A quick recap: The Choosing Ceremony of the Inferno Clan is underway as all the pokeball offerings are in place and the candidates are lined up for selection. Emberwilde, the clan's chosen Champion, is tests the offerings with his fire, those deemed unworthy shattering under the heat. The Main Character watches anxiously with the other candidates. Only 2 pokeballs have currently survived the Charizard's fire...
I locked my gaze upon my pokeball sitting in the flames, willing it to stay intact against the onslaught of fire and knowing at the same time that nothing I did from the time I placed my pokeball on the alter would change what was happening at this moment. I couldn't tell if the sweat starting to run down my face was from the heat of the fire or the nervousness I was feeling as this competition was coming to a close. Judging from just the residual heat rippling off of the alter and spreading all around me, I knew that this contest would be over soon. It didn't matter what kind of special material either of us put into our offerings, there was nothing that mere children could afford that would stand up to anymore punishment, especially from a Charizard as strong as Emberwilde. So, I did the only thing I could - I clenched my teeth and willed my strength and resolve into my offering.
Bang! went the final pokeball, breaking under the pressure and heat of Emberwilde's flame. So focused was I upon my own offering that I didn't even notice until I heard the roar of the crowd all around me. The outcry broke my focus on my still intact pokebal. My still intact offering. I turned my head to see my final competitor leave the line and return to where the others were standing. I turned back to the alter, eyes wide and smile big as my pokeball still stood strong within the flames.
I stepped forward, pride in my chest, triumphant. My dream for as long as I could remember was finally realized - that I would be allowed to bear our champion into the Kanto Region, to battle the elite of trainers, and to return Emberwilde stronger than before to challenge the other 2 clans in the Isle's yearly games.
I moved toward the alter just as a wave of unbearable heat slammed into my face, forcing me to stagger backwards. Even though my pokeball was the only one left, Emberwilde still hadn't relented with the fire. In fact he'd made it stronger, the fire on his tail now almost as tall as he was and all that energy now focused upon the one object still left upon the alter. Attacking the sphere, flames unrelenting, as if it were his personal mission to see it destroyed.
It was then that I realized what was happening - Emberwilde wasn't testing the offerings to find a worthy bearer amongst the candidates, he was trying to break all of them. It hasn't happened for decades, but every so often a Champion decides that it doesn't need a Bearer to take it into Kanto. Usually these matters are decided by the Clan Leader beforehand to avoid embarrassing that year's potential candidates. Those years, from what I've heard, the GodKing would just announce the Champion to the rest of the clan and we would cheer as the chosen Pokemon departed on the journey. No big ceremony and no Choosing Ceremony. I'm not sure if Emberwilde didn't tell the GodKing his wishes, or if the GodKing had turned him down. What I did know was that Emberwilde was making a spectacle now. And spectacle was just another word for embarrassment - to the potential Bearers, to Emberwilde, to the GodKing, and ultimately to the Clan.
I looked around to see the other candidates staring warily at what they were seeing. The Pokemon and other humans in attendance, those with a better understanding of the situation than I, glared with anger in their eyes. I tried to spot if I could find anyone who smiled at this scene Emberwilde was making, at least to point out the spies in attendance. The Choosing Ceremony is supposed to be another way we show our unity as a Clan. To let show even one crack or chink in that facade would bring shame and give the others a weakness to exploit. There was really only one way to save us all.
Fighting passed the heat, I got to my feet and stepped forward. "I withdraw," I said, though too soft to be heard above the roar of the fire. It hurt to say but I needed to do it. I felt an ache in my chest as I took a deep breath, this time letting the scorching air burn my lungs as if, at the same time, it burned away my dreams. "I withdraw!" I shouted with tears already streaming down my face. All I ever wanted was to bear our clan's champion across foreign lands, spreading the pride and glory of our people. But of course, what were the hopes and dreams of a child when compared to the pride of an entire clan? When did the piece deem itself greater than the whole?
To my surprise, Emberwilde didn't stop. In fact, the flame grew even hotter, burning blue-white as it started to melt the stone alter. Even more surprising, my pokeball still sat strong against the blazing inferno that now engulfed it. "I said 'I withdraw!'" I shouted again but the flames continued. I looked over to the GodKing, sitting high above with a look of disappointment on his face. "Char!" I shouted, this time in the language of the Charizard, "Charizard Charizard Chaar, Char Char Chaaarizaaard!" Even in his tongue, Emberwilde ignored my pleas, pouring an even hotter flame upon my stubborn offering.
I looked to the crowd again to see many of their heads hung low, some had even turned fully around, unable to bear witness to the spectacle Emberwilde was putting on for what they saw as his own amusement. I needed to do something, so I did the only other thing I could think of to do.
I approached the alter slowly, hoping Emberwilde's gaze wouldn't turn from the pokeball to myself. I fought through the heat of the now almost pure white flames, my skin feeling as if it were drying out with every step closer. Eventually, I managed to get close enough that loose strings upon my clothing would randomly spark and burn for a second or two. I took a deep breath and then plunged my left hand into the fire. If there were no offering, I reasoned, he'd have no reason to continue this madness. Luckily, I was right-handed so at least I'd still have that one if my left arm couldn't be saved after my own act of madness. The flames scorched my skin as I reached for the pokeball. As hot as I knew the flames to be, it wasn't as painful as I thought it should be. I'd reached in just passed my elbow when I finally felt the pokeball at my fingertips. Only then did I brave a look into the fire. Through the flames, my arm was blackened completely, small embers dancing upon it. I let out a scream from a place within myself that I don't think I'll ever find again, a place of pure terror and horror it's actually amazing I didn't collapse.
It was at this point that Emberwilde finally noticed the small child with an arm in his fire. Abruptly, the fire stopped, though my arm continued to glow for several more seconds. There was a commotion in the crowd, the entire court whipped into a frenzy by my actions. I was immediately doused with water. Soaking wet, with my charred arm cradled in my good arm, while still clutching my intact pokeball, I looked up at the giant Charizard. "I withdraw," I said with what little voice I had left before collapsing to the ground.
So that took longer than expected. Not that I've been busy but I just never got around to typing it out. As I said in the previous post, this has been sitting in my notebook and, actually, I wrote this part out before the previous section... and I finished while on my trip to Seattle. So, basically, it's been sitting in my notebook for almost a month. I think I covered a lot about how I wrote this in the previous section. And yes, I stole your Goblet of Fire idea with "testing their worthiness by putting their hands in the Charizard's tail." Umm... I hate to say this (because I wish I couldn't say this next part) but there's more... I've actually already thought up 2 more scenarios for how this story could continue. As I've already mentioned, I don't have a great relationship with fan-fiction (it feels like I'm wasting my time building in a world that can never be mine) and so I don't like the fact that I've got 2 more story ideas already that are going to eventually need to be written or they'll just continue to annoy me. And, as I said, the burned arm means that I'm going to need to go back to the battle with Brock as well and redo that section as well. And as I said, I've already got something that interests me with the protagonist's now charred arm as well as introducing members of the other clans (the protagonist's rivals, I guess). I'm going to try to work on some new stuff for now but I'll definitely be getting back to this.
Friday, May 26, 2017
Tuesday, May 16, 2017
Emberwilde Comes: The Choosing Ceremony part 1
I placed my offering upon the stone alter next to the others, a black and gray pokeball I'd built over these past five months. It, along with just three others, stood in contrast to the standard red and white pokeballs also sitting upon table. A dozen offerings in total to go with the dozen candidates standing before the GodKing. A crowd of pokemon and humans surrounded us as The Choosing Ceremony got underway. In a tent off to the side, I could hear the sound of Emberwilde breathing heavily, restlessly, as his tail fire illuminated the tent, casting shadows on the walls for the crowd to see.
I glanced one last time at my custom pokeball before walking away. It took a couple weeks of hiking up the volcanoes to gather enough obsidian to protect it from the fire. I figured if it was created from lava, it should be able to stand up to whatever fire a Charizard could pour onto it. Plus, it gave it a cool, black shine to stand apart from the rest of my competition. It also cost me three months of allowance money for several apricorns from a Johto region trader. He claimed that if you could turn them into a pokeball, they were super effective at capturing fire-types. The gray fruit was almost rock-like on the outside and it took me a couple days just to break them all open. Also, I don't recommend eating the meat on the inside.
I made my way back to the line with the other candidates, my eyes never straying from the GodKing who presided over the ceremony. Back in line, I saw a couple of the other kids shaking from either nervousness or excitement. The 15-foot tall Charizard, intricate designs tattooed with blackened ash on his entire body marking him as the GodKing, let out a fierce roar and a torrent of fire to signal the start of The Choosing Ceremony. All around me, the Lords and Lordesses of the GodKing's court unleashed roars and screams of their own. Fire, Water, Grass, Lightning, Earth, the GodKing did not care about a Pokemon's type, only that it was strong. And the strongest were gathered all around us. Blasts of water, bolts of lightning, beams of sunlight, and other barrages of elemental displays filled the air in similar fashion to the GodKing, an array of colors in the sky.
I knew our clan members weren't the only ones in attendance. Surely the other 2 clans of the Tartarus Isles must have spies of their own observing intently. My own parents in fact had accompanied a group to spy on the Rainmaker Clan. With all of the festivities, it wouldn't be too hard to fly a Fearow over the ceremony; or have a Dugtrio tunnel beneath it; or even slip a human or a Ditto disguised as another pokemon or a person into the village. Any knowledge about the strength of the clan's champion or insight into the Bearer could only help to achieve every clans' goal of winning the year's tournament. And thus, the reason for all of the festivities in just choosing a Bearer: to show these spies that no matter what information they might collect for their leader and clan, it would still not help them against our might and power.
Then Emberwilde, the newest Lord of the GodKing's court and this year's Champion, exited his tent. Not quite as tall as the GodKing but still big for a Charizard, Emberwilde strode toward the alter to begin the Judgement. My heart raced and my stomach turned knowing what was going to happen next and dreading every minute until it did. A candidate is chosen for their knowledge of Pokemon as well as their survival skills. Getting the Champion across the entire Kanto region was the Bearer's first and most important responsibility. However, it was at the Choosing Ceremony that narrowed the candidates down to the one Bearer.
It was all I wanted since I was old enough to dream such things. To travel to foreign lands, bearing the pride and glory of our clan against the best the Kanto League had to offer until eventually returning home to challenge the other two clans' Champions in our yearly tournament. I'd spent the last six months since Emberwilde was announced as Champion designing my offering, putting together what I hoped would be the strongest of all my competitors. Sometimes the tests are difficult to prepare for. For example, if the Champion happens to be a Water-type there are numerous ways an offering can be tested: Would it face jets of water? Plunged into sub-zero temperatures? An endless stream of bubbles? But fire, fire was simple - Fire Burned.
Emberwilde moved to the alter and, without any more pomp and circumstance usually expected from the Champion, unleashed a wave of fire upon all the offerings. Bang! Bang! Bang! went three of the pokeballs almost immediately. I heard the gasps of several people in the crowd. I stood still, unimpressed as the fire on Emberwilde's tail hadn't even yet began to change. It's a relatively obscure fact that the size of the fire on a Charizard's tail is directly proportional to the energy it is exerting in its fire attacks.
As if reading my mind, Emberwilde's tail fire started to grow and with it the fire spewing from its mouth grew wider and hotter until it enveloped the entire alter. I heard the popping of several more pokeballs and the shuffling away of my ousted competition. In just another five minutes, it was down to just myself and another boy. The fire narrowed and grew hotter and hotter as I hoped the materials I used would be enough to stand up to the strengthening inferno. After all my testing with what limited materials I had, only one pokeball survived. I hollowed out the gray apricorn, attaching the necessary components to turn it into a functioning pokeball as the Johto trader had told me. It took even longer to piece together as much of the remaining obsidian to the outside but in the end, I could only cover half of the ball with the black glass. All I could do now was watch and hope my offering would be strong enough to continue to withstand the onslaught of fire poured onto it.
More Pokemon fan-fiction! Yeah, I didn't think I'd be returning to this but here we are. It was supposed to just be a one-shot thing and I hoped to be moving onto more original stories. But I'm a procrastinator and apparently my new method is to waste time on non-marketable projects while telling myself that it's okay because at least I'm still writing. Anyways, at the end of the last post I mentioned that I had a sort-of backstory thought up and a friend of mine mentioned that he thought it was an interesting idea and we started running some ideas back and forth - so here we are. It got a little long but I'll try to get part 2 up soon (I've got most of it written in a notebook, just need to type it all out). Since I know everyone is wondering, Yes, I actually did research for this story and it turns out something called Tungsten is a stronger metal with a melting point of nearly 3x obsidian (thanks Google). So, why did I keep with the Obsidian? Well, because it sounds cooler, I hoped no one was going to do the research, and I couldn't figure out how a 10 year old kid was going to get tungsten (as if climbing a volcano for obsidian is more believable). Also, still haven't figured out the gender of the Protagonist (which is why the Protagonist has never been described with He or She). I did that on purpose in the other story because the protagonist isn't supposed to have an identity outside of being the Bearer of Emberwilde. I've been thinking about getting more into who the protagonist is, but I haven't really worked on that yet. Umm, other things... No, there wasn't an apricorn that made catching fire pokemon easier. I also don't know if the whole fire tail and the fire attacks being related is real or if I just made that up. Yeah, I needed to bring up walkthrough guide for Pokemon just to get through writing all this with some sense of accuracy. Oh, "The Choosing Ceremony," lame name, I know. I really did plan to change it eventually, but #1) I suck at naming things and #2) I looked it up and the first episode of Pokemon is "I Choose You" and I kind of wanted it to be like that in some way. I guess that's it for now.
I glanced one last time at my custom pokeball before walking away. It took a couple weeks of hiking up the volcanoes to gather enough obsidian to protect it from the fire. I figured if it was created from lava, it should be able to stand up to whatever fire a Charizard could pour onto it. Plus, it gave it a cool, black shine to stand apart from the rest of my competition. It also cost me three months of allowance money for several apricorns from a Johto region trader. He claimed that if you could turn them into a pokeball, they were super effective at capturing fire-types. The gray fruit was almost rock-like on the outside and it took me a couple days just to break them all open. Also, I don't recommend eating the meat on the inside.
I made my way back to the line with the other candidates, my eyes never straying from the GodKing who presided over the ceremony. Back in line, I saw a couple of the other kids shaking from either nervousness or excitement. The 15-foot tall Charizard, intricate designs tattooed with blackened ash on his entire body marking him as the GodKing, let out a fierce roar and a torrent of fire to signal the start of The Choosing Ceremony. All around me, the Lords and Lordesses of the GodKing's court unleashed roars and screams of their own. Fire, Water, Grass, Lightning, Earth, the GodKing did not care about a Pokemon's type, only that it was strong. And the strongest were gathered all around us. Blasts of water, bolts of lightning, beams of sunlight, and other barrages of elemental displays filled the air in similar fashion to the GodKing, an array of colors in the sky.
I knew our clan members weren't the only ones in attendance. Surely the other 2 clans of the Tartarus Isles must have spies of their own observing intently. My own parents in fact had accompanied a group to spy on the Rainmaker Clan. With all of the festivities, it wouldn't be too hard to fly a Fearow over the ceremony; or have a Dugtrio tunnel beneath it; or even slip a human or a Ditto disguised as another pokemon or a person into the village. Any knowledge about the strength of the clan's champion or insight into the Bearer could only help to achieve every clans' goal of winning the year's tournament. And thus, the reason for all of the festivities in just choosing a Bearer: to show these spies that no matter what information they might collect for their leader and clan, it would still not help them against our might and power.
Then Emberwilde, the newest Lord of the GodKing's court and this year's Champion, exited his tent. Not quite as tall as the GodKing but still big for a Charizard, Emberwilde strode toward the alter to begin the Judgement. My heart raced and my stomach turned knowing what was going to happen next and dreading every minute until it did. A candidate is chosen for their knowledge of Pokemon as well as their survival skills. Getting the Champion across the entire Kanto region was the Bearer's first and most important responsibility. However, it was at the Choosing Ceremony that narrowed the candidates down to the one Bearer.
It was all I wanted since I was old enough to dream such things. To travel to foreign lands, bearing the pride and glory of our clan against the best the Kanto League had to offer until eventually returning home to challenge the other two clans' Champions in our yearly tournament. I'd spent the last six months since Emberwilde was announced as Champion designing my offering, putting together what I hoped would be the strongest of all my competitors. Sometimes the tests are difficult to prepare for. For example, if the Champion happens to be a Water-type there are numerous ways an offering can be tested: Would it face jets of water? Plunged into sub-zero temperatures? An endless stream of bubbles? But fire, fire was simple - Fire Burned.
Emberwilde moved to the alter and, without any more pomp and circumstance usually expected from the Champion, unleashed a wave of fire upon all the offerings. Bang! Bang! Bang! went three of the pokeballs almost immediately. I heard the gasps of several people in the crowd. I stood still, unimpressed as the fire on Emberwilde's tail hadn't even yet began to change. It's a relatively obscure fact that the size of the fire on a Charizard's tail is directly proportional to the energy it is exerting in its fire attacks.
As if reading my mind, Emberwilde's tail fire started to grow and with it the fire spewing from its mouth grew wider and hotter until it enveloped the entire alter. I heard the popping of several more pokeballs and the shuffling away of my ousted competition. In just another five minutes, it was down to just myself and another boy. The fire narrowed and grew hotter and hotter as I hoped the materials I used would be enough to stand up to the strengthening inferno. After all my testing with what limited materials I had, only one pokeball survived. I hollowed out the gray apricorn, attaching the necessary components to turn it into a functioning pokeball as the Johto trader had told me. It took even longer to piece together as much of the remaining obsidian to the outside but in the end, I could only cover half of the ball with the black glass. All I could do now was watch and hope my offering would be strong enough to continue to withstand the onslaught of fire poured onto it.
More Pokemon fan-fiction! Yeah, I didn't think I'd be returning to this but here we are. It was supposed to just be a one-shot thing and I hoped to be moving onto more original stories. But I'm a procrastinator and apparently my new method is to waste time on non-marketable projects while telling myself that it's okay because at least I'm still writing. Anyways, at the end of the last post I mentioned that I had a sort-of backstory thought up and a friend of mine mentioned that he thought it was an interesting idea and we started running some ideas back and forth - so here we are. It got a little long but I'll try to get part 2 up soon (I've got most of it written in a notebook, just need to type it all out). Since I know everyone is wondering, Yes, I actually did research for this story and it turns out something called Tungsten is a stronger metal with a melting point of nearly 3x obsidian (thanks Google). So, why did I keep with the Obsidian? Well, because it sounds cooler, I hoped no one was going to do the research, and I couldn't figure out how a 10 year old kid was going to get tungsten (as if climbing a volcano for obsidian is more believable). Also, still haven't figured out the gender of the Protagonist (which is why the Protagonist has never been described with He or She). I did that on purpose in the other story because the protagonist isn't supposed to have an identity outside of being the Bearer of Emberwilde. I've been thinking about getting more into who the protagonist is, but I haven't really worked on that yet. Umm, other things... No, there wasn't an apricorn that made catching fire pokemon easier. I also don't know if the whole fire tail and the fire attacks being related is real or if I just made that up. Yeah, I needed to bring up walkthrough guide for Pokemon just to get through writing all this with some sense of accuracy. Oh, "The Choosing Ceremony," lame name, I know. I really did plan to change it eventually, but #1) I suck at naming things and #2) I looked it up and the first episode of Pokemon is "I Choose You" and I kind of wanted it to be like that in some way. I guess that's it for now.
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