Fan Fiction / Fire Emblem Fan Fiction / Fire Emblem Fan Fiction / Pokemon Fan Fiction / Pokemon Fan Fiction ❯ Empty Hand Loser ❯ enter pitfall ( Chapter 4 )

Disclaimer: The following contains characters and concepts that are NOT the property of the author. They are the intellectual property of Nintendo, HAL Laboratories and their associates. The author has received NO monetary benefit from this piece of shit.

Chapter synopsis: Where is Roy?

Warnings: mature themes, violence, offensive language, implied homosexuality, minor bigotry, darkfic (yuri//anti-yuri, yaoi//anti-yaoi).

Status: First draft.

A/N: Thanks for reading. Feedback by review or email appreciated.

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Enter Pitfall

~Master~

When I was young, I used to think everything was a test. This was okay. I was good at tests. I turned everything into a game. The world made sense this way.

I put away the games when I put away my childhood. Even now I don't know why. I thought I could live without them. I thought wrong.

I was not young and I was not old when virtual reality started getting big and the Net cities were growing. The first time I jacked into a cyber metropolis, I immediately found my way to the battle arenas. There I watched the kids duel with their monsters and pocket fighters. I wanted to play then, but I was already too old.

Not far from the arenas, I could usually find the dark carnivals, where the adult games were played. I haunted that sector in Mute City whenever I was bored and it was late and I was alone in my room with my computer, my deck, and the only thing I could think of to do was to jack into cyberspace and forget about the pathetic life I lived, trapped in flesh and bone.

And so wandering the dark carnivals, I met a princess with blue eyes and gold hair. She wore a tattered pink dress, gloves to the elbows, and she worked a small stand by the poker tables.

"Would you like a try?" she asked pleasantly, one hand sweeping over a set of face-down cards lying on the table. I guess I was her only customer in a while.

"No thanks," I meant to say. Instead, it came out, "How do I play?"

"Match any two cards," she said. "You have two tries."

I turned over a flower and a treasure chest on the first try. Then I came up with a mushroom and a star. I slipped her another coin to play again. This time I matched up two treasure chests.

"What do I win?" I asked with a sly grin.

She considered me for a moment. Something was going on behind those blue eyes. She was sizing me up.

Then it occurred to me. "You're hacking my account, aren't you?"

She didn't reply. She only closed her eyes briefly. Then, pulling out a pen, she took one of the cards on the table and scribbled something down. She slipped the card between my fingers. It was a flower card, and she had written an address on it.

"Your prize," she said cheerfully. "You're now the master of the house. Come visit me. My name is Peach."

~Roy~

He wiped at his lip with the back of his hand. It came away with blood. He swallowed, tasting warm copper. He waited for his eyes to regain focus before he rose to his feet.

Two were dead or unconscious. One of them, propped against a bloodstained wall, had fallen into sitting position, head hung loose. The other lay sprawled on his back. The third…

Roy turned, searched around with his eyes. The third had run off.

His adrenaline rush was waning. Now he began to feel his body, and it hurt. He stood still for a long time, quietly regarding his handiwork. They had been so confident in themselves. They had underestimated him. This darkness, this hidden place between crumbling structures, half buried in garbage, this hellhole had belonged to them. He wiped his sword with the edge of his cape and sheathed it.

They had mistaken. This place belonged to him too.

He turned his back and walked on. His boots sloshed through water and sludge, the leakage from open sewers. He was tired. He considered his options while following the dim trail lit by dying yellow lamps. There was nowhere to go, and all he wanted now was to rest.

Pitfall was like a labyrinth. In the dying metropolis, its inhabitants scurried like rats through narrow streets, heads covered, eyes on the ground. A few passed him in the night, but he didn't pay them any attention. He walked, head up, eyes forward. Without intending it, his steps led him to a building. It was the same as the rest of Pitfall, crammed between other structures, carved into the skeleton of a city eroding from neglect. The only thing that identified it from the indistinguishable mass of urban concrete and waste was a crooked sign hanging overhead. The faded letters spelled out, Ninth Gate.

Better than nothing, Roy figured, and pushed through the door.

It was loud. At least to his tired ears. And not much brighter than the streets outside. Wincing, Roy shuffled through the crowded bar. The unexpected warmth of body heat made his face flush. Being out of the cold was a good thing, but the smell that came with it wasn't.

He pushed his way to the bar. He ordered the only thing they served, and waited for the barkeeper. A noise from behind him caught his ears. He turned.

At a corner table, the dark wizard was laughing. A few others had gathered there, watching as he shuffled cards. On the table, close to his arm, sat a small black box. The box held Roy's attention, and the dark wizard caught him staring. The wizard made a gesture, offering him a place at the table, but Roy ignored it. The wizard was a strange magician who sold pills with varying effects. The most popular drug in Pitfall was Amnesia. A lost program could erase its memory and reset, start the game all over again.

He had been offered it once. And he had declined. There were things Roy still wanted to remember.

The warm atmosphere of the bar made him heady, drowsy. His surroundings grew hazy; the noise faded. He was somewhere else. Lying beneath a night sky filled with stars, his head on the softest pillow imaginable. A hesitant hand reaching for his own.

"I never lie."

Then, from the place in between sleep and wakefulness, Roy noticed someone taking a seat next to him. It was someone he knew, and the bar came back to him with a jarring rush. He shook his head. Then he managed a grin.

"Captain Falcon."

The bounty hunter nodded. "Roy." He ordered drinks for both of them.

"What are you doing here?" the swordsman asked bluntly.

"Just getting a drink."

"There are better places to get a drink," Roy said.

The captain nodded in agreement. "I know. But where else can you find renegade programs? Everyone's scrap and garbage ends up here."

"Naturally," Roy responded, a little annoyed.

"The perfect place for someone like you," Falcon continued. "Scrap program designed for only one thing: fight."

Roy let that comment linger between them. He sipped his drink. "Then what's high-class shit like you doing in a place like this?"

The captain smiled. "Shifting through garbage."

Roy set down his glass and leaned forward, tone of voice serious. "Is this some sort of a coincidence? Who sent you?" The question resonated hope.

"The master thinks it's about time you came home."

Hope died. Roy laughed. "Who do I look like? Link?"

The captain didn't respond.

"No," Roy said heatedly. "You can tell the master that I've got plans that don't involve him."

Falcon looked at him for a long moment. "You know you can't do anything else," he said. "Fight is all you know."

For some reason, this calmed Roy. "It's all you know too, Falcon."

"Not really. I'm a hunter. I get paid to find runaway trash like you."

"Yeah, yeah," Roy said. "You act like you're your own man. You've got some of your own cash and AI citizenship in Mute City. So what? You're still the master's property."

Falcon tried another route. "What about Marth?" he asked after a minute of silence.

Roy's hands clenched into fists. "What about him? Everyone's always worried about Marth. If he wasn't already broken, you'd swear he'd break every time you looked at him the wrong way."

"So you're saying he means nothing to you?" Falcon asked. His voice was strained.

Roy couldn't read the other man's eyes because of the visor on his helmet that always hid half his face. How did he see in the dark? "Marth made his choice," he said finally.

When Falcon offered no response, Roy stood up. "I'm glad we had this little chat. Go back and tell your master what you want." As he turned to leave, Falcon's voice stopped him.

"Someday, Roy, you're gonna be the old bum in the corner of the bar, crying over 'the one' you let go."

Roy glanced over his shoulder. "We'll see, Captain."

Falcon watched as he walked away, stopping by a table where men were playing cards with an old wizard. Roy slipped a coin across the table, and the wizard grinned, opening a small box to him. Roy snatched something out from it and stashed it into a pocket.

Falcon watched him leave. He thought of a prince and a princess waiting in a lonely house. Damn, he thought.