Helm of D'Ark

[Peeki]

It's another boring day in Saffron. The streets are busy with people tending to their boring lives. Typical boring stuff. Some of them are rushing to work pretending they're so busy on their phones. Others are simply walking to enjoy the weather they think that's good for them. Others are even smiling all happily with their friends running after each other. I, on the other hand, am sipping this bland tea.

Well, I was, anyway. I threw it out the window mainly because I was fed up of bland tea and of course, to see the beautiful commotion that was to occur just a few minutes. Relaxing on my soft velvet sofa while taking a glance at the pitiful lives in the distance, I think about how boring the world is. I see black, I see white, and I see a lot of shades of grey. But, nevertheless, a little color wouldn't hurt in this melodramatic monotony that we call life. But, who am I shitting here?

Of course, the very pendulum of life and death.

Like a beautiful orchestra playing its masterpiece at the gala, the cup of tea that fell in the middle of the sidewalk ended my boredom. One person was hit by the falling porcelain. Well, the tea cup broke into pieces upon impact, he screamed in agony as the duo of blood and heat scourged. After that, a boy on his bicycle passed by and was shocked at the sudden scream that he lost control, tripped, and fell right in the middle of the road. Incoming cars were alerted by the sudden turn of events that - after a lot of screeching, further screams, and clashing of metal - there was that momentarily silence.

"It's not enough," I wistfully said as I threw my silver spoon out the window.

The orchestra continued on as the spoon candidly hit a young woman's phone out of her hands and into the concrete. She swore a lot - and boy, did I mean a lot. She ended up enraged. Was she trying to call the ambulance, perhaps? Au contraìre. Well, the guy with the scalding scalp was busy tending to his wounds while people were helping him out. The boy who caused the traffic jam (I can't say this with a straight face) tended to his knee injury. People were crying and people were panicking. I loved every second of it.

How the young woman matters in this discord is that the moment she began frantic cries for help, she trips and ironically drops her purse. For some weird reason, the purse exploded and the whole street turned into shambles. Rubble was everywhere. I don't know what life was left out of that cataclysmic explosion, but she did mean business.

When there is death, there is life.

As the orchestra began to play the climax, a little girl walked among the rubble with an expression on her face that resembled... actually I did not know what it resembled. She was short but she had this aura... it's like she was surrounded by something I couldn't decipher. And I did not like that at all.

"My, who is this person?" I said as I took a careful glance at this girl, who seemed not to care about the blood and death that echoed right around her.
I examined her pass by a dead body without any remorse at all. She also ignored a person's cry for help. I seriously did not know if she were deaf or just... her.

It bothered me. No one was to take away the limelight.

"Flammort, Candoir, we've got a bitch to deal with."

They nodded without hesitation. Business as usual.

[Ninetails 009]

Noise. Oh, noise like a rose, like a swan, like a pearl. That is to say, noise which sounds akin to thorns and shit and dirt. Darcie glumly plodded along the pressing heat and air of the city, wishing to god that in some parallel universe, every step of hers was unsuspectingly creating a genocide of death.

"Ree." Key, floating along beside her, agreed.

"Don't Ree at me, you blobby thing. Heck, I don't even know what kind of Pokemon you are. I haven't even caught you in a Pokeball! Why is it that you stick to me, I have no idea. Maybe it's because you're a stalker. Of all the Pokemon in the world, I somehow get a stalker. Oh god why. I mean, my classmate Joey's rattata was spastic and all, but at least he was understandable. You! Are you a boy or a girl? I don't even know that."

"Ree Ree." Key responded with a vigorous nodding of its head. Darcie threw her hands up towards the sky. "That wasn't even a YES/ NO question, Key." "Ree." "...I give up."

As Darcie flicked open her slim pink phone, a disembodied visage beamed up upon her. She didn't bat an eyelid.

"Gospel. I'm trying to see the time, here."

"" The Porygon Z merely beamed up a corresponding hologram that obscured her vision even more.

"What? Furnace? What about a furnace? And I can't even read that second word. When are you going to kick that habit of talking in captcha? With my luck, prolly never, right?"

The girl and her team took a few more steps. And then the world exploded.

Flying utensils and cutlery (really, could killer litterers attempt at more style?) caused an injury which caused hysteria which caused more injury which caused, predictably, more. goddamned. noise.

"Right. That furnace. By which I assume you meant fire, death and destruction. Well Gospel, you could try narrowing down your vocabulary a little. A simple use of the word 'Chaos' would have sufficed. Really, I'm not sure if I approve of that week you spent hitch-hiking around thesaurus.com."

Plod plod plod. Darcie walked on.

[Peeki]

"Candoir, enchant me with the situation over there. And don't tell me chaos or lots of debris--tell me what's in between," I said, as I grabbed my phone and wallet, ready to face that mysterious girl in the debris-laden street.

"Sir, it seems that the only living beings in the street are that girl, her pokemon, and some random person clinging to dear life. The third person seems to have about 5% chance of survival. Enchanted enough?", Candoir said.

"Cheeky, Clandoir," I retorted.

Flammort then said, "I feel something weird about this child, Master. She seems..."

I interrupted, "Like she doesn't give a shit about everything around here. Let's go say hi, shall we?"

As walked over to the girl, I kicked a few utensils out of my path and ignored a random person's cry for help. I thought to myself, make that 2%, Candoir.

The aura around the girl seemed weird, indeed, as Flammort mentioned. Well, she was short, that's a given. But, the pokemon around her clinged to her, not like there were chains, but as if they gravitated toward her.

With a sly smile, I realized I knew why.

Even, I, too, wanted to know more about the little girl who didn't cry nor run at the welcome of disaster and chaos.

The pendulum has set in place: the fine center of life and death.

"Hello, Miss Vertically Challenged. Do you wish to live or to die?" I stood boldly, just a few meters away from her, with Flammort and Candoir by my side.

[Ninetails 009]

"...Who the fuck are you." Darcie stared incredulously at the boy...man...thing that had suddenly materialized in front of her. "And I'm not short." She added a tad self-consciously a few seconds later.

"Ree ree ree ree ree. Ree REE REE REE." Key echoed her rhythm of speech perfectly in that very same instant, albeit in the language from the lala Land of Ree. The freaky pokemon was getting a little more energetic now, darting back and forth around Darcie's head as it emphatically enunciated its eager words. High rees, low rees, dragging rees, staccato-ed rees. Whatever was making the pokemon so chirpy all of a sudden, Darcie had no idea. Maybe it was welcoming the abberations that hailed from the same freaky parallel universe as itself. That boy-man-thing's attitude certainly fit the bill.

Somewhere from a distant part of her brain, the faint refrain of a certain song floated up. It's Raining Men! Hallelujah! - It's Raining Men! Amen! No wait, that was just Gospel trying to be funny, playing the tune from her cellphone. Like life needed any more background music. Darcie didn't even want to bother attempting to tell that sodding Porygon Z off. Waste of energy.

Time for a situation check.

1. Lousy explosions. Check.
2. Lousy music. Check.
3. Lousy humour. Check.
4. Decently lousy pokemon. Check.
5. Most importantly, lousy BOY standing in FRONT of her spewing some primordial soup of Wagnerian lines and British spiel. CHECK. Now, if only Darcie could shout "Waiter! Bill please!" and clear this entire business off her plate.

Whoever he was, the dude was flanked by two bipedal Pokemon, a Blaziken and a Gallade. At least that she remembered from her studies.

"Either way, get your boytoy pets out of my way and head back to the bedroom." Darcie said, stone-faced. "I think that you are in a serious need of an attitude check."

Behind her back, there was something in those words that caused a slight flicker of emotion in Key. A faint shadow arched greyingly over that star-crossed face. Slowly, the eidolic cries of ree faded to an eolithic beat, the chant of drums in which centuries past. The widdershins rotations slowed to a stop. And with a pair of glowing blue eyes, Key stared, in twelve o'clock high.

Darcie turned away.

[Peeki]

As the Jirachi whirled like he...she...or it was on drugs, I assessed the very situation and its general outcome. The little girl had actually badmouthed me in a very direct way that makes me reassess my position on how I should treat her.

I gestured toward Flammort and Candoir to move away from the scenery.

"Flammort, Candoir, please maintain a radius around me of 20 meters. And, 40 meters away from each other."

Flammort took a deep breath and the flame patterns on his body ignited a solemn glow as he leapt into the distance. Candoir followed suit as his blades began to glow a familiar faint purple in preparation for the kill.

"The sweet melodies of life and death ringing at the toll of a little girl," I said, with a clear and calculated tone. I wasn't amused.

After my pokemon took their positions at opposite ends, I dusted off my clothes and checked my phone. Zero messages, zero calls. It looked like the party was going to be right here. Taking out my midnight toned shades and placing them on, I glanced at how that little girl said very profane things and simply turned around. Her jirachi went all gaga as she talked, which indicated that something she said did something to the little... thing.

"Hey, you. I don't think we've met," I said while fidgeting in my pockets for something.

I finally found it and threw it ahead of her and continued, "But before that, here's a reality check for ya."

It flew threw the air in a perfect trajectory and landed with a clunk. It was a mirror.

And the pendulum begins to sway.

[Ninetails 009]

Some say that if you stare too long in a mirror, your soul gets trapped there. Some say that mirrors reflect the truth, and warns you to get alarm when you see something that shouldn't be there. Others say that the mirror can be used to scry, to get a glimpse into multiple universes unknown. But most popular of all is to say the one who breaks a mirror is cursed with seven years of bad luck.

Crunch. So went Darcie's foot through the little compact. She continued, pace unchanged, walking and walking, one step further from the man-boy, one step closer to sanity...no, who was she bullshitting, madness and incongruity followed her wherever she went.

"Boy who carries a makeup mirror. So my earlier guess was right. D'you want me to make a gift of satin sheets in return?"

And yes, ahead of her loomed a figure twice as tall as herself, whether the Gallade or the Blaziken she didn't really care to see. Why random strangers insisted on making her life difficult, Darcie didn't know. But either way, Darcie walked on. Towards that silhouette. Dragging her feet. Leaving tiny fragments of mirror-dust ground under her soles. In the sunlight, every piece glimmered. And within each flickered a solitary blue eye. A million of them isolated, reflecting, bouncing, passing through one another again in wormholic loops of endless eternity.

Step.
Step.
Step.

It was the Gallade, she thinks. Hard to see with the sunlight shining into her eyes, but there was an outline of blades. Same measured pace by same measured pace, with a scuffling of shoes and frictioned dirt-on-gravel scrapes, she walked. Until she was right upon the figure. And she looked askance.

"Just...leave me alone, okay? I...really have a lot to deal with at the moment, and now, now is not the best time for you and your master to be dandies. Really. Just leave me alone. Why me again. Why now. Why."

Key had vanished by then. Gospel too, had shut off the hologram of light. The street was silent now, the screams of the trivial muted off by the godly remote. And the little girl stood alone, staring at the three males who had suddenly lassoed her life.

[Peeki]

Ignoring the girl's pleas and lame attempts at insults, I simply looked at Candoir and told him, "Okay, so the girl's human. That's a given. A scrawny one at that. Now, I want you to give me an illusion."

I turned toward Flammort, who was already building up power, "And, Flammort, please heat up this place. I find it a wee bit too chill for my liking."

At my command, Candoir closed his eyes and began to glow a very faint purple. At that instant, he disappeared. Everything seemed to turn dark at that very moment; it was like a dream being unfolded into reality. The streets emptied and all I saw was a beautiful pasture with the moon glowing in the distance. It was a full moon. Damn, Candoir knows how to put up a good show. Flammort followed suit and the temperature suddenly rose by a few degrees. The chill had lessened.

"Welcome to my reality. The conflict between the cold-hearted and the warm-spirited. It seems that you have taken a great liking to the mirror, but it seems you have misinterpreted my very attention of even meeting you here."

Automatically, I began to grow wings--black and white--where the feathers maintained gleam so beautiful that even the heavens cowered at their presence. Each step shook the earth as I walked closer and closer toward the pitiful girl.

"Mirrors speak much about reflection, so let's just take a look into your mind, shall we?"

The meld between physical flames and the ethereal energies is enough to create a strong illusion. Candoir was in charge of bringing the unreal into reality and Flammort was in charge of bringing the real back to reality. Candoir brought death to life, whereas Flammort brings life to mortality's mercy. IT's that perfect duality.

And the pendulum makes one full swing to the left: life.

[Ninetails 009]

Given the distinct inability to fly,
what appears to be most men's attempt at flying
is merely falling in style.

The boy now, he lives in illusions, breathes in dreams. What he does not understand is that one man's miracles is the monotonous, dreaded chores and calls of another. In this world of Pokemon of the lava-diving, cloud-flying, liquid-thriving, darkness-hiding beasts, nothing is so much unusual for someone, somewhere out there, has definitely done so before. To a paraplegic, the ones who walk exist on another plane. To the land-lubbers with lungs, the Milotics and Gorebyss laugh and flip with a goddess ease. And to Darcie, wings does not an angel make.

"Realities are an irony, for the truth eludes all common beings- including you. I don't pretend to hold glamour within me, but I have a right to shape my own world, and the Gospel is not for you to write." Darcie said quietly.

"" came a sound, and the world...blinked.

The sky, the pavements, the buildings, the dust, everything blurred into this myriad, this rainbow of 8-bit technicolour. Dimensions shrank, and the concept of width, breadth, was gone. Blocks of devolved civilization stood, two-dimensional images, as spheres, cubes and all popped into a past self, a world where only circles and squares trampled the world. The boy's nicely done formation too, was tugged and pulled so that it merely ended up so that the Gallade was in front, with the boy in the middle, with the Blaziken flanking him. Multiple realities. The concept of left and right had never existed here, and only forward and backwards remained. Psychic Pokemon may be able to create their own worlds, but the digital supremacy of the humans was a universe which they had yet to touch.

"The problem with psychic pokemon is that they may only mess with living minds. So sad that the computer is denied this treat. You insist on barging into my life, and I resent that. I'll play in your world, you play in mine for a while. Then Get. Lost. My privacy is my own to keep."

And with that, out of nowhere, the Electrode bounded out and attacked.

[Peeki]

"Oh, so Miss Little Bitch likes to play a few mind games with the three of us, eh?" I said, immediately bursting into laughter at that psychedelic sensation I was currently under in. Assessing my situation, reality was, to plainly put it, fucked over by that Porygon Z. I was dazed for a moment but I regained control of what everything was happening.

"It seems to me that the digital age has been filled with many wonders, right? It also seems to me that the very decadent nature of humanity is at the mercy of its own... monstrous creation. You do not cease to baffle me, Miss Stunted Growth, but nevertheless, everything has its own limitations," I said, coolly.

"Indeed, I may never write the gospel," I orchestrated, "but I can very much indeed burn it."

Realizing that I had to make a dramatic move, I immediately shouted out that, "Flammort and Candoir, show that bitch and her pokemon what it means to live and to die."

Flammort nodded his head as he began to envelop in flames. Temperature increase by 500 Kelvins, energy efficiency at 300%.

His body raged as the flames began to feed his anger. Through the distorted reality it seemd to be, Flammort blazed like the sun, with shades of yellow, red, and orange rapidly dancing around, at his very will. Almost instantaneously, the flames began to glow pure white--pure energy, as it is. Time began to slowly tick away as everything began to freeze. It was as if Flammort reconstructed the elements around him and generated the pure bliss of rage through his flames. Flare Blitz was its uncanny call.

After that, I felt something weird, more like ancient static. I took a glance and I saw an electrode rushing in.

Candoir simply scoffed at that sight. His eyes grew a violent purple as his arm blades began to leak out huge amounts of energy. They began to sharpen and formed a pure solid lavender blade of psychic energy. The area around the blades began to further distort, creating a very paradoxical tension in Candoir's vicinity. Psycho Cut was its melody.

Flammort dashed toward the Porygon Z and Candoir danced toward the electrode.

I, on the other hand, smiled at the bitch.

And the pendulum swings rapidly: limbo.