tank_rockarms | ACKSHUN

ACKSHUN

Once upon a time in a land far, far away, there lived a valiant blue knight who rode atop a steed made out of orange iron. He was a mighty knight, and had slain many in battle.

But one day, an evil imp by the name of VINCENT. V. VINESON came out of the wooded forest glen and did several thousand dollars worth of damage to the muscular knight's equipage.

The brave knight took off after this vile svartálfar and soundly beat him to within an inch of his life, and also sprayed numerous effusions from his stomach upon the foul defiler of his sweet ride, because of the contemptible reprobate's noxious particulate matter.

Several days later, it came to the mind of the knight exactly who this wretched daemon might have been, and so, dear reader, he went to confront him.

Max knocked on Vinnie's door.

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The thought of containing all of Max's... Max-ness inside a Bulbasaur body was just. Too strange.

"Uh... huh."

He was imagining the most muscular Bulbasaur possible and it was pretty disgusting, actually. Like a baby born on steroids.

"...And it just happened like. How last week. Happened?

"This place is messed up."

"Uh, I was benchin' like 850 in the weightroom 'cause I didn't have a spot and Bulba walked in and watched me for a minute and the next thing I knew I was Bulba and he was me. It was only him and me. When it was Blastoise I switched with him 'cause of that Manaphy kid with the screwy powers... and then for one week a lot of people turned into animals and I turned into a Blastoise."

"You were Bulba? As in, still Bulbasaur Bulba..."

Wait. More importantly, "Bulba was YOU? How many other things has he turned into?!"

The Blastoise stuff didn't surprise him, Max was already pretty Blastoise-like already.

"Uh... me. He's been me. I think I was the first thing he ever got turned into, he said he'd never known what bein' hungry was like before. Oh yeah, when I was a blastoise I think he was a frog. Why do you want to know what Bulba's been?"

He was backing himself into a corner here, but Vinnie was still concerned about the Ivysaur's changes. "He was different last week too. He looked like the same Ivysaur, but... Did you talk t'him at all?

"I don't know if he remembers. I hope not."

"Bulba? No, I didn't see him last week at all. Didn't see a lot of people. I saw most of Green's team, though. I saw Char; he was a charmeleon. Uhhh... I think Nyx was a... Fear-thing? I forget somebody called her Ms. Fearsomethin' and... you know I didn't see nobody from the Red team other than you."

"Why, what'd Bulba do?"

That was worrying. He had wondered what happened to the rest of his team during the week, but none of them seemed to remember. Or at least, if they had, they weren't speaking up about it. For a moment Vinnie was in thought, contemplating the possibilities.

Finally, he muttered, "If I tell you, y'have to promise not t'tell him."

"Well, uh, okay," said Max. What could this possibly be about?

Max had no idea.

Vinnie gulped, visibly nervous about confiding in Max. Somehow, forming the words on his tongue was harder than he thought it'd be. His throat felt dry.

"That... other Bulba ripped out my petals out and I bled to death."

"WHAT."

"No that ain't right, Bulba'd never do nothin' like that."

Vinnie winced, mentally pleading for Max to bring the volume down again.

"I know. It wasn't him. It's whoever he turned into. That's why I don't want him to remember... He can't remember. It's too ugly for him to feel responsible for. Got it?"

What is bringing the volume down?

"How do you know he don't remember and maybe he's tryin' to forget it all but can't and is afraid to go talk with somebody about it?"

What if Bulba needed protected. Oh my god.

Edited 2011-03-21 22:29 (UTC)

"I don't know, okay? I haven't seen him yet. I... don't know what to say t'him right now."

The prospect of saying anything to Bulba was incredibly uncomfortable for him. Was he avoiding him? Maybe a little. "Green remembers what happened. He was there..."

He would take care of Bulba, right?...

"GREEN WAS THERE?"

"WHAT?"

How does... what... Max's brain... what.

You can see the gears in his head. They are not moving. They are crashing down.

Sigh. Figured that this couldn't have been a short explanation.

"Bulba tore out my flower... that's like having your spine pulled out too. I couldn't move, and I couldn't die right away either.

"Green found me the next morning, right before I did. That's the story, okay? You happy now?"

"I guess I gotta have a talk with Green," said Max.

"Last week was not somethin' I wanna repeat. Jake and Rachel flipped their evil switches, too. I don't know, man."

There was a little pause. "Wow, I'm sorry you got killed, that's, wow. Uh, at least you came back to life but, dang."

Max is trying to make words work, but it's sort of not happening.

Please, Max. Did this mean you were going to let go of his shoulders now? Please let the answer be yes.

"The hell's with everyone turning evil..." Vinnie scowled. By the way this school just loved to heap misfortune on him, it felt like an inevitability that he was gonna go psycho too. He hated the idea of not having control of himself like that.

"Whatever. I was dead, and it was fuckin' miserable. There's nothing you can throw at me now that's worse than that, I guarantee you."

"I ain't never died," answered Max. "But you're gonna hurt in ways you ain't never hurt after basic trainin', I promise you."

And Vinnie, it's cute that you think that you didn't go psycho last week. Because you so clearly did.

Max squeezed Vinnie's shoulder. "Don't worry, you'll do fine." After you want to die.

"But uh. We should probably go find Red before somebody hears us talkin' about this in the hall."

Yes, Max. Now you finally realized this. Good job. You're only like five minutes late.

Finding Red and getting out of this hallway sounded like the best idea ever invented. You know, if everyone else in the entire floor hadn't already overhead their entire conversation. (Oh man he hoped Red didn't overhear their entire conversation.)

"I dunno if you can say hurt's worse than being paralyzed from the neck down-- wait a minute, I still haven't agreed to enlist!"

And he wasn't psycho because he really honestly used to act like that, just slightly less hateful. So he was totally normal last week.

Max finally let go of Vinnie's shoulders.

"Uh-huh," said Max. "Let's just go find Red, and see what he says."

The minute you let Max drag you off to ask Red, your fate was sealed. You belong to Max now, Vinnie.

Blink, uh. For lack of a valid objection, he just muttered, "Okay..." before being dragged off to his fate.

Damn.

Well, he was a goner.

~~Just like he did 60 tags ago before I edited it out~~ Max knocked on Red's door while Vinnie waved a little watering can about daintily.

Um, no, watering cans are never dainty.

Red answered the door and found Max and Vinnie and the world's manliest watering can.

"Uh... Hey," he waved. "... Were you guys talking about something? I heard yelling." Thankfully Red didn't hear what they were yelling about but he totally heard the yelling.

Looking half dismayed and half really, really tired of giving out explanations, Vinnie's mouth thinned into a grim, flat line. What to say.

"So. Max had a proposition..." Trailing off, he glanced at the CO from the corner of his eye. You talk now, recruitment man.

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