#Which means I gotta grind on TR...

[bsaka7]

me and my mom in a one room apartment together for 5 days what could go wrong...

[smilingperformer]

Animevibe Pokémon Shield Run log, part 2

So, Day 2, and my second partner: getto daze! And I checked I won't be able to catch my third one til at least first gym is done so... this will be fun! |D

But also gotta mention how replaying SwSh games gives me such a good reminder of how beautiful this game is, and what a good OST. Ah, man.

I feel like I appreciated Marnie's introduction here a bit more this time around... also, she smiled. :D

Oh, and my chosen number revealed! (Try to figure out what it references to, it's quite simple)

Plus, dude, wtf, you don't just quit your job for watching TV!!

And so my journey to Milo's gym started... how did it go? Well... badly.

While I did do quite well against Bede with my Golett overpowering his team easily, against Milo I am... real darn weak. Ground/Ghost + Water type against Grass types? Bad. Very bad. And my next capture option is after Grass Gym Badge has been gotten.

But I won't give up! I have found out that I am actually a bit underleveled, so I must figure out a counter-attack against Milo's Gym. I have checked that Golett can learn ice type moves, one of them through TR, so I'm gonna figure out if I can do some max raid battles to obtain some.

So yeh. Current situation: Grass Gym 1, Me 0. I'll get you Milo.

(Cue the training arc that happens after gym defeat in Pokeani~)

The rules of the run:

1. The player can only have 6 Pokémon in total for the whole run, with the possibility of using an egg ‘mon if one of the determined 6 is a late capture. In SwSh, that would be Toxel.

2. The team used in this run was randomized through generator, using the criteria of the team needing to have a chosen starter line. For this run, I’ve chosen Sobble.

3. The randomizer determines which of the 6 Pokémon on your team evolve and which do not. Same applies for starter.

4. No grinding allowed. Must battle trainers, but must avoid avoidable battles

5. Can only enter gym matches with the amount of Pokémon that the Gym Leader one’s battling against has on their hand. Ie. Milo has two, I must only bring two.

6. Cannot use potions, instead must heal through Pokémon Camp or Pokémon Center, or berries. Anime never shows Ash and co. using potions during battles.

Below are extra rules to spice things up that I haven’t applied for this run due to knowing I ain’t capable for them with my team:

Apply Nuzlocke rules of Pokémon fainting meaning it’s gone for good.

Add regional bird as one of the 6 Pokémon for the whole run.

Make every single member on your team be Gen 8 Pokémon. I haven’t done so for this run, thou most are gen 8 anywho.

Must become a Champion without losing a single match in the tournament. If one loses, they can still finish it, but the run would be considered officially finished theme wise if one loses at any point during the league.

[calcinators-blog]

FN-2187, TR-8R

I can’t tell you what it was like. And by it, I really do mean all of it.

“Indoctrination” was one hell of a thing. But then, well… back then, I didn’t know any different. It was all one way up until it wasn’t, until Dr. Thos pulled me out of my mental stasis and I could really think for myself. Do you understand what I mean?

I guess that’s maybe not for me to wonder in the first place; I know your mind has been yours the whole time. I know you choose this and you know I couldn’t. Insinuating it’s possible for you to place yourself where I’ve been is out of the question, not that you wouldn’t try to because I know you well enough, but I couldn’t explain even if I had all the time in the world to. And I don’t.

I’m still coming to terms with it. I know that we’ve already said goodbye. Maybe I’m only talking myself through because it’s too quiet and no one else has said anything to me in hours. Maybe because I still feel like I’m going to see you later and I’m practicing re-telling this story.

If you could hear me, right now, I don’t even know what would I say to you. Maybe that watching the hatch seal over your face was death enough for me. But that’s not the important stuff that I should have said. The one chance I had, I kept it back. Everything. All the nitty-gritty details, the stuff that a part of me would rather get vaped than admit to you. I wanted to come clean, really, but I just couldn’t burden you like that. I held my tongue then and I hold it now, inching closer to the great wipe.

Being reconditioned feels like a joke. But, I’m not laughing.

As I was saying, I broke out of it all, sure, then came pretending like I hadn’t, which was easier than you’d think since you can never really forget what it’s like. I mean, it was both a barrier and an alarm. It was an invisible wall blocking a spectrum of thought, protecting me from revelation and natural impulse. It was an inaudible siren, influencing my brain to duck and run or stand in line. To lay my life out for the cause and all that.

In time, you can imagine, that you’d grow to tolerate it. And I did. Fighting against it only makes headaches. Real bad ones. Ones that grind and pound at your brain like it’s the Resistance itself. I think it’s because our minds were conditioned not to do what they want to do.

Well, I’ll call them headaches, but in truth, they were more than that. The programming and programmers, the ones who do this to us, they are not our allies and they are not our friends.

The end feels all too similar to the beginning. I blame the hallways. The repetition of steel and stone. These worn down boots of mine are ticking like a detonator against the floors, slick with polish. I’m amazed I can walk without falling on my ass.

Hell, now I can’t see anything but Slip’s face. I’ve been in my share of accidents but he was by far the clumsiest trooper I’ve ever seen. I mean it lovingly when I say his dexterity was fictional… ‘Cuz he was also as sharp as a sarlacc’s tooth and that’s why they kept him around. Slip, walking to reconditioning and tripping on his way, would have been the greatest “fuck you” to the General over here. I’m sure it’s a mood killer. It’s gotta be.

Anyways, he’s at my left and a psytech I can’t recognize is at my right. So, there’s a black coat on one side and white at the other. It feels almost like a devil and angel on my shoulders but neither is interested in mercy.

I should also mention that Hux here, has been staring at the back of my head so intently I can feel his glare burning away at my scalp. On one hand, I want to ignore it but on the other, I can’t help but feel he’s annoyed that my hair is  redder than. I must have established myself as the alpha. And I say that as if, wherever you are right now, you’ll stop what you’re doing and laugh– or at least roll your eyes in that way you do when I say something unbelievably corny. I know this look well from too many sour jokes.

I think suddenly to when you told me my hair was as red as poppies. I’m not sure why, but it’s always stuck with me. Maybe I liked the association to something organic and innocent, maybe I just liked how your face lit up when you told me. I think about how you had mentioned they would stain your palms  because you would hold onto them, collect them. Keep them close.

I hope I haven’t left a mark.

Everything aside, I just wish you could hear me. You know, even still, as I march on knowing what’s coming, I don’t think I can take this moment seriously. I don’t think so, but it sneaks up on me. I’m fine in one step, a mess in another.

I contemplate decking the General, then running as he’s stunned. He’s confident that I won’t. I don’t have cuffs. But where would I go then?

It’s hard to stomach how close we were to— it. I guess the absolute worst thing that I could do is measure the distance between here and freedom. I’ll forget about freedom soon enough but damn, if I wasn’t right there.

It’s just ahead now. I’d be lying if I told myself that I didn’t feel scared, or worse, alone. It’s intimidating to know I’ll be fine on the other side or that I won’t remember this moment of not being fine.

I’m not okay right now. I’m the exact opposite. I’m shaking under these outer plates. I feel it breaking like sheets of ice, shifting and crackling along moving water. This armor, my second skin, won’t prevent what they plan on doing to me. Can’t.

I always imagined, in the end, you would show me your home world. I thought about what it would be like to see it with order restored because that’s why you were here. In some vague, ridiculous way, I’m thankful that it pushed you here. I’m not, for one second, pleased that your planet is suffering now but we met and that’s something I would never regret. The universe is too big to not host such happy coincidences and if my memory serves me right, you did say I was like your brother.

Yeah. Happy.

Starkiller isn’t going to get some ceremonious goodbye from me. No one did– not even my Captain. She handed me over; they must have not trusted that I could do it myself for sending her as a chaperone. She came to collect me before any of the others had woken up. We marched soundlessly from the barracks to the main bridge all to find the General waiting for me, sipping tea and reading something on his holopad. He gave me this look, like I was a dog on a leash or something, and told Captain that he was “sorry it came down to this.”

Sorry... Can you believe that? That he was sorry?

She didn’t.

We didn’t have to talk, you know. I mean, I respect the hell out of that woman– under the armor, I wouldn’t be surprised if her flesh was also chromed– but she was thrown through a loop. I don’t think I’ve ever been so quiet; maybe she was waiting for me to brush it all off my shoulders. She didn’t think I could bear the weight of it all without comedic relief to shake the tension loose. But I did.

They’re connecting me to the machines now.

They’ve kept to themselves how potentially dangerous this procedure is. They haven’t warned me that it’s excruciating, that I might wake up in the night with sweat-soaked sheets from nightmares of this life. Dr. Thos forewarned us. You know if it were simple, being reset, they would have done this to me the moment I started laughing more than I blasted things to bits. They don’t do this to wise-mouths; only turncoats… and I wouldn’t have made it as an FN without faking my undying devotion. I’ve never shown that my allegiance is outside this white skeleton.

They look at me, close-lipped. No one has explained to me why I’m here. The only disclaimer they’ve made is that this is what is going to happen. I’m lead to believe our secret is about to make itself known if they do not already know. But I don’t want to entertain that. Thinking about the others… They just can’t.

I’m suddenly terrified of what will happen to the rest. I can’t do anything, secured tightly to this chair, each limb pressed down to the surface. I can only blink and move my head. Neither action is sufficient, so I do nothing.

I put so much belief in the plan. I depended on inertia, and maybe to a fault, that it would just keep us all creeping forward undetected. I never thought I’d be halted. I’m trying to be okay with it. If the skifflin is out of the sack, I only hope it means that you’re right on the edge of figuring it out too.

Damn.

I just couldn’t risk it though. I couldn’t include you in it all when I knew how unsafe it was to house these thoughts. Sometimes I would rip myself out of sleep and have to fight not rocketing down the hall to tell you… It’s just that there is so much happening beneath.

Maybe I should have told you– I should have said something, right? I can’t say anything now. No. Nothing. Not in a metaphorical sense either. Stars, they’ve tied a strip of ashen, flimsy fabric over my mouth. It tastes like gauze and I can’t help but think of being stitched up in the medbay a few cycles back for being a little too reckless. I can’t help but think while I still can. I can’t help it at all. I’m not going to make a sound– untie it. Please, General. I can’t go through my final moments like this. And why do you have to look at me like that? Like I’m a wounded animal about to be put down. My limbs are transformed to claws and wings. Let me go. Let me go.

Am I awake for this procedure? There was no countdown. It’s happening. God. I can feel parts of me going numb and cold. It’s a submersion into ice water. I’m not ready. I’m not ready. I don’t want to forget your face. I’m thinking really hard about you. I’m not ready to give you up. They can try to steal you and everyone else from me but I refuse to let you go.

I feel something moving down the pathways of my memory. There’s no way to describe this feeling, only that I’m all too aware of something slithering about inside my head. Starkiller is absorbing my mind in preparation for total annihilation.

I won’t forget you. I won’t forget you when you had been watching the interstellar dust. We had everything then– the one last perfect moment.

General Hux has his hand on the controls. I can’t see much but I see him from the corner of my eye. The techs, in ghostly white robes around him, are supervising. He must think he’s deleting the problem; that it began and so dies with me.

I can only hope this buys you enough time.

Whatever happens after this, you’ll make it out. I know you will. You’ll go back to your planet and see the poppies. I don’t know where I came from but I trust you don’t mind if I go there too. It feels like it’s home enough for me. I hope you know my consciousness will be there, preserved and flowing through the stems of every single flower, bursting into petals you used to admire.

We’re all finally free there. Everyone. Please, you have to keep holding on.

You just have to.

I wonder if they can see it in my eyes, the brilliance of the view we had. I’m thinking about it hard enough that I’m surprised that my skin hasn’t become one with the darkness we hang in.

You’re here. With me. You’re next to me. I feel our last hug become our last once more. I feel you holding me together, but you’re fading to quickly to keep me in tact. But I’m not ready to let you go.

The fabric over my mouth slips; it falls down my chin and hangs at my neck like a noose. This vision of you, the last I’ll see of you and know who you are, but I whisper to you regardless:

 "We will escape. We will all escape."

The man with red hair, whose name and face have left me, cannot control his rage. He slams his hand on a button and I’m shocked with so much invisible electricity that I–