Colress's Writing Corner

A Metagross's deep breathing indicating sleep filled the house, and if one listened closely one could hear the breathing of two smaller creatures and the static of one of the Magnemite line.

Magneto had kept watch the whole night, making sure that no undead got in or otherwise disturbed the sleeping human and Pokemon. Thankfully, whatever powers that be took pity on them, and the night had been quiet from the outside. On the inside, however, their trainer sobbed long into the night, and even after wearing himself out, he audibly whimpered in his dreams. R2 was still held in the human's arms where he had fallen asleep, as well. As they surveyed the small crew, they felt a flash of anger and a stab of pain. Their trainer, who was still their child in some senses, had done something foolish and now three of their other children were dead. However.... they remembered the look in his eyes when they saw him afterwards. He... hadn't felt that strongly in almost ten years. It almost reminded them of when he finally came to the conclusion that his childhood friends wanted nothing more to do with him.  Unlike that time, though, he wasn't killing the pain like he did then, and it seemed like the weight of all of his sins had finally hit him. The recent... and the old.  As he slept, they had heard him mumble, "I'm a monster," and "I'm sorry," multiple times, and the phrase  indicated such guilt and grief that the Magneton's ire cooled. They then looked to the sleeping behemoth, and couldn't help the immense amount of relief they felt that at least he was still there.

Eventually, they decided that it was time for everyone to wake up, and hopefully figure out what to do next. Food needed to be rationed out, and they needed sleep if anything else."Alright, time to wake up!" Magneto announced and floated to each sleeping person and lightly touched them.  

Spock was still so tired when he heard his partner's voice trying to wake him up. For a moment, everything was normal when he opened his eyes and they were there. Then he realized that the small group was still in the house, the one he had zen headbutted into. Colress and R2 were still on the floor, and it looked like the human hadn't moved at all. He had willingly gone to face that monster and put his pokemon in danger. The traitorous thought is then chase back with an image of the human trying so hard to free C3, running back to save Ebon, and then begging to go back for Smith. The last thought stabbed him hard since it had been Spock's own decision to leave....

R2's heavy lids opened, and he realized that Colress still had a hold on him.  The scientist looked so exhausted, however, that it seemed like he hadn't heard the call for waking up. R2 gently pulled himself out his trainer's grip, and the human simply seemed to curl up even more on himself. "C'mon Colress. We've got things to do right now," the Beheeyem began to shake the human.

The scientist had been suffering nightmares ever since he closed his eyes. Each one relating to his various sins and how he had ignored the pain he had caused. The nightmare he was dealing with at the time was seeing the harbinger attack, again, however, his three remaining Pokemon had decided to leave him there. When he felt something suddenly start shaking him, he starts to cry and beg, "I'M SORRY, I'M SORRY."

This response hadn't been what any of the three pokemon expected, and R2 practically has to yell, "COLRESS WAKE UP!"  The desperation in Colress's voice scared the three of them.

Colress's eyes snapped open after that, and he could vaguely make out a brown shape in front of him. The shape nudged something into his hands, "You need these." He felt the thing in his hands, recognized it as his glasses, and put them on immediatley. The shape in front of him was definitely R2, and the realization threw him. He had to quickly glance around, and he saw Magneto floating in front of Spock.  They're here?

He... had done so many things... and people and Pokemon were dead because of him. He had willingly hurt a legendary dragon, and used it's power. to kill people. He ignored his morals for experiments. He didn't stop Ghetsis on his own, even if he could have at any point. And to top it all off, he had killed three of his own pokemon in his damned quest for answers in this epidemic. The three that died were either good friends or like children to the ones that were left, and it was his fault. They shouldn't be here.

"Why are you still here?" Colress inquired quietly.

"What?" Of all the things Colress could have said, that question seemed to come out of left field.for the alien Pokemon. "Why wouldn't we be here?"

"I'm guessing because of last night," Magneto stated and floated closer to the human. "I'm not going anywhere," they comforted.

Colress nodded in affirmation to Magneto's guess, and looked away. "You should just leave me here."  he muttered. He pulled out their Pokeballs and tossed them at Spock's claws. "Here, the last things binding you to me, crush them and leave," he commanded.

The demand startled the three Pokemon, but Spock did not move his claws. R2 quickly scooped the balls back up, and asked, "Why are you trying to get rid of us?"

"I'm not trying to get rid of you. You should get rid of me. That way I can't harm you anymore," Colress started tearing up, and he shakily stood. He tried to walk away from the three Pokemon, but R2 ran and grabbed his leg.  He held the three pokeballs in a psychic hold for the moment.

"You want to know why I'm still here?" R2 inquired. "It's because you care, at least now. If you'd just given me that look like you used to in Team Plasma," the team name is practically snarled, "I would have left. But you didn't. You admitted to fucking up, and even I can tell that you would take it back. You didn't used to..."  Mentions of him in Team Plasma brought him to a halt, and feelings of shame hit him hard.  He had done so many things in the name of Team Plasma, their goals, and his own curiousity. The worst part was that by the end of it, he didn't care.

Magneto moves to hover in front of Colress, "You made a decision last night. The last time I saw you even close to this aggrieved, you chose to kill your felings. This time, you chose to face the brunt of them, and deal with the aftermath."  "I can still see the person you were... with them..." Magneto muttered, and Colress winced at the mention of the people who had suddenly cut all contact with him. The feelings of betrayal and the confirmation of the idea that they would eventually tire of him had almost broken him, but he couldn't bring himself to hate them. He ended up just killing the pain until it stopped, and it worked too well.

Spock lifted himself up, and walked over to the upset human and stated, "You tried so hard to save them.  Even risking your own life to do so." The admission draws glances from the other two pokemon, but they choose to let the usually quiet Metagross speak. "I saw the young man I remembered."

After the three pokemon gave their answers, he rebutted, "I can never be that person again. There's too much blood on my hands..." He pulled R2 off of him and tried to walk away, but the Magnet Pokemon in front of him refused to budge.

Magneto found that Colress had only responded to the their and Spock's answers, and challenged, "The person you became in Team Plasma is dead.  I would have left that cold-hearted man, but that is not who stands in front of me."

Colress looked away at that and crossed his arms in front of him. "You should have left me then..."  he mumbled. "I don't deserve this. Your love, your concern. I'm just a monster that should be put down."

All three Pokemon's eyes opened wide at the declaration, and they saw the man reach into the bag to pull out the rarely used pistol. He darted past Magneto, and into a different room of the house.  Magneto couldn't move quickly enough to stop him, and Spock collapsed when he realized what Colress was going to do and the shock of it knocked the strength from him. R2 ran after the scientist and was scared when he couldn't find him.  By some miracle, the door to the closet that Colress was trying to hide in was left somewhat open, and R2 had heard the safety click off. Aiming wildly, R2 used Psychic to hold Colress completely still, and when R2 opened the door, the man had the gun up to his temple. R2 had caught him in time, and used psychic to force Colress to release the weapon. Still holding him in the psychic hold, R2 took the weapon and dropped it in front of Spock, who lifted a heavy limb and smashed the gun.

R2 gently placed the scientist near Spock, and Magneto floated over to them. R2 hugged Colress again, and the man started sobbing at the display of loyalty and love. Spock lightly pulled the two into a gentle Metagross equivalent of a hug, and Magneto nuzzled the trainer as well as they could.  "We love you, Colress. That's why we stay, and that's why we want you to live." Magneto states. R2 nods in agreement while Spock makes a sound that seems to affirm the statement.

"This is an incident from my past... R2 finds it humorous."

At the mention of his name, the Beheeyem looked up at Colress, and a mischievous smile crossed his face. There were several tales that he could think of that fit the description, but enough of them involved Col's college years to take advantage of this pun. "Don't you mean "humerus?" He floated out of his chair and chose to settle on his human's shoulders with his arms crossed and placed on Colress's head.

Colress tilted his head back, and he still couldn't see R2. He could feel the Beheeyem, though, and he didn't need to see the Pokemon's face to know he had a cheesy smile. Colress rolled his eyes, "Was that really necessary?"

"Of course! Puns are always necessary."

The scientist sighed, "...This is punishment for yesterday isn't it?"

R2's face fell at the really bad pun, "...Dammit. That was worse than mine. And yes, this is."

Colress shrugged off the comment, "Anyway... " He paused to collect his thoughts before continuing, "I think I've told you that I recieved higher education at a younger age than usual. What this meant is that I... Didn't always make the best decisions involving my sleeping and eating schedule." Though he wasn't the only one who made these decisions, he really should have known better. R2 had fussed at him as best as he could when all Colress could hear back then were beeps.

R2 couldn't help the immediate jab that came to mind, "Sound familiar?"

"R2, be quiet," was the annoyed response. "During my undergraduate years, I had an... incident where I learned one important lesson. Always eat before your anatomy labs."

R2 finally realized which story this was, and he started cackling. "OH THIS ONE. COL WAS A Z-"

"If you finish that sentence, you'll ruin the punchline," Colress interrupted.

It made R2 stop his sentence, but he was still laughing. "OKAY OKAY." He took a deep breath, "I'm good."

Colress all but rolled his eyes again, "Back to the story... So... due to losing track of time and misreading a date, I very suddenly realized I had a massive research paper due the next day. This ended with me staying up all night at the library so I could find the books I needed and type up the paper. I also had less time than what you'd expect because I had an anatomy lab that was right before the class the paper was for, and because of this, I didn't eat supper the night before or breakfast the next day. I actually finished the paper with enough time to eat breakfast, but then I remembered that there was a worksheet that the lab required. Needless to say, my priorities dictated that the worksheet was more important than my hungry stomach, and by the time I finished, I had to run to the lab building."

Of course, R2 had to make another comment, "You were still late."

Colress rebutted, "Only by a few minutes, and the instructor hadn't started anything important. Then he continued the story, "We had been doing dissections for a while, but this time we were going to focus on particular organs. That day we were supposed to go over brains, and when my partner and I were handed one to dissect, my stomach suddenly decided to remind me how hungry I was. What makes this even worse is the fact that my mind suddenly went, "MMM BRAINS." Realizing how bad that could sound, he explained... rather in-depth. "Now before you give me that look, I should explain that the preservatives used in... well... preserving the organs apparently contain the hormone that makes humans hungry. A lot of the other people in the lab got really hungry while working on the various dissections, too.  Thankfully, we got out early so I was able to grab something to eat before my next class, but, after that incident, I made a point to eat before going to my labs."

As if eagerly awaiting this moment, R2 excitedly asked, "Now can I say it?"

"...Fine. I don't think I have a choice, though," Colress sighed defeatedly.

Snickering again, the Beheeyem agrees, "Yup." He then announced, "Anyway, COL WAS A ZOMBIE BEFORE IT WAS COOL," before falling back off his perch so that he was floating behind Colress and laughing.

Despite his apparent annoyance, the Beheeyem's good mood was contagious and brought a smile to Colress's face, "You're never going to let me live that down, are you?"

"Nope."