From: Steffan Alun (ic3duck@hotmail.com) Subject: [PW!] GROOM for us PHOOM! Newsgroups: alt.games.nintendo.pokemon Date: 2003-12-17 12:07:01 PST Phoom was at his home, which was on the streets. He opened his bag. It contained an item he stole earlier which I forgot about. To cut a long story short, it turned out he'd stolen the wrong thing. So he has to go back to exchange it. PokéWars!: Phenomelous Marvaleon GROOM for us PHOOM! Steffan Alun As we join our heroic hero, Phenomelous Marvaleon - or Phoom to his friends and therefore to us, because we are his friends - he has been to the department store to exchange his undesired stolen item for his desired stolen item, but they would not accept stolen goods, so he had to escape. If this were a film, the scene would have been tense, exciting and would have made you bleed with anticipation. However, I'm not a good enough writer to convey that excitement in text, so let's just say Phoom made us all proud. Phoom had a plan. Despite living on the street, he had easy access to a wide range of disguises. He used a different foundation to his usual colour, thus making his face look a little bit more like an FGN (that's PC code for "foreign"). He removed his usual blonde wig which was blonde and wore a brown one instead which was brown. He wore a fake moustache which was realistic and turned his trenchcoat inside-out. His trenchcoat was reversible, and was white on the other side. Phoom could now be arguably considered groomed, hence the name of this post. *** Meanwhile, in a subplot, a man called Jake the Fake had disguised himself as Phoom! "With this disguise," he said to himself, "I will look exactly like Phenomelous Marvaleon!" Needless to say, Jake the Fake was no friend of Phoom's. As such, he is no friend of ours. "Hello," said a man named Hal. "Who are you?" asked Jake the Fake. "I am the personification of the PokéWars! FAQ." "Then, for the time being," said Jake, "I shall speak on behalf of Steffan, as author of this storyline." "Alright," said Hal. "You have just created the character whose body you now inhabit, named Jake the Fake." "Correct." "Now, call me presumptious, but it seems to me that Jake is soon going to be used as an antagonist." "Also true." "Right. Now, if you only use him in this post, he'll be an NPC, and that's fine." Hal smiled encouragingly. "I was actually going to use him as a constant enemy for Phoom," said Steffan né Jake. "Hm. That's a problem then." "How come?" "He needs a Writer's Guide." "Alright, I'll write one soon." "But, you have..." Hal checked his notes. "Four already. The max." "FOUR? Already?" "You have Phoom, of course..." "Yes, I can't sacrifice him. He's my deepest character yet." "Right. There's also Mike." "I don't want to end his story yet. He's in the middle of a tense plot to save his daughter." "Yes." Hal frowned. "It wouldn't hurt you to update for Mike once in a while, you know." "Sorry." "That's alright. Can you sacrifice Harrison?" "NO! He had a great gimmick! Having no control over his body due to a faulty brain? That's gold!" "Your fourth character is Karl." "Pfft, Karl. He hasn't had a proper story in two years." "Want to retire him?" "No! He was my first ever character. He's my favourite." "Then you can't use Jake." "Aww. Ok." "Oh, and a word of advice. Drop the author-as-a-character schtick. It's never been done properly in the past, and there's no reason for you to believe you can pull it off yourself." Hal walked off. Jake regained control of his body. An arrow flew out of nowhere, striking Jake in the temple. He died. *** Meanwhile, in the main plot, Phoom, newly-groomed, broke into the department store and switched stolen items. Mission complete! TBC? -- Steffan http://iceduck.pkmn.co.uk Go there now. No, NOW.