play me a [fragmented] memory [-[PG 16]-]

[Mika]

play me a [fragmented] memory​

[A/N:
-wipes sweat from brow-
After a month of editing and re-editing, it exists. o o
This is a prelude to my main character, Mika, in my roleply Fragments of Alarayne. To those of you following that rpg, the reason it's been semi dead is due to the first chapter of the spiffy you're about to see. I needed to get it done and posting was a big distraction. > > Yesh, I needed to finish it. No I'm not 100% happy with it, feel free to be a bit on the flamey side as long as you don't go lol u sux. oO; I've been tyring to start this stupid arc of the fan-fic for a year now and I was finally able to.

Summary: Every seven years, a child is born from the forest and this child, gifted by the gods, is sent into the world form which they came to bring about prosperity and to bridge the gap between pokemon and humans. A prophecy once told to children who lived in the villages and towns told of a child, born of a Forest-Born, who would release the seals on the land and free the mana which had been hidden away by the gods, Ho-oh and Lugia, so many years prior when the prying hands of humans had become too much for the land to bear. No one ever believed the story and, like many old things, it withered into non-existance. No one ever expected it to come true but when the seals began to weaken and the seal in the depths of Blackthorn Cave mysteriously vanished, there was no doubt in anyone's mind as to what was happening. The Prophecy was coming to pass.

raindrops on [windows] and frost on [white] linens
[-[ chapter one ]-]​

Defeated.

Utterly defeated.

Her body was so badly beaten she could hardly move. The sedative that had just been administered into her arm wasn't helping matters either. As she struggled to keep from falling beneath the blanket of the darkness that was slowly creeping across the surface of her eyelids, she couldn't help but lock eyes with the man responsible for all of this, responsible for the eight people holding her to the ground, binding her legs and arms together with the all-too-familiar restraints and responsible for how everything started.

Soon however, the medication soon enough crept across her body. She couldn't speak, her voice was trapped in her throat, and as he crept closer, she couldn't do or say anything to stop him. When he kneeled beside her and put his hand on her sweat-stained face for a long moment, remorse from the bad decisions made in his life drifting into her features. Standing up, he gave her one last look before shouting a series of commands at his subordinates, pointing them in all sorts of confusing directions. All she could do was close her eyes and invite the blessed darkness to swallow her whole.

---

The hours had gone from day to night when she was finally able to somewhat shake off the sleep and after a bit of effort on her part, managed to function . While she could sit up, she couldn't do much more than that, seeing as her wrists were bound and attached to the center column in this not-so-standard prisoner transport unit. There was a small window, barely big enough to see out of, but it was better than nothing and after gaining a little more mobility in her neck, she stuck her chin just below that window and watched the passing scenery. She was on a train, she'd guessed as much, and as it puttered along the tracks towards a destination she knew damningly well, she couldn't stop the moisture that sprung to her eyes from slipping down her cheeks.

Caught.

Again.

How could she be so stupid? She'd gone and helped that stupid kid get his stupid Pokemon back from the G-Men because that stupid kid hadn't know he was buying an illegally possessed Pokemon egg from an outside Team Rocket Agent and it hadn't seemed right to her that they would take a Pokemon the kid, a beginning trainer to be precise, had been lovingly raising for a month because it wasn't his to begin with without even refunding the money he'd saved up to buy the egg with. No, she hadn't followed the intelligent path and she'd walked straight into a trap.

Such a wonderful display of her intelligence there.

---

Things had gotten ugly after that. He'd pulled his cheap tricks as usual, immobilizing her right arm by activating that stupid bracelet she'd been trying to chew off for the past year or so and threatening the safety of that little boy she was oh so desperately trying to help. Once she'd somewhat submitted, he'd gone into another one of his rants, explaining how, while the Global Police Force was regretful in doing so, they found it necessary to remove the Pokemon from an inexperienced trainer for fear Team Rocket had tampered with it because Team Rocket is the most evil of evils and therefore the Global Police wouldn't dare put it past them to somehow cause the Pokemon to go crazy at a certain point in its growth because Team Rocket wouldn't spend their funding on such ridiculous exploits, no, they couldn't possibly have any use for it, none what so ever.

He'd then done what he did every time prior. He offered her a redemption of sorts, to turn from her evil ways and after serving a penance of sorts, she could join the honored ranks of the G-Men. What he wasn't expecting however, was that in doing so, he'd set off the girl and was soon startled to discover he had a metal-toed boot print in his face which then caused the six or so underlings to be ordered to pounce on her and she was given another dose of that bloody medication and put under for 'proper' transportation to the 'proper' facilities.

And this is what lead the Emerald of the Rocket Executives gems to her current situation. There was no way she, Mysterica Eruka Blackthorn, more commonly known as Mika the Swift, leader of the Executive branch of Team Rocket and took orders directly form the head-honcho himself, could get out of it in a matter of moments either. They knew her all too well and, thanks to the specially engineered bracelets, she couldn't just break herself out. No, this was going to take some thought.

Stupid thinking.

She was tired of it, sick and tired of it.

---

The same walls, the same white speckled walls. This particular cell had two thousand seven hundred and five dots on the ceiling, plus or minus a few new ones added in her absence. The same white walls, the same damp cell, the same bright lights. Nothing had changed, it was the same as before. Thus her routine was the same. Sit on the bed. Count the dots. Watch the light flicker as it tried to decide whether it was going to die or stay alive, the buzzing of the fluorescent bulb fighting with itself.

She'd be taken to a less-white but still cold and still speckled room soon, to deal with the lot of them. Baan first, then either Morty or Misty, maybe even Erika again. They wouldn't send Clair, that had ended badly, very very badly. And if, well it was more of a question of when, she didn't comply, which she never did, Lance would be called in along with Steven and then, then all hell would break lose. Steven, the Hoenn Champion and royal pain in the ass number two, would play Bad Cop while Lance, Johto/Kanto duel champion and royal pain in the ass number one, would play Nice Cop. It didn't work the other way around, Mika would have nothing to do with that man if she could avoid it.

Maybe though, they'd do what they did last time.

Maybe they'd forget her for a few days. Give her enough time to escape.

She wasn't tied up anymore.

---

Unfortunately, Steven and Lance were in a very foul despicable mood and came for her personally, activating the silver bracelets on her neck, wrists and ankles so the delicate blue lasers keeping her held fast would activate themselves. They then took one of her sides apiece and led her to the familiar room that smelled of bleach and blood. Steven's favorite room.

----

"Why'd you do it this time?"
"…"
"Don't pull that crap with me Mika."
"…"
"Silent treatment? Perhaps you'd like another visit with the good doctor?"
"…"
"Mute now? Think you're too good for us?"
"…"
"You're a pompous brat, do you think we're going to wait around for you to snap and tell us what we want to know? We've got other people to harass, your window of good, happy, works-well-for-you options is running out."
"…"
"We've got so much on you Mika, we've got so much on you."
"…"
"You've got no idea."

----

"We're just trying to help you Mika. We can't do, I can't do anything if you don't give me something to work with. It's not like we can just let you pass because you're… of relation to me."
"…"
"We just want to know about the egg, where the boy got it. It's a member from your unit, isn't it?"
"…"
"We'll just sit here all day, you wouldn't want that, would you?"
"…"
"So, why don't you say something?"
"…you have a horrible taste in room decoration."
"…"
"….there, I said something."
"You're going to be the same as before, aren't you."
"…"
"You're just like your brother, do you really want to end up like him?"

---

She couldn't stop herself. Lance had forgotten, forgotten that she cherished that boy, that son of his he denied existed in anything but his nightmares and his pleasant memories. She had him by the neck, her lips, cracking from lack of moisture, inches from his ear. A maniacal giggle escaped her lips as her hands, semi bound by the screaming red lasers, ran along his face, "You don't retain anything, do you? Teehee!" Digging her nails in, she cut ribbons of red into his cheek, making him wince in pain for a moment before assisting Steven and the four other G-Men in the Room in subduing and sedating his wayward daughter. Touching the side of his face, he winced reflexively and, when she smiled in satisfaction before slipping under the darkness, couldn't help the sudden urge to remove his stomach of all it's contents.

---

Five more days in the hell, three trips to the good doctor and his fetish with long mundane speeches that ended in forced medication and a procedure or four before she finally got her chance and slipped out the doors of her hell. They never took her pokemon, they never did. Lance said no. He always said no because he knew it would break her like a china doll falling seven stories to concrete below.

He always seemed to forget that all she needed was split second to call out one of her pokemon and she'd be gone. This happened on the sixth day. She was being taken to the good doctor's when the lower level trainee G-Man member stopped to tied his boot. She had him on the floor, completely knocked out in two minutes flat and, before the alarm was even sounded, the neck ankle and one wrist bracelet were on the ground. She hadn't managed to get the other one off but that was alright, it wouldn't work (or so she thought) without its family. She had no idea, as she skittered on the back of her Flygon into the moonlight, that she'd be back here again or that she'd just started something she'd regret in the near future.

[A/N
Remember, I eat obsessive flamers who can't type.]

 

[Alter Ego]

You asked me to read, so read I did. And what I read I tend to comment on. Fear the Alter Ego brand Corrective Quotes of Doom (tm) >O

Anyways brief summary: After being tricked by her elder into joining Team Rocket, the young heiress to the Blackthorn Gym, a bastard child of Lance and Clair, was raised and pruned by Giovanni himself after it was discovered that she too shared the powers of the Viridian Forest and unlike her brother, Rei, her abilities were on par with Lance's. (As you can probably see, this is based losely off of Yellow Caberello (the manga) when it comes to powers. If you've not read the manga, you might want to or you might get lost) These are the memoirs of her life, from the start of her memories to current time.

Personally, I think this would have been better without the above paragraph. Now I know about Mika's past, her abilities and all that shizzle, yes; but I'm not so sure that the same would have gone for your average reader. This being the case, you could have used that as a hook of sorts to keep bringing readers back. Drop a hint there, another there, that sort of thing, but never reveal more about a character than is absolutely crucial for your fic to make any sense whatsoever (At this point, her being a member of Team Rocket and possibly a hint at her relation to Lance would have been enough). An aura of mystery around the main character is usually a good thing for reader appeal. :3 Also, for the casual reader Mika might come off as a bit of darkside Mary-Sue here (Child of two oh-so famous cannon characters, highest executive in Team Rocket, the power of the Viridian bloodline etc.); again, I know that she isn't (I mean, just look at the way she smacks her poor underlings about ;.; ), but it's not nearly as clear based solely on this chapter, and that may be a disincentive for readers. Another reason why I would have preferred to see her abilities and all that shizzle revealed bit by bit: it buys you time to explain and justify her having those abilities and make it seem plausible for the reader. Even if this is a follow-up to an earlier piece of writing, you should still make it fully understandable (and enjoyable) for someone who hasn't read the earlier installment, not by an author's note but within the fic itself; if you can't fit that in then the story doesn't really have what it takes to stand on its own.

catch me as i fall, say you're here and it's all over now

Ehh...reading this out, it just doesn't pace itself the same way as the song. You know how she (the singer person whose name I forgot) takes this little break after 'catch me'? Yeah, you might want to incorporate it here. Maybe split it into a separate line? That's just my impression, though, so don't read too much into it. *Shrug*

Her body was so badly beaten she could hardly move. The sedative that had just been administered into her arm wasn't helping matters either. As she struggled to keep from falling beneath the surface of the darkness that was slowly creeping across the surface of her eyelids, she couldn't help but lock eyes with the man responsible for all of this, responsible for the eight people holding her to the ground, binding her legs and arms together with the all-too-familiar restraints and responsible for how everything started.

Repetitive word choices are bad since they break the flow of your story; as a rule, don't use the same noun (Unless it's he/she/it) twice in the same sentence. You should try to find a synonym for one of the 'surface's here.

Soon however, the medication soon enough crept across her body, temporarily paralyzing the girl from the neck down. She couldn't speak, her voice was trapped in her throat, and as he crept closer, she couldn't do or say anything to stop him. When he kneeled beside her and put his hand on her sweat-stained face for a long moment before shouting a series of commands at his subordinates all she could do was close her eyes and invite the blessed darkness to swallow her whole.

The underlined bit on the top is a tautology (I.e. Saying the same thing twice in a row). Either go with "Soon however" or "soon enough"; you don't need (and shouldn't have) both. Also, adverbs go before the verb they're referring to, so in this case it should be "temporarily paralyzing" instead of "paralyzing...temporarily". Finally, the underlined part at the end of the quote is just too long with the current punctuation (or, in this case, lack thereof). Try reading it out loud and I can guarantee that you'll be out of breath before it's done. I'd suggest splitting it into two sentences with an appropriate rewording to go with it.

The hours had gone from day to night when she was finally able to somewhat shake off the sleep and somewhat manage to function.

Repetition again. I'm also a bit leery-eyed about dropping in the 'somewhat's like that. Can't think of the grammatical rule here (Probably because I've gone and caught a freakin' cold again thanks to my freakin' university commuting <.<) but it just sounds wrong. Although I could of course be mistaken.

How could she be so stupid? She'd gone and helped that stupid kid get his stupid Pokemon back from the G-Men because that stupid kid hadn't know he was buying an illegally possessed Pokemon egg from an outside Team Rocket Agent and it hadn't seemed right to her that they would take a Pokemon the kid, a beginning trainer to be precise, had been lovingly raising for a month because it wasn't his to begin with without even refunding the money he'd saved up to buy the egg with. No, she hadn't followed the intelligent path and she'd walked straight into a trap. Twenty to one had seemed a little out there but she'd managed pretty well considering until he showed up and with him, brought her to her knees before she even realized his existence.

First underline: you've got two verbs next to each other and that's a big no-no; I'd suggest turning the first into an adverb. :3

Second underline: I think you trailed off the point somewhere along that sentence, because I don't quite get what you're trying to say there. o.O Also, considering her past, not realizing Lance's existence ("Yeah, I'm the bastard child of Claire and that guy whose existence I'm not aware of. So uh...technically I just have a mum, yeah.") seems sort of odd. Maybe go for something like 'presence' instead?

Things had gotten ugly after that. He'd pulled his cheap tricks as usual, immobilizing her right arm by activating that stupid bracelet she'd been trying to chew off for the past year or so and threatening the safety of that little boy she was oh so desperately trying to help. Once she'd somewhat submitted, he'd gone into another one of his rants, explaining how, while the Global Police Force was regretful in doing so, they found it necessary to remove the Pokemon from an inexperienced trainer for fear Team Rocket had tampered with it because Team Rocket is the most evil of evils and therefore the Global Police wouldn't dare put it past them to somehow cause the Pokemon to go crazy at a certain point in its growth because Team Rocket wouldn't spend their funding on such ridiculous exploits, no, they couldn't possibly have any use for it, none what so ever.

'necessary'; not 'nessacary'. Dubious word choices have been underlined. Also, the last bit seems sort of counter-intuitive: if they believe that the Rockets wouldn't have any use for the aforementioned procedure, why would they suspect them of having gone through with it? o.O Anyways, I'm stamping the ranting style of this passage as free indirect discourse from Mika. Hope that's not over-analyzing. :3

He'd then done what he did every time prior. He offered her a redemption of sorts, to turn from her evil ways and after serving a penance of sorts, she could join the honored ranks of the G-Men. What he wasn't expecting however, was that in doing so, he'd set off the girl and was soon startled to discover he had a metal-toed boot print in his face which then caused the six or so underlings to be ordered to pounce on her and she was given another dose of that bloody medication and put under for 'proper' transportation to the 'proper' facilities.

If you want to use 'he had' after the 'discover' here it would call for a 'that', but you could really just strike those two words and just say that he discovered a boot print on his face. Anyways, there are too many passive forms in that last underlined bit. The passive slows down the tempo of what should be a pretty fast-moving scene and makes your sentence needlessly complicated. Past tense is already a bit more 'slow moving' than present as it is; don't enhance that trait in a part that should play out like an action sequence.

And this is what lead the Emerald of the Rocket Executives gems to her current situation. There was no way she, Mysterica Eruka Blackthorn, more commonly known as Mika the Swift, leader of the Executive branch of Team Rocket which took orders directly form the head-honcho himself, could get out of it in a matter of moments either. They knew her all too well and, thanks to the specially engineered bracelets, she couldn't just break herself out. No, this was going to take some thought.

'honcho'; not 'hancho'. Also, the and after 'Team Rocket' just doesn't work. In this case, I'd suggest switching it to 'which' in which case it refers to the whole executive branch taking orders from the big boss (Which I assume to be the case). Either that or rethink that bit.

The same walls, the same white speckled walls. This particular cell had two thousand seven hundred and five dots on the ceiling, plus or minus a few new ones added in her absence. The same white walls, the same damp cell, the same bright lights. Nothing had changed, it was the same as before. Thus her routine was the same. Sit on the bed. Count the dots. Watch the light flicker as it tried to decide whether it was going to die or stay alive, the buzzing of the fluorescent bulb fighting with itself.

The underlined sentence is a tautology, although in this case it could be justified as a stylistic trick so I'm not going to pound the desk with my fist and demand an edit; just want to make sure that it's a conscious choice. ;3

Maybe tho, they'd do what they did last time.

'Tho' is an ethnic group within Vietnam, and I don't think that's what you were aiming for. If you meant 'though' it's not needed here.

Silent treatment? Perhaps you'd like another visit with the good doctor?"

'treatment' rather than 'treatement' and 'Perhaps' rather than 'Prehaps'. Careful with those typos.

"…""You're a pompous brat, do you think we're going to wait around for you to snap and tell us what we want to know? We've got other people to harass, your window is running out."

'pompous' rather than 'pompus'. Also, I thought windows 'closed' and time 'ran out'; not the other way around. o.O

She couldn't stop herself. Lance had forgotten, forgotten that she cherished that boy, that son of his he denied existed in anything but his nightmares and his pleasant memories. She had him by the neck, her lips, cracking from lack of moisture, inches from his ear. A maniacal giggle escaped her lips as her hands, semi bound by the screaming red lasers, ran along his face,

"You don't retain anything, do you? Teehee!"

Digging her nails in, she cut ribbons of red into his cheek, making him wince in pain for a moment before assisting Steven and the four other G-Men in the Room in subduing and sedating his wayward daughter. Touching the side of his face, he winced reflexively and, when she smiled in satisfaction before slipping under the darkness, couldn't help the sudden urge to remove his stomach of all it's contents.

Meh, give the quote some air. Personally, I'd go with the above paragraphing, but that's your call.

Five more days in the hell, three trips to the good doctor and his fetish with long mundane speeches that ended in forced medication and a procedure or four before she finally got her chance and slipped out the doors of her hell. They never took her pokémon, they never did. Lance said no. He always said no because he knew it would break her like a china doll falling seven storeys to concrete below.

As far as I know, the plural of 'storey' is 'storeys' as opposed to 'stories', but meh...who knows. At any rate, make sure to add the ´ to the 'e' in 'pokémon'. If I missed that somewhere earlier then please correct it there too; franchise vigilantes will take offense otherwise.

He always seemed to forget that all she needed was split second to call out one of her pokemon and she'd be gone. This happened on the sixth day. She was being taken to the good doctor's when the lower level trainee G-Man member stopped to tied his boot. She had him on the floor, completely knocked out in two minutes flat and, before the alarm was even sounded, the neck ankle and one wrist bracelet were on the ground. She hadn't managed to get the other one off but that was alright, it wouldn't work (or so she thought) without its family. She had no idea, as she skittered on the back of her Flygon into the moonlight, that she'd be back here again or that she'd just started something she'd regret in the near future.

'floor' rather than 'floro'. I also have to say that it's sort of weird for the GP to keep a top-class prisoner under such light security. I mean, first off: only one guard to escort her. Second, letting her keep her pokémon unrestrained (You'd think that they'd at least jam the release mechanisms on the pokéballs or something o.O) and third, placing her in a place so easily escapable by flight. You'd think that between two elite four champions, a bunch of gym leaders, and a freakin' horde of police officers escaping the dang place would be a little bit trickier. xP Yeah, I hope there's a plot excuse for that later on.

Oh, and as a final note: thus far there has been absolutely zero description of Mika appearance-wise so make sure to include that at some point. I would also have liked to see a bit more detail on Mika's thoughts and feelings at this point since those are important for establishing a connection between the reader and the character (Something which you'd obviously want to do early on).


Overall, I'm not too fond of song lyrics in fics, but that's your call. But that aside...this fic has potential but it lacks polish (Evidence of which being the typos, the tautology etc.). How to say...take your time after typing out a chapter, do something else for a while (Like, an hour or two) to distance yourself from it then come back and re-read it. That way you get a better idea of what the reader's impression of your fic will be like and will also be able to spot typos and such. Keep at it, and don't worry about the praise/criticism balance of this post; it tends to end up like this when I'm reviewing. xD

 

[Mika]

(a/n:

Thanks much Alter, the critical-ness was soooo helpful you can't even imagine. <3 I think I fixed everything now. <3 [If I forgot anything, feel free to point it out again.]

Chapter 2 should be up tomorow. =o

And for your plot questions, don't worry. :3 I made it seem too easy on purpose and this is the first chapter. I have a really bad habit of starting out really crappy and going all amazing in like, two chapters or something. ^o^;;


Edit:

Second Chapter = up tomorow right after band competition!

I really hate it when I get into these 'moods'. I can't stop writing. ; ; ]

don't say you love me​

 

[Lionpaw]

???

What are you talking about crappy? That was AMAZING! (Well at least better than anyone else's writing I've seen before). Keep up the good work. I love the intro.

 

[Lionpaw]

Super hate! I spent 2 days pulling my hair out, waiting to get back on this site so that I could read more. I thought there was another chapter. Oh well. It's so suspencful. Keep writing more.