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Chapter Fourteen: Exposure [Part Two]
Noah crouched down beside Jay once again. He lightly ran his paw under the Riolu’s cheek. He brushed through the flecks of dried blood in order to find a pulse.
“You’ve really screwed up, haven’t you, Jay? I don’t know much about internal injuries, buddy, but it’s not looking too good right now. Why’d you go and have to get yourself crunched?” He mumbled as he took his hand away and shook his head solemnly.
“There’s nothing. Hopefully you won’t fade before Leo gets back. And, I hope you don’t mind a royal-style burial stance.” He lifted Jay’s right arm and laid it across his unmoving chest. He reached over the body to grab the other arm in order to cross it over his right when the atmosphere darkened and tension flooded the air.
”Well, that outlook assumes that no one in the present company knows anything about treating said injuries. Noah, you always jump to conclusions too quickly,”</b> the deep, malevolent voice interjected from behind. Noah let out an immense sigh.
“Thank God, you’re here! We really need your help right now! Jay’s hurt real bad and he ca--” Noah blurted out, the words melding into one incomprehensible sentence. The seemingly omniscient Mismagius raised its tassels and silenced the Dewott. The noise of his voice falling dead on his lips mid-word.
”Yes, it is good to see you as well, Noah. Don’t worry about him, he will not die while I am here. Now please, refresh me on what has transpired since you entered this dungeon. So not spare details, for they are vitally pertinent,” he coldly demanded, releasing his otherworldly hold on Noah’s voice. The Dewott spent the next few moments in time trying to reiterate every painstakingly precise piece of information he had observed over the past hour.
”It is worse than I feared. I must go. Leo will not be able to confront this. He will not be able to comprehend the truth.”</b> His form began to dissipate into the air almost as suddenly as he had arrived. Noah shook himself free of the panicked stupor he had been sealed in.
“Wait! Please help, Jay!” His words fell on deaf, all-hearing ears. The Mismagius only barely flickered back into existence. His golden, petrifying gaze aimed directly at Noah’s mind. He felt the being’s --his friend’s-- presence inside his skull. Memories flipped aside and experience brushed away.
”You may be my friend and can call upon me for anything, but give me one reason why I should help the Riolu. He doesn’t matter to me. His life is not vital, like yours. He is a poor leader. He keeps secrets from his team. He is willing to betray them to save his own life. Why do you request I interfere in what the Fates decided?”</b> the specter requested as he floated above the comatose Pokémon. Noah noticed the ghost’s eerily red smile was stretched in a mocking grin.
Noah opened his mouth. And then closed it again. For once, he had been rendered completely silent. He had no witty or charmingly smart retort. He had nothing to say in defense.
”So, you, the one who found the good in almost every situation, even at the point of death, cannot find a saving quality in this creature?”</b>
“No ... I can’t ...” Noah’s whisper skirted the edge of audibility, but the Mismagius heard it loud and clear.
”Then, I might as well be off. I will meet you--”</b> Noah defiantly shook his head.
“Save him. It won’t look good on my record if I lose another rookie while crossing here. Torrent will kill me for sure,” Noah pleaded, getting on his knees, and fitting his paws together. A soft breeze whispered through the canyon in an ethereal sigh.
”Very well. But, as with any practicing physician, there is always a cost involved with surgery...”</b>
</hr
She felt it. Somewhere in the very edge of her consciousness. Beyond the often-corrupted data, the inhibiting coding, endless system orders, delaying prompts, and the ominous, whispering cloud of darkness. Something stirred within.
What is this? she asked, expecting the ever present spirit of the system to respond promptly as it usually did.
<Invalid Command Received>
N-no. It was a valid command. Umm... Search System for Abnormalities. Does that work?
<Command Prompt Not Recognized>
What do you mean ‘not recognized’? It was a proper command! System, run debug programs.
<Warning: System Lockdown Initiated. Wait 10 Minutes Before Inputting New Command> In an instant, the world turned into a void of darkness around her. The glowing access portals dimmed and flickered as they shut down temporarily. She was completely alone again. There was no gentle hum of information flowing, no rapid conversations of the Porygon, nothing.
She knew it was no use yelling: she had provoked the system before. The Overseers didn’t like it when she asked too many questions. They controlled the portals, and they could shut her out if they wished. She didn’t want to make them mad, but her natural curiosity often got the better of her.
If they don’t want me asking questions, then why don’t they just take out my curiosity? This was just one of the many thoughts that processed through the nexus of her mind. She was infinitely glad that she had managed to manipulate the firewalls a few weeks back to shield her private thoughts from the Overseers. But even the acquisition of privacy didn’t explain what she was feeling.
It pulsed through her. Despite being a unable to sense, she smelled ... something. She couldn’t quite place a name to the strange scent. It was as if someone had cleaned the space around her and turned it into a smell.
What was the word .... Fresh? Yeah, that’s it. Fresh, it smells ... like... fresh. That was the least strange of what she was feeling. The smell was one thing, but the sounds and sights were another thing entirely. She was certain that such sounds weren’t even programmed into the system.
They weren’t slices of security feed from the crystals, the picture was far too grainy to be from one of them. High places, the pinnacles of kings long ago, so prideful that as the clouds passed them by, they screamed for them to bow like the land below, to no avail. The ground was alive, unlike anything she had seen before. Not even the botanical centers contained such overpowering life. It was so green.
Nothing could compare to this. She felt the data receptors on her form react from touch, yet no one was around. Her mind was a storm while foreign sensations bombarded her like bolts of thunder. She couldn’t contain it. Her system was receiving too much new data, too much information, too much emotion, too much sight.
Then, she felt it. Something shifted inside her. A door: unseen but always there. The once-indestructible lock now forced open. It flowed. Through the cracks in the program, over the treacherous bridges of binary code, slipping past the well-crafted firewalls of the Overseers, the very beginnings of a massive deluge. They had tried to keep her asleep, but she was stirring. Awakening.
She knew. She had always known. It was coming back. Light at first, like the first drops of a mighty typhoon. The trivial memories would come first and the pertinent would return after. She had always wanted it, more than anything. To remember what she had been, and what she had become. These sensations, they were the key. The key to a beginning.
The spontaneous genesis of memory.
He didn’t know what he was doing, but apparently his legs and body did. He felt his feet lift and fall in a continuous motion down the icy slope into the darkness below. The jagged ice permeating the sides of the pit did little to suade his racing thoughts that all was well. He knew what he had to do. The fire for revenge upon the ice witch only burned fiercer now that Jay had been downed by the unfortunate amalgamation of souls she had stitched together.
“Come on, Leo. Be strong. Be strong. Kelly. I’m coming. I’m--” he muttered before being cut off by a sharp blast of sub-zero air as soon as he crossed the threshold of the cavern. At once, the strings that kept his world aloft were cut one by one.
The ice, previously glowing with a soft, white light, was now consumed by a tar-like substance that oozed from the cold surface. His tail quickly became the last light in the cold purgatory. The ground, a wounded soldier beneath his feet, heaved and writhed as the open gash on its side was at last lashed shut in a shattering collision of ice and rock. And finally, the voice. Just beyond a whisper in the utter darkness. A sinister hush of wind.
”Ignis...”
End Chapter 14
Noah crouched down beside Jay once again. He lightly ran his paw under the Riolu’s cheek. He brushed through the flecks of dried blood in order to find a pulse.
“You’ve really screwed up, haven’t you, Jay? I don’t know much about internal injuries, buddy, but it’s not looking too good right now. Why’d you go and have to get yourself crunched?” He mumbled as he took his hand away and shook his head solemnly.
“There’s nothing. Hopefully you won’t fade before Leo gets back. And, I hope you don’t mind a royal-style burial stance.” He lifted Jay’s right arm and laid it across his unmoving chest. He reached over the body to grab the other arm in order to cross it over his right when the atmosphere darkened and tension flooded the air.
”Well, that outlook assumes that no one in the present company knows anything about treating said injuries. Noah, you always jump to conclusions too quickly,”</b> the deep, malevolent voice interjected from behind. Noah let out an immense sigh.
“Thank God, you’re here! We really need your help right now! Jay’s hurt real bad and he ca--” Noah blurted out, the words melding into one incomprehensible sentence. The seemingly omniscient Mismagius raised its tassels and silenced the Dewott. The noise of his voice falling dead on his lips mid-word.
”Yes, it is good to see you as well, Noah. Don’t worry about him, he will not die while I am here. Now please, refresh me on what has transpired since you entered this dungeon. So not spare details, for they are vitally pertinent,” he coldly demanded, releasing his otherworldly hold on Noah’s voice. The Dewott spent the next few moments in time trying to reiterate every painstakingly precise piece of information he had observed over the past hour.
”It is worse than I feared. I must go. Leo will not be able to confront this. He will not be able to comprehend the truth.”</b> His form began to dissipate into the air almost as suddenly as he had arrived. Noah shook himself free of the panicked stupor he had been sealed in.
“Wait! Please help, Jay!” His words fell on deaf, all-hearing ears. The Mismagius only barely flickered back into existence. His golden, petrifying gaze aimed directly at Noah’s mind. He felt the being’s --his friend’s-- presence inside his skull. Memories flipped aside and experience brushed away.
”You may be my friend and can call upon me for anything, but give me one reason why I should help the Riolu. He doesn’t matter to me. His life is not vital, like yours. He is a poor leader. He keeps secrets from his team. He is willing to betray them to save his own life. Why do you request I interfere in what the Fates decided?”</b> the specter requested as he floated above the comatose Pokémon. Noah noticed the ghost’s eerily red smile was stretched in a mocking grin.
Noah opened his mouth. And then closed it again. For once, he had been rendered completely silent. He had no witty or charmingly smart retort. He had nothing to say in defense.
”So, you, the one who found the good in almost every situation, even at the point of death, cannot find a saving quality in this creature?”</b>
“No ... I can’t ...” Noah’s whisper skirted the edge of audibility, but the Mismagius heard it loud and clear.
”Then, I might as well be off. I will meet you--”</b> Noah defiantly shook his head.
“Save him. It won’t look good on my record if I lose another rookie while crossing here. Torrent will kill me for sure,” Noah pleaded, getting on his knees, and fitting his paws together. A soft breeze whispered through the canyon in an ethereal sigh.
”Very well. But, as with any practicing physician, there is always a cost involved with surgery...”</b>
</hr
She felt it. Somewhere in the very edge of her consciousness. Beyond the often-corrupted data, the inhibiting coding, endless system orders, delaying prompts, and the ominous, whispering cloud of darkness. Something stirred within.
What is this? she asked, expecting the ever present spirit of the system to respond promptly as it usually did.
<Invalid Command Received>
N-no. It was a valid command. Umm... Search System for Abnormalities. Does that work?
<Command Prompt Not Recognized>
What do you mean ‘not recognized’? It was a proper command! System, run debug programs.
<Warning: System Lockdown Initiated. Wait 10 Minutes Before Inputting New Command> In an instant, the world turned into a void of darkness around her. The glowing access portals dimmed and flickered as they shut down temporarily. She was completely alone again. There was no gentle hum of information flowing, no rapid conversations of the Porygon, nothing.
She knew it was no use yelling: she had provoked the system before. The Overseers didn’t like it when she asked too many questions. They controlled the portals, and they could shut her out if they wished. She didn’t want to make them mad, but her natural curiosity often got the better of her.
If they don’t want me asking questions, then why don’t they just take out my curiosity? This was just one of the many thoughts that processed through the nexus of her mind. She was infinitely glad that she had managed to manipulate the firewalls a few weeks back to shield her private thoughts from the Overseers. But even the acquisition of privacy didn’t explain what she was feeling.
It pulsed through her. Despite being a unable to sense, she smelled ... something. She couldn’t quite place a name to the strange scent. It was as if someone had cleaned the space around her and turned it into a smell.
What was the word .... Fresh? Yeah, that’s it. Fresh, it smells ... like... fresh. That was the least strange of what she was feeling. The smell was one thing, but the sounds and sights were another thing entirely. She was certain that such sounds weren’t even programmed into the system.
They weren’t slices of security feed from the crystals, the picture was far too grainy to be from one of them. High places, the pinnacles of kings long ago, so prideful that as the clouds passed them by, they screamed for them to bow like the land below, to no avail. The ground was alive, unlike anything she had seen before. Not even the botanical centers contained such overpowering life. It was so green.
Nothing could compare to this. She felt the data receptors on her form react from touch, yet no one was around. Her mind was a storm while foreign sensations bombarded her like bolts of thunder. She couldn’t contain it. Her system was receiving too much new data, too much information, too much emotion, too much sight.
Then, she felt it. Something shifted inside her. A door: unseen but always there. The once-indestructible lock now forced open. It flowed. Through the cracks in the program, over the treacherous bridges of binary code, slipping past the well-crafted firewalls of the Overseers, the very beginnings of a massive deluge. They had tried to keep her asleep, but she was stirring. Awakening.
She knew. She had always known. It was coming back. Light at first, like the first drops of a mighty typhoon. The trivial memories would come first and the pertinent would return after. She had always wanted it, more than anything. To remember what she had been, and what she had become. These sensations, they were the key. The key to a beginning.
The spontaneous genesis of memory.
He didn’t know what he was doing, but apparently his legs and body did. He felt his feet lift and fall in a continuous motion down the icy slope into the darkness below. The jagged ice permeating the sides of the pit did little to suade his racing thoughts that all was well. He knew what he had to do. The fire for revenge upon the ice witch only burned fiercer now that Jay had been downed by the unfortunate amalgamation of souls she had stitched together.
“Come on, Leo. Be strong. Be strong. Kelly. I’m coming. I’m--” he muttered before being cut off by a sharp blast of sub-zero air as soon as he crossed the threshold of the cavern. At once, the strings that kept his world aloft were cut one by one.
The ice, previously glowing with a soft, white light, was now consumed by a tar-like substance that oozed from the cold surface. His tail quickly became the last light in the cold purgatory. The ground, a wounded soldier beneath his feet, heaved and writhed as the open gash on its side was at last lashed shut in a shattering collision of ice and rock. And finally, the voice. Just beyond a whisper in the utter darkness. A sinister hush of wind.
”Ignis...”
End Chapter 14
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Author's Notes: First off, I’d like to sincerely apologize for the absurdly long time it took to write this chapter. It was hardly worth making you wonderful people wait two months.
There’s really not much else to say. I got lazy over the summer... Anyways, I did like this chapter, regardless.
Oh yeah. I decided to get a bit of fan art. Hope you all enjoy it! Please give the artist all the credit they deserve. They are awesome.
Go see it in my favorites, or in one of my journals I posted, because I'm tired and I really can't be bothered in getting all their URLs into this description. XD
All by
FalloftheKnights signing off...
Next Chapter: falloftheknights.deviantart.co…
Part One
First Chapter
There’s really not much else to say. I got lazy over the summer... Anyways, I did like this chapter, regardless.
Oh yeah. I decided to get a bit of fan art. Hope you all enjoy it! Please give the artist all the credit they deserve. They are awesome.
Go see it in my favorites, or in one of my journals I posted, because I'm tired and I really can't be bothered in getting all their URLs into this description. XD
All by
FalloftheKnights signing off...
Next Chapter: falloftheknights.deviantart.co…
Part One
First Chapter
© 2013 - 2024 FalloftheKnights
Comments9
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First of well written nice and I probably should of asked this in Part 1 of this chapter and I'm well aware stuff happens in the background between chapters but still this new ice area fiasco did you intend for it to start like that cause I don't recall the capture taking place?