blackemerald
Well-Known Member
Hello to all who are reading. Out of the depths of my mind comes the amazing Deceiver! Originally, this was going to be a one-shot but something inside me told me this could be quite a good fic. Let's get this underway. Lights, camera, action...
Chapter 1:Unimaginable choices
Chapter 2: Change
Chapter 3: Acceptance
Chapter 4: Second Thoughts
Chapter 5: First house of sacrifice
Chapter 6: Alone
Interlude 1: The fox and the rabbit
Chapter 7: Decent to deceit
Chapter 8: Confrontation
Chapter 9: Curse
The Vision world isn’t a banishment sentence. It’s an oasis from the pressure and restrictions of the normal world the mudmen control and enslaves us in. For seeing the light and freeing yourselves from the mudmen, I bestow on you the powers of transformation. You could walk in the center of a live concert and blend right in.
To make mankind pay for what it has done to us, I have created a new law that allows us to hunt these mudmen. It’s okay to toy with their hearts, even kill them in extremely rare circumstances. However, with great freedom comes great caution and as such, you must not let them learn of our existence.
~Mewtwo.
Blasé Willow didn’t mean to die that day. She was furious, though. Furious because she had missed her last ride from the school bus, receiving a splash of water soaking her bright red and jacket with a picture of a white pokeball printed on the front. Because of this, the chilliness that filled the air that day was instantly attracted to her, absorbing the coldness from the murky water and releasing it through Blasé’s body.The icy white powder she wearily trudged through didn't help her either.
She walked by the side of the barren road, which was about as winding and misleading as every other country road in the outskirts of Fallarbour town, and viciously kicked offending clumps of snow out of her path. The very pavement she was now striding across had the same qualities that were reminded to her every day by the torments of the seniors at her school, Ash Vally high: Unremarkable, disregarded and unloved. Blasé just wanted to reach home and isolate herself in the solitude of her room, waiting for the next day to draw itself out and play out its chain of events.
That was when she heard the crying.
Sharp and powerful, it howled and tore through the silence of the surrounding area. Blasé stopped, pivoting her body to search where the sound was coming from. It sounded like a baby or maybe a Persian. The sound seemed to be coming from the woods. Her first thought was the baby growlithe that had disappeared somewhere at the end of the road over a year ago, but that was ridiculous.
The crying came again, thinner and further than before, as if it were coming from the depths of the forest. But if it was that growlithe, how come it sounded human?
“Hello? Is anyone in there?” There was no answer. Blasé stared into the dense stand of oak and hickory, trying to see between the gnarled, bare trees. It looked uninviting, as if would swallow anything that would venture inside. She glanced up and down the road. Nobody was within her line of vision. I am not going in there alone, Blasé thought. She was the exact opposite of the ‘Oh, it’s such a nice day; let’s go tromping through the woods’ type. But who else was there? And what else was there to do? Someone was in trouble.
Blasé slipped her left arm through her backpack strap, settling it on the center of her back and leaving her hands free. Then she cautiously began to climb the snow-covered ridge that fell away to the other side of the woods.
“Hello?” She felt idiotic shouting and not getting any response. “Hi! Hello!” Only the crying sound, faint but continuous, floated through the air, giving Blasé her answer. Blasé began to flounder down the ridge. She didn’t weigh much, but the crust on the snow was very thin and every step she took her ankle deep. Thank you very much, shoes. You’ve been a great help. She could feel the cold seeping into her feet.
The snow wasn’t so deep once she got into the woods. It was white and unbroken beneath the trees, and it gave Blasé an eerie sense of isolation. As if she were in the wilderness. A quietness seemed to grasp the area. The farther Blasé went in, the deeper the silence became. She had to stop and not breathing to hear the crying. Deeper and deeper into the woods. The road was far behind her now. She crossed Zangoose tracks and Delibird scratches in the snow, no sign of anything human.
The crying was right ahead now, and louder. She could hear it clearly. Okay, up this big ridge. Yes, you can do it. Up, up. Never mind if your feet are cold. As she struggled over the uneven ground, she tried to think of comforting thoughts, but there were none. Blasé reached the top of the ridge and grabbed at a branch to keep her balance. Then, still hanging on, she let out her breath and looked around.
Nothing to see. Quiet woods leading down to a creek just below. And nothing to hear, either. The crying had stooped. Oh, don’t do this to me! Frustration warmed Blasé up and chased away her fear. She yelled, “Hey, hey!” “Are you still out there? Can you hear me? I’m coming to help you!” Silence. And then, very faintly, a sound. Directly ahead.
Oh, Mew, Blasé thought. The creek. The thing that had made the sound was in the creek, hanging on to something, getting weaker and weaker…
Blasé was scrambling down the other side of the ridge, slithering, the wet snow adhering to her like lumpy frosting. Heart pounding, out of breath, she stood on the bank of the creek. Below her, at the edge, she could see fragile ice ledges reaching out like petals over the rushing water. Spray had frozen like diamond drops on overhanging grass.
But nothing living. Blasé frantically scanned the surface of the dark water. “Are you here?” she shouted. “Can you hear me?” Nothing. Rocks in the water. Branches caught against the rocks. The sound of the rushing creek. “Where are you?” She couldn’t hear the crying anymore. The water was too loud. Maybe the kid has gone underwater.
Blasé leaned out, looking for a wet head, a shape beneath the surface. She leaned out further. And then, a mistake. Some subtle change of balance. Ice under her feet. Her arms were wind-milling, but she couldn’t get her balance back…
She was flying. Nothing solid anywhere. Too surprised to be frightened. She hit the water with an icy shock. Everything was freezing confusion. Her head was under water and she was being tumbled over and over. She couldn’t see, couldn’t breath, and she was completely disoriented.
Then her head popped up. She automatically sucked in a huge gasp of air. Blasé’s arms were flailing but they seemed tangled in her backpack. The creek was wide here and the current was very strong. She was being swept downstream, and every other second her mouth seemed to be full of water. Reality was just one desperate, chocking attempt to get enough air for the next breath. Everything was so cold. A cold that was pain, not just temperature.
I’m going to die.
Blasé’s mind realized this with a sort of numb certainty, but her body was stubborn. It fought almost as if it had a separate brain of its own. It struggled out of her backpack, so that the natural buoyancy of her Hoenn pride jacket helped her keep her head above water. It made her legs kick, trying to stand firm on the bottom.
No good. The creek was only five feet deep in the center, but that was still an inch higher than Blasé’s head. She was too small, too weak, and she couldn’t get any kind of control over where she was going. And the cold was sapping her strength frighteningly fast. With every second her chances of surviving dropped.
It was as if the creek were a monster that hated her and would never let her go. It slammed her into rocks and swept her on before her hands could get hold of the cold, smooth surfaces. And in a few minutes, she was going to be too weak to keep her head above water.
I have to grab something. Her body was telling her that. It was her only chance. There. Up ahead, on the left bank, a projecting spit with tree roots. She had to get to it. Kick. Kick. She hit and was almost spun past it. Somehow, though, she was holding on. The roots were thicker that her arms, a huge tangle like slick, icy snakes.
Blasé thrust an arm through a natural loop of the roots, anchoring herself. Oh yes; she could breathe now. But her body was still in the creek, being sucked away by the water.
She had to get out, but that was impossible. She just barely had the strength to hold on; her weakened, numb muscles could never pull her up the bank.
At that moment, she was filled with hatred. Not for the creek, but for herself. Because she was little and weak and childish and it was going to kill her. She was going to die, and it was all happening right now.
She could never really remember what happened next. Her mind let go and there was nothing but anger and the burning desire to get higher. Her legs kicked and scrambled and some dim part of her knew that each impact against the rock should have hurt. But all that mattered was the desperation that was somehow, inch by inch, getting her numb, waterlogged body out of the creek.
And then she was out. She was lying on roots and snow. Her vision was dim; she was gasping open-mouthed for breath, but she was alive. Blasé lay there for a long time, not really aware of the cold, her entire body echoing with relief. I made it! I’ll be okay now.
It was only when she tried to get up that she realized how wrong she was. When she tried to stand, her legs almost folded under her. Her muscles felt like jelly.
The cold shot up through her, nearly making her feel exhausted and nearly frozen, her soaking clothes felt as heavy as medieval armour. With every breath, she seemed to get colder and suddenly she was racked with waves of violent shivers.
Blasé felt stiff and clumsy and the shivering made it hard to climb over fallen trees and branches. Her red, swollen fingers couldn’t close to get handholds. Dimly, she knew that she was in serious trouble if she didn’t reach the road in time. But it was more difficult to call up a sense of alarm. A strange sort of apathy was coming over her. The gnarled forest seemed like something out of a fairytale.
Stumbling… staggering. She had no idea where she was going. Just straight ahead. That was all she could see now anyway, the next fallen branch to get over or around. Suddenly she was on her face. It seemed to take immense effort to get up again. It’s these clothes, they’re too heavy. I should take them off. Again, dimly, she knew that this was wrong. Her brain was being affected; she was dazed with hypothermia. But part of her knew that this was far away, separate from her. She fought to make her numbed fingers unzip her jacket.
She couldn’t walk better. She kept falling. Blasé had been doing this forever, stumbling, falling, getting up. And every time it was getting harder. Her cords felt like slabs of ice on her legs. She looked at them with distant annoyance and saw that they were covered with adhering snow.
She couldn’t think at all anymore. The violent waves of shivering were interspersed with pauses now, and they were getting longer. I guess…that’s good. I must not be so cold. I just need a little rest. While the faraway part of her brain screamed uselessly in protest, Blasé sat down in the snow.
She was in a small clearing. It seemed deserted, not even the footprints of a ground mouse. Above, overhanging branches formed a snowy canopy.
It was a very peaceful place to die.
Blasé’s shivering had stopped, which meant it was all over. Her body couldn’t warm itself by shivering any longer, and was giving up the fight. Instead, it was trying to move into hibernation. Shutting itself down, reducing heart and breath rate, conserving the little warmth it had left. Trying to survive until help would come. Except no help was coming.
She had reached her physical limits; she couldn’t save herself now even if she could think of a plan. Her hands weren’t red anymore. They were blue-white. Her muscles were becoming rigid. At least she no longer felt cold. There was only a vast sense of relief of not having to move. She felt so cold as her body had begun the process of dying.
White mist filled her mind. She had no sense of time passing. Blasé was becoming a creature of ice, no different from any stump or rock in the frozen wilderness.
It’s just like going to sleep. Then, all at once, there was no rigidty, no discomfort. She felt light and calm and free as her soul was floating up near the canopy of snow boughs. The last thing her body saw was a Growlithe licking the pale face that lay in the snow.
~B.E
Chapter 1:Unimaginable choices
Chapter 2: Change
Chapter 3: Acceptance
Chapter 4: Second Thoughts
Chapter 5: First house of sacrifice
Chapter 6: Alone
Interlude 1: The fox and the rabbit
Chapter 7: Decent to deceit
Chapter 8: Confrontation
Chapter 9: Curse
Deceiver
Prolouge: Realization
The Vision world isn’t a banishment sentence. It’s an oasis from the pressure and restrictions of the normal world the mudmen control and enslaves us in. For seeing the light and freeing yourselves from the mudmen, I bestow on you the powers of transformation. You could walk in the center of a live concert and blend right in.
To make mankind pay for what it has done to us, I have created a new law that allows us to hunt these mudmen. It’s okay to toy with their hearts, even kill them in extremely rare circumstances. However, with great freedom comes great caution and as such, you must not let them learn of our existence.
~Mewtwo.
Blasé Willow didn’t mean to die that day. She was furious, though. Furious because she had missed her last ride from the school bus, receiving a splash of water soaking her bright red and jacket with a picture of a white pokeball printed on the front. Because of this, the chilliness that filled the air that day was instantly attracted to her, absorbing the coldness from the murky water and releasing it through Blasé’s body.The icy white powder she wearily trudged through didn't help her either.
She walked by the side of the barren road, which was about as winding and misleading as every other country road in the outskirts of Fallarbour town, and viciously kicked offending clumps of snow out of her path. The very pavement she was now striding across had the same qualities that were reminded to her every day by the torments of the seniors at her school, Ash Vally high: Unremarkable, disregarded and unloved. Blasé just wanted to reach home and isolate herself in the solitude of her room, waiting for the next day to draw itself out and play out its chain of events.
That was when she heard the crying.
Sharp and powerful, it howled and tore through the silence of the surrounding area. Blasé stopped, pivoting her body to search where the sound was coming from. It sounded like a baby or maybe a Persian. The sound seemed to be coming from the woods. Her first thought was the baby growlithe that had disappeared somewhere at the end of the road over a year ago, but that was ridiculous.
The crying came again, thinner and further than before, as if it were coming from the depths of the forest. But if it was that growlithe, how come it sounded human?
“Hello? Is anyone in there?” There was no answer. Blasé stared into the dense stand of oak and hickory, trying to see between the gnarled, bare trees. It looked uninviting, as if would swallow anything that would venture inside. She glanced up and down the road. Nobody was within her line of vision. I am not going in there alone, Blasé thought. She was the exact opposite of the ‘Oh, it’s such a nice day; let’s go tromping through the woods’ type. But who else was there? And what else was there to do? Someone was in trouble.
Blasé slipped her left arm through her backpack strap, settling it on the center of her back and leaving her hands free. Then she cautiously began to climb the snow-covered ridge that fell away to the other side of the woods.
“Hello?” She felt idiotic shouting and not getting any response. “Hi! Hello!” Only the crying sound, faint but continuous, floated through the air, giving Blasé her answer. Blasé began to flounder down the ridge. She didn’t weigh much, but the crust on the snow was very thin and every step she took her ankle deep. Thank you very much, shoes. You’ve been a great help. She could feel the cold seeping into her feet.
The snow wasn’t so deep once she got into the woods. It was white and unbroken beneath the trees, and it gave Blasé an eerie sense of isolation. As if she were in the wilderness. A quietness seemed to grasp the area. The farther Blasé went in, the deeper the silence became. She had to stop and not breathing to hear the crying. Deeper and deeper into the woods. The road was far behind her now. She crossed Zangoose tracks and Delibird scratches in the snow, no sign of anything human.
The crying was right ahead now, and louder. She could hear it clearly. Okay, up this big ridge. Yes, you can do it. Up, up. Never mind if your feet are cold. As she struggled over the uneven ground, she tried to think of comforting thoughts, but there were none. Blasé reached the top of the ridge and grabbed at a branch to keep her balance. Then, still hanging on, she let out her breath and looked around.
Nothing to see. Quiet woods leading down to a creek just below. And nothing to hear, either. The crying had stooped. Oh, don’t do this to me! Frustration warmed Blasé up and chased away her fear. She yelled, “Hey, hey!” “Are you still out there? Can you hear me? I’m coming to help you!” Silence. And then, very faintly, a sound. Directly ahead.
Oh, Mew, Blasé thought. The creek. The thing that had made the sound was in the creek, hanging on to something, getting weaker and weaker…
Blasé was scrambling down the other side of the ridge, slithering, the wet snow adhering to her like lumpy frosting. Heart pounding, out of breath, she stood on the bank of the creek. Below her, at the edge, she could see fragile ice ledges reaching out like petals over the rushing water. Spray had frozen like diamond drops on overhanging grass.
But nothing living. Blasé frantically scanned the surface of the dark water. “Are you here?” she shouted. “Can you hear me?” Nothing. Rocks in the water. Branches caught against the rocks. The sound of the rushing creek. “Where are you?” She couldn’t hear the crying anymore. The water was too loud. Maybe the kid has gone underwater.
Blasé leaned out, looking for a wet head, a shape beneath the surface. She leaned out further. And then, a mistake. Some subtle change of balance. Ice under her feet. Her arms were wind-milling, but she couldn’t get her balance back…
She was flying. Nothing solid anywhere. Too surprised to be frightened. She hit the water with an icy shock. Everything was freezing confusion. Her head was under water and she was being tumbled over and over. She couldn’t see, couldn’t breath, and she was completely disoriented.
Then her head popped up. She automatically sucked in a huge gasp of air. Blasé’s arms were flailing but they seemed tangled in her backpack. The creek was wide here and the current was very strong. She was being swept downstream, and every other second her mouth seemed to be full of water. Reality was just one desperate, chocking attempt to get enough air for the next breath. Everything was so cold. A cold that was pain, not just temperature.
I’m going to die.
Blasé’s mind realized this with a sort of numb certainty, but her body was stubborn. It fought almost as if it had a separate brain of its own. It struggled out of her backpack, so that the natural buoyancy of her Hoenn pride jacket helped her keep her head above water. It made her legs kick, trying to stand firm on the bottom.
No good. The creek was only five feet deep in the center, but that was still an inch higher than Blasé’s head. She was too small, too weak, and she couldn’t get any kind of control over where she was going. And the cold was sapping her strength frighteningly fast. With every second her chances of surviving dropped.
It was as if the creek were a monster that hated her and would never let her go. It slammed her into rocks and swept her on before her hands could get hold of the cold, smooth surfaces. And in a few minutes, she was going to be too weak to keep her head above water.
I have to grab something. Her body was telling her that. It was her only chance. There. Up ahead, on the left bank, a projecting spit with tree roots. She had to get to it. Kick. Kick. She hit and was almost spun past it. Somehow, though, she was holding on. The roots were thicker that her arms, a huge tangle like slick, icy snakes.
Blasé thrust an arm through a natural loop of the roots, anchoring herself. Oh yes; she could breathe now. But her body was still in the creek, being sucked away by the water.
She had to get out, but that was impossible. She just barely had the strength to hold on; her weakened, numb muscles could never pull her up the bank.
At that moment, she was filled with hatred. Not for the creek, but for herself. Because she was little and weak and childish and it was going to kill her. She was going to die, and it was all happening right now.
She could never really remember what happened next. Her mind let go and there was nothing but anger and the burning desire to get higher. Her legs kicked and scrambled and some dim part of her knew that each impact against the rock should have hurt. But all that mattered was the desperation that was somehow, inch by inch, getting her numb, waterlogged body out of the creek.
And then she was out. She was lying on roots and snow. Her vision was dim; she was gasping open-mouthed for breath, but she was alive. Blasé lay there for a long time, not really aware of the cold, her entire body echoing with relief. I made it! I’ll be okay now.
It was only when she tried to get up that she realized how wrong she was. When she tried to stand, her legs almost folded under her. Her muscles felt like jelly.
The cold shot up through her, nearly making her feel exhausted and nearly frozen, her soaking clothes felt as heavy as medieval armour. With every breath, she seemed to get colder and suddenly she was racked with waves of violent shivers.
Blasé felt stiff and clumsy and the shivering made it hard to climb over fallen trees and branches. Her red, swollen fingers couldn’t close to get handholds. Dimly, she knew that she was in serious trouble if she didn’t reach the road in time. But it was more difficult to call up a sense of alarm. A strange sort of apathy was coming over her. The gnarled forest seemed like something out of a fairytale.
Stumbling… staggering. She had no idea where she was going. Just straight ahead. That was all she could see now anyway, the next fallen branch to get over or around. Suddenly she was on her face. It seemed to take immense effort to get up again. It’s these clothes, they’re too heavy. I should take them off. Again, dimly, she knew that this was wrong. Her brain was being affected; she was dazed with hypothermia. But part of her knew that this was far away, separate from her. She fought to make her numbed fingers unzip her jacket.
She couldn’t walk better. She kept falling. Blasé had been doing this forever, stumbling, falling, getting up. And every time it was getting harder. Her cords felt like slabs of ice on her legs. She looked at them with distant annoyance and saw that they were covered with adhering snow.
She couldn’t think at all anymore. The violent waves of shivering were interspersed with pauses now, and they were getting longer. I guess…that’s good. I must not be so cold. I just need a little rest. While the faraway part of her brain screamed uselessly in protest, Blasé sat down in the snow.
She was in a small clearing. It seemed deserted, not even the footprints of a ground mouse. Above, overhanging branches formed a snowy canopy.
It was a very peaceful place to die.
Blasé’s shivering had stopped, which meant it was all over. Her body couldn’t warm itself by shivering any longer, and was giving up the fight. Instead, it was trying to move into hibernation. Shutting itself down, reducing heart and breath rate, conserving the little warmth it had left. Trying to survive until help would come. Except no help was coming.
She had reached her physical limits; she couldn’t save herself now even if she could think of a plan. Her hands weren’t red anymore. They were blue-white. Her muscles were becoming rigid. At least she no longer felt cold. There was only a vast sense of relief of not having to move. She felt so cold as her body had begun the process of dying.
White mist filled her mind. She had no sense of time passing. Blasé was becoming a creature of ice, no different from any stump or rock in the frozen wilderness.
It’s just like going to sleep. Then, all at once, there was no rigidty, no discomfort. She felt light and calm and free as her soul was floating up near the canopy of snow boughs. The last thing her body saw was a Growlithe licking the pale face that lay in the snow.
~B.E
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I'm thinking Charcon is like the Vision World version of her or something, she recognizes the name and he is a bit like her. There were much fewer mistakes in this chapter than the last one. Watch out for the repetitiveness though, sometimes you emphasize a point a bit too many times. Yes, we know she's afraid the place will turn into a nightmare world. Oh and one more thing...