[AU, Original] Little Life Fragments (2024)

(Author's Note: This is based on an idea me and a pair of friends cooked up a few days back. It's part Pokemon gijinka, part dark satire, part action-adventure. If this gets off the ground we're gonna aim to do a webcomic; if not, well, there's always short stories. This features gijinka Pokemon as the protagonists, and may also be extremely depressing. You have been warned.)

Little Life Fragments
by Jacob X.

(Rating: PG-13)

Disclaimer: I don't own Pokemon the intellectual property. I HAVE played Pokemon since the day it came out, though.

Choosing a dead body to chase after in this part of Celadon was like picking one flower from the most lush field in the world; there are so many wonderful and startling kinds that going after one is almost impossible. Suisen trusted her heart; this case above the others presented to her upon waking spoke to her.

The subject was a handsome young woman, a butterfree. Her skin was a rapidly unevening tan, her hair short and smooth, her wings beautiful as stained glass and thin as paper. She'd been dead a while; her blood was pooling on her back. She'd fallen in the middle of doing something. Suisen snapped photographs on her digital kiricam. The butterfree's aura lay in fragments as if shattered by a hammer, a clear sign of a curse.

"She just died?" Suisen asked.

"Lay down and died," the landlady, a pidgeotto, said, watching from the threshold of the butterfree's tiny apartment. "Pretty little thing she was. Came in on the rain. Thought she'd stay here and make it big. Showbiz, I guess."

Suisen pocketed the camera and flicked her wrist; a roll of cloth flipped into her hand.. "How long has she lived here?"

"A week... maybe two."

Suisen nodded, knelt beside the butterfree. She kissed the parchment, unravelled it. Years ago it was anointed in a puddle rendered pure by Suicune's footstep; it had lost no potency since. She laid the fine parchment over the dead girl's eyes. She laid on her belly, her armored back to the pidgeotto. "And her name was Colleen...?"

"Colleen Northborn."

"Thank you. I'd like some time alone, please. The rite only works if the caster is alone." The only response was a smal, obedient click. Suisen clutched the small iron icon on her necklace and whispered the rite in the butterfree's ear. "Colleen Northborn is no more. Here is what is left. Lonely sarx, last to leave the world, speak in Colleen's place. Though the soma has gone, may you speak with her wisdom. Though the neuma has gone, may you speak with her spirit."

"I..." the butterfree said, "...speak... in... her... ab...sence."

Suisen cupped her palms, invoked clean water, and let the water slide between her fingers and into the corpse's mouth. "Of the three questions I may ask I ask now the first: were you killed?"

"Yes, my life was taken."

"Of the three questions I may ask you I ask now the second: what struck you down?"

"I took myself in dance; at the height of my spin I felt something pull apart as if a hand had pulled out the mainspring of my heart."

Hm. Silent and sudden death. Wonderful. She called water for herself and sipped the cold and clean drink. There are three curses that bring cold and clean death: Night Shade, Perish Song, and Destiny Bond. Night Shade killing quietly depended on a lack of sharp objects in a room, and Suisen counted several; Perish Song seemed more likely, but someone would have to be in the room with her. Destiny Bond... the mechanics of that hex seemed prohibitive. But there were always permutations on the old curses, ways of bending the rules. So long as there were bored, determined, or spiteful students, there were always permutations.

"Of the three questions I may ask you I ask now the third: did you die alone?"

"As if forgotten by all save death."

Now was the worst part. The corpse shifted. "Of the question I may ask of the living... I ask it now." There was a reason one placed the scroll over the corpse's eyes. "Will I be re... membered? Will an...y... one... remem... ber?"

Suisen was not a liar.

"No."

And it was done. Destiny Bond was the culprit here, improbable as it seemed. She didn't want to leave the parchment--she didn't have many--but it was blasphemy to uncover the eyes of the dead. Suisen combed the apartment for what she could find, broke a footstool and found what could only be a diary, locked tight. She took it--and after a moment a necklace next to it.

The landlady knocked. "You only have a few minutes, m'am..."

"I'm done here," she said. She turned to Colleen one last time. "May you awaken to warm waters washing you home." She left.

The apartment block where the butterfree lay shuddered and collapsed, billowing smoke and the debris of lost and wasted lives. Lucky she'd found the butterfree when she had, picked her special out of all the dead found there. The block had one hell of a night; the bugs and the toxics took their toll. The pidgeotto held her own, but most of her charges died in their sleep, koffing-breath choking out their lives. Colleen survived the night because she was a bug. Pity she didn't live very long. The rest of the survivors were fellow bugs or toxics and thus spared, and likely gone to better places in town, away from the out-of-towner ghetto and in the company of like-minded beasts. Not much use for an old building full of dead people--so. A pair of electrode pulled themselves from the waste, congratulated each other, and strode off coated in ash to celebrate with beer.

There are three things you can count on in Celadon City: prompt burial, prompt demolition, and, outside of murder, very little crime.

*

She cracked the diary's lock with an armored knuckle and read.

*

Her cell phone rang.

"Good day to you, Miss Water-over-Cedars."

"Good day to you," Suisen said, "Aegis of-the-Coming-Storm." Her voice cracked. She hadn't spoken in hours, and hadn't spoken much in the past day.

"Your fellow students are making progress, particularly the two you've expressed desire in partnering with. The charmander in particular has placed highly in the Victory Road course. The damage she caused... most impressive. How have you fared?"

"The case is odd, but I think I've found a way around it. I think I've found a way around it."

"Do fill me in."

"The vic... subject is Colleen Northborn, a butterfree. Formerly of Viridian Forest, late of Celadon. I think she was killed by Destiny Bond."

"A murder-suicide?"

"Maybe. I've been hitting the books. It's a cursed power, normally used by the unquiet dead as a sort of vengance against someone who did them a great injustice. Though, and this is fun, koffing may also learn the power, and certain cambion are capable of learning the power and using it repeatedly. Of course, the hinge in all this is that our butterfree must have dealt the killing strike to our Destiny Bound suicide-bound."

"Curses are flexible. There are always symbolic elements that may be exploited."

"Which requires knowledge of the victim's past and speculation on the part of the murderer. This may take some time and I've only got two weeks... you wouldn't happen to have any connections to Viridian forest? Exiles, survivalists, imports...?"

"External assistance would be very unpleasant on your record, Suisen."

"I think apprehending a murderer would be worth more than my final grade."

A snort--quickly hidden. "If your target is still alive, it's just one killer among many. For someone who's friends with a murderer, you're pretty hard on them..."

Suisen wondered if her teeth grit audibly over the phone. "It's a murderer, Vortal. If I don't stop it, my hands are stained by every other person it kills."

The Aegis paused. "That philosophy will drive you mad one day. There is one. I will see what I can grant you. Good luck." She hung up. Suisen set the cell phone on the edge of her table and returned to reading.

*
One day passed. So did 124 pages written in fragmented shorthand.

I'm going to write in this every day. Thank you, mom n dad.

Rained - watched the flowers bloomed

Didn't want to. Did.

I can breathe! I can FLY!!!!

no can't won't.

still here.

Saw her today--EC4.

Suisen had an idea.

*

It was another day before her cell phone rang.

"Hoi."

"It seems your girl left for Celadon with a cubone under her guard. The butterfree recently lost her relations to an outbreak of kaospore. The cubone's mother was a member of the Church of Death Triumphant and said her daughter was a child of death itself."

"A cambion?"

"Possibly. The mother died at the hands of a Shilleagh, who died the very instant his vines choked the life out of her. Such a talent is unheard-of among marowak. The child's family line must be twisted beyond recognition."

"Thank you kind, Aegis," she said. "I was missing a bit of it. I think I'll have the results in by tomorrow. Maybe the day after. The suspect too."

"I'll do you a favor and count this as justifiable extention of faculty services. You owe me one, Water-over-Cedars."

"Remind me, was that 13% by volume that you liked best, or 18%?"

A pleasant hanging-up tone.

"Wade in slow rivers..."

*

The Elite Four Center (not the Elite Center Four) thrummed with life, vibrant or close to death or too far to save. She nodded at a longbow-bearing sentry and strode in, gliding through the masses of panicked and relieved pokemon and to a smiling Nurse Joy. Nurse Joys always smile; they are surgically adjusted if they don't. This one's smile was natural and she responded to Suisen's liscence with experience-honed swiftness and tact.

There was one cubone in the mourge, harvested no less than three days ago and laying in central processing, before incineration and dispensation to Pokemon Tower. Jane Doe [HASHTAG]#333[/HASHTAG].

"I'd like to go down alone, if I may," Suisen said.

"That we can certainly arrange!" the chansey Joy said. No questions asked. Excellent service indeed.

Central processing was in the third basem*nt, and no elevator went down. There were few lights; most pokemon working those depths were dependent upon senses other than sight. She daren't click on a flashlight, but she carried the kiricam before her like a shield. She drew her thorn-hex Suicune icon and kissed it. "Purify my tears that I may inspire through my weakness. Purify my blood that flowers grow to mark my grave. Purify my heart that I need never cry nor bleed. All praise."

A black oak door. The lines were countoured; they could only be structured around organs and bones. There was no knob. She nudged the door with her foot. It creaked open. Behind it were rows and rows of low tables covered in sheets. All except the last, at the back of the room.

The light bothered her. The emptiness bothered her. Drums hammered in the distance; pneumatic tubes blasting tubes of ash for internment in the largest necropolis in the planet, in history. She walked in; she couldn't not. Like being pushed along in a tube... pressure behind, pressure ahead. Walk or die. It must be the pneumatic tubes, she decided.

It was cold, too.

What was wrong with the light? She saw no bulbs (then again, her eyes were glued on the cubone--what else could it be but the body of the little cubone-girl?--and so she daren't even glance away), but a red, grim pall filtered over everything, like a darkroom's light. Had to be a talent of some kind. Keep it out of mind.

It was cold. Has to be cold, of course, there's bodies down here, it'd be unpleasant if they started rotting ahead of schedule. Too cold too quit too stale. Too dry. She thought of rain.

Pushed along. Kept moving. Passing by the quiet dead to a little tan girl whose eyes were open and gathering dust. Mother's skull on her chest. Skull painted on her face (taken careful care of--sacred to the cubone and marowak you know, they'll kill you). She smelled, even here, of earth and sweat and grave-dust.

A little table bore a tray of surgeon's tools. Aura-stringents, holistic body-mappers. A scalpel, left like an afterthought. Cold. A gold necklace, like the butterfree's, open. Empty.

I said: if it becomes too hard, you know what to do. My mom and dad and sister suffered. But she won't. She won't have to.

The cubone's eyes collected dust.

klik

Oh. The kiricam. Suisen's eyes flicked to the display screen. It was solid black.

Red light, freezing air. Pressure.

She was not alone.

The scalpel looked inviting. Her eye was wrong. And suddenly she was plunging the scalpel to her left eye and--

"Hgk--"

She had to, absolutely had to, her eye was wrong, it wasn't hers, it was something alien and out of her control and it was seeing and it was telling something what it was seeing and it was planning against her and it was better to cast off a limb if it offended you than... than... and why did she resist, why did she keep that blade from completing its task, its manifest destiny, cutting the alien thing away?

Ghost.

Teeth.

She wrenched her jaw open. Strong and unseen hands tried to keep it shut. Then she felt it dance on her tongue wet and longing like a leech, and she felt the dark force flow through her jaw and through her teeth. And she bit.

Gods of darkness smiled on biting; it was the ideal attack, tasting the blood. She bit and the darkness cut through the ghost's tongue.

She did not see it but she snapped the shudder on the kiricam while she fell on her ass, seeing the most vague outline of the unquiet dead. Clearly a gastly; she'd paid attention in class. She pulled on a table to try and get up, ripped off the sheet, dangled a limp and cold arm in her face, and whatever it was she could feel it approaching, whispering...

Might as well loose the floodgates. She unlocked the gate with fingerbone-cracking gesture, and screamed, and the water pulse slammed into the foggy nether-substance of the gastly. It withered--she could feel it receed--and she scampered away on all fours, and turned to face its presence again. It was nearly visible, close to...

...oh.

It had a face, a woman's face with the most terrible smile. She couldn't make out the rest.

Couldn't destroy it. Not with that smile it had. Not with that power. What could she--

"Can't catch me!" she screamed, and ran up the stairs. Hey, why not.

The presence gave chase.

*

She ran, screaming, and that bought her enough room when she breached the threshold to the ground floor and burst into the lobby. She pushed through the crowd, though the heavy armor on her back and shoulders helped convince others that standing in her way was undesirable. She didn't feel the gastly's presence, but that could just be the open air and the many watc...

No sharp objects in view.

It'll be easy to just lay down and accept it. Just sleep and never wake up. Forget all...

She remembered bathing with her mother in the river of souls underneath the Gold Bridge. Ranger thought exercise. It worked like a charm and she threw off the Night Shade like a sack of sun-bloated meat. She hadn't dropped the kiricam, a miracle in its own right, and snapped pictures. An inky sprawl drew itself across the high ceiling of the Elite Four center, over the mural of pokemon of diverse types and origins working together to build a brighter future for Celadon City (the most unintentionally hilarious thing she'd ever seen). It still smiled.

"Damn, damn, damn."

"Hey, lady," a passing pikachu said, "what's wrong?'

A dark thought passed by her head: Nothing at all. But could you kindly direct a thundershock up there? There's a stain on the mural and it needs cleaning. Perfectly callous that was. There had to be...

...a slaveball.

Good thing she was a near-Ranger with a liscence to break the law as she saw fit. Where was the nearest...

Why bother. Life is a pain, life is...

...the stars glancing on the water, the flecks of gold shining in the sand like the river's reply...

Running time.

*

Why was it following her? Was this how it followed Colleen, how it followed the cubone and marowak? It didn't even attack, it just flickered in reflections and through shadows. It glided alongside her like a shark, hungry and patient. Damn that thing's smile...

Her heart felt moments rom bursting. Her legs cried for a stop. But that thing was following her and it would never stop, never until it killed her or she snapped and killed it, taking herself down in the process. What a wonderful life those girls must have led.

And here she was, barreling towards The Wise Whip, the only place in town that sold slave balls. She tried to stop, decided she'd rather keep her momentum up, and crashed through the doorway, sliding to a stop on a movie-theater hyper-absorbant carpet peppered with fresh wood splinters. Afternoon sunlight poured onto the clerk's desk; the guy behind it, a pidgey, jumped and dropped a mag he was reading.

"Slave ball now," Suisen said, brandishing her ID. A cloud passed over the sun. Night fell. An ink-black wall erected itself between the Wise Whip's doorway and the outside world. She could feel its eyes, or the manifestation of its senses at least, bore into her. She felt a shroud pull over her--

No. No no no no no no no no no no no no no. Why do you keep doing this? Trying to run, trying to hide, tryin to live? It's hopeless. It's stupid. You can live all you want. One day you will die and you can do nothing to stop it. You will die and everything will end, like you never were, and you will be forgotten, and everything you ever cared about will disappear, and this world will pass on into an eternal night. In the face of that you still keep struggling, still keep moving, still pretend like what you do matters. It's pathetic. Stop lying to yourself. Give up. Breathe out and never breathe in. En

Years and years ago, when the moon was new and the stars burned like candles, she and her mother walked on the sky, held safe in Suicune's arms.

She felt a small plastic ball press into her hand.

She threw.

There was, momentarily, a great, echoing, indignant howl. Then nothing. The sun emerged and blinded her. She flinched. When the burning black clouds receeded from her vision, she saw the slaveball jangle once and click shut. She lowered herself to the ground, whimpered. Longest three days of her life. Well... the most recent longest three days of her life.

She checked out the kid--well, the guy. He molted a small cloud of feathers, but elsewise seemed alright. "You... you cool, man?" he asked.

Suisen nodded. "I'm good. You hold up well under pressure."

"Thanks. It's... something y'gotta have in this buisness."

"Sorry about the door and the slaveball." She plucked up the ball, minimized it, and stuck it in a pocket. "You'll be fully reimbursed by the Elite Four, and your compliance is ..." She fell like a delicate house of cards. "...do you know if any buses come around here?"

*

Her phone rang.

"Water-over-Cedars." Aegis Vortal. "Have you completed your mission?"

"That I have," Suisen said, eying the slaveball. Her legs were fine after a few hours of sitting in an air-conditioned hotel room. The ache moved to her hand. Thrice-damned paperwork.

"How--"

"It's in the paperwork," she said. "I'll need flight back to Indigo tomorrow morning... at ten."

"Done. But--"

:beep!:

She turned the phone off for good measure, almost tossed aside the paperwork and instead laid it gingerly on the nightstand next to Colleen's journal.

Never once in the journal did Colleen mention stardom or making it big in Celadon. She wrote about flying, about Viridian, about killing spores and the end of the world. She wrote about suicide. The last words she would ever impart onto a stranger: "at least I can dance." She worshipped Celebi. She didn't believe in Raikou, Entei, or Suicune.

Suisen wondered how she could've carried on a conversation, reacted to her coffee, liked the sound of Red Gospel.

She never opened Colleen's gold necklace. No better time than the present, though. She gently pried it open. Balanced on the inside of the little golden heart was a small red pill. She guessed what would happen if she took it. She set it on the nightstand... and placed the slaveball containing the gastly inside.

*

In the morning, the Fearow did not see the diary in her pocket or the new necklace tucked into her shirt.