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Pokémon Without a Master

Without a Master

kyeugh

you gotta feel your lines
Staff
Pronouns
she/her
Partners
  1. farfetchd-galar
  2. gfetchd-kyeugh
  3. onion-san
  4. farfetchd
Without a Master
DHnUvSj.png

One-shot / 8.8k words / Rated T for light violence & frequent swearing

- - -​

"Are you kidding? This doesn't even cover rent." Tetsuya's eyes darted between the wad of cash in his hand and the man who had handed it to him—Kazuma, Team Rocket's West Olivine branch manager.

"I ain't here to pay your rent," Kazuma grumbled. "I'm here to pay you the worth of the pokémon you gave me. You want more money, you bring me better pokémon."

Tetsuya gritted his teeth. "They're gonna take my kid away if I get evicted," he seethed. "Please. I'm doing everything I can."

"Listen, pal," Kazuma said, his expression softening slightly. "I'm sorry to hear that. I really am. But you ain't the only one with kids around here, and this ain't fucking welfare. You knew what you were getting when you signed up with us all those years ago, and you knew what you were getting when you knocked up that whore. I can't go making exceptions for you. You want better results, you give me better results, goddamn it."

Tetsuya felt sick to his stomach. He looked down at the money again—a paltry stack of bills—and noticed his hands were shaking. Some distant part of him wanted to rip the money up in an act of defiance, for some reason. He stuffed the cash into his pocket before he got any more funny ideas.

"Fuck this," he said. "I need a damn smoke."

"Come back with a dragonite," Kazuma called after him as Tetsuya made his way out the door. God, but it would feel good to give that asshole a healthy smack upside the head.

The moist ocean air greeted him as he stepped outside. He walked back to his car unthinkingly, staring at his feet as he walked. It pained him to admit it, but Kazuma was right. He'd been playing it safe since his son, Ichiro, was born. He hadn't had anything to lose in the old days—he'd put his all into stealing powerful pokémon to sell to Rocket. Now he was careful not to make too much of a scene, cautious not to reveal his identity, and the yield had been… not great.

He drove his car away from the Rocket front and made his way to the beach. It was a quick drive. Once he was there, he got out and leaned against the railing, back to the ocean as he lit up a smoke. The rhythmic sound of the crashing waves soothed his nerves somewhat, and the cigarette sure as hell didn't hurt.

Tetsuya wanted nothing more than to go legit, to put all this shady and dangerous business behind him. But he'd been with Rocket too long, knew too much. No way they'd let him just walk away. If he tried to fall off their radar he had no doubt they'd come for him. He'd heard the stories. No, he was in this for life now. If only he could find a way to reconcile that with the life he wanted for his son…

He sighed and whipped out his phone. Enough thinking. He'd have to make something work. For now, he pressed the first social media app he saw and started scrolling mindlessly. His eyes glazed over at all the photos of smiling friends and family. Good for them, he thought, taking solace in the fact that each one of their lives was probably only a little less fucked than his own.

A message notification appeared on his screen, from someone named… Sasaki Hayato? He didn't think he knew anyone with that name. He tapped the banner anyway and squinted at the profile picture. Still not familiar...

"Hey Tetsuya!" the message read. "It's been a long time! You probably remember me as Hayako." Tetsuya's eyes widened. He did remember a Hayako, kind of. She was a shy, awkward girl in his secondary school with long, greasy hair. She mostly kept to herself and sat in the back of the class. He took a closer look at the profile picture, and—yes, he could see the resemblance. But with the changed name… He must have been transgender, Tetsuya realized.

Wow. Good for him. He looked so much more confident and full of life in his profile picture than Tetsuya had remembered him in secondary school. Testsuya found himself wishing his own life had taken a similar trajectory.

"I'm actually messaging you because I saw you were online and noticed that you live in Olivine! I remembered that you went on a journey after secondary school, and as it turns out, I will be in the area soon and have been looking for someone I could hire to escort me on a hike off-trail. If that sounds like something you'd be up for, let me know!"

Tetsuya raised an eyebrow. He liked the sound of "hire." He'd done some odd jobs here and there before—dealing with pesky rattata colonies in attics, coaching informal battles, that kind of thing—but never something like this. An off-trail hike would be fun right about now, and the extra money wouldn't hurt at all. It'd be good to spend time with his pokémon again too, in a non-criminal context. If nothing else, every dollar he earned doing this was one he wouldn't have to earn by stealing pokémon…

"hey," Tetsuya typed back. "good to hear from you. id definitely be interested in helping you out. what timeframe are you thinking"

"Awesome! I honestly didn't expect you to reply," came the response. "Next weekend would be great for me. Is that too soon for you?"

Tetsuya swore under his breath. That was a week away, more than enough time to prepare… but weekends were his time with Ichiro. He pressed his lips into a line and started typing away.

"it might be. depends. where are you thinking of going, anyway?"

Tetsuya stared at his side of the screen anxiously for a while, fixated on the triple-dotted speech bubble that indicated Hayato was typing. He tossed his used-up cigarette into the ocean and lit a new one, inhaling deeply of it.

"Olivine Wildlife Refuge," the reply read at last. "I'm willing to pay you ₱60,000 for your help. It's going to be a fairly long, stressful, and potentially dangerous journey." Tetsuya's eyes bulged. That would cover rent all by itself. Was this guy fucking loaded or what? "If it sweetens the deal at all, don't tell anyone about this, but I'm going to see Zapdos. I've been tracking it and have reason to believe it'll be there. I could be wrong, but I'll pay you the same regardless, and you might get a once-in-a-lifetime experience out of it. What do you think?"

Tetsuya sucked on his teeth. It sucked to have to give up his time with Ichiro, but he'd have to be insane to turn down an entire rent payment. He somewhat strongly doubted they'd see Zapdos, but there was no need to tell Hayato that. Let him believe what he wanted so long as he paid out in the end.

Unless…

A horrible, brilliant plan began to hatch in Tetsuya's head.

"sounds great," he texted back. They went back and forth a bit more, working out logistics and meeting times, but Tetsuya was barely paying attention. He was too busy thinking about his next step.

Zapdos…



It was half-past 4 o'clock a.m. on a Saturday morning and Tetsuya was sitting in his shitty sedan in the gravel parking lot of the Olivine Wildlife Refuge, his knuckles white as he gripped the steering wheel. Street lights dotted the area, bathing the area in blindingly white light. There was always a surreal feeling about being outside at this hour, as if the world was simply not designed to be perceived by living beings so early in the day.

It had taken Kazuma some convincing before he was willing to help Tetsuya with his plan. There had been a lot of shouting, a lot of swearing, and a lot of accusations involved. In the end, Tetsuya had won his trust only narrowly. "You know me," he'd said. "You can trust me. If I'm lying, you know they'll come for me. I have nothing to gain by lying to you here." He didn't think that Kazuma had been truly convinced of his plan at that point, but he'd been willing at least to go along.

In the end, Tetsuya had walked out with three tools on loan from Team Rocket: a master ball; an abra to teleport away with; and a sack of poké balls with their serial numbers filed off, for use in emergencies only.

If all went according to plan, Tetsuya would return to the Rocket branch with Zapdos in that little violet ball. It was the job to end all jobs. He'd never have to worry about money again if he pulled this off. Rocket would be willing to look the other way if the guy who brought them Zapdos decided he was done working for the gang. It was a monumental task, but if he completed it… he was free. At last.

If Zapdos was really there in the first place, anyway. Tetsuya wasn't particularly sold on that, but now he at least dared to hope. The plan was simple. He'd take Hayato to see Zapdos, and then as they began their return trip, he would excuse himself to use the bathroom or something, then teleport using the abra back to the Zapdos, stick it in the master ball, then teleport back. The whole ordeal should only take a minute or two, and unless he fucked up big time, Hayato would never suspect a thing.

If he did… Rocket would take care of that, they assured him. Whatever it took to capture Zapdos, they would do. All Tetsuya had to do was throw the ball, and his dreams would come true. He could walk away, be free from this life of crippling fear and anxiety, and Ichiro would know only security and wealth. It didn't even hurt anyone. Whatever Rocket decided to do with Zapdos… Well, that was out of his hands.

Tetsuya was fortunate all he had to do was throw a ball. If he had to drive a knife through Hayato's chest, he would probably still do it.

By the time Hayato pulled into the parking lot, the eastern horizon was painted with just a sliver of totodile blue. Tetsuya's heart fluttered with anxiety at the prospect of meeting his old acquaintance again after so long. The physical reaction made him scowl. He didn't care about this guy. What the hell was his heart playing at? With a sigh, he got out of his car, pulling his backpack over his shoulder, and lit up a cigarette. The last one for a while, probably.

"Wow, Tetsuya! Good morning!" Hayato exclaimed, sounding annoyingly chipper. He was somehow even shorter than Tetsuya remembered—the top of his head barely came up to Tetsuya's chest. "You're sure getting started early, huh?" he asked, gesturing at his mouth.

Tetsuya pulled out his cigarette and looked at it. "Yeah, I guess. It's gonna be a long day. What, you want one?"

Hayato raised his hands to his chest and chuckled. "I'm good," he said. "It's so crazy to see you after so long. You look a lot older!"

Tetsuya almost said "you too," but that wouldn't have been true. He just shrugged. "You look pretty different too," he managed. Hayato smiled awkwardly at that. Had that been rude to say? Whoops.

"Well, let's not waste any time," Hayato said after a moment, smiling. He pulled out his phone and showed Tetsuya a map of the area. "I'm thinking Zapdos'll probably be right about here." He pressed his finger to a remote area near the coast.

Tetsuya nodded. "Okay. Looks like we won't get to stick to the trail very long at all then," he said. Hayato shook his head. "Fine by me. Hey, that's what you're paying me for, right?"

"Right," Hayato said, grinning. "Okay, lead the way!"

They set off for the woods together. The area close to the parking lot and trails was mostly scattered loblollies and longleaf pines with little foliage to be seen on the ground—mostly just pine needles, dry grass, and gnarled roots—but it didn't take long for this to give way to denser vegetation. Flowering dogwoods and waxy magnolias formed canopies over a thick brush of fan palms, holly shrubs, and creepers. Tetsuya quickly released Cutter, his scyther, who immediately spun toward Hayato and brandished his scythes.

"Whoa, buddy," Tetsuya said even as he saw Hayato tense up behind him. "Relax. This is a friend." Cutter cocked his head, his third eyelids sliding over his eyes as he sized Hayato up. "I need you to cut through these plants ahead of us so we can get through the woods. Think you can do that for me?"

The scyther continued staring at Hayato for a moment, then pried his eyes away and immediately began to hacking up the vegetation ahead.

"Scary pokémon," Hayato said with a nervous chuckle.

"He's, uh, a rescue," Tetsuya lied. "Gets jumpy around strangers."

"Mm," Hayato said. "Oh, I've got a pokémon with me too. I loaned out a rhydon. It's got lightningrod and it's a ground-type, so it should protect us if Zapdos gets uppity."

Tetsuya raised an eyebrow. "You expecting that to happen?" he asked.

"Well, not exactly," Hayato said. "Ideally we won't even get close enough for it to be a possibility. But it never hurts to be prepared."

Tetsuya agreed with that, at least.

"This place is so different from Kanto," Hayato said as they moved through the thicket. "It's not that far away… Pretty crazy what a little distance can do."

"Yeah," Tetsuya said. "Guess so."

"I've spent the last couple years studying ecology at the Vermilion Institute," Hayato explained. "That's where I got the rhydon. You spend all day reading about the different varieties of ecosystems, but it's really something else to just… see it like this. This is the furthest I've been from home, you know."

"Wow." That was pretty shocking to Tetsuya. He'd spent his late adolescence backpacking across a foreign country on a pokémon battling journey. He hadn't gotten particularly far, but it was something. He always found it bizarre to be reminded that many people never left their hometowns.

"Oh, here's something neat I learned. See that thing up there?" Hayato pointed into the distance. It took some squinting and straining of the eyes for Tetsuya to see what he was pointing at, but eventually did—there was a round mass at the crown of one of the trees, almost like a growth of some sort. "That's a fearow nest. They actually get a lot bigger here in Johto, because they primarily feed on fish whereas the ones in Kanto mostly eat small mammals, like rattata. Here, their access to food is a lot wider, and they get those big old wings so they can fly for longer periods at sea. Bigger birds means bigger nests. Pretty neat, right?"

"Huh. Yeah, it is," Tetsuya admitted. Bigger fearow in Johto… He wondered if there was any battle application of that fact. There had to be, right?

"The nests are a lot smaller at home, but I'm pretty good at picking them out," Hayato said. "Guess you could say I've got a pretty… keen eye." He gave a flourish.

Tetsuya knitted his eyebrows. "What? What are you…"

"You know, like… fearow's ability," Hayato explained, smiling weakly.

"Oh. Pffft." The faintest hints of a smile pulled at Tetsuya's lips. "That's dumb. Not laughing at that."

Hayato chuckled weakly. "Zapdos is pretty important to the ecosystems it lives in, as you'd imagine," he went on. "Articuno brings frosts, and Moltres brings fire… Zapdos brings both the cleansing flame of wildfire with its lightning and the nourishing rains of its thunderstorms. A lot of the places it visits are actually sort of adapted to its occasional presence. They depend on its visits to restore balance and stuff." He kicked at a bush underfoot. "Looks like this place is a little overdue."

"That's pretty interesting," Tetsuya said, not particularly listening.

"Yeah," Hayato said, grinning boyishly. Man, wasn't he getting the hint with these three-word responses? "It's pretty crazy how big of an impact a single pokémon can have. Really makes you wonder what we're doing to the environment by letting everyone rush in with their poké balls and capture whole sectors of the ecosystem. We're just beginning to understand this stuff."

Tetsuya frowned. He didn't fully understand everything Hayato was saying, but he was getting enough to know he didn't like it. After all, he was about to stuff Zapdos into a ball and sell it to a gang. He didn't particularly relish hearing about how much it would mess up the environment or whatever.

"Doesn't seem like it matters that much," Tetsuya said at length. "I mean, we've been doing this for like a century now. The world isn't exactly falling apart."

"Well, these things take time," Hayato said matter-of-factly. "But the world does fall apart sometimes. They make us study this one case in our 101 class actually—overfishing in the Blackthorn River actually led to a surge in the yanma population, which had damaging effects on the local vegetation, which actually changed the physical shape of the river and destroyed a lot of habitat…" He kept on rambling for a while, but Tetsuya tuned him out and focused on the motions of his scyther as he slashed the dense thicket out of their way.

Hayato sure did have a lot to say, Tetsuya thought. He was glad that he'd found himself and all that, but boy did he go from one extreme to the next. He didn't seem to particularly mind that Tetsuya wasn't paying attention, either—he just kept prattling on and on, about yanma this and swellow that. It was all too much.

"Hey," Tetsuya said, cutting Hayato off in the middle of a sentence about fish or something. "So… what do you think would happen if some kid came along and caught Zapdos, anyway? Since more and more trainers are going for the legendaries and stuff, you know."

"Oh, that's an interesting question," Hayato said, not seeming to mind at all that he'd been interrupted. "It's hard to say. That's something a lot of researchers are looking at right now, what would happen if this legendary or that legendary was captured. I'm not a real ecologist yet, but if I had to guess… Probably without the wildfires in the areas Zapdos frequents, you'd get a big old backlog of kindling just waiting to get set ablaze. That'd be real bad. Some people are suggesting that Zapdos can also direct storms to a certain extent, too, and bring heavy rain to areas that wouldn't get it normally, so maybe you'd get those areas drying out too. Just sounds like the perfect storm for a hugely destructive fire, really." He took a breath. "So, nothing good, that's for sure. But I really hope that we never have to worry about that." He grunted as he hiked himself over a particularly tall slab of limestone, then smiled, sweat dripping from his hair down his face. "Zapdos is a proud and clever pokémon. I don't think it'll let itself be captured. And regulations have been pretty slow to catch up with the developments in pokémon training, but hopefully before long it'll be illegal to catch Zapdos in the first place."

Tetsuya grunted. Even if that did happen, it wouldn't stop him or anyone like him. Too little, too late.

Something inside him twinged anxiously, though. The impact Hayato was describing was on the scale of natural disaster. Could… Could people die? That blood would be on his hands, whether he wanted to admit it or not. Was it worth it? Was he okay with those consequences? He thought his answer was yes. For his son, he would do anything. But he wasn't quite as sure about it as he had been half an hour ago.

He breathed loudly through his nose and carefully lowered himself down a stony hill. The terrain here was rougher than he'd realized. "Thanks for the answer," he said at last.

"No problem at all," Hayato said. Tetsuya could hear the smile in his voice. "It was a great question."

Tetsuya was mid-eye-roll when a fat droplet of water hit him right between his eyes. He looked up and just barely made out the sky through the canopy overhead. It was dark grey.

"Shit," he said. "Looks like it's gonna rain."

"Oooh!" Hayato exclaimed. He had his hands held out and looked positively giddy at the notion of weather. "That's so exciting! Maybe we'll get to see Zapdos in action!"

Tetsuya nodded vacantly and got his rain jacket out of his pack. Hayato did the same. Then there was a sudden flash of light. Tetsuya widened his eyes and waited for the thunder before realizing that Hayato had simply released his rhydon. It snorted and tilted its head, beady eyes fixed on Tetsuya.

"Uh, I don't think that's necessary," Tetsuya said. "It's gonna slow us down, and we're not going to get struck by lightning anyway. We're under a bunch of trees."

"Hmm, okay…," Hayato said, sounding kind of forlorn. "Are you sure? I think it would make me feel a little safer…"

Tetsuya barely restrained his annoyance, but he nodded. "Fine, whatever. C'mon."

The rhydon had some difficulty navigating the terrain as expected, but it didn't slow them down as much as Tetsuya had supposed it would. The rain steadily ramped up over the next several minutes until the downpour was torrential. Lightning at first every couple minutes, then every minute or so, casting the forest in its freakish light and rattling Tetsuya's bones.

"We must be getting close," Hayato said. "This lightning is really—"

As if on cue, a massive bolt of lightning crashed down right in front of them, hitting the rhydon directly on its horn. Tetsuya staggered backward, holding his ears—his hearing was ringing loudly, his vision dancing. "Fuck," he said, but he could barely hear the sound of his own voice.

Hayato was grinning widely, however. "He's saved us once and counting!" he exclaimed as Tetsuya's hearing was restored somewhat.

"That wouldn't have struck anywhere near us if that thing was still in its ball," Tetsuya shouted back. The rain was really ripping now, smacking against his back in sheets. Powerful gusts of wind threatened to knock him off his feet. "I really think you need to withdraw—"

His vision was all white again, his ears split by another staggering peal of thunder. He stumbled backward and pressed his palms into his eyes, groaning. When his vision returned, Hayato had recalled his rhydon already. Tetsuya shook his head in annoyance, ears ringing, when he noticed the foliage behind Hayato rustling. It seemed a particularly large palm behind the thicket was swaying wildly and seemed to be… moving?

Realization hit Tetsuya like a ton of bricks. "Hayato, get out of the way!" he shouted, but Hayato just stared at him—his hearing must have still been ringing from the thunder. At that moment, a massive exeggutor emerged from the brush, its dopish expressions contorting with rage as it spotted the pair of rain-soaked humans. Hayato turned to face it and then stumbled backward in shock, tripping over a root and falling hard on his ass.

"Cutter, stop that thing!" Tetsuya cried, gesturing frantically at the exeggutor. The scyther gave a curt nod and then buzzed over to the exeggutor in the blink of an eye, lashing out wildly with his scythes, but it was too late. The exeggutor's faces were bunched up in concentration, and Hayato was hovering, slowly, off the ground.

"Help!" Hayato screamed, reaching out toward Tetsuya hysterically, his eyes wide with terror. Tetsuya's breath hitched, his heart threatening to leap out of his chest. Time seemed to slow down. What could he do? The brutish pokémon didn't seem to care that Cutter was hacking away hunks of its fibrous body. Hayato was firmly in its psychic grips, contorting with pain as he hovered horizontally in the air, his teeth gnashing and his hands flailing in Tetsuya's direction.

For an instant, a dreadful, terrible thought occurred to Tetsuya.

He could just leave Hayato here. He could just leave Cutter to fight the exeggutor and run away. Cutter would probably cut his losses eventually, and the exeggutor would be too distracted with its newly-caught prey to chase them down. Tetsuya could complete the journey on his own. He could catch Zapdos and teleport away without having to worry about any witnesses. He'd left people to worse fates before, and it fully took care of his problem. He'd be home-free.

In that moment, Tetsuya hated himself more deeply than he ever had before.

"Help me, Tetsuya!" Hayato screamed again. All thoughts of leaving him behind were flushed from Tetsuya's mind, leaving behind only a foul afterimage that made him feel physically ill. He roused himself from his paralysis and charged forward. There was only one thing to do.

He took the floating Hayato's hands and tugged on them emphatically, but the exeggutor's grip was tight. Hayato screamed as the two forces tugged at him; the exeggutor gave a deep bellow of frustration, so low Tetsuya felt it in his bones more than he heard it. With a grunt of frustration, Tetsuya let go of Hayato and rushed at the exeggutor itself, ramming his shoulder into its solid flank. The exeggutor stumbled backward in surprise, and Tetsuya heard Hayato drop to the ground behind him, groaning in pain as he collided with the wet dirt.

Then he felt his muscles lock up. The exeggutor, whose triple faces were screwed up in anger, had him firmly in its psychic grip now. Its eyes bulged as it crushed Tetsuya with its mind; he shouted out in anguish as every part of him seared as if being hyper-constricted. Barely conscious, he moved his arm toward the exeggutor with a loud grunt of exertion, feeling as though a 200-pound weight was tied to his wrist. He felt ready to collapse from exhaustion by the time his hand was a few inches from the exeggutor's face; with a final burst of effort, he jammed his fingers into the exeggutor's eyes.

The beast roared with pain, and Tetsuya was released from its psychic grip. He fell into a heap on the floor, his whole body aching and sore as if each of his muscles had individually run a marathon. Without taking a moment to recuperate, he scampered to Hayato, heaved him over his shoulder, and broke into a run. Every piece of him protested, but he pushed through the pain, tears welling in his eyes, and sprinted into the forest. "Take care of it, Cutter!" he shouted behind him, voice hoarse. He was unsure if his pokémon heard him, but he hoped he would know what to do anyway.

Tetsuya ran and ran into the bowels of the forest for what felt like hours. After a while he could physically not move any further—he dumped Hayato onto the ground in exhaustion, then fell to his knees and vomited. He felt like he was vomiting for a century. The rain washed it away as quickly as he was depositing it onto the floor, turning it into a chunky stream that soaked the knees of his pants. He didn't care. At some point, Cutter buzzed back to his side, panting heavily. When Tetsuya was finally finished throwing up, he placed a hand on Cutter's back. "You did good," he croaked. The scyther's wings fluttered in pleasure, but he didn't otherwise move.

"Thank you," Hayato sputtered from the ground. "Both of you." Tetsuya sat back up straight again at last and wiped his mouth on the back of his sleeve. He didn't exactly make for the most picturesque savior.

"Of course," Tetsuya said. "It's what you're paying me to do, right?"

A prong of guilt stabbed at Tetsuya's heart as he watched Hayato smile weakly in response. Just a few hours ago he'd said that he would do anything to secure a future for himself and his son. He'd told himself that if it required driving a knife through Hayato's chest, he'd have done it. But… he couldn't. He wasn't strong enough for that. He wasn't a cold-hearted killer, and some prices were simply too great. Just the thought of leaving Hayato behind to be torn apart by the exeggutor made Tetsuya want to hurl again. If he couldn't bring himself to do that, could he really bear the responsibility for the consequences of capturing a god?

He took a deep, shaky breath. "We should turn back," he said. "I have an abra on me. I can teleport you back to the parking lot. You can just go home and I'll pick the abra up from you when I make my way back."

"No," Hayato said. He laboriously pulled himself to his feet, leaning against a tree for support. "We're so close. I know it's nearby, I can feel it." Lightning crashed nearby, exacerbating Tetsuya's headache but also underscoring Hayato's point.

Tetsuya gave Hayato a stern look and opened his mouth to argue when a loud screech split the air, shrill and ear-splitting. Hayato's eyes bulged in alarm.

"That's… that has to be Zapdos! We're so close! Tetsuya, let's go!"

Tetsuya pressed his lips into a line, excitement and dread battling in his heart. The thought of getting to see Zapdos was genuinely thrilling to him in a way it hadn't been before; it felt real now. But the master ball was burning a hole in his pack.

Cutter pushed ahead of them, cutting down the thicket in their way dutifully. Tetsuya steeled himself. When they got to Zapdos… he would leave it be, he decided. He wouldn't capture it. It was just too much. The notion of spending the next month scraping cash together was dreadful, but it was nowhere near as dreadful as what he'd felt before, gazing into Hayato's terror-filled eyes. When he got home, he would return the master ball to Kazuma, tell him they'd failed to locate Zapdos, and figure out the rest from there. It would be hard, but things had been hard for a while. Somehow, someway, he would have to find a way to manage.

Nothing was worth what he would have to go through to put Zapdos in a ball. It made his heart sink to admit that, but it was freeing too.

After a quarter-hour of walking, they emerged into a small clearing in the forest. Tetsuya knew they'd reached their destination when he felt his hair begin to stand on end. He looked over to Hayato and couldn't help but laugh—his head was like a fluffy sphere of lifted hair. Hayato let out a goofy chuckle too.

"Holy shit," Hayato said. "We look ridiculous, but it's kinda giving me the chills. It has to be right here."

Lightning struck again, less than a hundred yards away. Tetsuya clenched his eyes shut, then blinked back into focus. He pointed his gaze in the direction the afterimage of the bolt occupied in his vision… and sure enough, there it was.

It was hard to make out from a distance, and it was partially covered by shrubs and palm fans to boot, but those radiant golden feathers were hard to mistake. "Oh my god," Hayato said. He slowly dropped to his knees, and Tetsuya did the same—best not to be spotted by the enormous legendary pokémon. Hayato moved his hand to his belt, never taking his eyes off Zapdos as he clumsily fumbled for a poké ball. He found it at last and released the rhydon in a burst of white light. The flash apparently caught the attention of Zapdos, because it stood up straight, jerking its head around in search of the light source. Its face, surrounded by a halo of pointy golden feathers, was massive—its beak was like the barrel of a bright orange rifle, long and pointed enough to spear a man through. Its gaze was penetrating, but fortunately it didn't seem to spot them; it let out a disgruntled squawk and then ducked out of sight again, stirring slightly.

"Holy shit," Hayato said again. "Holy shit." He finally pried his gaze off the legendary pokémon and looked to Tetsuya instead, his uplifted hair seemingly moving in slow motion as he turned his head. His eyes were brimming with tears, and a tight, sentimental smile spread across his face. "Thank you so much for doing this for me. Seriously. If it wasn't for you… I don't know what would have happened to me back there. You were so brave. And now… I get to see this. It's a dream come true for me. Thank you."

Tetsuya's heart swelled. Guilt and excitement and camaraderie and accomplishment swirled within him, threatening to shatter his impassive mask and reveal the vortex of emotions within. He swallowed hard and managed a little smile back. "You're welcome," he said.

And then his backpack strap snapped.

The intact strap remained fixed to his shoulder, tearing the pack in two as the other side slumped. It must have been damaged during the scrape with the exeggutor. Whatever the cause, it didn't matter now. The pack spilled its contents all over the ground, including—

"What is that?" Hayato said, his eyes widening. Tetsuya feared he knew what he was talking about before he even saw it for himself. "What the fuck is that?"

He looked down, and there it was. A minimized poké ball with a glossy violet upper shell, complete with ergonomic magenta grooves.

Before Tetsuya could react, Hayato snatched it up. "Oh my god," he said, the color draining from his face. "Where the fuck did you get this? Were you seriously thinking of—oh my god, that's why you asked me about—oh my god." He looked back to Tetsuya, his gaze smoldering with contempt. "I led you right to it. I can't fucking believe how stupid I am."

Tetsuya was frozen in place, his stomach churning and threatening to release whatever contents it still had left. "Hayato," he said slowly, his voice trembling. "I need you to give that back to me. Please. You don't understand what you're doing."

"Yes, I do," Hayato said, the hand with the master ball in it shaking with rage. "I didn't before, but now I do. I can't believe this. I can't believe you." He raised the ball, fist clenched tightly around it, and Tetsuya swore his heart stopped.

"Hayato," he pleaded, "I'm begging you. I wasn't even going to catch it. I mean, I was, but I changed my mind, I swear to fucking God—"

Hayato turned his face away from Tetsuya. As if he couldn't even bear to look at him. Then he ducked down and placed the master ball on the ground, raised his boot—

Tetsuya abandoned all dignity and fell to his knees, reaching desperately for the ball. But he wasn't quick enough. Hayato smashed the ball under his heel. Tetsuya reached for it anyway, but Hayato didn't stop. Another stomp. Another. He crushed Tetsuya's fingers and the ball alike beneath his boot. When he was done, the master ball was nothing but a small pile of ceramic shards and broken machinery. Gone.

Something deep within Tetsuya snapped.

"You have no fucking idea what you just did," he said, slowly withdrawing his arm and cradling his broken fingers. He rose to his feet slowly, feeling empty.

Kazuma was never going to forgive him for this. They were probably going to kill him, or worse. Unless… Unless…

"I stopped you from catching Zapdos," Hayato shot back. "And I'd do it again in a heartbeat. I'd do it a thousand times if I had to."

A smile spread across Tetsuya's face, but there was nothing funny about the way he was feeling. "You didn't stop anything, you dumb fucking shit," he said. "If anything, you caused it." Before Hayato could respond, Tetsuya shoved him to the ground with his good hand, then scooped up the sack of poké balls Kazuma had lent him. The backup plan. For use in emergencies only.

Hayato scuttled backward, trying to get back to his feet but just slipping in the mud and falling on his ass again. "What are you doing," he gasped.

"I'm doing what you fucking made me do!" Tetsuya roared. His shout almost certainly attracted Zapdos's attention, but Tetsuya didn't care. What he was going to do next, God himself would be powerless to stop. "I wasn't even going to catch it, did you know that? It's what I came here to do, but I decided against it, because... because…" He could barely force the words out. "Because I let myself fucking care about the stupid shit you were saying, asshole! And you fucked it up. You fucked it all up." He shook his head, barely able to control his own body through all the rage and adrenaline that was pumping through him. "When Rocket comes to take care of you, to make sure no one hears about what I'm about to do, I want you to remember that you caused this. Because you couldn't just leave things the fuck alone. You fucking idiot."

Hayato just laid there, staring up at Tetsuya with the same terrified eyes as before. This time, Tetsuya was the monster.

And he didn't care at all.

"Why are you doing this," he whimpered.

"Because I fucking have to!" Tetsuya averted his gaze and involuntarily let out a sob. A fucking sob. "This is what my life looks like. This is what the real world looks like. We can't all dick around in the goddamn ecology department for our whole lives. Some of us have to do things to put food on the table, to keep a roof over our heads. Fucked up things. Things that make you hate yourself. But you do them because you fucking have to. That's what it's like. And if I don't…"

They'll take him away from me, he wanted to say. I'll lose everything. My life will become meaningless. But he didn't say any of that. He just screwed his face up, trying his best not to cry like a pathetic baby.

"You don't want this," Hayato squeaked.

"No fucking shit I don't want this, numbnuts!" Tetsuya screamed. "But you broke my fucking master ball. My head's going to be on a goddamn pike if I don't do this now, thanks to you."

"Tetsuya, stop."

Tetsuya was done with this, and with no time to spare—his shouting had attracted Zapdos, and it had emerged from the bushes and was staring threateningly at them head-on now, its feathers raised and electricity arcing between them. Tetsuya opened the sack of poké balls.

"Stop it. Tetsuya, stop. You don't want this."

He squeezed his eyes shut. He was probably moments away from getting a hole burned through his chest by a super-powered lightning bolt.

He didn't want this. But there was no other way.

"Tetsuya, no!"

He let the balls in the sack fly. They erupted all at once, and a dozen geodudes sprung into being. They were highly-trained pokémon who needed no command—they knew how to do only a single thing, and they did it promptly. They sailed toward Zapdos, whose flurry of electric attacks did nothing against them; sparks flew off their lumpy bodies inertly. They clung to the legendary pokémon, digging their stony hands into its feathers and pulling themselves close to its flesh—then, all at once—

"NO!"

They exploded. Tetsuya threw up his arms to protect himself from bits of flying, smoldering geodude shards; one narrowly missed Hayato. The heat of the explosion surged past them in a powerful wave, almost knocking Tetsuya off his feet. Zapdos let out a blood-curdling scream, then fell to the ground, sparks flying off its feathers and then dying in the air. Smoke rose from its body.

Tetsuya cast the sack to the side; it was useless now, as were all the poké balls it had once contained. There were no pokémon remaining to withdraw; they were just fragments of shrapnel scattered on the forest floor now. Tetsuya pulled another poké ball off his belt, a pink one with cream-colored polka dots and a blue seal. A heal ball.

This one was empty.

Hayato was sobbing as Tetsuya raised his arm to toss the ball. "Tetsuya, don't do this," he pleaded, his voice weak. "You don't want this. It's not too late. It's never too late. You don't have to do this. I'll help you. I'll give you money. Please. Don't do this."

Tetsuya faltered, his hand next to his head. This was the final moment.

But Hayato was wrong. It was too late. Zapdos lay in a smoldering heap on the ground, its wheezy breaths audible from a distance. He'd already gone too far to turn back. There was only one direction to go from here.

He threw the ball, and Zapdos disappeared in a flash of light. The ball only rocked once before clicking.



Tetsuya's phone buzzed in his hand. He switched on the screen and spared an uneasy glance at the new message alert. It was a text from Kazuma.

"are you bringing the fuckign pokemon or not? i am starting to get pissed off 🤬"

He sighed and took a deep breath of the refreshing salty air. It had been a week since he'd captured Zapdos, and this was the fourth time he'd returned here, to the parking lot of Olivine Wildlife Refuge.

When he'd lobbed the heal ball at Zapdos on that day, he'd thought he was taking the final step, crossing the boundary beyond which he could never turn back. But he'd been wrong. When he returned home that night, bruised and battered, he'd realized something. Zapdos was in this poké ball. It belonged to him. Until he handed it over to Kazuma… there was nothing anyone else could do with it.

The final step was still ahead of him.

Something about breaking down and throwing the ball had been freeing—the decision, for better or worse, felt like it had been made. Now he felt locked in a prison of indecision, too sickened to turn the ball in but too aware of its value to release it.

He sighed and leaned back against his car, fingering his pocket absent-mindedly with his free hand for his cigarette carton. Empty. He'd just bought it this morning… He ran a hand down his face, head pounding. This last week had not been kind to him; he'd barely gotten a wink of sleep since the hike. It was hard to sleep when he was overwhelmed by paranoia. Surely, he thought, the police would bust down his door any minute; surely Hayato had run to them after Tetsuya had teleported him away and told them everything. Perhaps returning to the scene of the crime was foolish considering that, but somehow it felt safer than staying at home. There was something magnetic about it.

His phone buzzed again. "your going to be in trouble," the message read. Tetsuya shook his head and switched his phone off, slipping it into his pocket.

He stood there for a moment, leaning against his car with the morning sun shining down on him, and somehow fell asleep standing up. It was the words of a familiar yet terrifying voice that pulled him out of his nap: "I thought I'd find you here."

Tetsuya snapped his eyes open, hoping it had been an illusion. But there he was, standing before him. Hayato's leg was in a brace, and he had a single crutch. He looked just about as haggard as Tetsuya felt, but otherwise okay.

"What are you doing here," Tetsuya said, his heart racing and his hand flying to his car door handle.

"Please, relax," Hayato said, wincing. "I'm not here to… get you in trouble, or whatever. Listen… You still have it, don't you? I know you do."

Tetsuya swallowed hard. Hayato probably brought a whole entourage with him. There had to be cops hiding behind every car in the parking lot. He took a deep breath to steady himself.

"Yes," he whispered, despite everything. "I have it. With me." He averted his gaze. "Why are you here?"

"Tetsuya. Listen. Look at me." He did. Behind his round glasses, Hayato's eyes seemed to be glimmering. "You did a horrible thing, to Zapdos and to me. An unforgivable thing. But that doesn't mean you have to just keep making it worse. It's not too late. I know you don't want this. You told me that. I know it's tearing you apart. I know you're scared. That's how I knew I'd find you here."

"You don't know jack fucking shit," Tetsuya said, swinging his car door open. "Leave me alone. Go back to your stupid school."

"Tetsuya, stop!" Hayato said. There was a note of desperation in his voice. "You're scared, right? That's why you're doing this? You love your son, and you're afraid of what they'll do to you. Am I right?"

Tetsuya froze but didn't say anything.

"Listen to me. Is this really what you think is best for him? Living your life in fear, controlled by a group of terrorists?"

"Why are you doing this?" Tetsuya said softly. His hands were shaking. "Did you do this just to taunt me? To make me feel even more like shit? Well, mission accomplished. You can fuck off now."

"No, you idiot!" Hayato cried. "God, you're so—I'm doing this because I don't want you to go through with this! I already explained to you why it's horrible, and I know that you know it. And it's not even like you're some hand-wringing demon who's getting a kick out of this, it's killing you. It's just… wrong, Tetsuya. It shouldn't happen. It doesn't have to."

Tetsuya hung his head. His face felt tight. Hayato was right. He didn't want to do this. If he did, he would have handed in Zapdos a week ago. But… but what? What else was there? "What the fuck am I supposed to do?" he asked.

"I don't know," Hayato said. "What were you planning on doing after you handed Zapdos over? Did you think that would be the end of it?" Tetsuya grimaced. "You've created a hard situation. I don't know what comes next… But every day you're going to be faced with decisions. And you can choose to do the right thing or not. You keep doing the right thing, even if it sucks, and things will improve." Hayato gently removed Tetsuya's hand from the door handle and then shut it slowly. "Right now, you have a choice."

Tetsuya moved his hand to his belt. His arm felt like it was moving like molasses. He unclipped the heal ball and looked down at it in his hand. It was minimized right now, barely bigger than a ping-pong ball. It looked so innocuous right now, pale pink and lined with polka dots. Such an odious thing.

"Hand it to me," Hayato said, extending an open palm. "I can do it for you. It'll be easier that way."

Tetsuya's hand began to shake. This was the final moment, truly. He moved the ball toward Hayato slowly, his heart racing. Some part of him still expected the police to emerge the moment the ball left his hand. He pictured the sirens blaring, the guns extended, the booming voices amplified through megaphones. His head being shoved down as he was forced into the back of a police car. A guilty verdict. A lifetime spent—

Hayato snatched the ball out of his hands. Tetsuya's breath hitched, and his fingers closed around empty air. He immediately began to look wildly around the parking lot, but nothing happened.

"Not so bad, right?" Hayato said. He unclipped a ball from his own belt and released the rhydon. "You ready?"

Tetsuya didn't nod or shake his head or say anything, but Hayato didn't wait for his response. He took a deep breath, raised his hand, then threw the ball into the center of the parking lot.

Zapdos emerged in a flash of light and immediately took wing, blasting into the sky and letting out an otherworldly screech. Electricity streamed from its body all the way to the ground. Several of the arcs tethered to the rhydon's horn, but they seemed harmless. Zapdos abruptly stopped once it was thirty yards or so into the air and unfurled its huge black wings, then turned its gaze down to the pair of humans staring up at it.

It flapped in place for a minute, as if considering them, then squawked and flew off. Hayato placed the ball on the ground and then, just as he had the day before, smashed it under his boot.

Tetsuya didn't say anything. At once he felt a thousand emotions and he felt nothing. After a few minutes, Zapdos had flown out of sight.

Gone.

He took a deep, deep breath, then noticed the tears streaming off his face onto his shirt. He wiped them off on the back of his sleeve and choked out a sob.

What did he have now? A debt larger than he could conceive of and nothing to pay it back with, except for his life.

And yet… somehow, he felt freer than he ever had before.

Hayato put a hand on his shoulder as he cried. He stood there like that for a while, barely aware of the physical space around him, the clamoring of random passersby about having seen Zapdos hardly registering to him. He found himself falling into Hayato's embrace. Hayato hugged him back, tightly. And it felt… good. So good and warm. When was the last time someone had hugged him? When was the last time he'd had a good cry?

"It's over," Hayato said. "You did the right thing. It was hard, but… Zapdos is out there again. Everything will be okay." He paused for a moment, then said: "You just needed someone in your corner for once, didn't you?"

Tetsuya nodded through his sobbing. He stood there for a little while longer, nodding and crying, then pulled away and wiped his face off on his sleeve. It felt like he left behind a river. He was a mess.

"Thank you," he managed. He felt so hollow that his words seemed to echo in his chest. "What do I do now? I'm so… fucked."

"Maybe," Hayato said. "But you were fucked before." Tetsuya nodded grimly. It was cold comfort, but now, for better or worse, he'd broken from Rocket. That's what he'd always wanted, really. Maybe not in these circumstances, but…

"The only step you can take is the next," Hayato added. "You get to choose which way you're gonna take it. And you've got someone on your side now."

"Why?" Tetsuya said. "Why would you want to help me, after what I did to you?"

"You tricked me," Hayato said. "You took advantage of me, you shoved me, you hurt me. But you saved my life too. I don't forgive what you did, but… I don't want you to hurt either. I don't want you to suffer or be punished. I want you to raise above it."

It was everything Tetsuya had not to cry again. Hayato pulled him for another hug, then looked him in the eye.

"So, do you want to go for another hike?" he asked.

Tetsuya burst out laughing. "Are you fucking serious? Of course I don't."

"Yeah, me neither," Hayato said with a wide grin. "Let's just get lunch instead, maybe."

"I can do that."

Hayato chuckled and started rambling on about some cute lunch place he'd found. Tetsuya couldn't force himself to listen—his eyes were drawn to the wide blue sky beyond the parking lot, so clear and deep.

For just a moment, he thought he saw Zapdos flying over the swaying pines, and in that instant Tetsuya was Zapdos—flying, unshackled after so long squished into a ball.

Finally, without a master.
 
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slamdunkrai

bing.com
Pronouns
they/them
Partners
  1. darkrai
  2. snom
Oh wow, this is bloody excellent! I'm always a sucker for the trope of "powerful Pokémon breaking free from capture paralleled with lowly Team Such-And-Such grunt escaping to a better life" (which is oddly precise, but like, I've seen it a few times); this is an example of it being executed wonderfully. You do a perfect job of laying out the stakes for Tetsuya in the opening act, and it's already a compelling conflict -- I do really like stories that give a glimpse as to why the grunts are in it, and "money in order to survive" is honestly a pretty universally compelling one. The system is broken and though he's no saint himself, it has ultimately failed Tetsuya. He doesn't want to do these awful things deep down, but his prospects look grim indeed if he doesn't follow through on them, so what choice does he have? In other words, he's exactly the sort of flawed protag that I love, and he's handled with a lot of nuance.

The second act plays out in a really excellent way, too. From his introduction, Hayato is presented as a great foil to all of this. He doesn't know what's going on in Tetsuya's life, nor would he have any suspicions that he's in so deep. He just wants help with this hike. And it plays out in such a compelling manner -- we know what's ultimately going to happen, but we see our wretched, trash man protagonist struggle with all of his worst impulses just enough that it seems as though he'll back down in the face of such a wondrous creature. Unfortunately, he doesn't, and it's a big fuckin' disaster for all parties. Hayato's been brutally betrayed, Zapdos gets exploded on and then captured, and though he'll get his small fortune, Tetsuya's gone past the point of no return.

...And it could have ended there as a wholly different, but it didn't, and as I said, I love it for that. Because it's not really the point of no return if Tetsuya has people who aren't going to give up on him, right? And I mean, even if this is all terrifying and bleak and he's been gravely wronged, Hayato's a good guy! He's the sort of guy who's gonna try to make this right until he physically can't, and a big part of that is for Zapdos, but hey, I love that he's still got faith that Tetsuya can take the hard road and break free of this cycle of abuse and pain. I also think it really helps that you manage to describe Zapdos beautifully as this magnificent beast that inspires such awe; they're a painfully fallible creature, but they're also so mighty and gorgeous, and electricity arcs out of them as they move about the world. And they get to go free to be themself if Tetsuya only allows it. And he does! Things look uncertain now, but hey, he finally gets to be free. He's finally Without A Master. (I'm not sorry.)

tl;dr: magnificent story, had a great time with it, would happily read again; my favourite detail is that Kazuma is the type of guy to angry-text and misspell things and use the objectively funniest emoji. Cheers for writing it! :>
 

WildBoots

Don’t underestimate seeds.
Pronouns
She/Her
Partners
  1. moka-mark
  2. solrock
So, I obviously enjoyed this. It has so many of the things I like!! Environmental themes? Hello, hi, love it. Sympathetic criminal? Why am I like this? Grumpy Bois Club 4 lyfe. Overall, I had a lot of fun reading this and I'm glad it exists!

Some general thoughts:
Hayato is an interesting foil for Tetsuya, not just because he's earnest in the face of Tetsuya's cynical practicality but because he embodies transformation. Ultimately, the chance to change his life is what's at stake for Tetsuya, first when he tries to change his financial circumstances and then when he changes his attitude and behavior. Although he's the one guiding Hayato through the wilderness, Hayato is the one who ultimately guides him onto another path.

He probably is fucked, though haha. Poor guy.

The forest felt lush and dangerous—especially that exeggutor. I enjoyed seeing such a weirdo pokemon get a chance to shine, BTW.

I also really enjoyed the justification for why Zapdos shouldn't be removed from its environment. The ecology of storms and underbrush clearing made sense to me and also, woof, what a 2021 mood. Zapdos definitely gave me bald-eagle-on-steroids vibes. Like, it felt huge and majestic, more powerful than the average pokemon, but not incomprehensibly, skull-meltingly powerful and probably only about as intelligent as a smart animal. It made sense in this setting.

I know it's already longer than you might've wanted, but there were still a couple places I wanted a little more. We don't get much of Cutter, for example. Like, he's definitely doing stuff onscreen, but it's hard to tell what Tetsuya's relationship with him is like, which feels important when the story hinges on how he's going to treat a different pokemon. I guess I assumed he was a stolen pokemon, but I don't actually know. Similarly, his son fades away into the rest of the plot after he's initially waved in our face to get Tetsuya moving. I'd like to see a version of this fic that's haunted by thoughts of the son a little more. I also wanted this passage to be expanded:

If he tried to fall off their radar he had no doubt they’d come for him. He’d heard the stories.

I think getting quick glimpses at those stories would make it clearer what the stakes are for him. As-is, I guess the ending works because it doesn't feel like he's in immediate danger ... but it probably should feel like he's in serious trouble, right? I wonder if this ending is trying too hard to make things okay. Might be interesting to see a version of this story where we watch him pay a price for doing the right thing (though that might be be channeling The Squid Game, TBH).

I feel like there's more I planned to say, but after sitting on this for a couple days I'm still no thoughts head empty. I'll follow up with more if it occurs to me, and you can always DM me to talk through story stuff. :)
 

zion of arcadia

too much of my own quietness is with me
Pronouns
she/her
Partners
  1. marowak-alola
Here from catnip! I’ve been meaning to review your stuff for a while. Glad I’m finally getting the chance.

I like how this starts immediately with stakes important to the main character. We know Tetsuya is in a lot of trouble and that the consequences affect his son. It gives me a reason to care in the span of a few paragraphs. Given this is a one-shot that’s even more helpful.

Tetsuya in general endeared himself to me as a character pretty much right away. He’s angry and exploiting pokemon for gain, but also trapped in a shitty situation. And also quite accepting of trans people, which was sweet. It reminded me of when I was in high school, I was taking an extra English class senior year (funnily enough, it was harder than my AP English class, but I digress), and there was this somewhat dopey football player in it. And another boy, younger, volunteered at the library--generally more bookish/nerdy or whatever--made an off the cuff homophobic response while we were discussing Kite Runner, and the football player was just like… bro, you should work on yourself. Always stuck with me.

Anyway. Where was I? Oh right: Tetsuya. He’s cool. And we get introduced to Hayako. I admit, I’m a little more ambivalent about Hayako. Other than he’s a trans character whose role in the story has nothing to do with transgender trauma. It’s lightly touched upon and then set aside to let the main plot progress. That’s nice.

Where I struggle to click with Hayako is that he feels like a cipher a lot of the time and, more importantly, whatever bond he has with Tetsuya feels a little forced. You seem to like the dynamic of someone naïve and morally driven being paired with someone more cynical and embittered by the world--and I like it, too. But Hayako just seems to pop out of nowhere with gobs of money, imparting a series of life lessons and swooping down to pluck Tetsuya out of crime and poverty. It comes across as a bit saccharine. More than that, I just don’t really buy Tetsuya liking Hayako or wanting to spend more time with him, or vice versa. Like Hayako straight up says he doesn’t forgive Tetsuya, but then offers to go to lunch with him? Not to mention Tetsuya spent most of their hike together just ignoring Hayako. I dunno.

Edit: Upon further reflection, I think maybe if Hayako and Tetsuya had more of a past, more a sense of camaraderie, it might’ve been more effective. As it stands you had to progress their relationship to a reasonable point within a single hiking trip, which is… tricky.

In terms of structure everything was well thought out, with rising tension and pivotal character decisions. But there was also something rote and clinical about it at times, with the emotional beats just happening one after another. Like the whole masterball spilling out right after Tetsuya decided not to capture Zapdos was the pinnacle of contrived. Although I did love these lines:

This is what my life looks like. This is what the real world looks like. We can't all dick around in the goddamn ecology department for our whole lives. Some of us have to do things to put food on the table, to keep a roof over our heads. Fucked up things. Things that make you hate yourself. But you do them because you fucking have to. That's what it's like. And if I don't…

But it was frustrating because it never feels like Hayako ever understands that. He talks about how everything is going to be okay later on and it strikes me as such a hollow reassurance from someone who still doesn’t know what they’re talking about when it comes to living a life where every particle of your being is focused on survival. Or maybe he does and I just don’t know it, because all I know about Hayako is that he’s a rich academic who used to be shy and now just speaks in empty platitudes, except that one time when he got angry enough to crush the masterball and move the plot forward.

Which maybe makes this review sound super negative, but I actually enjoyed myself quite a bit. For one, the oneshot covers a number of genuinely important issues. From environmentalism to animal abuse to gang politics to just showing compassion toward people who have wronged you. For another, there were moments where their dynamic absolutely clicked for me, like when Hayako released the rhydon and (maybe) drew lightning toward them. I chuckled at that interaction.

And, like I mentioned before, Tetsuya as the main character was dynamite. He was both funny (him being like, ‘I don’t want to mess up the environment or whatever’ had me cackling) and tragic and the general empathy toward his position and struggles felt deeply cathartic. And it was satisfying when he made the right choice in the end, with the implication that his life could finally begin moving in a more positive direction. It won’t be easy, but it’s a start.

Thoughts on prose: it was solid. Direct where it needed to be, precise when discussing the fights. Maybe a little on-the-nose at times with the internal reflections. There weren’t many lines I wanted to read again and again due to artful construction given how to-the-point Tetsuya’s POV generally is, but I did like this one:

There were no pokémon remaining to withdraw; they were just fragments of shrapnel scattered on the forest floor now. Tetsuya pulled another poké ball off his belt, a pink one with cream-colored polka dots and a blue seal. A heal ball.

It grounded the preceding events in very real, very brutal violence that simultaneously dehumanized and objectified the geodude. And then created an effective dichotomy by choosing to capture Zapdos in a heal ball. An all around well executed moment. I don't really do line-by-line prose critiques these days if I can avoid it, but if you really want that from me, just shoot me a DM.

The dialogue was good. Strong voices for each character and if you took away tags I could identify Hayako from Tetsuya pretty much every single time. Anddd that about wraps up my thoughts, I think.

Thanks for sharing! Have a poem in return (changed because while I like the other poem, idk if it really fit, y’know):

& what if hope crashes through the door what if
that lasts a summersault?
hope for serendipity
even if a series of meals were all between us
even if the aeons lined up out
of order
what are years if not measured by trees
 
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Pen

the cat is mightier than the pen
Staff
Partners
  1. dratini
  2. dratini-pen
  3. dratini-pen2
I really liked the premise here. It's always fun having a jaded protagonist and there's a lot of great built-in conflict from the get-go. Tetusuya's in a genuinely tough situation without clear moral answers. He's made his mess and is lying in it, except that having a son has changed the calculus, and he's stuck. Enter Hayato and the dream of capturing Zapdos. I like the 'one last job' energy--it's a trope I'm a big sucker for. I also liked the complete disjoint between Hayato and Tetsuya's worlds, even though they were in highschool together. They're coming from such different places throughout the fic, and that difference is clear as early as their initial text messages. I also got the sense that Tetsuya is pretty damn lonely. He's separated from Ichiro's mom, it's not clear he has friends outside of Team Rocket, so there's something especially destabilizing about someone from his past re-entering his life. All the bits about the environmental impact were a lot of fun to read, and I really like this take on legendary pokemon as keystones of ecosystems. I also appreciated the practicality of the Team Rocket legendary capture kit, though it might have been nice to get more of a sense of how Tetsuya's presumable expertise as a pokemon thief(?) plays into the capture--as is, it's very much throw the bag and voila. Still, even though we don't see too much of Rocket, they convey a nice sense of mob style professionalism and menace.

One of the strongest moments for me was when the strap breaks. It's such a gut-punch--he's decided not to go for it, and then events get out of control. I was drawn to the exploration throughout of what the point of no return is and how arbitrary that really is. Tetsuya begins by thinking his path is set by his circumstances and by the end he has to confront the fact that there's always a choice--the real question is what cost you are willing to bear.

I did feel like Tetsuya's character arc lacked some context and consistency that I would have liked. The first thing that struck me was his son. That's ostensibly the reason he's doing all this, but his son didn't feel super present in his thoughts. A memory of some good times Tetsuya's had with Ichiro or a sequence where he fantasizes about what their life would look like outside of Team Rocket's grasp would have gone a long way to make concrete what's pushing Tetsuya here. At times his son felt more like plot justification than the center of Tetsuya's life. And I would have liked more recognition at the end of what Tetsuya's choice is going to mean in regards to his son.

I also didn't have a consistent sense of Tetsuya's comfort level with violence. We get some indications that violence is routine to him: he thinks about stabbing Hayato as a casual possibility, he's done many Rocket missions before, he says he's left people to worse fates than Hayato and the exxegutor, his scyther reacts violently upon release, suggesting he didn't just do stealth theft. But even though he's known Hayato all of a couple of hours, basically, Tetsuya vomits at the idea of leaving him to be killed and hates himself more than he's ever hated himself in that moment. I struggled to understand whether Tetsuya was someone who really wasn't accustomed to violence, and we're supposed to read him as talking a bigger game than is the reality, or whether he is supposed to be someone truly hardened who develops through the story. I also wasn't quite sure what the nexus of Tetsuya's change of heart was. He doesn't want to hurt Hayato, but it was less clear to me how and why he decides capturing Zapdos really is wrong. One thing that particularly confused me was the legality of the capture. We're told explicitly that there's no law against capturing Zapdos, but later Tetsuya expects to be arrested for having done so. He never expresses remorse over past captures, so it's not about Zapdos' individual fate--but it was hard for me to believe that Tetsuya would get invested so quickly in the abstract harms of a hypothetical forest fire caused by Zapdos' absence. If it comes down to not wanting to disappoint Hayato, his original plan involved Hayato not suspecting a thing, so that doesn't seem like a motivating factor either. It seems like he somehow connects capturing Zapdos to leaving Hayato to be killed, but those are two pretty discrete things.

I enjoyed Hayato's bubbliness, enthusiasm for nature, and good heart, but there was a point where I felt like he crossed the line into being more a voice of Tetsuya's conscience than a flesh and blood character. I got somewhat Manic Pixie vibes--Hayato's here to explain life lessons and right and wrong to Tetsuya and make him a better person--but why does Hayato care so much? His faith in Tetsuya at the end felt a bit narratively forced to me. As for Tetsuya's attitude towards Hayato, he initially seems way more invested in the meet-up and anxious than I would have expected, to the extent I was wondering whether we were supposed to read in some kind of crush. Once they actually start hiking, however, he's very dismissive of Hayato and wants him to shut up. I really didn't get a sense of them bonding during that time, so Tetsuya's turn around with the exeggutor was a bit strange--though how I read that really depends on that missing context about what exactly Tetsuya's career in Rocket has looked like.

Ultimately I really like that the fic ends by emphasizing the importance of choice and taking back your life, but I think I wanted that to be a bit more grounded in Tetsuya's reality and how this episode is going to shape his life. Perhaps tying it back to his son--the realization that he needs to become a person whose worthy of that relationship and he can't do that as a servant to Team Rocket. Overall I think the bones of this story are really solid and compelling--I think it's just a matter of tweaking some of the character presentation.


Tetsuya gritted his teeth. "They're gonna take my kid away if I get evicted," he seethed. "Please. I'm doing everything I can."
Seethed felt like an odd verb here--it overwhelmingly implies anger, in a situation that seems more about desperation.

"Listen, pal," Kazuma said, his expression softening slightly. "I'm sorry to hear that. I really am. But you ain't the only one with kids around here, and this ain't fucking welfare. You knew what you were getting when you signed up with us all those years ago, and you knew what you were getting when you knocked up that whore. I can't go making exceptions for you. You want better results, you give me better results, goddamn it."
I liked this speech a lot, it sets the stakes well.

Some distant part of him wanted to rip the money up in an act of defiance, for some reason.
I'd cut the "for some reason."

"Come back with a dragonite," Kazuma called after him as Tetsuya made his way out the door.
Think you could cut "as Tetsuya made his way out the door" as it's implied.

God, but it would feel good to give that asshole a healthy smack upside the head.
Healthy smack feels like an extremely tame imagined assault. It would fit the inner monologue of a teacher better in my mind than of a Rocket dude.

He walked back to his car unthinkingly, staring at his feet as he walked.
I'd cut "as he walked." It's implied, plus the repeated walk.

It pained him to admit it, but Kazuma was right.
Tetsuya's inner monologue seems to fluctuate between a more casual style that matches his character voice and more formal writing like "It pained him to admit."

He drove his car away from the Rocket front and made his way to the beach. It was a quick drive. Once he was there, he got out and leaned against the railing, back to the ocean as he lit up a smoke. The rhythmic sound of the crashing waves soothed his nerves somewhat, and the cigarette sure as hell didn't hurt.
There's a lot of words on how he gets to the ocean when that's not really story relevant.

Tetsuya wanted nothing more than to go legit, to put all this shady and dangerous business behind him. But he'd been with Rocket too long, knew too much. No way they'd let him just walk away. If he tried to fall off their radar he had no doubt they'd come for him. He'd heard the stories. No, he was in this for life now. If only he could find a way to reconcile that with the life he wanted for his son…
It might help to be a little more concrete here, as in "Everyone had heard what happened to so-and-so. The police hadn't even found the body."

"If only he could find a way to reconcile that with the life he wanted for his son" feels more formal in tone than the start of the paragraph. Again I think going more concrete would help. "He wanted Ichiro to grow up without always looking over his shoulder." etc.

She was a shy, awkward girl in his secondary school with long, greasy hair.
I like the detail about the greasy hair. It feels exactly like the sort of unkind detail you'd remember about a classmate.

He'd done some odd jobs here and there before—dealing with pesky rattata colonies in attics, coaching informal battles, that kind of thing—but never something like this.
The odd job examples do a nice job of fleshing this out!

It'd be good to spend time with his pokémon again too, in a non-criminal context.
This line is odd to me on reread, since he doesn't even try to spend time with his pokemon during the hike or think about doing so. Cutter is released because they get attacked.

"hey," Tetsuya typed back. "good to hear from you. id definitely be interested in helping you out. what timeframe are you thinking"

"Awesome! I honestly didn't expect you to reply," came the response. "Next weekend would be great for me. Is that too soon for you?"
I really like their different texting styles. Establishes Hayato right away.

Tetsuya stared at his side of the screen anxiously for a while, fixated on the triple-dotted speech bubble that indicated Hayato was typing.
I wonder if you want to have Tetsuya this invested this early. I don't see why he'd have much reason to care. Something that might read more true to me is him forgetting about it, and only noticing later that Hayato responded. Him being invested early makes his change in attitude towards Hayato feel like less of a change.

"If it sweetens the deal at all, don't tell anyone about this, but I'm going to see Zapdos. I've been tracking it and have reason to believe it'll be there. I could be wrong, but I'll pay you the same regardless, and you might get a once-in-a-lifetime experience out of it. What do you think?"

Tetsuya sucked on his teeth. It sucked to have to give up his time with Ichiro, but he'd have to be insane to turn down an entire rent payment. He somewhat strongly doubted they'd see Zapdos, but there was no need to tell Hayato that. Let him believe what he wanted so long as he paid out in the end.

Unless…

A horrible, brilliant plan began to hatch in Tetsuya's head.
This felt a little fast to me. I think I expected a bit more skepticism that Zapdos would really be there. Presumably if something like that is easy to know, Rocket would have already tried to capture it.

It was half-past 4 o'clock a.m. on a Saturday morning and Tetsuya was sitting in his shitty sedan in the gravel parking lot of the Olivine Wildlife Refuge, his knuckles white as he gripped the steering wheel. Street lights dotted the area, bathing the area in blindingly white light.
This was a nice scene-setting bit.

The plan was simple. He'd take Hayato to see Zapdos, and then as they began their return trip, he would excuse himself to use the bathroom or something, then teleport using the abra back to the Zapdos, stick it in the master ball, then teleport back. The whole ordeal should only take a minute or two, and unless he fucked up big time, Hayato would never suspect a thing.

If he did… Rocket would take care of that, they assured him.
Would it matter if Hayato suspected?

Tetsuya was fortunate all he had to do was throw a ball. If he had to drive a knife through Hayato's chest, he would probably still do it.
I didn't feel like I ever got the context to evaluate this--has Tetsuya had to be violent before? Has he stabbed anyone?

By the time Hayato pulled into the parking lot, the eastern horizon was painted with just a sliver of totodile blue.
Love totodile blue as a color! I can picture it very clearly.

Tetsuya's heart fluttered with anxiety at the prospect of meeting his old acquaintance again after so long. The physical reaction made him scowl. He didn't care about this guy. What the hell was his heart playing at?
I wasn't sure either! I think having Tetsuya being so invested this early kind of diminishes his change in attitude.

He could walk away, be free from this life of crippling fear and anxiety, and Ichiro would know only security and wealth.
This felt like a good place for a hope-spot, for Tetsuya to fantasize about that better life. What does security and wealth mean to Tetsuya? Moving neighborhoods? Getting Ichiro icecream in some fancy suburban park?

Tetsuya quickly released Cutter, his scyther, who immediately spun toward Hayato and brandished his scythes.

"Whoa, buddy," Tetsuya said even as he saw Hayato tense up behind him. "Relax. This is a friend." Cutter cocked his head, his third eyelids sliding over his eyes as he sized Hayato up. "I need you to cut through these plants ahead of us so we can get through the woods. Think you can do that for me?"

The scyther continued staring at Hayato for a moment, then pried his eyes away and immediately began to hacking up the vegetation ahead.

"Scary pokémon," Hayato said with a nervous chuckle.

"He's, uh, a rescue," Tetsuya lied. "Gets jumpy around strangers."
So this moment strongly implied to me that Tetsuya's work has involved directly attacking humans. But that leaves me a bit confused about his squeamishness later.

It's got lightningrod and it's a ground-type, so it should protect us if Zapdos gets uppity.
Uppity felt like strange word-choice to me from a character who seems to respect Zapdos.

"You know, like… fearow's ability," Hayato explained, smiling weakly.

"Oh. Pffft." The faintest hints of a smile pulled at Tetsuya's lips. "That's dumb. Not laughing at that."

Hayato chuckled weakly.
I'd keep an eye on the adverb repeats!

"Zapdos is pretty important to the ecosystems it lives in, as you'd imagine," he went on. "Articuno brings frosts, and Moltres brings fire… Zapdos brings both the cleansing flame of wildfire with its lightning and the nourishing rains of its thunderstorms. A lot of the places it visits are actually sort of adapted to its occasional presence. They depend on its visits to restore balance and stuff." He kicked at a bush underfoot. "Looks like this place is a little overdue."
Nice tying Zapdos into the forest fire cycle. I wonder how Articuno and Moltres fit in.

Tetsuya frowned. He didn't fully understand everything Hayato was saying, but he was getting enough to know he didn't like it. After all, he was about to stuff Zapdos into a ball and sell it to a gang. He didn't particularly relish hearing about how much it would mess up the environment or whatever.

"Doesn't seem like it matters that much," Tetsuya said at length.
I don't think we needed to be told why Tetsuya is discomforted by this so explicitly, since it's very obvious. I think omitting all that would let the reader make the connection:

"Doesn't seem like it matters that much," Tetsuya said at length. "I mean, we've been doing this for like a century now. The world isn't exactly falling apart."

"Well, these things take time," Hayato said matter-of-factly.
🙃

"Well, these things take time," Hayato said matter-of-factly. "But the world does fall apart sometimes. They make us study this one case in our 101 class actually—overfishing in the Blackthorn River actually led to a surge in the yanma population, which had damaging effects on the local vegetation, which actually changed the physical shape of the river and destroyed a lot of habitat…"
Ooh, very interesting.

It was all too much.

"Hey," Tetsuya said, cutting Hayato off in the middle of a sentence about fish or something. "So… what do you think would happen if some kid came along and caught Zapdos, anyway? Since more and more trainers are going for the legendaries and stuff, you know."
The transition here confuses me. If Tetsuya is finding this all too much, why does he jump in with a question on that very subject, one that touches on the thing that he's uncomfortable with?

And regulations have been pretty slow to catch up with the developments in pokémon training, but hopefully before long it'll be illegal to catch Zapdos in the first place.
Ah, so it's not illegal. This raises some questions for me about why Tetsuya expects to be arrested for it later on.

Something inside him twinged anxiously, though. The impact Hayato was describing was on the scale of natural disaster. Could… Could people die? That blood would be on his hands, whether he wanted to admit it or not. Was it worth it? Was he okay with those consequences? He thought his answer was yes. For his son, he would do anything. But he wasn't quite as sure about it as he had been half an hour ago.
For someone with a good reason to engage in motivated reasoning, I felt like Tetsuya jumps very quickly from what Hayato is describing (big forest fire in this refuge area) to 'people might die.' A big forest fire would definitely mean pokemon dying and the natural habitat being hurt, but he doesn't seem to care about those things. It's not a given that people will die, though, and I would expect more justification a la 'fires happen, that's what we have rangers for, it won't be a big deal.'

*the scale of a natural disaster.

"Oooh!" Hayato exclaimed. He had his hands held out and looked positively giddy at the notion of weather.
I loved this sentence. "giddy at the notion of weather" is such a mood. It's a nice characterization moment, too.

The rhydon had some difficulty navigating the terrain as expected, but it didn't slow them down as much as Tetsuya had supposed it would. The rain steadily ramped up over the next several minutes until the downpour was torrential.
Is the rain not hard for the rhydon to endure?

Lightning at first every couple minutes, then every minute or so, casting the forest in its freakish light and rattling Tetsuya's bones.
I liked "freakish" as a descriptor--communicates Tetusya's alienation from this adventure.

The rain was really ripping now, smacking against his back in sheets. Powerful gusts of wind threatened to knock him off his feet.
Mm, I like "ripping" here.

He'd left people to worse fates before, and it fully took care of his problem. He'd be home-free.

In that moment, Tetsuya hated himself more deeply than he ever had before.
I didn't feel fully convinced here. If he's left people to worse fates before, what makes Hayato different?

"Help me, Tetsuya!" Hayato screamed again. All thoughts of leaving him behind were flushed from Tetsuya's mind, leaving behind only a foul afterimage that made him feel physically ill. He roused himself from his paralysis and charged forward. There was only one thing to do.

He took the floating Hayato's hands and tugged on them emphatically, but the exeggutor's grip was tight. Hayato screamed as the two forces tugged at him
There's a lot of screaming from Hayato in this sequence.

Its eyes bulged as it crushed Tetsuya with its mind; he shouted out in anguish as every part of him seared as if being hyper-constricted. Barely conscious, he moved his arm toward the exeggutor with a loud grunt of exertion, feeling as though a 200-pound weight was tied to his wrist. He felt ready to collapse from exhaustion by the time his hand was a few inches from the exeggutor's face; with a final burst of effort, he jammed his fingers into the exeggutor's eyes.
Are pokemon also somewhat depowered in this world? I found it odd that Tetsuya is better able to fight off a psychic attack than his scyther,

Tetsuya ran and ran into the bowels of the forest for what felt like hours.
I'm not sure I bought him running for "what felt like hours" while carrying Hayato after going mano a mano with an exxegutor.

Tetsuya ran and ran into the bowels of the forest for what felt like hours. After a while he could physically not move any further—he dumped Hayato onto the ground in exhaustion, then fell to his knees and vomited. He felt like he was vomiting for a century.
We've got "what felt like hours" and "felt like . . . for a century" in pretty close succession here.

The rain washed it away as quickly as he was depositing it onto the floor, turning it into a chunky stream that soaked the knees of his pants.
Ick. Nicely described.

A prong of guilt stabbed at Tetsuya's heart as he watched Hayato smile weakly in response. Just a few hours ago he'd said that he would do anything to secure a future for himself and his son. He'd told himself that if it required driving a knife through Hayato's chest, he'd have done it. But… he couldn't. He wasn't strong enough for that. He wasn't a cold-hearted killer, and some prices were simply too great. Just the thought of leaving Hayato behind to be torn apart by the exeggutor made Tetsuya want to hurl again. If he couldn't bring himself to do that, could he really bear the responsibility for the consequences of capturing a god?
The exposition here felt somewhat overt. I felt like the narrative was explaining to me that Tetsuya's not willing to do this without really showing me why.

The thought of getting to see Zapdos was genuinely thrilling to him in a way it hadn't been before; it felt real now. But the master ball was burning a hole in his pack.
I liked this moment a lot. (I would drop the 'genuinely'--one of those moments where having an intensifier detracts.)

he would leave it be, he decided. He wouldn't capture it. It was just too much. The notion of spending the next month scraping cash together was dreadful, but it was nowhere near as dreadful as what he'd felt before, gazing into Hayato's terror-filled eyes. When he got home, he would return the master ball to Kazuma, tell him they'd failed to locate Zapdos, and figure out the rest from there. It would be hard, but things had been hard for a while. Somehow, someway, he would have to find a way to manage.
His concerns re Ichiro drop out a bit here.

Nothing was worth what he would have to go through to put Zapdos in a ball. It made his heart sink to admit that, but it was freeing too.
I wasn't sure what exactly was tipping him over the edge. If his plan went off without a hitch, Hayato wouldn't be endangered. So is it purely about preventing forest fires for him?

He looked over to Hayato and couldn't help but laugh—his head was like a fluffy sphere of lifted hair. Hayato let out a goofy chuckle too.
This was a fun detail.

It was hard to make out from a distance, and it was partially covered by shrubs and palm fans to boot, but those radiant golden feathers were hard to mistake. "Oh my god," Hayato said. He slowly dropped to his knees, and Tetsuya did the same—best not to be spotted by the enormous legendary pokémon. Hayato moved his hand to his belt, never taking his eyes off Zapdos as he clumsily fumbled for a poké ball. He found it at last and released the rhydon in a burst of white light. The flash apparently caught the attention of Zapdos, because it stood up straight, jerking its head around in search of the light source. Its face, surrounded by a halo of pointy golden feathers, was massive—its beak was like the barrel of a bright orange rifle, long and pointed enough to spear a man through. Its gaze was penetrating, but fortunately it didn't seem to spot them; it let out a disgruntled squawk and then ducked out of sight again, stirring slightly.
I didn't quite get a sense of scale here--how big is Zapdos?

a tight, sentimental smile spread across his face
Not sure 'tight' is the word to fit a sentimental smile. I'm not really able to picture that.

Tetsuya's heart swelled. Guilt and excitement and camaraderie and accomplishment swirled within him, threatening to shatter his impassive mask and reveal the vortex of emotions within.
The descriptive language here with "impassive mask" and "vortex of emotion" is a bit melodramatic.

And then his backpack strap snapped.
This was wonderfully done. Such an o-shit moment. Both on first read and reread I had to pause here because I didn't want to face the fallout.

A minimized poké ball with a glossy violet upper shell, complete with ergonomic magenta grooves.
I love the detail about the ergonomic grooves. Like, yes, of course we'd want using a master ball to be comfortable.

"Where the fuck did you get this? Were you seriously thinking of—oh my god, that's why you asked me about—oh my god." He looked back to Tetsuya, his gaze smoldering with contempt. "I led you right to it. I can't fucking believe how stupid I am."
I felt like a bit of transition to get to the contempt might have been good. Like, "He looked back to Tetsuya, shock morphing into contempt."

Tetsuya was frozen in place, his stomach churning and threatening to release whatever contents it still had left. "Hayato," he said slowly, his voice trembling.
Tetsuya's stomach is not having a good day.

Hayato smashed the ball under his heel. Tetsuya reached for it anyway, but Hayato didn't stop. Another stomp. Another. He crushed Tetsuya's fingers and the ball alike beneath his boot. When he was done, the master ball was nothing but a small pile of ceramic shards and broken machinery. Gone.
I know it's a plot requirement, but a masterball that can be broken by stomping is seriously hard for me to wrap my head around. Who would ever choose to manufacture something so fragile for a masterball?

Something deep within Tetsuya snapped.

"You have no fucking idea what you just did," he said, slowly withdrawing his arm and cradling his broken fingers. He rose to his feet slowly, feeling empty.
The shift here is really nice.

A smile spread across Tetsuya's face, but there was nothing funny about the way he was feeling. "You didn't stop anything, you dumb fucking shit," he said.
This too. I think you capture nicely this almost gleeful spite.

Hayato scuttled backward, trying to get back to his feet but just slipping in the mud and falling on his ass again. "What are you doing," he gasped.
I did find it weird that Hayato is able to be so physically assertive with the master ball while Tetsuya seems unable to do anything, and then this, where Hayato seems to lose all ability to intervene.

What he was going to do next, God himself would be powerless to stop.
I know it's way outside the scope of this fic, but very curious about Tetsuya's religious beliefs.

"This is what my life looks like. This is what the real world looks like. We can't all dick around in the goddamn ecology department for our whole lives. Some of us have to do things to put food on the table, to keep a roof over our heads. Fucked up things. Things that make you hate yourself. But you do them because you fucking have to. That's what it's like. And if I don't…"

They'll take him away from me, he wanted to say. I'll lose everything. My life will become meaningless.
This was a really strong monologue, and really puts on the table the stakes for Tetsuya.

he whimpered.

Hayato squeaked.
There were a lot of these kind of animalistic verbs in close succession.

He let the balls in the sack fly. They erupted all at once, and a dozen geodudes sprung into being. They were highly-trained pokémon who needed no command—they knew how to do only a single thing, and they did it promptly. They sailed toward Zapdos, whose flurry of electric attacks did nothing against them; sparks flew off their lumpy bodies inertly. They clung to the legendary pokémon, digging their stony hands into its feathers and pulling themselves close to its flesh—then, all at once—

"NO!"

They exploded.
This bit flows really well.

There were no pokémon remaining to withdraw; they were just fragments of shrapnel scattered on the forest floor now.
Oh my. So explosion is a genuine kazikami thing here? I've got to say, it's pretty rich that Tetsuya gets all worked up over capturing Zapdos but spares zero thought for murdering a dozen pokemon.

Tetsuya pulled another poké ball off his belt, a pink one with cream-colored polka dots and a blue seal. A heal ball.
Ironic.

The ball only rocked once before clicking.
Very nice section closer.

"are you bringing the fuckign pokemon or not? i am starting to get pissed off 🤬"
Hah emoji choice on point.

When he'd lobbed the heal ball at Zapdos on that day, he'd thought he was taking the final step, crossing the boundary beyond which he could never turn back. But he'd been wrong. When he returned home that night, bruised and battered, he'd realized something. Zapdos was in this poké ball. It belonged to him. Until he handed it over to Kazuma… there was nothing anyone else could do with it.

The final step was still ahead of him.
This was a really interesting moment, and it's very real. What is the point of no return? There's a security in feeling you've gone past it and a corresponding destabilization in realizing the choice is still on you.

Surely, he thought, the police would bust down his door any minute; surely Hayato had run to them after Tetsuya had teleported him away and told them everything. Perhaps returning to the scene of the crime was foolish considering that, but somehow it felt safer than staying at home.
I didn't get this. We're explicitly told that catching Zapdos is not illegal. What is the crime and on what grounds would the police be arresting him? Suspected involvement in Team Rocket?

He pictured the sirens blaring, the guns extended, the booming voices amplified through megaphones. His head being shoved down as he was forced into the back of a police car. A guilty verdict.
Guilty of what? A legal capture?

Hayato snatched the ball out of his hands.
I like that Hayato doesn't screw around here.

"It's over," Hayato said. "You did the right thing. It was hard, but… Zapdos is out there again. Everything will be okay." He paused for a moment, then said: "You just needed someone in your corner for once, didn't you?"
Hayato really starting to feel like less of a character than the proverbial angel on Tetsuya's shoulder here.
 

Flyg0n

Flygon connoisseur
Pronouns
She/her
Partners
  1. flygon
  2. swampert
  3. ho-oh
  4. crobat
  5. orbeetle
  6. joltik
  7. salandit
  8. tyrantrum
I zooped through this story really quick once i got going. I recall trying to read it once before but I think I was in the wrong headspace? Anyways man I devoured this real quick now.

Lately I've been very into characters who are a walking disaster of self loathing and bad habits and stuck in bad places though and boy did this hit the nail right on the head for me. Tetsuya oozes so much conflicting issues and problems and gives of delightful disaster man vibes.

The setup is fantastic. Trapped working in rocket, looking for a way out, living under the threat of retaliation. And then a once in a lifetime chance at catching Zapdos and believing that could be his ticket to freedom.

Tetsuya's inner monologue and narration felt really solid to me. I could get a good sense of how he felt both such a strong burning desire to get away, and how deperate and trapped he felt. I could also get behind his callous and violent nature and sympathize with him, even if he was about to do something terrible.

So much so in fact that while i thought Hayato was great and really interesting, I could get why Tetsuya basically dismissed him/waved him off. In my head some part of me was rooting for Tetsuya just to see how bad things could get lol.

Honestly throughout 90% of the story I was really captivated, especially when things reached a head and the strap broke at exactly the wrong moment because of course and how the buildup to Tetsuya thinking he wasn't gonna do it all felt fairly believable.

I did find myself raising an eye however at how quickly it kind of felt like he wanted to save Hayato. It wasn't jarring enough to distract from the main bits of the story at all of course, I just thought the sheer strength of his determination not to flee felt surprising. I kind of expected him to more reluctantly save Hayato as opposed to feeling so concretely that he wouldn't leave him to die.

That said thats not a huge deal.

The Geodude tactic felt absolutely brilliant though, I loved that. Both brutal and effective and dangerous. Very terrible yet delightfully :copyka: move.

The only awkward quirk I had by the end of the story was that while I liked it in principle, I did find myself feeling like something about the dialogue felt a little stiff? Or maybe some detail of the actual internal thoughts. I could buy Tetsuya doubting giving Rocket Zapdos. But i guess the lack of resolution for what Tetsuya was going to do about Rocket targeting him and his son left me feeling a little incomplete.

I do think its possible to write it in such a way that the focus is still on what he chooses. That Tetsuya still needs to try and do the right thing, and find a way without causing further harm. But the sort of almost simplicity and onesided nature of the dialogue did feel a bit stiff for a resolution. I believe someone more naive like Hayato would feel that way but I think i'd want a little something grayer from Tetsuya.

Anyways, that aside I think i still found the piece really fun! Its chock full of interesting characters and worldbuilding and a great nuggets of a story about breaking free and and doing what the right thing is. Seriously, I had so much fun with this and it really scratched an itch for disaster characters and bad decisions and fighting back. The crits are like, just in case you want notes for future tales or something, but really they didn't severely hamer the story for me, I really dug it, ty for telling me about it. Good stuff.
 

HelloYellow17

Gym Leader
Pronouns
She/Her
Partners
  1. suicune
  2. umbreon
  3. mew
Wowowow this was STELLAR. Man what a rollercoaster this was, I genuinely held my breath in a couple spots. The sheer level of emotion in this fic is incredible. Tetsuya gives me huge Wes vibes in a lot of ways—if Wes was 20 years older and a single parent, anyway. I really love him and Hayato a lot, and I’d be delighted to see them in future writings of yours! Idk if you ever plan to write more of them but if you do, you have at least one guaranteed fan.

"Listen, pal," Kazuma said, his expression softening slightly. "I'm sorry to hear that. I really am. But you ain't the only one with kids around here, and this ain't fucking welfare. You knew what you were getting when you signed up with us all those years ago, and you knew what you were getting when you knocked up that whore. I can't go making exceptions for you. You want better results, you give me better results, goddamn it."
So sympathetic, much wow. Gold star for you, Kazuma. My brain immediately did a cutaway to Yzma saying “Well, you should have thought of that before becoming peasants!” while reading this.

But he'd been with Rocket too long, knew too much. No way they'd let him just walk away.
You’d think that if Rocket didn’t want anybody snitching, they’d pay their employees more, at least. Or even provide veterans with a hefty retirement or something. But then, that would make Team Rocket look better than 90% of workplaces irl, and we can’t have that! 🫠

"hey," Tetsuya typed back. "good to hear from you. id definitely be interested in helping you out. what timeframe are you thinking"
Heh, I love that you wrote out the text speech, lack of punctuation and lapslock and all. It would be kinda fun if you changed the font, too, maybe to like Courier New or something. Idk just a random fun idea I had

He somewhat strongly doubted they'd see Zapdos, but there was no need to tell Hayato that. Let him believe what he wanted so long as he paid out in the end.

Unless…

A horrible, brilliant plan began to hatch in Tetsuya's head.
Ohhhhhh no. Nonono no. Bro, do not.

There was always a surreal feeling about being outside at this hour, as if the world was simply not designed to be perceived by living beings so early in the day.
Lol what an extreme mood. 4AM is indeed an ungodly hour and it should be illegal to require anybody to be up at that time.

In the end, Tetsuya had walked out with three tools on loan from Team Rocket: a master ball; an abra to teleport away with; and a sack of poké balls with their serial numbers filed off, for use in emergencies only.
Interesting…pokeballs? 👀 are they, like…a Johtohan version of snag balls or something?

The whole ordeal should only take a minute or two, and unless he fucked up big time, Hayato would never suspect a thing.
[sees that we have about 7k left in this one-shot] yeaahhhh, about that,

"It's so crazy to see you after so long. You look a lot older!"
Lol?! Hayato why would you greet someone like this 😂

"Oh, I've got a pokémon with me too. I loaned out a rhydon. It's got lightningrod and it's a ground-type, so it should protect us if Zapdos gets uppity."

Tetsuya raised an eyebrow. "You expecting that to happen?" he asked.
Hnnngh I really hope it doesn’t come down to Tetsuya having to steal Hayato’s Rhydon from him. I suppose it’s a loaned Pokémon and not his, but that only makes it marginally less terrible.

Hayato chuckled weakly. "Zapdos is pretty important to the ecosystems it lives in, as you'd imagine," he went on. "Articuno brings frosts, and Moltres brings fire… Zapdos brings both the cleansing flame of wildfire with its lightning and the nourishing rains of its thunderstorms. A lot of the places it visits are actually sort of adapted to its occasional presence. They depend on its visits to restore balance and stuff." He kicked at a bush underfoot. "Looks like this place is a little overdue."

"That's pretty interesting," Tetsuya said, not particularly listening.
Hello sir I think you should be listening, something about ENTIRE ECOSYSTEMS DEPENDING ON THIS CREATURE? Sir??

"Yeah," Hayato said, grinning boyishly. Man, wasn't he getting the hint with these three-word responses? "It's pretty crazy how big of an impact a single pokémon can have. Really makes you wonder what we're doing to the environment by letting everyone rush in with their poké balls and capture whole sectors of the ecosystem. We're just beginning to understand this stuff."
Heh, honestly, yeah! I’ve always wondered this, myself. Surely there should be limitations on how much of a species is allowed to be caught in certain areas to ensure the ecosystem doesn’t get all topsy-turvy.

"Zapdos is a proud and clever pokémon. I don't think it'll let itself be captured. And regulations have been pretty slow to catch up with the developments in pokémon training, but hopefully before long it'll be illegal to catch Zapdos in the first place."
I’m kinda shocked it isn’t already illegal. That’s a pretty significant Pokémon, one that carries a huge impact! Seems to show how little of a priority environment conservation is if this hasn’t been addressed already.

"Oooh!" Hayato exclaimed. He had his hands held out and looked positively giddy at the notion of weather. "That's so exciting! Maybe we'll get to see Zapdos in action!"
Hahaha bless Hayato, he’s such a charming nerd. His enthusiasm is infectious, too—Tetsuya might not care, but I’d totally chat with this guy for hours. It’s fascinating stuff!

For an instant, a dreadful, terrible thought occurred to Tetsuya.

He could just leave Hayato here. He could just leave Cutter to fight the exeggutor and run away. Cutter would probably cut his losses eventually, and the exeggutor would be too distracted with its newly-caught prey to chase them down. Tetsuya could complete the journey on his own. He could catch Zapdos and teleport away without having to worry about any witnesses. He'd left people to worse fates before, and it fully took care of his problem. He'd be home-free.

In that moment, Tetsuya hated himself more deeply than he ever had before.
Gosh this moment gave me such strong Wes feels. Tetsuya is tap-dancing on a knife’s edge, and it seems he’s been steadily approaching this precipice for years. He’s like a string pulled way too tight and waiting to snap, but his conscience won’t let him.

Hayato screamed as the two forces tugged at him; the exeggutor gave a deep bellow of frustration, so low Tetsuya felt it in his bones more than he heard it.
Jeez you really made Exeggcutor properly horrifying here. It really reads like a terrifyingly powerful, wild creature.

Nothing was worth what he would have to go through to put Zapdos in a ball. It made his heart sink to admit that, but it was freeing too.
Yes good!! I’m so glad! [sees how much is left] hm yes it’s not going to be that simple, is it,

Tetsuya's heart swelled. Guilt and excitement and camaraderie and accomplishment swirled within him, threatening to shatter his impassive mask and reveal the vortex of emotions within. He swallowed hard and managed a little smile back. "You're welcome," he said.
😭 this was everything I wanted from this journey, gosh it made my heart so happy. He smiled!! He probably hasn’t done that in a long time, save for maybe while around his son.

And then his backpack strap snapped.
BRUH

NO

my stomach freaking DROPPED at this line, what an execution, holy smokes

A smile spread across Tetsuya's face, but there was nothing funny about the way he was feeling. "You didn't stop anything, you dumb fucking shit," he said. "If anything, you caused it." Before Hayato could respond, Tetsuya shoved him to the ground with his good hand, then scooped up the sack of poké balls Kazuma had lent him. The backup plan. For use in emergencies only.
Yeahhh that thing I said about him being ready to snap earlier? Here it is. He’s been under so much stress and pressure and guilt for years, and now it’s all come to a boiling point. Ugh.

Hayato just laid there, staring up at Tetsuya with the same terrified eyes as before. This time, Tetsuya was the monster.

And he didn't care at all.
hhhhhh what a chilling line. I love that we see both versions of Tetsuya in short order—the better side of him, the one that surely would have become more dominant if he’d been dealt a better hand or had more support in life, and this one: the version of himself he’s had to become in order to survive, even if it meant killing his conscience.

They'll take him away from me, he wanted to say. I'll lose everything. My life will become meaningless. But he didn't say any of that. He just screwed his face up, trying his best not to cry like a pathetic baby.
No! Say it! You’ve already spilled the beans, might as well be fully honest!!

He let the balls in the sack fly. They erupted all at once, and a dozen geodudes sprung into being. They were highly-trained pokémon who needed no command—they knew how to do only a single thing, and they did it promptly. They sailed toward Zapdos, whose flurry of electric attacks did nothing against them; sparks flew off their lumpy bodies inertly. They clung to the legendary pokémon, digging their stony hands into its feathers and pulling themselves close to its flesh—then, all at once—
Oh. Oh. So this is what those Pokéballs are for, wow. What a…totally safe and sane emergency plan, yep, what could possibly go wrong with this?

There were no pokémon remaining to withdraw; they were just fragments of shrapnel scattered on the forest floor now.
Omg what. All those geodude are dead? Is this a natural result of using Explosion/self-destruct, or were these mon trained to use lethal, suicidal force?

Tetsuya's phone buzzed in his hand. He switched on the screen and spared an uneasy glance at the new message alert. It was a text from Kazuma.

"are you bringing the fuckign pokemon or not? i am starting to get pissed off 🤬"
You know what, Kazuma can pound sand. Shoulda thrown him to the exeggutor tbh

He sighed and leaned back against his car, fingering his pocket absent-mindedly with his free hand for his cigarette carton. Empty. He'd just bought it this morning…
Man, this is a very effective narrative tool to show just how much stress he’s been under all these years, and the less-than-ideal methods he’s resorted to to cope. This hurts my heart in a different way, though; if Rocket didn’t kill him, if he keeps going like this, eventually the stress and/or cancer is gonna kill him anyway. There’s really no winning by staying with Rocket…but the alternative is understandably terrifying.

It was minimized right now, barely bigger than a ping-pong ball. It looked so innocuous right now, pale pink and lined with polka dots. Such an odious thing.
Lol of course he would have a strong opinion about a frilly-looking pokeball. I need him and Wes to interact immediately.

What did he have now? A debt larger than he could conceive of and nothing to pay it back with, except for his life.

And yet… somehow, he felt freer than he ever had before.
Yes! Finally making decisions for himself for the first time in…possibly his whole life. Ugh I want him to be happy and to know security and stability and all the good thingssss

Hayato put a hand on his shoulder as he cried. He stood there like that for a while, barely aware of the physical space around him, the clamoring of random passersby about having seen Zapdos hardly registering to him. He found himself falling into Hayato's embrace. Hayato hugged him back, tightly. And it felt… good. So good and warm. When was the last time someone had hugged him? When was the last time he'd had a good cry?
This was cathartic. There’s just something to be said about finally giving a character the opportunity to break down and be supported by someone, especially if they’ve had to be strong for years and never had anyone to offer support before. It makes my heart hurt and heal at the same time.

"You just needed someone in your corner for once, didn't you?"
Yes. Yes he did. 🥲

"You tricked me," Hayato said. "You took advantage of me, you shoved me, you hurt me. But you saved my life too. I don't forgive what you did, but… I don't want you to hurt either. I don't want you to suffer or be punished. I want you to raise above it."
Hayato is an absolute king and I admire him so, so much. I was about to say, “We need more people like him in the world,” which is true, but then…we should all personally aspire to be more like this, rather than just wishing such people would spawn into existence. Idk, it was kind of a revelation for me. It’s got me doing some self-reflection.

For just a moment, he thought he saw Zapdos flying over the swaying pines, and in that instant Tetsuya was Zapdos—flying, unshackled after so long squished into a ball.

Finally, without a master.
The parallels aaaaaah, I love it! I love it so much!

Ultimately, this story wasn’t actually about whether or not he was gonna capture and turn in Zapdos, not really. It was about whether or not he was going to break free and finally make his own decisions, choose his own path. And he did. 💛 My very wishful thinking has me like “tell me Hayato is crazy loaded and he can afford to bring Tetsuya and his son over to Kanto and they can start fresh over there.” Heh, if only things were that simple.

But I love that the ending is ambiguous, and we don’t really know what will come next or what the consequences are going to be. Because…that’s life, really. We’re all just taking things one step at a time, and that’s why things can be so freaking terrifying: we can’t know what’s going to happen, and ultimately we have to choose whether to make that leap of faith or not.

Thank you for writing this and sharing it, I really enjoyed it. Not only did I feel so many emotions, but it’s caused me to actually reflect on some things about myself, too. 💛
 
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