Still Human

[SilentMemento]

Author's Notes: This is a small drabble (yes, I consider a drabble to be less than 1,000 words) about a certain Pokemon of a certain Team leader. This is rated PG-13 for implied murder and implied Pokemon abuse, so if anyone wants to quit reading now, I won't begrudge them. If you do, by all means, continue and please let me know how I did.

There are times where I have nothing to do except try to remember how I lived and died. This day in my current life happens to be one of them. Tiny memories heed my call; the cold air near a large mountain is the most prominent. The others have passed on long ago, and I cannot bring them back by any means. Even looking into that accursed mask – my mask – gives me no solace or answers, for all I see is the contorted face of a young human male that used to be me.

Wait, used to be? No, I really am human. I have to be human because there are other humans who have been here longer than me. They try to help me adapt, to help me survive. And I’m grateful to them for it. I would’ve been devoured by Krokorok or the elder ones if I weren’t. We ghosts have to stick together, right?

No, not a ghost! Human. But I’d still be a human ghost, wouldn’t I? I did die, but I just…changed a bit. It doesn’t make me any less human. And they understand. They know how I feel, and they accept it. That’s the good thing about ghosts. They’re more accepting than humans, so long as you don’t bother them.

I decide to look at my mask again. It’s the only thing that really helps me remember my past life, if only for a short time. The small memories appear first.

I see two humans, a male and a female, standing on a long human monument made of stone. I think they call it a “bridge”. I argue with the male about something, and he pushes me. I see myself falling, and I hear the female laugh. I hit the freezing water…

The memory starts to dissolve. Anything I can hold onto vanishes like smoke; anything I can’t is already gone. I stare at my mask in anguish and start to cry. It isn’t fair! I just want to remember something for one moment! Is that small thing too much to ask for?

“Here, little one.”

I turn toward the sound of the noise, still sniffling. I see a fellow human standing next to me, a small smile on his face. Long green hair flows down, nearly covering the small red eyeglass that is perched over his right eye. He wears long, sweeping robes covered with patterns that are unrecognizable to me; it is as if he wishes to make himself memorable to all who see him. A two-headed dragon with no eyes and a sparkling eel with a toothy mouth and multiple flippers are by his side. Both of them are snarling and growling at me.

A small bit of worry tugs at me, but I’m almost too overjoyed to feel it. An actual human being! Here! I almost rush toward him to thank him for showing up, but the dragon hisses in response.

“Easy, Zweilous,” the human says with a frown. His face shifts back to that small smile. “You’re trying to recall your past life, aren’t you?” he asks in a honeyed voice. “What if I can help you with that?”

My eyes open as wide as full moons. “How…how do you know that?” I say in awe.

A small shift in his face nearly triggers my instincts again, but my curiosity is too large to resist. “Well?” he replies in a cool tone.

“You can do that?” I ask, nodding my head.

“Of course!” he replies in a nonchalant tone. “All you have to do is join my team. Currently, I have Zweilous and Eelektross, but I can certainly make room for you. How can you say ‘no’ to that?”

Tears of joy flood my eyes as I float toward the man. He allows me to lead the way out, and I oblige without hesitation. I exit the ruins and shield my eyes from the desert storm. I turn toward him for support, but my heart sinks when I see him blocking the way back home.

“I never said that you’d get a free ride,” he sneers. “Zweilous, use dark pulse. Eelektross, use flamethrower.”

The dragon’s twin heads charge up a volume of black energy at the same time the eel’s mouth froths with flames. Both of them release their attacks simultaneously. I scream in agony as the dark waves crush my thoughts and the flames lick at my body. I start to cry as I realize that I never had a chance against those powerful Pokemon.

“W-w-why?” I sob uncontrollably. “I’m like you! I’m still human! I’m still human!"

The man laughs and takes an object out of his robes. I immediately recognize it as one of those “slave spheres” that the other humans talk about in horrified whispers. “You’re a bit runty for a Pokemon, but you’ll have to do,” he says in a disdainful tone. He throws the slave sphere, and I’m too exhausted to resist. I hear just one sentence before the worst day of my life concludes.

“I have plans for you, little Yamask.”

 

[Kutie Pie]

There is tragedy here like you said, and though I do feel sorry for the little fellow, I wish we had more time with him, especially while he's under Ghetsis' rule. Really, it feels like you can go on for a while longer as he loses sense of who he is. Curse you, drabble!

A few things I noticed:

I see two humans, a male and a female, standing on a long human monument made of stone. I think they call it a “bridge”. I argue with the male about something, and he pushes me. I see myself falling, and I hear the female laugh. I hit the freezing water…

I wish there was more to this than just five sentences. Yeah, I can understand that the Yamask can't recall many things clearly, and loses them easily, but I do wish there was a little bit more detail about this. Like... why was he pushed off the bridge? Why did the girl laugh? Why was he arguing in the first place? Does he even remember who he was?

Those are the small details, while a little nitpicky of me, that'll help us learn more about this little Yamask and sympathize with his tragedy.

I see a fellow human standing next to be

Typo. You meant "me" instead of "be". Only typo I spotted.

“You’re trying to recall your past life, aren’t you?” he asks in a honeyed voice. “What if I can help you with that?”

My eyes open as wide as full moons. “How…how do you know that?” I say in awe.

A small shift in his face nearly triggers my instincts again, but my curiosity is too large to resist. “Well?” he replies in a cool tone.

“You can do that?” I ask, nodding my head.

“Of course!” he replies in a nonchalant tone. “All you have to do is join my team. Currently, I have Zweilous and Eelektross, but I can certainly make room for you. How can you say ‘no’ to that?”

Does... Ghetsis actually talk to Pokémon as such, and understand them? I never played Black or White myself, and I don't think my brother defeated Ghetsis in the final battle yet, but I'm confused about this. It's the only thing that threw me off, but I guess he can read body language or something.

Also... when the Yamask said "You can do that?" I got The Little Mermaid in my head xD. Yeah...

Tears of joy flood my eyes as I float toward the man. He allows me to lead the way out, and I oblige without hesitation. I exit the ruins and shield my eyes from the desert storm. I turn toward him for support, but my heart sinks when I see him blocking the way back home with a cruel look on his face; I now knew that his kindness was just an act.

“I never said that you’d get a free ride,” he sneers. “Zweilous, use dark pulse. Eelektross, use flamethrower.”

Ooooooh, such trickery! Such a cunning mastermind! I can see his monster-self in that line.

“I have plans for you, little Yamask.”

Though I guess this ending pretty much says, "You know the story," to me it says, "Want more? Too bad, I'm evil! Gwah ha ha ha!" XD

Other than that, it's a self-explanatory one-shot. We know who Ghetsis is, we know he's a monster and how he treats his Pokémon, we know it's going to be hell for this Yamask, especially in his current grief... but I want to know exactly what kind of hell it is. Does he maintain his spirit, or does he lose sense of who he is over time? If so, is it quick, or is it slow? There is still so much more to this Yamask I really want to know more. The tragedy is STILL present, but I want to experience this tragedy, at the expense of my sanity emotions.

This also felt a little tamer than what you normally write, but it still had that feel to it, just toned down a little. I'm pretty certain you have a darker, harsher version of this floating inside your head, which I wish was seen more. Still, good work. You should post up one-shots (or drabbles anyway) more often.

 

[Phoenixsong]

There are times where I have nothing to do except try to remember how I lived and died. This day in my current life happens to be one of them. Tiny memories heed my call; the cold air near a large mountain is the most prominent. The others have passed on long ago, and I cannot bring them back by any means. Even looking into that accursed mask – my mask – gives me no solace or answers, for all I see is the contorted face of a young human male that used to be me.

This opening here is quite nice. The line about the mountain sticks out the most to me; it's fairly vivid for such a short line referencing such a short snatch of memory, just enough that I find myself disappointed that we'll never know why it seems to be so important to him (cold and mountainous seems like a strange setting to remember prominently without a very interesting reason). Not disappointed in a bad way, of course; that's the general idea, after all.

Still, we ghosts have to stick together, right?

I don't think the "still" is necessary here.

Two Pokemon, a two-headed dragon with no eyes and a sparkling eel with a toothy mouth and multiple flippers are by his side.

Question: when you describe the eelektross, do you mean to refer to it as "sparkling" or "sparking"? I know I've heard "sparkling" used in the context of electrical sparks a few times before, but "sparking" doesn't carry the same potential image of being shiny or glittery.

It looks like you started to set the description of the two pokémon off from the rest of the sentences with that comma but didn't finish. Either add a comma after "flippers", or maybe remove "Two Pokemon" altogether and start the sentence off with the description. Either could work.

Tears of joy flood my eyes as I float toward the man. He allows me to lead the way out, and I oblige without hesitation. I exit the ruins and shield my eyes from the desert storm. I turn toward him for support, but my heart sinks when I see him blocking the way back home with a cruel look on his face; I now knew that his kindness was just an act.

“I never said that you’d get a free ride,” he sneers. “Zweilous, use dark pulse. Eelektross, use flamethrower.”

I feel like the entire bolded line is redundant (the "cruel look" part less so than the part after the semicolon, but even that might be better off removed; try it and see). We already expect Ghetsis to be cruel and deceptive because he's, well, Ghetsis, and the "free ride" line does enough to tell us that he was lying if we didn't already see it coming. Losing the bolded part fixes the slight redundancy and makes the free ride line punchier. You could probably even move the bit about the yamask's heart sinking to somewhere near the beginning of the paragraph in which Zweilous and Eelektross prepare their attacks. Perhaps something like:

Tears of joy flood my eyes as I float toward the man. He allows me to lead the way out, and I oblige without hesitation. I exit the ruins and shield my eyes from the desert storm. I turn toward him for support, only to see him blocking the way back home.

“I never said that you’d get a free ride,” he sneers. “Zweilous, use dark pulse. Eelektross, use flamethrower.”

My heart sinks as the dragon’s twin heads charge up a volume of black energy at the same time the eel’s mouth froths with flames. ...

...eh, now the last sentence feels a bit clunky to me, so maybe that wasn't the best place to squeeze in the bit about his heart sinking, but you get the gist of the suggestion.

Additionally, the part after the semicolon in your original, assuming you don't remove it, has a slight tense shift. It would read more easily as "I now know...".

The man laughs and takes an object out of his robes. I immediately recognize it as one of those “slave spheres” that the other humans talk about in horrified whispers.

I really like the way you had Yamask refer to the other yamask as "humans", here and in a few earlier places in the story; you don't draw a ton of attention to it, but it really shows through that the main character refuses to think of himself as a pokémon. It's a bit odd that, having been human himself in life, he doesn't remember that they're called poké balls... but I suppose it's possible that he's forgotten the correct term along with everything else. (Maybe an aside mentioning that he thinks the object might have another name, sort of the way you did with the mention of the bridge? Probably not necessary, though.)

While I like the distressing ending—Yamask getting his hopes up about being able to remember at long, long last, only to have them crushed as Ghetsis catches him and carts him off for his own purposes—it's a bit abrupt. I feel like it would've resonated a bit better if Ghetsis had had more to say on the matter, or if he'd had some sort of response to the yamask's insistence that he's still Ghetsis's equal; while you don't want to belabor the point, as I mentioned with Yamask's realization that Ghetsis was lying, this bit could still do with some underscoring since it is the point of the story. It doesn't even have to be an overt "Hahaha just kidding stupid yamask you are just a pokémon and a tool and I think nothing of you". You could have Ghetsis repeatedly use the word "pokémon" in his last few lines, in a sort of reversal of the yamask's constantly using "human" to describe himself, for example. It might also help if Ghetsis does call him a human earlier on, or at least doesn't call him "Yamask". Even just doing a bit more to show his disdain at the end would help a lot, though.

It might also have been sort of cool if there was another flash of Yamask's earlier memory as Ghetsis caught him. Not necessarily enough to reveal anything, but the situations are similar on a few levels and it might be cool to connect the two somehow.

Very nice overall. A nice, quick read that still packs some emotional punch for its length, and while it could have been a bit stronger toward the end it was still quite sad. It definitely left me hoping that, somehow, some experience Yamask has with Ghetsis will help him remember something one day.

 

[SnoringFrog]

Initially, this made me think of Redeads from Legend of Zelda games (particularly OoT, I'm not sure how differently they may be portrayed in other games).

Aside from that, while I did find this piece interesting, a lot of it was lost on me. Conveniently, I was recently doing some reading about Yamask when I was searching for a ghost type that would fit my purposes for a fic, otherwise I never would have heard of it. I had no clue who the trainer was until seeing him named in the reviews as Ghetsis, but even then the name means almost nothing to me, having never played Black or White. I've gathered that he's cruel, at least, but I'm wondering how much more I might have enjoyed the story if I had more of an idea what this guy was about.

Either way, it was adequately written. I like these simple, dark types of stories, but I would have liked to see a lot more of Yamask attempting to remember its full past, or perhaps wondering why it became a Yamask instead of simply passing on, or does everyone turn into a Yamask? Did the mask it now wears come from it's former life, or did it gain that upon transformation? I feel like so much more could have been done to explore the questions Yamask must have about itself and its existence. Also, I feel like the Yamask's anguish at the end wasn't particularly engaging. It may have just been that I was a bit distracted while reading, but I just didn't connect with what must be immense pain/confusion that its going through.