victoria carter  DON'T TURN AWAY, JUST TAKE MY HAND |
TIMELESS
CREATURE
CIVILIAN
"FEMALE"
LEGENDARY
MEDIC
character overview
positive traits
✔ honest
✔ perceptive
✔ vivacious
✔ courageous
✔ realistic
✔ selfless
✔ perceptive
✔ vivacious
✔ courageous
✔ realistic
✔ selfless
negative traits
✘ greedy
✘ reckless
✘ haphazard
✘ resentful
✘ gullible
✘ stubborn
✘ reckless
✘ haphazard
✘ resentful
✘ gullible
✘ stubborn
things they like
❤️ starting fires
❤️ monetary wealth
❤️ knives
❤️ warm weather
❤️ n
❤️ feeling helpful
❤️ monetary wealth
❤️ knives
❤️ warm weather
❤️ n
❤️ feeling helpful
things they dislike
💔 zekrom / landry
💔 rain/snow storms
💔 liars
💔 horror genre
💔 changing bodies
💔 being belittled
💔 rain/snow storms
💔 liars
💔 horror genre
💔 changing bodies
💔 being belittled
character description
runnin' free, a little better better than i used to be
5'4" | 152 lb | white-haired | red-eyed | unkempt |
Victoria is the embodiment of truth. Her counterpart deals in ideals, the what-ifs and maybes, but she, herself, only serves what is the here, the now, and the absolute truth. No speculation, no circumstances, no nothing. She's grounded to reality, never having her head in the clouds and never letting ambitions get carried away by frivolous fantasies. More than anything, however, that this dictates is the fact that she, herself, never lies. Not anymore, that is. Not even the exclusion of facts, feelings, or anything will hinder her telling the truth – if you ask her a question, she will tell it to you straight out, no sugar coating and no exaggerations. This makes her a beautifully unbiased third party, and you never have to worry about her saying things just to make you feel nice about yourself, but in the same instance, she can be horribly blunt about the worst of matters. If she thinks your drawing looks like absolute garbage, she's going to tell you that straight out; if your mother has been missing and is thought to be dead, there will be no “oh, but we might still find her!” coming out of her. In a world as infected as the one the citizens of Santcum City are forced to live in, her brutal honesty can honestly be seen as more of a curse than a blessing; there is much more wrong to point out than good.
On the other hand, obsessed with the idea of the truth, she immediately believes any and all are going to tell that to her until given a strong reason to think otherwise. Being gullible comes down to an art with this one, despite how perceptive she likes to claim she is. Honestly, even if all evidence points to the opposite of what is being told being the truth, she's still likely to believe the word of someone else's mouth, too afraid to admit that she lives in a world surrounded by liars and cheats. Outside of human and Gifted interaction, however, she is very alert and aware of her surroundings, able to take in a small range of environment very quickly and use that knowledge to her later advantage. This is helpful in combat when using her outside resources, and also keeps her from setting large quantities of things on fire on accident.
Despite the fact that she was at one time very god-like, near invincible and feared by most, Tori's current body is very frail compared to what she's had in days long past. Before she was migrated, it was used as a disguise to keep a very human world from panicking over the presence of a deity amongst them while she and her fellow legendaries hunted down Arceus; as such, it was never meant to be used for this long, and the fact that she is stuck with it until the vessel dies is a little frustrating. Frustrating in the sense that she tends to forget just how weak it – she – currently is. She's incredibly reckless, battle strategies almost always involving throwing herself right in the enemies face rather than hanging back and playing it safe. She'll jump from buildings for the thrill of it, and pray a cloud of her own fire will help give her a soft landing. (It usually doesn't.) She'll pick fights with people she doesn't like, even if she's at a horrible disadvantage, and boasts the new bruises that seem to show up every single night. Unable to accept help from others, either, she'll insist on being able to handle her own problems and will sooner attack someone just trying to help than admit to needed help in the first place. Persistence is both a blessing and a curse in this one – when there's a chance for her victory, the ability to keep getting up after being knocked down is desirable; but when there is absolutely no hope for her, her inability to know when to back down is likely to be the death of her.
Victoria is greedy. Truly, it's as simple as that; she keeps everything she can get to herself, and won't share with anyone if she can help it. She revels in money, not afraid to construct an empire of wealth on of foundation of corpses, but is about as far from frugal with it when she's got enough to throw away. At her financial prime, she thoroughly enjoyed the luxury of limousines and enough expensive alcohol to kill a horse, and wasn't afraid to through wads of bills at people to get them to dance at her feet. Money is power, after all, and when one knows what it's like to be worshiped as a god, power is everything. Power in terms of strength is as crucial to her as power in influence, as well; to label her as “violent” would be a grave understatement, and to say that she became a medic for any reason outside of wanting to learn how to mend her own wounds would be a lie. Problems are solved with fists, fires, and alcohol bottles broken over heads. Similarly, plans are not things that are made or upheld; when everything can be solved with a little elbow grease and god-powers, why waste time trying to sort everything out before hand? Haphazard, most certainly, is a title she wears with pride.
The white-haired woman, however, is not all bad. She is quite humble, never one to brag and never even mentioning what talents she has until someone else has brought them up first. She won't belittle herself if she knows she is good at something – this comes with her policy of one hundred percent honesty, after all – but she won't inflate it or continuously talk of her accomplishments. She's vivacious, generally upbeat and as lively as the flames she conjures. Most people generally think that they have a good time when spending time around her; well, if she isn't picking fights left and right, that is. Finally, laziness is something that the equation that makes her her doesn't even accommodate for. It may have been the Original One that made her beautiful from the start, but it was her own actions that made the world revere her; similarly, she did not get to be the fearsome Lady in White while sitting around and letting someone else do all the work. She takes things into her own hands and puts into them as much effort as she can, almost every time without fail.
character classification
she is the god of fire, burning higher
At first sight, one would not expect Victoria to be anything less than human – perhaps a Gifted, as well, but one with little to change her outward appearance. Perhaps the white hair and bright red eyes can be a little off putting, and yes, maybe her cigarettes seem to sometimes light themselves, but it isn't as though these aren't practically commonplace things by now in Sanctum City. She's no human, though, and even “Gifted” would be a bit inaccurate in trying to classify them. She's a wolf in sheep's clothing, practically a god wearing human flesh, and what hides behind a short frame and fiery eyes is a a white dragon embodying the power of flames and truth – the (notably female) Yang to just another legendary's (also notably male) Yin. Long story short, she is literally Reshiram's spirit taken over the body of a poor girl, maintaining most all of her abilities as a god-like Pokemon from before the merge.
As to not damage her vessel, the white-haired female cannot unleash her full might. However, she still has almost complete flame manipulation as well as flame immunity, just so that when she's swallowing someone else in a vortex of fire, she's not also damaged as a result. These fires can range from anything the size of a lighter flame (hey, that explains those self-lighting cigarettes!) to what you could almost call a tornado of fire. You're a lot more likely to see the former than the latter, though, seeing as, again, possible overexertion of her vessel can result if too much fire is being used. While she is more partial to burning things than taking them out in any other way, though, her moveset as a Pokemon included moves such as Outrage and Dragon Pulse, both high powered dragon-type attacks. She's more likely to use Outrage in battle, but only when she grows incredibly upset – the aftermath of this is becoming incredibly drained, and dizzy enough to the point of running the risk of attacking herself as much as the enemy.
Reshiram itself is very hard to kill, if not impossible, but the human body housing it is no less susceptible to death than anyone else. There is no regeneration process, no heightened durability. Honestly, her body's almost a little more frail to outside attacks because of the disconnect between her soul and the person she's taken over. She cannot die from age, however; the last host Reshiram held lived to be centuries old, ceasing aging the moment it took over, and only perished at a much-deserved bullet through the heart. Should Victoria, the body, ever perish, the deity inside her can just as easily take over someone else, but seeing as there were incredibly dire reasons for taking over the women it did, the chances are that it might just hang around in its full glory from that point onward.
As to not damage her vessel, the white-haired female cannot unleash her full might. However, she still has almost complete flame manipulation as well as flame immunity, just so that when she's swallowing someone else in a vortex of fire, she's not also damaged as a result. These fires can range from anything the size of a lighter flame (hey, that explains those self-lighting cigarettes!) to what you could almost call a tornado of fire. You're a lot more likely to see the former than the latter, though, seeing as, again, possible overexertion of her vessel can result if too much fire is being used. While she is more partial to burning things than taking them out in any other way, though, her moveset as a Pokemon included moves such as Outrage and Dragon Pulse, both high powered dragon-type attacks. She's more likely to use Outrage in battle, but only when she grows incredibly upset – the aftermath of this is becoming incredibly drained, and dizzy enough to the point of running the risk of attacking herself as much as the enemy.
Reshiram itself is very hard to kill, if not impossible, but the human body housing it is no less susceptible to death than anyone else. There is no regeneration process, no heightened durability. Honestly, her body's almost a little more frail to outside attacks because of the disconnect between her soul and the person she's taken over. She cannot die from age, however; the last host Reshiram held lived to be centuries old, ceasing aging the moment it took over, and only perished at a much-deserved bullet through the heart. Should Victoria, the body, ever perish, the deity inside her can just as easily take over someone else, but seeing as there were incredibly dire reasons for taking over the women it did, the chances are that it might just hang around in its full glory from that point onward.
character biography
perhaps god gave the answers to those with nothin' to say
They have only ever lived to serve.
The Creator breathes life into them in ages long forgotten, two souls living in perfect harmony in the empty husk of a body It has not finished making for them. They share a single mind – a balance of truth and ideals, willpower and restraint, empathy and justice – and the Lord they so readily serve believes that It has finally created a deity worth shaping in his image. They are the most beautiful of dragons, shining bright in the night and shading the blinding light of day, and as It sends them off to the mainland to preach his ways to the arrogant humans who have taken root there, they revel in the way the maggots bow at their feet. For generations, they spread the word of their Maker to the people, and not a day passes that they do not enjoy their purpose. Their servitude to the Original One.
But not all of the humans fear the brilliant beast that has been sent down to teach them. A pair of brothers, twins, perhaps not arrogant so much as they were ambitious, appear before them and do not tremble like the rest. The twins speak of a land they envision, one separate from the mainland where it may flourish in its own right and develop beyond the other regions that may drag it down. They beg them to give them aid, to use their godly powers to break a part of the land away so that the dream they both have envisioned may finally become true. A balance of wonder and hesitation is what leads them to seek the council of the Creator, and it is will his blessing that they use the powers of fire, thunder, and ice to shake the earth, split the land, and begin their rule over an island isolated from all else. They work with the twins to establish order, much like the perfect order that they, themselves, represent. The initial hysteria subsides, and what was just another area in Johto has burned away to give rise to a new power: the region of Unova.
As the heroes that worked to create and maintain the region, however, watch their years slip by them through loose fingertips, things begin to change. As children and young men, they could always see eye to eye. With time, though, the things they hold dear began to shift and change.
Truth?
Ideals?
Which one is more important?
For years, the two combat each other over this, their close relationship shattered and the structure of the region that relied on their unity shaken. Frightened, the great joint dragon try to figure out which truly took precedent over the other. A perfect balance of empathy and logic does them nothing, provides no clear winner, and in their desperation, they split into two: she, white, truth; he, black, ideals. As the Creator mourns the split of yet another failure of his creations and the twins both she and he broke apart to support wither away to the natural laws of life, both dragons part ways. Unova, too, withers in their wake. In time, however, it will rise again without the aid of its makers, and only then will it prove to be the region the brothers had forseen all along.
Three masters she has served, and in less than three centuries, she has failed them all.
The Creator breathes life into them in ages long forgotten, two souls living in perfect harmony in the empty husk of a body It has not finished making for them. They share a single mind – a balance of truth and ideals, willpower and restraint, empathy and justice – and the Lord they so readily serve believes that It has finally created a deity worth shaping in his image. They are the most beautiful of dragons, shining bright in the night and shading the blinding light of day, and as It sends them off to the mainland to preach his ways to the arrogant humans who have taken root there, they revel in the way the maggots bow at their feet. For generations, they spread the word of their Maker to the people, and not a day passes that they do not enjoy their purpose. Their servitude to the Original One.
But not all of the humans fear the brilliant beast that has been sent down to teach them. A pair of brothers, twins, perhaps not arrogant so much as they were ambitious, appear before them and do not tremble like the rest. The twins speak of a land they envision, one separate from the mainland where it may flourish in its own right and develop beyond the other regions that may drag it down. They beg them to give them aid, to use their godly powers to break a part of the land away so that the dream they both have envisioned may finally become true. A balance of wonder and hesitation is what leads them to seek the council of the Creator, and it is will his blessing that they use the powers of fire, thunder, and ice to shake the earth, split the land, and begin their rule over an island isolated from all else. They work with the twins to establish order, much like the perfect order that they, themselves, represent. The initial hysteria subsides, and what was just another area in Johto has burned away to give rise to a new power: the region of Unova.
As the heroes that worked to create and maintain the region, however, watch their years slip by them through loose fingertips, things begin to change. As children and young men, they could always see eye to eye. With time, though, the things they hold dear began to shift and change.
Truth?
Ideals?
Which one is more important?
For years, the two combat each other over this, their close relationship shattered and the structure of the region that relied on their unity shaken. Frightened, the great joint dragon try to figure out which truly took precedent over the other. A perfect balance of empathy and logic does them nothing, provides no clear winner, and in their desperation, they split into two: she, white, truth; he, black, ideals. As the Creator mourns the split of yet another failure of his creations and the twins both she and he broke apart to support wither away to the natural laws of life, both dragons part ways. Unova, too, withers in their wake. In time, however, it will rise again without the aid of its makers, and only then will it prove to be the region the brothers had forseen all along.
Three masters she has served, and in less than three centuries, she has failed them all.
but who am i foolin'? i'm the king of the ruins
It is a pleasure to burn.
She burns the agony and the hate from the region she has helped to build from nothing, and the world reveres her for her dedication, her grace, and her honesty. She brings them fire to warm themselves, fire to light their way, fire to light the sky so they may marvel at its greatness. Together with the rains and lightning that the deity she was once joint with lays claim to, they brighten the path that Unova must take, and their people reward them with names. Long ago, they had shared one such title – too elaborate and holy to be spoken by human tongue, to be comprehended by human mind – but she accepts her replacement because it is one that belongs to her and her alone.
Reshiram.
The masses build them twin towers, one on each side of the globe, where they may watch over their sheep from a height fit for gods. She settles herself in a place they call the Dragon Spiral Tower, and it is from there that she spends her days: teaching, watching, aiding. They love her as much as they fear her, and she thinks of them as all of her children. Perhaps she has failed the expectations of the Creator, yes, but the way the old and the young and the strong and the weak love her for her honesty and empathy most certainly makes up for her failures of the past.
Where she can see beauty in what is, however, her fellow deity – Zekrom – can only see beauty in what can be. He is the ideals that contrast her truths, and he preaches to his follows on the eastern shores of Unova what will happen once they sacrifice their ways in exchange for advancement. For years, fear of change leaves the odds in her favor; though, when her fires begin to destroy as much as they help, her children turn their back on her and face toward a future of “might be”s and “perhaps”es. Needless to say, she is furious with her equal, especially as she watches the humans die needlessly for his cause.
When they battle, it shakes the earth and heavens, and thousands of humans and Pokemon alike are slaughtered in the fray. Electricity against fire, ideals against truth. For five whole years, they lock themselves in combat, and it is only when she falls to the ground that an unclear winner is decided. He moves to slay her, to end the only threat to his idealistic world, but quick thinking and quicker movements allow her to flee from the scene before her existence screeches to a halt. Returning to the Dragon Spiral Tower would be too predictable, and he would surely follow her there to finish the job. Instead, she attempts to hide in the masses, humbling herself and approaching before the humans who serve her.
A god among men hardly goes unnoticed, Reshiram realizes quickly, and as the black dragon she's once been a part of tears across the land in search of her, she realizes what she must do.
She burns the agony and the hate from the region she has helped to build from nothing, and the world reveres her for her dedication, her grace, and her honesty. She brings them fire to warm themselves, fire to light their way, fire to light the sky so they may marvel at its greatness. Together with the rains and lightning that the deity she was once joint with lays claim to, they brighten the path that Unova must take, and their people reward them with names. Long ago, they had shared one such title – too elaborate and holy to be spoken by human tongue, to be comprehended by human mind – but she accepts her replacement because it is one that belongs to her and her alone.
Reshiram.
The masses build them twin towers, one on each side of the globe, where they may watch over their sheep from a height fit for gods. She settles herself in a place they call the Dragon Spiral Tower, and it is from there that she spends her days: teaching, watching, aiding. They love her as much as they fear her, and she thinks of them as all of her children. Perhaps she has failed the expectations of the Creator, yes, but the way the old and the young and the strong and the weak love her for her honesty and empathy most certainly makes up for her failures of the past.
Where she can see beauty in what is, however, her fellow deity – Zekrom – can only see beauty in what can be. He is the ideals that contrast her truths, and he preaches to his follows on the eastern shores of Unova what will happen once they sacrifice their ways in exchange for advancement. For years, fear of change leaves the odds in her favor; though, when her fires begin to destroy as much as they help, her children turn their back on her and face toward a future of “might be”s and “perhaps”es. Needless to say, she is furious with her equal, especially as she watches the humans die needlessly for his cause.
When they battle, it shakes the earth and heavens, and thousands of humans and Pokemon alike are slaughtered in the fray. Electricity against fire, ideals against truth. For five whole years, they lock themselves in combat, and it is only when she falls to the ground that an unclear winner is decided. He moves to slay her, to end the only threat to his idealistic world, but quick thinking and quicker movements allow her to flee from the scene before her existence screeches to a halt. Returning to the Dragon Spiral Tower would be too predictable, and he would surely follow her there to finish the job. Instead, she attempts to hide in the masses, humbling herself and approaching before the humans who serve her.
A god among men hardly goes unnoticed, Reshiram realizes quickly, and as the black dragon she's once been a part of tears across the land in search of her, she realizes what she must do.
if you wanna cut the cards, sammy's gonna up the odds
It takes quite a bit of time, and more corpses than she'd like to admit to – any are too many, truly – but the effort pays off in the end, and she finally discovers the secret to merging with the body of a human.
Victoria Martz is the name of the first human she takes control of, casting out the soul that had originally been there and adopting not only her name, but her life. The wife of one of the wealthiest men in the region, possibly the world, the extravagant life she leads while hiding away from her vengeful partner is not much of a step down from her deity-like status. No longer can she burn things whenever she so feels like it, and her adopted husband seems to catch on to something not being entirely right with his supposed “wife” from the day she takes over, but as time passes, she begins to enjoy her time spent in the lap of carefree luxury. Zekrom ceases his pursuit no more than a decade later, yet she decides that a few more years as the lovely Mrs. Martz would never hurt anyone.
No, no, it's not her snatching the body of an innocent passerby that hurts anyone. It is, instead, the greedy murder of Mr. Martz and the loss of everything she owns to the thieves that show up in his murder's wake.
It all happens so fast, she feels. One day he's there, smiling down at her as she picks flowers in the garden, or makes a joke right up his alley, or is simply there. The next, he is being taken away to be prepped for a funeral. The one after that, she comes home to an empty home. All of the restraint in her body and soul can't keep her from collapsing to the floor and bawling, mourning for something that was never really her's to begin with, but feels so wrong to be without. To leave her host's body and allow the real Victoria's soul to return now would be a crime she would never forgive herself for. All of the grief in her heart is dulled by the fact that she has been here for only a fraction of the time as the real one, and the love she held for the family and the servants and everyone associated with her vessel is halved – at best.
Instead, she leaves what little she has to her “children” and her “servants” and heads for the streets. It's here that she hopes to start over, to build a life of her own from the ground up. For all of the realities that she's so painfully aware of, for one time in her life, she gives into idealism: if she works hard enough, maybe; if she's kind enough, maybe; if she prays to the Creator enough, maybe; perhaps she will be able to start over and carry on her life as a human until the day her vessel breaks down and dies. If only the portraits that fantasies painted depicted something that could actually bear results.
The characters without a home or without work do not accept her in the way she had envisioned, and more often than not, she is attacked by men and women alike on a near daily basis. They cut her hair, steal the few things she acquires, mock her for her lost status and family. She learns that, to wear one's heart on their sleeve is to have their heart stolen, mutilated, and returned in peaces. She learns that kindness is about as far from a virtue as can be when one is clawing for scraps at the bottom of the barrel. She learns that all of her grace, all of her empathy is wasted. Truth hits her like a bullet in the back, and she wears it like a mask to cover up the traits society deems as weaknesses.
It starts with minuscule thefts. She pickpockets a knife from one of the passerby and uses it to steal the gold from the people who are unfortunate enough to pass her by. So little, however, does she actually earn; upon learning this, she ups the odds. She breaks into homes, takes their silver, and sells it for her own personal gain. It isn't until she is nearly caught that she is forced to resort to murder to keep her identity as hazy as she can keep it, but even that quickly becomes routine. Before she knows what is happening, the name Martz has become feared – whispered in hushed tones on the streets, in homes – and she revels in this new found treatment. Even the law cannot reckon with a god in sheep's clothing, and the whole region trembles at her feet in a way they haven't since she was a god in god robes. Only this time, its different. Her flames are not met with joy, but with terror.
And as centuries pass – her body never aging, “Martz” becoming the enigmatic “Lady in White”, the guilt over crimes ebbing way to indifference and even pleasure – she thinks she likes terror even better.
Victoria Martz is the name of the first human she takes control of, casting out the soul that had originally been there and adopting not only her name, but her life. The wife of one of the wealthiest men in the region, possibly the world, the extravagant life she leads while hiding away from her vengeful partner is not much of a step down from her deity-like status. No longer can she burn things whenever she so feels like it, and her adopted husband seems to catch on to something not being entirely right with his supposed “wife” from the day she takes over, but as time passes, she begins to enjoy her time spent in the lap of carefree luxury. Zekrom ceases his pursuit no more than a decade later, yet she decides that a few more years as the lovely Mrs. Martz would never hurt anyone.
No, no, it's not her snatching the body of an innocent passerby that hurts anyone. It is, instead, the greedy murder of Mr. Martz and the loss of everything she owns to the thieves that show up in his murder's wake.
It all happens so fast, she feels. One day he's there, smiling down at her as she picks flowers in the garden, or makes a joke right up his alley, or is simply there. The next, he is being taken away to be prepped for a funeral. The one after that, she comes home to an empty home. All of the restraint in her body and soul can't keep her from collapsing to the floor and bawling, mourning for something that was never really her's to begin with, but feels so wrong to be without. To leave her host's body and allow the real Victoria's soul to return now would be a crime she would never forgive herself for. All of the grief in her heart is dulled by the fact that she has been here for only a fraction of the time as the real one, and the love she held for the family and the servants and everyone associated with her vessel is halved – at best.
Instead, she leaves what little she has to her “children” and her “servants” and heads for the streets. It's here that she hopes to start over, to build a life of her own from the ground up. For all of the realities that she's so painfully aware of, for one time in her life, she gives into idealism: if she works hard enough, maybe; if she's kind enough, maybe; if she prays to the Creator enough, maybe; perhaps she will be able to start over and carry on her life as a human until the day her vessel breaks down and dies. If only the portraits that fantasies painted depicted something that could actually bear results.
The characters without a home or without work do not accept her in the way she had envisioned, and more often than not, she is attacked by men and women alike on a near daily basis. They cut her hair, steal the few things she acquires, mock her for her lost status and family. She learns that, to wear one's heart on their sleeve is to have their heart stolen, mutilated, and returned in peaces. She learns that kindness is about as far from a virtue as can be when one is clawing for scraps at the bottom of the barrel. She learns that all of her grace, all of her empathy is wasted. Truth hits her like a bullet in the back, and she wears it like a mask to cover up the traits society deems as weaknesses.
It starts with minuscule thefts. She pickpockets a knife from one of the passerby and uses it to steal the gold from the people who are unfortunate enough to pass her by. So little, however, does she actually earn; upon learning this, she ups the odds. She breaks into homes, takes their silver, and sells it for her own personal gain. It isn't until she is nearly caught that she is forced to resort to murder to keep her identity as hazy as she can keep it, but even that quickly becomes routine. Before she knows what is happening, the name Martz has become feared – whispered in hushed tones on the streets, in homes – and she revels in this new found treatment. Even the law cannot reckon with a god in sheep's clothing, and the whole region trembles at her feet in a way they haven't since she was a god in god robes. Only this time, its different. Her flames are not met with joy, but with terror.
And as centuries pass – her body never aging, “Martz” becoming the enigmatic “Lady in White”, the guilt over crimes ebbing way to indifference and even pleasure – she thinks she likes terror even better.
standing in the afterglow, i guess we gave 'em quite a show
The world passes into the modern age, and it's on a thrown of wealth and corpses that she wonders if she has taken things a bit too far.
A bullet wound through the chest and a dead vessel provides a clear “yes”.
A bullet wound through the chest and a dead vessel provides a clear “yes”.
am i drifting, no more wanted?
The air in the Dragon Spiral Tower has never felt more heavy.
Zekrom's tower has long since been destroyed, but he'd left her own vacant in the instance that she returned. In fact, she's surprised to see him not there for unofficially “welcoming party” of her back to her god-like status. She floats through halls and rooms, up stairs and out doors, and marvels at the plethora of dragon-type Pokemon that have made themselves at home in her absence. It's of no concern to her, though; so long as they are not human, they matter little to her superior mind.
Victoria speaks little to her consorts as time inches slowly by. Instead, she wallows in solitude, a deep rooted need to return to her malicious ways dragging down at her mind and making anything and everything seem a chore. Her children, the ones she lived amongst and betrayed for her own sick amusement – despite being unaware that it was their white dragon god that had preformed such crimes over the centuries – begin to view her as a malevolent deity. Her fire is destructive, and her harsh realities even moreso. They do not praise her as they had in days long passed, nor do they fear her for all their power. Instead, they spit and kick on the tower their ancestors had built in her honor, leaving her to hiss and growl in their wake.
By the time he arrives, Reshiram has come to the conclusion that she despises these miserable creatures. As such, the strange man with hair the color of young spring leaves is not well received, especially when be starts to spout nonsense about a world to quixotic to possibly be real. A world where Pokemon and humans were in perfect balance, rather than the former being enslaved to the later. She scoffs at his dream, mocks him for such an unattainable goal.
“And how, might I ask, do you plan to accomplish all of this frivolity?”
“... With your aid.”
The dragon cannot help but to laugh at the notion of her assisting him, and laughs even more at the face he makes as a response. What he says next, however, managed to catch her off guard. “This might sound very foolish to you, but that is exactly why I came here to ask for your help. Zekrom governs over ideals – but I already know what is ideal. What I need is truth to make it a reality.”
Not long later, she casts him away from her brilliant tower alone.
She tells him, however, to call for her when it is time to make his dream real.
Zekrom's tower has long since been destroyed, but he'd left her own vacant in the instance that she returned. In fact, she's surprised to see him not there for unofficially “welcoming party” of her back to her god-like status. She floats through halls and rooms, up stairs and out doors, and marvels at the plethora of dragon-type Pokemon that have made themselves at home in her absence. It's of no concern to her, though; so long as they are not human, they matter little to her superior mind.
Victoria speaks little to her consorts as time inches slowly by. Instead, she wallows in solitude, a deep rooted need to return to her malicious ways dragging down at her mind and making anything and everything seem a chore. Her children, the ones she lived amongst and betrayed for her own sick amusement – despite being unaware that it was their white dragon god that had preformed such crimes over the centuries – begin to view her as a malevolent deity. Her fire is destructive, and her harsh realities even moreso. They do not praise her as they had in days long passed, nor do they fear her for all their power. Instead, they spit and kick on the tower their ancestors had built in her honor, leaving her to hiss and growl in their wake.
By the time he arrives, Reshiram has come to the conclusion that she despises these miserable creatures. As such, the strange man with hair the color of young spring leaves is not well received, especially when be starts to spout nonsense about a world to quixotic to possibly be real. A world where Pokemon and humans were in perfect balance, rather than the former being enslaved to the later. She scoffs at his dream, mocks him for such an unattainable goal.
“And how, might I ask, do you plan to accomplish all of this frivolity?”
“... With your aid.”
The dragon cannot help but to laugh at the notion of her assisting him, and laughs even more at the face he makes as a response. What he says next, however, managed to catch her off guard. “This might sound very foolish to you, but that is exactly why I came here to ask for your help. Zekrom governs over ideals – but I already know what is ideal. What I need is truth to make it a reality.”
Not long later, she casts him away from her brilliant tower alone.
She tells him, however, to call for her when it is time to make his dream real.
don't believe in expectations, don't believe in shooting stars
Zekrom meets her in battle that day, paired with a boy who knows that Pokemon and humans are already equal, and the bitter taste of defeat catches up with her once again. It is with heavy lids that she watches this boy, this child conquer the rest of Natural Harmonia Gropius' team with surprisingly little struggles, watches as his face twists and the room fills with strangers when Ghetsis' evil intentions came out for all to see, watches as he is thrown into just another battle and defeats the corrupt man. And, as they take the aforementioned man into custody and out of the castle, Victoria can't help but marvel at the prodigy her fellow dragon has chosen as his hero.
He is from a different crop than the humans she so readily wrongs. From a different crop than she, herself, had been while wearing sheep's clothing.
She carries N off and away, taking him to wherever his heart so desires as compensation for his loss. He, however, does not see it this way; he talks in a voice that mirrors the wonder she felt watching their battles transpire, speaks of having lost and learned. As they part ways, she muses over how she, too, has lost – but what, yet, has she learned?
Two years have passed when N returns, begging for her help once more, and she still hasn't the slightest clue.
He is from a different crop than the humans she so readily wrongs. From a different crop than she, herself, had been while wearing sheep's clothing.
She carries N off and away, taking him to wherever his heart so desires as compensation for his loss. He, however, does not see it this way; he talks in a voice that mirrors the wonder she felt watching their battles transpire, speaks of having lost and learned. As they part ways, she muses over how she, too, has lost – but what, yet, has she learned?
Two years have passed when N returns, begging for her help once more, and she still hasn't the slightest clue.
before the night is over, you'll be crawling to me
“wE wIlL bE WhOlE.”
She burns away the cold with the heat of a thousand suns, and saving the child takes a back seat when making way for her undying need to make this creature of ice pay. It has frozen the entire surrounding areas, terrorized cities she had sworn to protect in centuries long gone, and it's service to a man who had used the only human she has ever befriended has put it at the top spot on her death list. As the two green-haired males speak to one another in seething tones, the stranger looking on in horror as a result of their near death experience, she focuses on looking as threatening as she can, fire spilling from her muzzle and tail already burning an angry read. In turn, it stares, empty, and breathes cryptic words as cold and dead as the area around.
“dO yOu NoT rEmEmBeR mE?”
Ghetsis thanks his adopted son for bringing her there, and it only then that – between the sense of familiarity tickling her mind and the meaning behind the corrupt man's words – she begins to understand that something has gone terribly wrong. As he retrieves an object he refers to as the “DNA Splicers” and sets them into motion, she takes the opportunity to attack, fire spilling from her gaping mouth. They're deflected, however, by some horrible force caused by the strange item the trainer is using and the sheer power of the Pokemon she is trying to face. Ice shatters, revealing strange points on the gray creature's tail, and as its master calls an order to it, a barrage of pink energy beams come flying in her direction.
Reshiram's immediate reaction is to flee, taking to the skies and weaving an intricate path through the air. The beams follow her, however, and as more and more are fired, being caught is inevitable. With her energy drained, she is left as the mercy of a soulless monster, and as she reverts back into her stone form, all she can do is watch as it consumes her into its being.
“wE aRe OnE!”
She burns away the cold with the heat of a thousand suns, and saving the child takes a back seat when making way for her undying need to make this creature of ice pay. It has frozen the entire surrounding areas, terrorized cities she had sworn to protect in centuries long gone, and it's service to a man who had used the only human she has ever befriended has put it at the top spot on her death list. As the two green-haired males speak to one another in seething tones, the stranger looking on in horror as a result of their near death experience, she focuses on looking as threatening as she can, fire spilling from her muzzle and tail already burning an angry read. In turn, it stares, empty, and breathes cryptic words as cold and dead as the area around.
“dO yOu NoT rEmEmBeR mE?”
Ghetsis thanks his adopted son for bringing her there, and it only then that – between the sense of familiarity tickling her mind and the meaning behind the corrupt man's words – she begins to understand that something has gone terribly wrong. As he retrieves an object he refers to as the “DNA Splicers” and sets them into motion, she takes the opportunity to attack, fire spilling from her gaping mouth. They're deflected, however, by some horrible force caused by the strange item the trainer is using and the sheer power of the Pokemon she is trying to face. Ice shatters, revealing strange points on the gray creature's tail, and as its master calls an order to it, a barrage of pink energy beams come flying in her direction.
Reshiram's immediate reaction is to flee, taking to the skies and weaving an intricate path through the air. The beams follow her, however, and as more and more are fired, being caught is inevitable. With her energy drained, she is left as the mercy of a soulless monster, and as she reverts back into her stone form, all she can do is watch as it consumes her into its being.
“wE aRe OnE!”
i look to the future with the eyes of the blind
N leaves for a second time, and immediately she knows what she must do. Being joint with and broken apart again from Kyurem was the most terrifying thing she had ever experienced, and to remain in her current form would be to risk another such encounter. She calls upon her memory, and gets it right the first time – white hair and red eyes, just like last time. She cares not for the story behind the girl she has taken permanent control over. Instead, she takes on the name Victoria Martz once more and prepares to bury herself in murder, theft, and alcohol as she had before Plasma had ever come to Unova.
The Lady in White has returned -
(But then she's out on the streets, blade pressed against her wrist and pistol buried in her coat, eyes peeled for the wealthiest victim she can find on that side of the city; it's all so familiar, so routine. She'll get back in the swing of things, her dance of death and money, and with centuries ahead of her in this new body, she knows it won't take long to recreate the empire she'd built and lost last time. Then she's got her target, a girl with long black hair with a purse too glitzy to be necessary. She can only imagine what sort of fortune lays inside, and the look of oblivion on the stranger's face only indicates an easy steal. She probably won't even have to do away with this one... but her last kill was so long ago, and maybe wasting a bullet wouldn't hurt.
The face is familiar, though.
Victoria steps forward, arm circling around a slender neck and pulling the poor girl into the alleyway where her crime is less likely to be seen. There's a knife pressed up against the flesh of the younger female, a warning of “give me everything you've got or you're dead,” but when red eyes catch blue, she notices it: the face is familiar. There's a choruses of “please don't hurt me”s and “I'll give you anything you want”s, but it's the terrified mention of a mother who died in much a similar manner that has caught her attention. That has her mind reeling. That has the blade clattering to the ground. Her mother? Oh no. Suddenly, it's so clear in her head: the last successful murder she'd committed before her last vessel's death had been that of a woman so similar to the one before her now. Same hair. Same eyes. Same face. It had been in that vessel's final weeks that she'd been a mentor of sorts to a girl whose mother had, unknown to her, died at her hand. A revenge plot in disguised. She hadn't known that the teenager was a traitor until her chest was pumped full of lead.
And here that girl was right before her, begging for her life.
Living proof that the words she said and the things she did had consequences.
That the words she said and the things she did did nothing but hurt, hurt, hurt.
Victoria lets her live.)
- and disappears as soon as she had arrived.
The flame goddess storms into Zekrom's domain, an ant in the presence of a titan, and confesses. Confesses that she only lived their first battle by stealing the body of an innocent woman, then proceeded to use that body to accumulate more wealth than any one person could ever need for centuries upon centuries as the cost of other's lives and happiness. Confesses that she hadn't learned, that both of her partnerships with Natural Harmonia Gropius had left her with nothing but doubt and guilt, but never left her with anything solid to take from him. Confesses that a sign that must have been sent from Arceus itself had made her realize that she had been wrong, so, so wrong, and that she needed his help, his ideals to help propel her to something better. She tells him: “I need a new hobby.”
He tells her: “You are the single most idiotic creature I've the misfortune of dealing with. … Have you thought about music?”
The Lady in White has returned -
(But then she's out on the streets, blade pressed against her wrist and pistol buried in her coat, eyes peeled for the wealthiest victim she can find on that side of the city; it's all so familiar, so routine. She'll get back in the swing of things, her dance of death and money, and with centuries ahead of her in this new body, she knows it won't take long to recreate the empire she'd built and lost last time. Then she's got her target, a girl with long black hair with a purse too glitzy to be necessary. She can only imagine what sort of fortune lays inside, and the look of oblivion on the stranger's face only indicates an easy steal. She probably won't even have to do away with this one... but her last kill was so long ago, and maybe wasting a bullet wouldn't hurt.
The face is familiar, though.
Victoria steps forward, arm circling around a slender neck and pulling the poor girl into the alleyway where her crime is less likely to be seen. There's a knife pressed up against the flesh of the younger female, a warning of “give me everything you've got or you're dead,” but when red eyes catch blue, she notices it: the face is familiar. There's a choruses of “please don't hurt me”s and “I'll give you anything you want”s, but it's the terrified mention of a mother who died in much a similar manner that has caught her attention. That has her mind reeling. That has the blade clattering to the ground. Her mother? Oh no. Suddenly, it's so clear in her head: the last successful murder she'd committed before her last vessel's death had been that of a woman so similar to the one before her now. Same hair. Same eyes. Same face. It had been in that vessel's final weeks that she'd been a mentor of sorts to a girl whose mother had, unknown to her, died at her hand. A revenge plot in disguised. She hadn't known that the teenager was a traitor until her chest was pumped full of lead.
And here that girl was right before her, begging for her life.
Living proof that the words she said and the things she did had consequences.
That the words she said and the things she did did nothing but hurt, hurt, hurt.
Victoria lets her live.)
- and disappears as soon as she had arrived.
The flame goddess storms into Zekrom's domain, an ant in the presence of a titan, and confesses. Confesses that she only lived their first battle by stealing the body of an innocent woman, then proceeded to use that body to accumulate more wealth than any one person could ever need for centuries upon centuries as the cost of other's lives and happiness. Confesses that she hadn't learned, that both of her partnerships with Natural Harmonia Gropius had left her with nothing but doubt and guilt, but never left her with anything solid to take from him. Confesses that a sign that must have been sent from Arceus itself had made her realize that she had been wrong, so, so wrong, and that she needed his help, his ideals to help propel her to something better. She tells him: “I need a new hobby.”
He tells her: “You are the single most idiotic creature I've the misfortune of dealing with. … Have you thought about music?”
savin' up his quarters, he bought himself a cheap guitar
The means by which Tori gains enough money to purchase what she's had her eye on are anything but legal, but after more years than any man, woman, or god could bother to count on their fingers of thievery and murder, she thinks that dealing on the black market is as tiny a sin as they come. Her illegal goods stop being produced the moment she has hit her total, as well, tens of junkies upset at their sudden lack of a fix when she counts up her quarters and finds her total satisfying. She'd spent days, weeks searching for just the right one, and to find it still for sale when she'd gotten the money she needed for it is almost enough to make her cry out of sheer happiness. She enters the shop with a massive jar full of coins and crumpled dollar bills, and when she's stepping out into the sunlight of Unovan streets, it's with an empty jar and an electric guitar hanging from her neck. No, she hadn't thought of music, but it was as good a suggestion as any.
The newly-dubbed Victoria Carter has never had many things she was able to immediately pick up. Yes, she'd been an expert fire starter from the get go, but that was her specific purpose on creation. Killing and stealing hadn't come easy, and it had only been years of trial and error that had gotten her to the point she'd been at before forcing herself to retire from crime. Even battles, whether they be with human fists or Pokemon attacks hadn't come simple at first; she was designed to be a preacher, not a fighter, and she couldn't count the number of times she'd been beat down more than the number of times she'd wound up on top. The guitar, however, comes to her almost immediately. Chords aren't easy to find, what with a lack of mentors or Internet to browse for them on, but when she's figured them all out, it's not long before she's stringing them together into intricate melodies. She makes those strings sing, practices throughout the day and night on the streets, in empty warehouses, sometimes even in the presence of the Yin to her Yang.
With every day, she gets better and better, and she doesn't even realize that she could do this for a living until people are asking, begging her to play at bars, events, almost anything under the sun. Then she's part of a band, she and four others who start of small and quickly rise to greater and greater heights. They chant her name at the stage, play her songs on the radio, and if she tells Zekrom plain and simple that he owes all of this happiness to him – that he has saved her from a pit she hadn't known she'd dug herself into; that should he ever need a favor, all he has to do is call for her and she'll get it done. She plays her days away, each solo better than the last, and if she'd known that this all would have made her this happy, she would have gotten a human body and ditched her criminal ways long ago.
The world is her oyster.
The world is her oyster until she drowns herself in a sea of alcohol.
The goddess in human clothing stays later at bars than the others, packs up her things and orders herself a drink. A second. A third. She orders so many, she can't remember the numbers, or even what she's ordering, or even why she's there in the first place. Her band releases an album, two, critics and listeners raving over the work they've poured into each song, and she wastes every penny not going toward her new apartment and food on the table on bottles of liquor, vodka, other such goodies of that variety. They tour, but she's late on stage. They get gigs, but she doesn't show up, halfway across town with a glass in one hand and a haze in her mind. The group of five starts to fall apart, and she hasn't even touched her guitar in a month when they boot her, but she's been drinking since ten that morning, so a middle finger raised in the air is all she needs to feel better about it.
Three years pass her by throughout the whole fiasco. She stands at the top of the world, and when she loses everything, she's too drunk to even realize that she's digging herself another grave.
The newly-dubbed Victoria Carter has never had many things she was able to immediately pick up. Yes, she'd been an expert fire starter from the get go, but that was her specific purpose on creation. Killing and stealing hadn't come easy, and it had only been years of trial and error that had gotten her to the point she'd been at before forcing herself to retire from crime. Even battles, whether they be with human fists or Pokemon attacks hadn't come simple at first; she was designed to be a preacher, not a fighter, and she couldn't count the number of times she'd been beat down more than the number of times she'd wound up on top. The guitar, however, comes to her almost immediately. Chords aren't easy to find, what with a lack of mentors or Internet to browse for them on, but when she's figured them all out, it's not long before she's stringing them together into intricate melodies. She makes those strings sing, practices throughout the day and night on the streets, in empty warehouses, sometimes even in the presence of the Yin to her Yang.
With every day, she gets better and better, and she doesn't even realize that she could do this for a living until people are asking, begging her to play at bars, events, almost anything under the sun. Then she's part of a band, she and four others who start of small and quickly rise to greater and greater heights. They chant her name at the stage, play her songs on the radio, and if she tells Zekrom plain and simple that he owes all of this happiness to him – that he has saved her from a pit she hadn't known she'd dug herself into; that should he ever need a favor, all he has to do is call for her and she'll get it done. She plays her days away, each solo better than the last, and if she'd known that this all would have made her this happy, she would have gotten a human body and ditched her criminal ways long ago.
The world is her oyster.
The world is her oyster until she drowns herself in a sea of alcohol.
The goddess in human clothing stays later at bars than the others, packs up her things and orders herself a drink. A second. A third. She orders so many, she can't remember the numbers, or even what she's ordering, or even why she's there in the first place. Her band releases an album, two, critics and listeners raving over the work they've poured into each song, and she wastes every penny not going toward her new apartment and food on the table on bottles of liquor, vodka, other such goodies of that variety. They tour, but she's late on stage. They get gigs, but she doesn't show up, halfway across town with a glass in one hand and a haze in her mind. The group of five starts to fall apart, and she hasn't even touched her guitar in a month when they boot her, but she's been drinking since ten that morning, so a middle finger raised in the air is all she needs to feel better about it.
Three years pass her by throughout the whole fiasco. She stands at the top of the world, and when she loses everything, she's too drunk to even realize that she's digging herself another grave.
i've played the clown, used my friends and let them down
“I require your assistance.”
Victoria wakes in a pool of gin, mind caught between being a little drunk and the hangover that comes afterward when Zekrom finds her. The people scream at the sight of the massive black dragon just outside the city's most popular bar, civilians on the streets scrambling to get away from his sharp-edged form and whatever staff that might have been working inside already long gone at the sight of him. He breathes heavy against the windows just outside, growls spoken in a tongue understood only by Pocket Monsters ripping through his throat. They're muted by the walls, though, and only the words spoken telepathically into her mind are what really register and rouse her from slumber. It's the fact that he has deigned to show up amongst worms that has her pushing herself to her hands and knees immediately, rather than nodding off back to sleep despite the way her mind protests. It's also the fact that he has never admitted to needing her help, and if he has belittled himself enough to call on the favor she promised, it must be something rather large.
It's a shame her mind is still swimming; being sober for this moment would certainly save them both some grief.
The white-haired woman staggers over to him, not even fazed anymore by damp clothes reeking of a bitter drink she's fallen asleep in. Slurred words ask him what has gotten him off his high horse and speaking to lowly screw-ups like her; the annoyance in his eyes couldn't have been more obvious if he tried. As it turns out, the Creator has vanished seemingly overnight, leaving without so much as a warning and leaving every single legendary to scratch their chin. This, however, has happened over three sunsets prior, and even seventy-four hours of consecutive searching from each and every god-like Pokemon has done nothing to so much as find any clues to his whereabouts. Her Yin complains of the urgency of the situation, how a universe without its central force is doomed to collapse into anarchy if something is not done, and that, inevitable hangover or not, it would be wise of her to join in on the hunt for Arceus immediately. This isn't the only reason for his untimely arrival, however.
“You've mastered the ability of merging your soul with a human body. This is your second time, correct? And no causalities during your second attempt? There's a possibility that the Original One has been captured, or has been forced into an area where human have claimed dominance. As you can see from my landing here alone, the pigs do not take well to legendaries walking about their streets; and, if he has been captured by some individual, the gods of each region flying down streets would quickly alert him or her. He or she would be on guard immediately, and we would jeopardize the entire mission before it even began.” The angered exhale he releases is indication that he is not please with having to seek out her help, and if his asking for a favor was a surprise in itself, what the favor is is near earth-shattering. “I ask that you teach me how to take control of a human vessel. Teach all of us how to, in fact. Mew thinks that our only hope of furthering the search is to... 'go undercover,' you could say, and you are the only one with any idea of how to go about this.”
Her response is to cackle directly into his face.
Perhaps she is quite a bit more drunk than hungover at this point in time, because what should have been a grave revelation has turned into a poorly executed joke that has her laughing until she sees stars. She mocks him, insults him, him and the rest of the legendaries, and tells him that they simple don't have “the stuff” it would take to execute the process of merging. They argue for the first time in a while – even their last battle was fueled not by words, both beasts staring at one another while N and a boy with a mop for hair did all of the talking for them – and when Victoria continuously turns him down, she's almost certain he's going to destroy the whole building around her. This is how they settle their differences and their problems, after all. Violence. And maybe dying with a fog in her mind and gin in her clothes isn't exactly how she pictured this vessel dying, maybe even the great white beast inside that vessel perishing at the hands of a god who was always one step ahead, but she's just so tired that maybe this is alright. Maybe this is what she needed all along.
But he doesn't slay her then. Wings expand, black streaks across the partly-cloudy sky and he shoots into the atmosphere. He's long out of sight by the time she's staggering out of the building, questioningly watching the air and still quite baffled over his non-violent approach to her being what she would call “a literal [butt],” and by the time he's shooting her his last telepathic message, he's too far gone for anyone in the city to see. “You're pathetic, Reshiram. You could be so much more, and yet you keep making yourself miserable. When are you truly going to learn?”
The legendary grabs a cab home, red eyes still transfixed on the skies just outside the window and mind failing to process the idle morning chatter her driver tries to engage her in. By the time she's throwing money and stepping out into the street in front of her apartment complex, her mind has gone from swimming to horribly pained; it's a good thing she has experience making these headaches more tolerable, or else she'd probably be out for the remainder of the morning and through the early hours of the afternoon. She's pushing through her front door, though, when she suddenly sees: (hadn't seen before, had looked and viewed it, but never really knew it for what it was.) Bottles. Everywhere. Some empty, some full; some broken, some intact. They cover her counters, the island in her kitchen, and when she ran out of room in there, she'd apparently moved out into the dining room and even a bit into the living room. All she'd wanted was a glass of water, but she's stepping through a mind field of shattered glass in order to get to to her refridgerator.
Oh no.
This can't be real, right?
She'd known she'd had a lot, and maybe her drinking habits weren't the most healthy, but this – this couldn't be reality. Oh no. Oh no. She really hadn't learned anything. She'd picked up a guitar, something that could have taken her anywhere, and used it to propel herself into just another problem.
That night, the goddess doesn't drink. She takes a baseball bat and smashes each and every bottle individually, satisfied with the crash of each one and the way liquid splashes over her floor, her clothes, her face with each swing. This won't solve her problem, she knows: she'd pretty much addicted at this point, and it won't be long before she's chugging down an entire thing of vodka again, but it's step one in getting out of this hole. This is the realistic scenario, and she doesn't deal in ideals. And when their all gone, shards tossed into a triple lined garbage can and thrown out the window, spilled drinks mopped and done away with, she sets out. Sets out to apologize. Sets out to instruct.
Sets out to make amends.
Victoria wakes in a pool of gin, mind caught between being a little drunk and the hangover that comes afterward when Zekrom finds her. The people scream at the sight of the massive black dragon just outside the city's most popular bar, civilians on the streets scrambling to get away from his sharp-edged form and whatever staff that might have been working inside already long gone at the sight of him. He breathes heavy against the windows just outside, growls spoken in a tongue understood only by Pocket Monsters ripping through his throat. They're muted by the walls, though, and only the words spoken telepathically into her mind are what really register and rouse her from slumber. It's the fact that he has deigned to show up amongst worms that has her pushing herself to her hands and knees immediately, rather than nodding off back to sleep despite the way her mind protests. It's also the fact that he has never admitted to needing her help, and if he has belittled himself enough to call on the favor she promised, it must be something rather large.
It's a shame her mind is still swimming; being sober for this moment would certainly save them both some grief.
The white-haired woman staggers over to him, not even fazed anymore by damp clothes reeking of a bitter drink she's fallen asleep in. Slurred words ask him what has gotten him off his high horse and speaking to lowly screw-ups like her; the annoyance in his eyes couldn't have been more obvious if he tried. As it turns out, the Creator has vanished seemingly overnight, leaving without so much as a warning and leaving every single legendary to scratch their chin. This, however, has happened over three sunsets prior, and even seventy-four hours of consecutive searching from each and every god-like Pokemon has done nothing to so much as find any clues to his whereabouts. Her Yin complains of the urgency of the situation, how a universe without its central force is doomed to collapse into anarchy if something is not done, and that, inevitable hangover or not, it would be wise of her to join in on the hunt for Arceus immediately. This isn't the only reason for his untimely arrival, however.
“You've mastered the ability of merging your soul with a human body. This is your second time, correct? And no causalities during your second attempt? There's a possibility that the Original One has been captured, or has been forced into an area where human have claimed dominance. As you can see from my landing here alone, the pigs do not take well to legendaries walking about their streets; and, if he has been captured by some individual, the gods of each region flying down streets would quickly alert him or her. He or she would be on guard immediately, and we would jeopardize the entire mission before it even began.” The angered exhale he releases is indication that he is not please with having to seek out her help, and if his asking for a favor was a surprise in itself, what the favor is is near earth-shattering. “I ask that you teach me how to take control of a human vessel. Teach all of us how to, in fact. Mew thinks that our only hope of furthering the search is to... 'go undercover,' you could say, and you are the only one with any idea of how to go about this.”
Her response is to cackle directly into his face.
Perhaps she is quite a bit more drunk than hungover at this point in time, because what should have been a grave revelation has turned into a poorly executed joke that has her laughing until she sees stars. She mocks him, insults him, him and the rest of the legendaries, and tells him that they simple don't have “the stuff” it would take to execute the process of merging. They argue for the first time in a while – even their last battle was fueled not by words, both beasts staring at one another while N and a boy with a mop for hair did all of the talking for them – and when Victoria continuously turns him down, she's almost certain he's going to destroy the whole building around her. This is how they settle their differences and their problems, after all. Violence. And maybe dying with a fog in her mind and gin in her clothes isn't exactly how she pictured this vessel dying, maybe even the great white beast inside that vessel perishing at the hands of a god who was always one step ahead, but she's just so tired that maybe this is alright. Maybe this is what she needed all along.
But he doesn't slay her then. Wings expand, black streaks across the partly-cloudy sky and he shoots into the atmosphere. He's long out of sight by the time she's staggering out of the building, questioningly watching the air and still quite baffled over his non-violent approach to her being what she would call “a literal [butt],” and by the time he's shooting her his last telepathic message, he's too far gone for anyone in the city to see. “You're pathetic, Reshiram. You could be so much more, and yet you keep making yourself miserable. When are you truly going to learn?”
The legendary grabs a cab home, red eyes still transfixed on the skies just outside the window and mind failing to process the idle morning chatter her driver tries to engage her in. By the time she's throwing money and stepping out into the street in front of her apartment complex, her mind has gone from swimming to horribly pained; it's a good thing she has experience making these headaches more tolerable, or else she'd probably be out for the remainder of the morning and through the early hours of the afternoon. She's pushing through her front door, though, when she suddenly sees: (hadn't seen before, had looked and viewed it, but never really knew it for what it was.) Bottles. Everywhere. Some empty, some full; some broken, some intact. They cover her counters, the island in her kitchen, and when she ran out of room in there, she'd apparently moved out into the dining room and even a bit into the living room. All she'd wanted was a glass of water, but she's stepping through a mind field of shattered glass in order to get to to her refridgerator.
Oh no.
This can't be real, right?
She'd known she'd had a lot, and maybe her drinking habits weren't the most healthy, but this – this couldn't be reality. Oh no. Oh no. She really hadn't learned anything. She'd picked up a guitar, something that could have taken her anywhere, and used it to propel herself into just another problem.
That night, the goddess doesn't drink. She takes a baseball bat and smashes each and every bottle individually, satisfied with the crash of each one and the way liquid splashes over her floor, her clothes, her face with each swing. This won't solve her problem, she knows: she'd pretty much addicted at this point, and it won't be long before she's chugging down an entire thing of vodka again, but it's step one in getting out of this hole. This is the realistic scenario, and she doesn't deal in ideals. And when their all gone, shards tossed into a triple lined garbage can and thrown out the window, spilled drinks mopped and done away with, she sets out. Sets out to apologize. Sets out to instruct.
Sets out to make amends.
i've sit here staring, never quite caring
Victoria plucks at the strings of her guitar – this one acoustic; not as “grr” as her electric, but better for idle playings like this – as Rayquaza struggles to stuff its soul into any of the variety of inanimate objects laid out before her. She's a little tipsy at this point, but she's not even halfway through the bottle yet, so anyone complaining about her drinking already is deserving a slap in the face. She's certainly not drunk enough to see how horribly the sky dragon is failing at this exercise, and not nearly drunk enough to not mock it excessively for it. To be fair, Diancie is also getting a kick out of it, and the disapproving grunts Arcticuno is sending her way can't cover up its occasional amused chuckles.
Because of the sheer number of legendaries they have in their group – fifty-four on the dot, including herself and excluding the one they are intending to hunt down – having them force themselves into human body through trial and error like she did in centuries long past would result in catastrophic causalities. The conclusion that she had come to in the end was that, without a soul, a human body was practically an inanimate object; okay, maybe it was alive, even without its host soul, but there was totally a tree in the lineup before them, and if they could house their soul in a squirt gun, humans should have been easy-peasy. So she has them gather as many varied objects as they can find: some plants, toys, food, dirt, anything they can possibly get their hands on. From there, each on practices on said objects until they can force their way in. Should they be successful, they could essentially pick any human they so chose and instantly takeover with no dead bodies to show for it.
They think she's insane – she can't count the number of times Palkia has scorned her for her certain habit and claims to not want to be a human at all if “such foul liquids are required” - but the look of awe on their faces when the Hoenn beast finally merges with a potted flower is all she needs to be cackling like a madwoman.
Victoria plucks at the strings of her guitar and watched them all, one by one, get the hang of it.
They harold her a hero, and she drinks it in with each sip from her bottle.
Because of the sheer number of legendaries they have in their group – fifty-four on the dot, including herself and excluding the one they are intending to hunt down – having them force themselves into human body through trial and error like she did in centuries long past would result in catastrophic causalities. The conclusion that she had come to in the end was that, without a soul, a human body was practically an inanimate object; okay, maybe it was alive, even without its host soul, but there was totally a tree in the lineup before them, and if they could house their soul in a squirt gun, humans should have been easy-peasy. So she has them gather as many varied objects as they can find: some plants, toys, food, dirt, anything they can possibly get their hands on. From there, each on practices on said objects until they can force their way in. Should they be successful, they could essentially pick any human they so chose and instantly takeover with no dead bodies to show for it.
They think she's insane – she can't count the number of times Palkia has scorned her for her certain habit and claims to not want to be a human at all if “such foul liquids are required” - but the look of awe on their faces when the Hoenn beast finally merges with a potted flower is all she needs to be cackling like a madwoman.
Victoria plucks at the strings of her guitar and watched them all, one by one, get the hang of it.
They harold her a hero, and she drinks it in with each sip from her bottle.
are we unreal to one who knows no peers?
It doesn't help, though.
Months pass by in human vessels, gods searching in places gods should never have been seen, but there are no more clues than there had been when they stood in their full glory. Even the more reluctant have joined in on the search, legendaries like Mewtwo, Giratina, and her drunken self, but their aid gives fruit to nothing. If anything, they are left more baffled than before. Regions they have searched: bottoms of the oceans, into the skies, out in space, even amongst the humans meant to serve them. And the Original One is not there. He is seemingly nowhere. Everything they have done up until this point has been in vain. The hot-headed are quick to point their finger on her, claiming that her idea has only become a hindrance and that they were as foolish as she to have ever gone along with it in the first place. She doesn't even bother telling them that it wasn't her plan to begin with, and there had been a high probability that she, herself, wouldn't have agreed to it in the first place, either.
Reshiram walks the streets that night, downcast and fully prepared to admit that the greatest deity of them has perished, never to return. She'd never even been able to make up for her failures in his service – when she split from her counterpart, when she disappeared into a crowd of humans in order to avoid what could have been her own death. But then she realizes it, watching the people go by and remembering her own trials and triumphs. It hits her so suddenly, she's suffering mental whiplash, and she tosses the thought around in her mind a few times before she realizes just how accurate it must be. They'd looked everywhere, so there was nowhere left for him to be... unless they were simply looking for the wrong thing.
“What is Arceus made 'imself a human, too?”
They blink at her, more than one hundred eyes staring her down and processing the string of slurred words that have tumbled from her mouth. She, herself, thinks them through once more; the core idea still seems so very plausible in her head, yes, but the way she said it is all wrong, wrong, wrong. She sounds about as drunk as they peg her for, and maybe she's had a bit too much, but she knows what she is talking about. This isn't a haphazard solution to their issue conjured by the brain of a woman heavily intoxicated. But they don't know that. They don't know that, and they peg it for what it isn't almost immediately. A chorus of “what a fool”s, “I can't believe she's actually one of us”s, and “go home and sober up, would you?”s slap her upside the head within seconds, and blank pupils fill with humor, anger, and disappointment. She tries to argue, but her words are being drowned in a sea of doubt. No one will listen, because they think she is rambling the words of a madwoman, and by the time they have literally picked her up and thrown her out of their meeting hall, her flailing arms and breaths of fire are only serving to solidify this train of thought.
Tori lands on the hard, unforgiving ground, and it's on impact that a tidal wave of hate fills her veins. She has been trying so hard to get over this problem, one that had started years before any of her fellow gods every picked up human vessels of their own, and the fact that she is not passing out, vomiting her insides away, or completely forgetting everything she had done the night prior each and every day is a grand improvement in itself. She's thinking rationally now, perhaps a little more lively than before, but she's still relatively sober compared to the guys down at the bar she'd left early in order to make this meeting. She can't go cold turkey (has tried) because it tears her down from the inside out, so she is trying her very hardest. When will they realize this? When will they realize that she's working harder than anyone else, and that when she says that Arceus has stolen her idea before anyone else, he could very well be standing in that same city, on that same street, plotting something too secret for even his most elite to bare witness to?
Not anytime soon, she is afraid. It has taken her decades, centuries to “learn,” and the time it will take for them to learn the error of her ways is too long for her. So she goes home. She goes home and “sobers up”. And that night, against her will, she migrates.
Months pass by in human vessels, gods searching in places gods should never have been seen, but there are no more clues than there had been when they stood in their full glory. Even the more reluctant have joined in on the search, legendaries like Mewtwo, Giratina, and her drunken self, but their aid gives fruit to nothing. If anything, they are left more baffled than before. Regions they have searched: bottoms of the oceans, into the skies, out in space, even amongst the humans meant to serve them. And the Original One is not there. He is seemingly nowhere. Everything they have done up until this point has been in vain. The hot-headed are quick to point their finger on her, claiming that her idea has only become a hindrance and that they were as foolish as she to have ever gone along with it in the first place. She doesn't even bother telling them that it wasn't her plan to begin with, and there had been a high probability that she, herself, wouldn't have agreed to it in the first place, either.
Reshiram walks the streets that night, downcast and fully prepared to admit that the greatest deity of them has perished, never to return. She'd never even been able to make up for her failures in his service – when she split from her counterpart, when she disappeared into a crowd of humans in order to avoid what could have been her own death. But then she realizes it, watching the people go by and remembering her own trials and triumphs. It hits her so suddenly, she's suffering mental whiplash, and she tosses the thought around in her mind a few times before she realizes just how accurate it must be. They'd looked everywhere, so there was nowhere left for him to be... unless they were simply looking for the wrong thing.
“What is Arceus made 'imself a human, too?”
They blink at her, more than one hundred eyes staring her down and processing the string of slurred words that have tumbled from her mouth. She, herself, thinks them through once more; the core idea still seems so very plausible in her head, yes, but the way she said it is all wrong, wrong, wrong. She sounds about as drunk as they peg her for, and maybe she's had a bit too much, but she knows what she is talking about. This isn't a haphazard solution to their issue conjured by the brain of a woman heavily intoxicated. But they don't know that. They don't know that, and they peg it for what it isn't almost immediately. A chorus of “what a fool”s, “I can't believe she's actually one of us”s, and “go home and sober up, would you?”s slap her upside the head within seconds, and blank pupils fill with humor, anger, and disappointment. She tries to argue, but her words are being drowned in a sea of doubt. No one will listen, because they think she is rambling the words of a madwoman, and by the time they have literally picked her up and thrown her out of their meeting hall, her flailing arms and breaths of fire are only serving to solidify this train of thought.
Tori lands on the hard, unforgiving ground, and it's on impact that a tidal wave of hate fills her veins. She has been trying so hard to get over this problem, one that had started years before any of her fellow gods every picked up human vessels of their own, and the fact that she is not passing out, vomiting her insides away, or completely forgetting everything she had done the night prior each and every day is a grand improvement in itself. She's thinking rationally now, perhaps a little more lively than before, but she's still relatively sober compared to the guys down at the bar she'd left early in order to make this meeting. She can't go cold turkey (has tried) because it tears her down from the inside out, so she is trying her very hardest. When will they realize this? When will they realize that she's working harder than anyone else, and that when she says that Arceus has stolen her idea before anyone else, he could very well be standing in that same city, on that same street, plotting something too secret for even his most elite to bare witness to?
Not anytime soon, she is afraid. It has taken her decades, centuries to “learn,” and the time it will take for them to learn the error of her ways is too long for her. So she goes home. She goes home and “sobers up”. And that night, against her will, she migrates.
if i go away, what would still remain of me?
No one will miss her now that she's gone, she decides.
They're overturn every stone, every pebble in their search for Arceus; trek the most dangerous of wastes and the most offensive of heights. And all the while, they won't even bother to notice she's gone. Why would they? The last time she disappeared off the radar, the only one who cared to hunt her down was the massive beast attempting to do away with her. That had been a time when she had mattered, as well, a brilliant fire god who lit the skies ablaze and reveled in the joyful worship of her name. Now, she was a dead end, a deity fit more for the helpless flabs of meat she had taken over who drank away her problems and was hated by all of her peers. If she could even call them that; she was so far beneath the rest, she held about as much worth to them as a runt of a Bidoof litter.
Victoria spends weeks, months in the strange new world without so much as a sign of how she'd gotten there or if she could ever get back. She has no money, so it's impossible to feed the desire for any sort of alcoholic beverage that bubbles deep inside her. She's thankful enough to have her acoustic guitar on hand at the time of her migration, but she gets into so many fights, her fingers are too wounded to play it right. She ends up in the infirmary on a near nightly basis, bloodied and unwanted, and she laments her godhood – at least if she was mortal, she could die and put herself and those unfortunate enough to deal with her out of their misery. She ends up spending nights there, at the infirmary, plucking at guitar strings idly and flinching with each burst of pain that scream from her fingertips. Maybe it's the broken rendition of her favorite song (the first one she'd written for the band, all her, her song.) flooding from that corner of the room, or maybe it's the moans and groans of a woman with nothing to live for anymore. Whatever it is, her presence is noted by a particularly patient medic stationed there at the time, and while his friendly advances are rejected at first, it doesn't take long for him to worm his way under her skin.
He teaches her simple medical procedures, starting with how to treat and bandage simple cuts. From there, they span out to more complicated things; from this, she learns how to treat injuries inflicted upon her that would normally have her running to the building for medical attention. Now, she walks in already worked on, her only intention to learn more about these medical practices. He tells her she's a natural, but she can tell by uneven stitches and her constant mix-up of medications that she has anything remotely close to a talent for medical practices. He's only telling her this to encourage her, to keep her hooked. And, as much as she hates liars, Tori knows he's only doing it for the right reasons, and that any feeling of usefulness, regardless of how much work she'll have to put into it to actually be useful is enough to have her going home giddy every night.
Maybe they won't miss her back on Pokearth, but let Arceus find its way to her and strike her down if she doesn't do her darned hardest to make a good impression here.
They're overturn every stone, every pebble in their search for Arceus; trek the most dangerous of wastes and the most offensive of heights. And all the while, they won't even bother to notice she's gone. Why would they? The last time she disappeared off the radar, the only one who cared to hunt her down was the massive beast attempting to do away with her. That had been a time when she had mattered, as well, a brilliant fire god who lit the skies ablaze and reveled in the joyful worship of her name. Now, she was a dead end, a deity fit more for the helpless flabs of meat she had taken over who drank away her problems and was hated by all of her peers. If she could even call them that; she was so far beneath the rest, she held about as much worth to them as a runt of a Bidoof litter.
Victoria spends weeks, months in the strange new world without so much as a sign of how she'd gotten there or if she could ever get back. She has no money, so it's impossible to feed the desire for any sort of alcoholic beverage that bubbles deep inside her. She's thankful enough to have her acoustic guitar on hand at the time of her migration, but she gets into so many fights, her fingers are too wounded to play it right. She ends up in the infirmary on a near nightly basis, bloodied and unwanted, and she laments her godhood – at least if she was mortal, she could die and put herself and those unfortunate enough to deal with her out of their misery. She ends up spending nights there, at the infirmary, plucking at guitar strings idly and flinching with each burst of pain that scream from her fingertips. Maybe it's the broken rendition of her favorite song (the first one she'd written for the band, all her, her song.) flooding from that corner of the room, or maybe it's the moans and groans of a woman with nothing to live for anymore. Whatever it is, her presence is noted by a particularly patient medic stationed there at the time, and while his friendly advances are rejected at first, it doesn't take long for him to worm his way under her skin.
He teaches her simple medical procedures, starting with how to treat and bandage simple cuts. From there, they span out to more complicated things; from this, she learns how to treat injuries inflicted upon her that would normally have her running to the building for medical attention. Now, she walks in already worked on, her only intention to learn more about these medical practices. He tells her she's a natural, but she can tell by uneven stitches and her constant mix-up of medications that she has anything remotely close to a talent for medical practices. He's only telling her this to encourage her, to keep her hooked. And, as much as she hates liars, Tori knows he's only doing it for the right reasons, and that any feeling of usefulness, regardless of how much work she'll have to put into it to actually be useful is enough to have her going home giddy every night.
Maybe they won't miss her back on Pokearth, but let Arceus find its way to her and strike her down if she doesn't do her darned hardest to make a good impression here.
@tori |
"RESHIRAM" FROM "POKEMON" "FUJIWARA NO MOKOU" FROM "TOUHOU PROJECT" |