Isaac didn’t remember when he was born, but the events were told to him many times over with the sort of airs they got at service, one basking in nature, taking in all Mew had to offer with wide grins and open arms.
Oh, another creature uplifted into being a Legendary? Wonder who this will be.
“He’s got the fire inside him,” the priest, supposedly, said, holding a chunky, wailing baby that would one day grow lanky and awkward. “A blazing passion burning like the sun. For the love of pokemon. Thank Mew for imparting this miracle.” And he smiled and it glowed like the sun as well, blowing through his earthen robes and tinting them red.
Supposedly.
This is all a prank told by Mew’s end of things, huh? Though I wonder who on earth Isaac
is at the moment.
At the beach house Isaac’s mother, Alma, had a designated armchair no one could touch. She sat at it on rainy days when stories like these were told. And she, as she often did, had some complaints. If Isaac were to list the general complaints she had about anything, he would never stop. The extended family often avoided her if they wanted to speak without being interrupted every thirty seconds.
Her important clarification was about the priest’s newness. This amateur had forgotten the important bit. What he’d been specifically told to say.
Oh, so Isaac is/was human… I think.
Alma would grumble it from her chair, interrupting his father as he told the story:
“I can sense greatness inside him.”
And she held it there and looked at Isaac as if waiting for a stormcloud to form above him.
It seemed redundant. Yet, as Mew created every living creature with great purpose and intent, so did every accident become purposeful. The priest hadn’t actually forgotten anything; it served something else’s plan.
Isaac wasn't sure he believed, but he still thought about that often.
Oh, so Mew has a whole track record of “uhh… yes, I
totally meant to do that” throughout history, huh? I guess that we know that there’s some truth behind this tale given both Midas and Aeimlou’s present existences.
As he grew, he grew alongside trained pokemon. And these were trained. Winners in every sense of the word. They did not play. They did not laze about. His mother’s krookodile, especially, seemed more like a statue than a living creature. It stood beside her at all times, towering over everyone in the room. The family got used to it, but when guests came over they suffered through long silent spells, just staring it in those dark marblelike eyes while a fork dangled between their mouth and plate. Alma, of course, would spit and sneer at the idea that someone couldn’t handle a simple conversation without rudely breaking eye contact and the relationship would be ruined before it started.
Ah yes, goggle-like eyes that just stare straight into your soul. I can already see how that’d be off-putting.
Anyway, Isaac first got to observe them fighting from a distance. Hunkering in the forest on his little scuffed knees and watching them tear up the training plateau with sharp blasts of energy, swipes and stomps that threw up head-sized chunks of rock and rubble. And sent them through the trees and into the ocean with great splashes.
They got calls after. The ringing of phones underscored a lot of Isaac’s life. Especially watching from above, legs dangling through the upstairs railing, watching Alma rant down below, slam the headset back on the hook and stomp off only to return for another call seconds later.
Can’t tell if angry neighbors or else cops unamused by Alma casually endangering people by yeeting stuff through the forest and into the sea.
One day, her team was gone. Alma could not keep them anymore and she made sure everyone knew it by the many choice words she tongue-stuffed into the speaker of her phone, more vicious than ever. Isaac would not get to watch them anymore.
Whelp, I’ll take that as that being the police’s doings there.
By the time he was eight he transitioned instead to league coverage. If not being kicked out of his room and locked out of the house for the day, Alma watching sternly behind a sliding glass door, Isaac spent all day on matches. Old recordings of pre-Alder Unova, tapes from back in Johto’s heyday, that one great match between Cynthia and Steven that lasted nearly an hour—fall season, two thousand fifteen. Over and over, until the TV blanked out and reflected his wide-eyed, slack jawed wonder, looking for all the world like a beached magikarp. Later, he watched it on a new flat-screen all on his own.
Aha, so Alma was using Isaac as a means to vicariously accomplish her own goals that were snatched away from her. That totally sounds healthy and not like an instigating source of problems, I can already tell.
At fourteen he volunteered at the arena, redrawing the lines with a roller that rattled and sprayed chalky dust over the hard clay ground. He sneezed a lot that year. And the itchy dust got in his eyes and scratched them. Lucky, then, that he also volunteered at the pokemon centre when they lived at the beach house in Undella. He got some eyedrops there and when they didn’t work his parents got a light scolding and he got to see all the foreign pokemon and brought them water and food and snuck pictures when he thought nobody saw.
Huh. Definitely a perk of tending to vacation homes used by rich and experienced trainers.
At sixteen, he finally got the opportunity to do it himself. To climb the cliffs around Undella, look out over the shining sea and the flocks of squabbling wingull and tell himself…
Maybe he wasn’t ready.
I mean, don’t feel bad, Isaac. Like 99% of people are basically doomed to never get in the same hall as the Elite Four of a given region.
Those whitecaps looked sharp and the wingull screamed too loud and the sun blazed bright and stung his damaged eye and his legs ached just from climbing the staircase up (because he’d never quite made it up the cliff face).
But sixteen was a natural state for self-doubt. So said his father and his teachers and the guidance counsellor and the therapist. Alma, though; she must have heard his thoughts. Her hawlike vigil turned sharp in this period. And she always had that same tilt of the mouth that she did when someone got a story wrong.
Yeeeeeeah, I can already tell that Alma was a QUALITY™ parent to Isaac there.
It did not seem to surprise her when he moved back in at eighteen. He got no words. she‘d never given anyone comfort, but she seemed happy to let him drift in and out of the house, now. On her chair, with the demeanour of a starving liepard.
His father, Natan, knocked on the door as he spent another day locked in his room. Ducking under the covers and refusing to face him made his face burn, but he’d been questioning his maturity for years anyways. So he could only hear Natan’s soft sigh and the way the bed sank as he sat at the other end.
“You can always try again. Rookies don’t often make it all the way first go.” he said, voice soft. Maybe he sensed the way Isaac’s heart sank, because he cut back in quickly. “And if that doesn’t work out, there’s… a lot more out there, y’know.”
Oh, so Isaac
did make an attempt at the Unova League but flamed out. I can already see why Alma gave him the third degree all this time, since… yeah, she clearly isn’t ready to let her own vicarious ambitions go.
Isaac sat there in his sweat, insulated by his clothes and the thick layer of blanket. He breathed in the humidity and curled in on himself as Natan’s hand landed softly on his shoulder. Then, a shake. Another sigh. Natan’s weight left the bed. Isaac counted to ten and chanced a peek only to find him waiting in the doorframe, tired eyes obscured by thick-rimmed glasses.
“You have a purpose, Isaac. Maybe it’s not training, but that… it could be anything. Believe that.”
He’s going to wind up bumbling into Aeimlou in this chapter, isn’t he?
Isaac watched him scratch a cheek, half-shuffle out the room and hesitate a couple times before finally letting the door clamp shut.
He thought very deeply about those words, too, but only felt the emptiness of them.
Oh, so Natan was obviously giving a rehearsed speech to try and make him feel better. That obvious, huh?
Isaac remembered the summer. He stood out on the Undella beachside, reffing for the trainers that shouted commands over the surf. The sand itched as it got in his socks and the sun burned as it poured over his arms and the sea smelled awful through the morning rot of yesterday’s seaweed washup. He could not complain about these things, though he often did on his own. And bit his tongue in the company of family, who stared at him over the dinner table, baffled, blinding stares reduced in the overhead light of the beachhouse’s chandelier.
Oh, so Isaac comes from
wealth family-wise. I suppose that would explain a thing or two about how they were able to push him towards a life path of pro training.
Did summer vacations used to be fun? He liked Anville Town more. It was not that much changed: replace the sound of the sea with the trains, and the smell of smoke, and they registered about the same--but he could be alone there. He knew the forests around it, and if he wanted to vanish for a couple days he could. Where could he go in Undella? The pokemon center?
On rainy days the nightmare stretched on forever as everyone fought over the same board games. They were so overused that every unfolding threatened to split them in half. The family would do about the same.
Some small tweaks here and there, though IMO this paragraph seemed like it could be split up fairly naturally.
But these things were growing less important.
All he could do now was watch the ceiling. Don’t twitch. Don’t speak. Don’t remind yourself of what the nightmare’s done to you. Hope that this all turned out to be a dream and wait for a prayer to come that proved it.
Yeeeeeah, I had a feeling that Isaac’s childhood wasn’t exactly happy. This more or less confirms it.
Temptation crept in.
He could not help but lift a hand up to the flickering of his bedroom light.
As he woke up from the nightmare, he knew it had warped him. Sometimes he twitched a finger and the warm touch of fingers against palms instead felt chill and sharp. He’d once narrowly evaded the cold spike of a night slash against his leg—close enough to cut through his pant leg, stain his ankle black and leave a lingering chill for weeks.
Wait, whaaaaaaat?
He would never forget the feeling.
Or the jagged black silhouette floating between him and the light.
Whaaaaaaaat?
An ice blue eye stared back at him in the mirror, shaking, pupil small as a pinprick.
He fixated, Trying to breathe so softly the image wouldn’t move. But a flicker of the ceiling light caught him. He tensed. Then shivered as he saw it reflect, breaking the image like ripples in a pond. The form seemed to ripple, too, body something not quite solid. Even those legs—which were more like briefly-tangible stilts that brought no sensation at all as they walked him across the floor. Until they vanished. And he nearly slammed his head on the dresser counter trying to catch himself on the way down. He could float if he kept his concentration, though it felt like an infinite fall.
Oh,
hello, Darkrai.
That was certainly an unexpected turn of events.
Everything else felt so alien—the white wisp blowing from his head like smoke; a red crest jutting in front of his face, letting him hide behind it. It looked like some monster’s dislocated jaw and a trace of the claw showed it felt uncomfortably like flesh—spongy, but solid, tensing as he pressed it. And the yelp and alarming spike of pain as a claw sank in.
He spent a good while, claws raised at the mirror. Waiting. For the reflection to make a move, maybe. Obviously it never happened; much as he wanted to smash it, the trembling shadow monster in the mirror robbed him of any fire. Here, it had weak arms, a backlight that cut through its body like sun through mist, a terrified eye and all the posturing of a newborn girafarig. Behind it, the beachouse bedroom’s glass wall let in a quaint early-spring Undella landscape, with all the gentle waves and bright sand and pokemon playing in the surf.
Oh.
Oh. So Isaac was
uplifted into Darkrai. That must make family reunions awkward.
In the nightmare, it struck something in him. It loomed over him. Those claws cut into his hand as he took them and his lungs shrank until he wilted like a deflating balloon.
Out here, it was pathetic. Some scared, wild thing he’d stumbled into traipsing through the brush.
“Hello?” he said. Not in his own voice, but the heavy bass and scratchiness reminded him less of a monster and more of himself at fifteen going through puberty. He tore away from the mirror, shrinking in on himself before he remembered those claws and extracted them again.
So, Isaac’s about to have a spell of
moments in like 2 seconds, huh?
He spent the rest of the morning sitting on the bedside and pretending not to exist. Sometimes pokemon passed on the beach or boardwalk below, alone. He hardly saw another—well, a human for hours. When he did—one of the white-dressed nurses from the pokemon centre—he wasn’t sure whether to duck behind the bed or give a shy wave. But it didn’t matter. She hurried by, swaddled in her own scrubs, face against the wind, head drawn down too low to spot him. It seemed cold outside, but his last memories were of summer.
He must’ve slept for a long time.
Uh… are you sure that that you were
sleeping there, Isaac?
Big, blocky letters spun on screen, slamming forward with impact as if they’d actually ran into the glass. Unovan International. UI. On a screen that nearly swallowed the whole wall, the sound of it rattled through the surround sound into his bones.
His bones. Did he even have bones anymore?
Can’t tell if Isaac or if Aeimlou right now. I suppose we’ll find out shortly.
The letters spun off again, revealing four men, all clean cut with too-small suits riding up on their shoulders and showing mismatched socks under polished shoes that dangled beneath the presenter’s desk. They talked, smiling politely the whole time. Every minute or so they’d cut to a new clip. None of which Isaac recognised.
He tried to squint at the faces of trainers on either side of the arena, find something there. Nothing. Some later ones were against Iris—always of a braviary or stoutland or something ducking beneath dark lasers unleashed from the mouths of her hydreigon. He settled there, on some new blonde-haired Unovan stepping out onto the field and facing Iris with a smile.
Nevermind, still Isaac here. Though I like how he’s just casually snooping in on a corporate board meeting right now.
Championship fights had already started. He almost lifted a hand to rub his eyes, but flinched away from it as the black claws entered his vision.
He’d been out for months. It’s strange that he’d be more disappointed for having missed most of training season and the off season, but…
Well, he struggled to feel anything. Like being dragged under, the weight of water keeping him down, chilling him.
The moral of the story is that being a Darkrai really, really sucks.
He shimmied further into the couch’s embrace as the graphic came back. Then faded out to models sprinting across the beach in shiny new tracksuits. NEWSTEP slapped onto screen with just as much force. As the commercial faded to black again, he caught his reflection for a second and almost had a heart attack.
Oh.
Oh. So he’s watching TV right now. That one took me a while for me to put two and two together.
He blinked away his fear, coughed awkwardly and looked around the living room as if anyone was there to see. Maybe he wasn’t as settled as he’d like to be. Maybe he should do the smart thing and learn something about his new body instead of sitting around. But then he looked down at his claws again.
Fuck that. He’d rather watch TV. Even as pricks of panic dug into his shoulders and threatened to choke him. And shockingly, hours later, when his vision turned bleary and the long moments when he had to shut his eyes forced his nightmare to rip across the back of his eyelids, it was not the panic that interrupted him.
A knock sounded at the door.
Ah yes, the side effects of uplifting a modern human into a Legendary Pokémon. I can only imagine the shenanigans to be had if Mew had deigned to make
Isaac Latios just for the hilarity of a big bird-jet-dragon going full shut-in in front of the TV.
Isaac froze. He dug his fist into the pleather couch cushion and winced as it tore. The thought that someone had come to open the beach house struck him. Then he realised they wouldn’t knock if they had. His second thought was to say nobody’s home. He would’ve meant it seriously and it would’ve been humiliating, so thank Mew he hadn’t, but that still left him staring helplessly at the door.
Another knock sounded. Heavy, like some gothic door knocker that they certainly didn’t have. It did not sound human.
Isaac:
Still, he found himself clambering up the side of the couch, shredding up the sides as he tried to hover and kept failing.
He did make it to the foyer. Eventually. It must have taken a half hour and had him drag himself across the tile floor as he exhausted himself trying to hover. The knocking never stopped. Evenly, every minute or so it rang through the house again.
Isaac: “For crying out loud, who on earth even stays at a door for this long?” >_>;
There, he dragged himself onto the empty shoe shelf. He had a blurry view out the frosted window stretching from the door’s side—floor to ceiling, and to another chandelier dangling above him. Darkness stretched on outside. Even if he could make out the shapes beyond the window, it would remain a silhouette against the dull blue glow of the television still streaming across the house.
Isaac: “Okay, yeah, I’m going to just close the door, go watch some
Friends re-runs and try to put this nightmare behind me already.”
He huffed, slumped against the wall, out of breath, and wasted even more time thinking of what to say. But the knocking came louder right next to the door and his patience wore to threads.
Fuck it. If they wanted to kill him, why bother knocking?
inb4 this turns out to be Mew.
Stretching over with a shaky claw and a groan, he barely flipped the lock and leaned against the handle when the door flung open and forced him back against the wall.
In a harsh slam and stomping footsteps that shook Isaac more than they did the furniture, a bisharp entered. And entered might be a soft word: really, it strode through as if the door weren’t there a second ago, those thick, clawlike feet cutting deep lines in solid tile. It paused, towering at least a couple feet over Isaac as he sat, flashing a glance from over its shoulder.
Down, over the gleaming silver claws and blades that reflected harsh moonlight and Isaac forced himself deeper in the wall and felt the sick bubble of anxiety in his gut as death stared him down. Sharp mandibles cut against each other in its mouth and dark, human eyes narrowed once Isaac locked onto them.
Isaac: “Um… hi there?”
But quickly as it came, the bisharp brushed him off, carried on into the house. The harsh clanking of metal followed in its wake and left it surveying the area—to the open kitchen island, and living room all bathed in the TV’s light; to the lobby and staircase beside, climbing up to a glimpse of the hallway and the bedrooms beyond. But it seemed almost instantly bored. It shook its head, the axelike blade flashing wet like blood in the light, then turned back to Isaac.
Uh… did this ‘mon just
kill something a little while ago? .-.
“I felt your size,” it said, in a voice Isaac felt he shouldn’t understand—all clicking and shearing, almost industrial and grating.
Isaac still understood, though. And nodded dumbly for no particular reason.
Which elicited little more than a twitch, somehow conveying such intense displeasure that Isaac itched.
“So?” it asked, sharply.
Isaac: “So what? I literally don’t know what’s going on right now.” .-.
“Uhm… hello.” Isaac said. He could not pretend to be comfortable, but without threat of death, the danger trickled away and he relaxed enough to talk. “Why are you in my house?”
“To challenge you.”
Oh yeah, this will totally end well, I’m sure.
Isaac blinked. He looked around the room, for whichever invisible person the bisharp might be speaking to. Then deeper in the house when that failed—to the games chest, with a chessboard carved into the top.
“To chess? Ah… what? I mean…” The bisharp seemed so human standing there in the lobby, with such an intelligence in its eyes that Isaac forgot how pokemon usually challenged each other. He held up his claws, then. “I can’t fight. Uh… sorry.”
They kept eye contact for an uncomfortable time. Isaac wanted to slam his head into the floor. Sorry. That’s what you say to someone who broke into your house to fight you. Right.
I wonder how often this occurs with Bisharp in Unova anyways.
“Come here,” it said.
Despite himself. Or, more likely, because of all the prominent blades, Isaac found it an easy command to obey.
In theory.
Can’t tell if this is going to result in Isaac becoming a Darkrai paté, or if he’s going to have a lucky break and bumble his way into using Dark Void to save himself.
In practice, he trembled too much trying to right himself. Anything less than complete concentration would not let him float or materialise anything to walk with, so he managed to clamber up the wall and take a single step before crumpling back to the floor, a jarring slam that left him face up to the lofty ceilings.
The bisharp filled his vision moments later, those heavy, pillar-like legs leading up through a maze of knives and an unimpressed stare.
Isaac: “Um… can I forfeit?”
Bisharp: - checks blades - “
No.”
“It seems my journey was pointless. I’ve won.”
But its voice kept flat. Even as it drew up a foot and dug it into Isaac’s chest until he wheezed, the bisharp’s claws drooped at its side.
“What—” Isaac started, then wheezed again as the bisharp withdrew, “do you want?”
“To challenge you. To defeat you. I hardly had to try, you seem weakened.”
I mean, he’s not
wrong there.
“You don’t know me. I’m not, like, a threat. Or anything. I’m just some guy.”
“I felt your size,” it repeated.
“I don’t know what that means.”
But the bisharp didn’t seem interested in explaining. It wandered off, stepping into the kitchen and leaving Isaac to draw up on his elbows, the shadowy mass of his body whipping about of its own accord.
“Excuse me?” he continued.
Isaac: “What you were saying earlier. I… didn’t understand what you meant by that. How do you feel
size?” ._.;
Not that it got much response. The bisharp had already thrown open the fridge door, bathing the kitchen in a white glow and letting a chill breeze creep along the floor. The fridge was empty, of course, so it grunted and shut it shortly after. Then it set its sights on the TV, drifting into the living room, planting its claws on its hips and tracing the battle playing out on screen.
Isaac just sat there, blinking.
“Hey,” he said. He meant to shout, but hesitated and overthought it and the word sort of limped out quietly. The bisharp still heard it, though, judging by a flippant wave of the claw. “Can you… leave? I mean, if you're finished. Please.”
Bisharp:
“You have no way to challenge me.”
[ ]
“I just— I was asking. I don’t have anything for you.”
Bisharp: “Well, you have this sweet den that you’re clearly in no shape to defend on your own right now.”
“I will not leave unless you force me.”
“Oh,” Isaac muttered.
Which left him on the floor, watching the bisharp linger beside the couch like it owned the place. The TV roared, shoutcasters punching through the tension with their usual rounds of cheers. Strobe graphics and canned cheers played over the fallen form of Iris’ hydreigon.
I just realized, but was that blonde-haired kid supposed to be Bianca? Though I like how Bisharp is basically speedrunning Isaac’s lived experience with Alma being domineering and controlling his life in live-time here.
Even despite finding some brief elation, he sniffed and idly traced the bisharp’s form in dust on the ground.
The situation hadn’t quite struck him yet. Though maybe that wouldn’t change much; he always got looks for what he thought was important. Yes, he cried more when Hilda dropped from the championship than when Nana died. Sometimes he cried, sometimes he just thought. And back then, he thought it was not sad that she died. She was old. He knew what happened when people got old.
Well then. Though I suppose if she ‘dropped’ she was never defeated. Even if I wonder what the occasion for
that was. Going off to chase N around? Aeimlou?
The audience cheered again, as if to agree. Or to urge him.
Time to move, they shouted. With the waving of flags and blaring of vuvuzelas.
So he made a lot of noise trying, but with a while to calm down and the endless support of the TV, he crawled himself up the wall and managed to float again. And with minimal scratches on the pristine white walls. And with a limp self-pat on the shoulder.
Progress!
The bisharp, of course, watched the whole thing solidly, not bothering to lend a hand, let alone a word. It also watched a wobbly Isaac hover into its space and plop down on the couch again with a quiet sigh, snuggling into the warm corner he’d left.
And now what? It still wasn’t leaving.
“How long are you staying?”
[ ]
“Until I get the fight I wanted.”
“You’re staying forever?”
Bisharp:
It raised up a claw and clacked it. Isaac got the impression of a betrayal, holding on to his rope, dashed against the side of a cliff by rain and wind, only to look up and see the bisharp with his lifeline between its claws.
That claw dropped like a dead fish. “Until I die. There are no other chances like this. I will let you heal, first.”
Isaac: “... I feel like there’s somebody that I’m supposed to call during moments like these, but I can’t think of anything.” .-.
Bisharp: “Again, if you want this den so badly. Prove your worth and
fight for it.”
Isaac blinked. The vision morphed back into boring, mundane reality. Only, what the fuck was he talking about? Boring, mundane, reality. Okay. He still had no clue what was happening.
“Okay,” he repeated. To himself.
The bisharp nodded.
He nodded
Thay sat and watched TV…
I feel as if this would make for an interesting prompt to some sort of sitcom in Pokéworld.
A bird’s-eye of the arena faded into shakycam in the lockers, rows of flushed faces straining to fight past each other and make it into focus. But the camera had its sights only on the winner, and followed him out.
…and kept watching…
It was the blonde kid. Den Mercer, who smiled with all the confidence in the world and wore a coating of dust and sweat as battlescars from commanding the field. He had a belt of basic red-and-white pokeballs and department store track pants and teeth with a slight hint of yellow and years without braces.
Oh,
that’s not Bianca there.
…until focusing stung and tears started to pool and roll down Isaac’s cheeks. [ ]
“I don’t think I’ll ever be able to fight you.”
“Then I will die.”
[ ]
“Don’t… do that. That’s— that’s not great.”
Some more spots where it probably makes sense to get a bit more into Isaac’s head or else play up Bisharp’s reactions a bit.
But the bisharp had some unreadable expression beneath all those moving mandibles. It—
Hold on.
“Sorry, what gender are you?” Isaac asked.
It blinked.
“I mean—” Isaac shifted uncomfortably, sniffling and rubbing his eyes until they stopped stinging, suddenly hoping the couch could swallow him whole. “I’ve been calling you it this whole time.”
So Bisharp are apparently hard for human-turned-Darkrai (and presumably normal humans) to sex. Duly noted.
It kept blinking. “You haven’t referenced me at all.”
“Uh, in my mind, I mean.”
“I don’t care what you think.”
Oh. That’s good. But it didn't answer the question. [ ]
“Soooo…” he started, dragging it out in hopes the bisharp would jump in with an answer. But he only stared a good minute until Isaac ran out of breath and sputtered out, wheezing and coughing awkwardly.
Another spot where it might make sense to expand on Isaac’s inner thought process here.
Only then did it chime in with a gruff: “I am male,” and continue to look at Isaac like a housefly buzzing around his head.
“Cool. I mean, I guess it doesn’t matter. I should’ve asked your name first,” he mumbled and, learning from last time, capped it off, “so what’s your name?”
“That has no relevance—”
Isaac: “But you
do have a name, right? Since I could see the way you reacted there.”
“I’m never going to fight you. Probably—and if you’re going to stay here forever or until you… until I find a way to get you to leave, then I think it’s good if I know what to call you.” Isaac paused. “I’m Isaac.”
The bisharp—now a he and a real, looming presence in Isaac’s life—turned. The roar of the tv drowned in the intensity of his stare.
“Call me King.”
Though I suppose he’s
earned it for the time being, especially from his perspective where he’s managed to cow a
god into line.
