still a comfort to have Blair right there. Blair and Opal both. Someday, she would have to figure out just what ethics and Companions and freedoms actually looked like all together; she owed Geist and Opal that much. And she would have to figure out what Geist was and what that meant and all kinds of other things. But right then, right there? She didn’t have to do any of that. She understood that now, standing there in the dim lights of Icirrus and Pyro with Blair holding onto her wrist. Blair smiled in that ice-melting way Door only just started to appreciate. Before Door could say another word, Blair tugged her wrist. “Come on,” she said. “Let’s get you one more pokémon before your gym battle tomorrow. Opal? Lead on?” “You got it, Miss Blair!” Opal replied. And with that, Door followed Blair down the corridors of Icirrus, feeling just a little like everything would be okay. — > MEMORY112423.txt> AUTHOR: Bebe Larson> NOTES: Transcript of a video file recovered from Series Alpha Zero-One’s memory banks. Video is located in archive 17.[ZERO-ONE appears to be in the kitchen of the SEA COTTAGE. He’s focused on a pot on the stove, stirring what appears to be curry.]LANETTE, off-screen: ████?ZERO-ONE: In here![The camera shifts to capture the door to the kitchen. LANETTE walks in and heads straight for the stove.]LANETTE: Wow. Something smells amazing.ZERO-ONE: Beef curry. Here.[He offers her a spoonful of curry, which she accepts.]LANETTE: Oh. Not bad. It, um. It needs more salt, though.ZERO-ONE: Ah. Thank you.[He reaches for the salt on the counter beside the stove.]ZERO-ONE: I never would have figured that out on my own, with or without taste buds.LANETTE: Uh huh. Hey, ah, you don’t … normally cook.ZERO-ONE: I hope you’re not commenting on the fact that I actually made something edible this time.LANETTE: Huh? Oh! No, I—ZERO-ONE: Relax. I understood what you meant. The truth is, I just wanted to learn. I never had time before all of this, but now, well. I watch tutorials while you’re asleep. Sometimes, I watch Sebastian too while he cooks. It’s been quite a crash course in the culinary arts, if I must say so. In fact, this past week, I decided to give it a try myself by— [PAUSE] Sorry. I know you don’t like it when I control him.LANETTE: That explains why he burned the eggs last week.ZERO-ONE: Sorry for that too.LANETTE: May I ask why?ZERO-ONE: Why what?LANETTE: Cooking. I mean … you can’t eat.ZERO-ONE: No, but you can.[LANETTE grabs his hand, stopping him from stirring the pot.]LANETTE: ████ … the reason why I … you’ve been acting weird since █████ paid us a visit.ZERO-ONE: I have? How so?LANETTE: I don’t know. You’re pushing yourself to be helpful, and I’m grateful, but…ZERO-ONE: Is this about me rearranging the lab?LANETTE: And about this. And a few other things. Look, I just feel like you’ve been distant lately. And maybe like you’re doing things just to make me happy, but—wait, no. I’m not … I’m not ungrateful or anything. I just … are you okay?[Long pause.]ZERO-ONE: Lanette … are you happy here?LANETTE: What? ZERO-ONE: I … you aren’t hurt by being here, are you?LANETTE: Where is this coming from? You-you don’t think I’m using you like █████ says I am, do you?ZERO-ONE: No! I—Lanette, you’ve been here for nearly a decade. I’ve [REDACTED] for nearly a decade. I just don’t want this to be your only option. Not after seeing what all of this has done to █████.LANETTE: What are you saying?ZERO-ONE: I’m saying … maybe █████ was right—LANETTE: ████—ZERO-ONE: Hold on. Maybe he was right that there’s a solution, but we won’t find it anytime soon. It may be decades before we even find a lead. It may even be that we’ll never find anything in your lifetime. And you have to be with me every step of the way, don’t you?[Pause.]LANETTE: Wow. ████, this is a little dark for you, isn’t it?ZERO-ONE: Maybe. I suppose the incident with █████ is still raw in my mind. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking since. And I suppose that, given that I can’t really throw myself into projects as I had been, I’ve been, well. Less distracted from things like this. I know what people are saying about you. I’ve had enough time to stumble across that. I suppose you could say that’s why I’ve started watching cooking videos instead.LANETTE: ████… ZERO-ONE: Anyway. Lanette. Please go back to Hoenn. Don’t waste any more time here. I just want you to be happy. I want you to decide where to go and who you are from here on out, and I want you to be free from what anyone else says.[He places a hand on her cheek.]ZERO-ONE: Don’t worry about me either. I’ll figure something out. Maybe I’ll go off to find a solution on my own. Nothing’s keeping me here either, after all.[Long pause. ZERO-ONE sighs. Camera shifts back to the pot on the stove.]ZERO-ONE: Right. Tomorrow, I’ll buy you a ticket back to—[LANETTE forces ZERO-ONE to turn his head so she can kiss him. They hold this for, frankly, more time than I care to record, until LANETTE pulls away.]LANETTE: Marry me.ZERO-ONE: What?LANETTE: I know what you’re trying to do, and it won’t work. I told you, didn’t I? I choose you. I’ve chosen you, no matter what stupidity you’ve gotten up to and no matter what you’ve ever said, and I will choose you every single time. So, if it will hammer it into that thick head of yours that I’m not about to leave you … let’s get married.ZERO-ONE: Are you serious?LANETTE: Absolutely.[She pulls ZERO-ONE into an embrace.]LANETTE: At least think about it. You don’t have to answer me now.ZERO-ONE: I know. Give me a few days. I’ll get back to you.[/i] LANETTE: Actually, I’m saying you don’t have to answer me now because the curry is burning.[ZERO-ONE violently turns back to the stove.]ZERO-ONE: [untranslatable Japanese][END RECORDING] |
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Post by Cavespider_17 on Feb 1, 2020 21:13:00 GMT
This is a Review of Chapter 2 for the CLBC
Firstly, I’d like to say how amusing this chapter was in the sense that the main character, Door, gets completely stuffed. You can see it leading into the being sent off from the moment things take a serious turn – although I think it was a little bit mean of the professor to not even ask, but more or less force her. I am glad that she does have Oshawott As a starter though. To be honest, from what I know of her character from death, and what I have seen so far in the story, it generally suits her personality. I am surprised she didn’t jump on the lie very early on, However, I think before she gets too big of a chance to react she gets dumped on.
Grammatically, more or less the chapter seems fine. I think there was one or two lines which throw me a little bit. Such as being told to be punctual at the start. I feel like that sentence could be reworded a little bit because it feels a tiny bit awkward. Maybe because the focus is on the responsibility rather than the punctuality. The other one in particular that did throw me was in regard to the run-in. I think the way the professor returns the comment surrounding the matter at hand feels a little bit too relaxed, given what happened in the previous chapter. Maybe it’s just their personality, but considering how old the chapter started it feels to a tiny bit contradictory to itself. Although, this (as I just stated) might just be a personality trait, I am honestly not too sure.
In regard to the other characters personalities, I think it’s nice that we get to see more of Geist’s Traits, particularly at the end when he seems to show his aptitude for handing in vast amounts of information. He comes across as a very responsible, and a potentially good foil to Door later on. He definitely comes across as the kind of character to keep them on track – despite the numerous side quests that can appear and stories. I think also, Door has a consistent personality with the previous chapter, with the exception of the Lack of extreme protest. When I reached the part where she got dumped with this task, I was expecting her to have a massive snap – but instead she seems more shocked than anything. Which is fine in itself, it was just not what I was expecting.
Overall, I did enjoy the chapter, and found the characters fun as well as the plot.
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girl-like-substance
the seal will bite you if you give him half a chance
Posts: 527
Pronouns: xe/xem
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Post by girl-like-substance on Feb 4, 2020 0:04:03 GMT
It’s been a while! But worth the wait, for sure. We open with like, maybe the best justification for a pokémon being terrifyingly, freakishly strong for no readily explicable reason I’ve ever come across! And like, it’s a nice evolution of the relationship between Door and Knives, too. Knives is a lot to Door; yes, she’s the lynchpin of her team, but also, and not solely because of that, she’s what Door’s pinned her fortunes on, you know? Knives is the last one, the strongest, the closest, the one on whom all Door’s hopes really rest. There’s a very real sense in which she’s like, if I’ve got Knives, I’m still in it, I haven’t failed, I can continue. So she was already a really significant symbol in both Door’s eyes and the schema of the fic, and this just sort of makes that literal. Now here’s some bathos for you: as soon as I read ‘reclusive actor’, I was struck by an incredibly intense desire to see an interpretation of BW/2 where Brycen is basically the Unovan answer to Norma Desmond, which in turn made the line “I’m ready for my close-up, Mr Deeoh” pop into my head. I don’t have anything to do with this thought, so I guess it’s going in this review. But like, if Brycen’s Desmond, then this is Sunset Boulevard by way of Blade Runner, because Icirrus is properly cyberpunky, huh. Towers! Elevated skybridge things! Tight-knight communities of oddball criminals! Literally the opening scene of the novel I’m finishing about robots, where a woman salvages a half-destroyed android left sprawling across a pile of garbage! (Seriously, it’s identical, maybe it’s a more common image than I think it is, I guess it is a cool visual.) Anyway, it all looks very cool, and it’s a good excuse for Door to walk through an extended metaphor for her being shut out of a normal family life, given that this is basically the only place in Unova where she could walk around directly outside high-rise apartment windows that the occupants have obligingly left without curtains or blinds drawn. Which, you know, feeds into the other thing that’s going on here. Door’s had a lot of doubts simmering for a little while, but iirc she hasn’t really voiced them to herself and definitely not to anyone else. Her doubts open her up a little, enough to realise that she knows relatively little about Blair and what she gets up to for someone who’s been travelling around with her all this time. And then there’s a connection, a kind of desire to come together over this thing that looks like it could be the start of a movement towards the vision she feels excluded from. Maybe she doesn’t have the kind of family she can see through the windows. But that doesn’t mean she can’t have one at all. I’m making too many sensible points, so here’s some more bathos for you: one, ‘My Chemical Cute Charm’ critically hit to strike me for 1400 damage after armour; two, I … kinda love that apparently the stereotype of Johtonian accents in this universe is “that specific flavour of ersatz Cockney that you only ever hear coming out of the mouths of Americans”. I mean I know I gave all my Johtonian characters regional accents, but I guess I wasn’t expecting it of anyone else. :V
Oh, and one final thing: your formatting broke in a couple of places. The spoiler tag for the reviews seems to have left a few of them unhidden, and towards the end of the Lanette log the italicisation on one of Zero One's lines has gone wrong.
But yeah. Mainly, it's just a delight to be back with Electric Sheep. Especially for a nice juicy chapter like this one, full of teenagers awkwardly trying to have larger thoughts and feelings than they know how. <3 I'm definitely looking forward to more!
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Tbqh, the infodumping/info balancing was definitely a thing I was concerned with in chapter nine, which is why it went through probably three different rewrites to pare more and more down. It was really difficult to figure out how to say enough without running away with this whole elaborate history centered around my faves, but weirdly enough, the Lanette notes helped me figure things out. 
I get that Door is a bit adamant and can't completely reverse her opinions in the space of a few days, but her interaction with Geist and his reaction still hurt to read.
I’ll make a note of this if I ever go back and revise, def.
