From: "Rob" <robfrompw@yahoo.com> Subject: [PW!] Aquas Have No Rights Date: Friday, April 30, 2004 12:54 AM "Pssst... Hey, Wanda, wake up." "Wanda?" "Yeah, Wanda. You. Wake up." "Me? My name's Elsa..." "Elsa? Yikes, Wanda, you must've hit your head pretty hard on the rocks in Rusturf Tunnel when that renegade Magma Experiment hit you with Sleep Powder..." Curious to find out who she's talking with, Elsa opens her eyes to see a pink-haired woman crouching beside the cot she's lying down in. Her green eyes wander down to the woman's chest and her heart skips a beat when she sees what the woman is wearing - a Team Aqua uniform. "Y-you're an Aqua!" Elsa clutches the dirty sheets covering her body and pulls away from the woman, only to topple down to the hard, disgusting floor of the jail cell she's in. Not sure how to react to the girl's strange reaction to her outfit, the Team Aqua Grunt remarks, "Hate to break it to you, Wanda, but you're an Aqua too..." She grabs Elsa's sheets and literally tears them away from her body, revealing to the scared girl that she too is wearing a traditional Team Aqua outfit. Elsa stares down at the white-striped black shirt she's wearing for a good five seconds before looking up at the woman and asking, "What? How? Since when?" "You joined about a month ago, down at Littleroot Pier." When she looks into the eyes of her cell-mate, the pink-haired woman is met with a blank stare, "I was the one who signed you up! You really don't remember any of this, Wanda? You don't even remember ME? Your good pal, Mariana?" Confronted with the harsh reality that another personality of hers has been in control of her body for the past month, Elsa looks down and rubs her forehead in pain. She has to contemplate what to do now that her Wanda personality joined a radical environmentalist gang, an action that led to incarceration. She has to come up with a plan that will lead to her freedom, but she can't reveal her true identity, lest police officers check her record and send her back to the Verdanturf Asylum... Noticing the pained expression on her partner's face, Mariana asks, "Are you okay?" "Bahahahaha!" Elsa laughs, pointing at Mariana's face, "You should've seen the look on your face! 'Are you okay?' Hahaha! Like a little bump on the head would make me lose my marbles like that. 'You don't even remember ME?' You are SO gullible!" Mariana lowers her eyebrows and complains, "You little bitch!" She grabs the pillow on Elsa's cot and throws it at her with all her might. Elsa tries to duck the pillow, but it skids across the top of her dark brown hair, making it even frizzier than normal. "So... what's the escape plan, Mari?" Mariana turns away from Elsa, crosses her arms, and huffs, "Hmph." "Aw, Mari, don't be like that... it was just a joke." Elsa climbs over the cot she was just sleeping in and hugs Mariana from behind, "I figured I'd have some fun with you... I actually woke up before you woke me up and saw we were in jail. I figured I'd lighten the mood with a little practical joke." "Well, it wasn't funny." "Maybe not from your end. From my end, it was hilarious." "WANDA!" Mariana shoves Elsa away from her and says, "You're acting really weird. I think getting hit on the head DID have some strange effect on you." "Okay, okay. I'll stop. I promise." Elsa bites her lower lip, trying to remember what her doctor told her about Wanda's personality traits. She finally says, "You know, when you're always trying to be calm and collected, every once in a while you have to let off some steam. Get what I'm saying?" "Hmm... Yeah, that makes sense." Elsa crawls in front of where Mariana is crouching and queries, "Now, like I asked earlier... What's the escape plan?" "We don't have one yet," the pink-haired Team Aqua Grunt explains, "They took away all our Pokemon and these bars are solid steel. I haven't even THOUGHT about how we're going to escape. I've just been trying to figure out WHY they stuck us here. We were just trying to get to Devon Corporation when those Team Magma goons attacked us on their way to the desert. Since when is self-defense illegal?" Remembering a news story she saw on television when she was trapped in the Verdanturf Asylum, Elsa points out, "Well, maybe they were afraid we were going to Devon Corporation to steal something. Didn't an Aqua try to steal top secret Devon materials a few years ago?" "Yeah, but they can't prove we were planning to steal from Devon," Mariana argues, "If a Wailmer eats a baby, does that mean all Wailmer are potential baby-eaters and must be killed for the safety of babies everywhere?" "..." "Okay, so it was a weird analogy. You get the point." "Right... All Team Aqua members aren't criminals just because one committed a crime." Elsa rubs her temples, annoyed that she has to defend Team Aqua to keep up her charade despite all the negative things she's heard about the organization since she was a little girl, "If there really isn't any proof of a crime, then we should be set free after our trial..." "Hah. Trial." Mariana shakes her head, disgusted by the legal system in Hoenn, "Aquas have no rights. I'm sure that if we had been killed, the police officers would have just disposed of our bodies and wouldn't have even bothered holding an investigation to find out who killed us. Just be glad that Magma Experiment only put us to sleep. I'm guessing he was supposed to kill us, but those stupid Magma scientists must've screwed up when they were working on him." Not wanting to ask questions about the Magma Experiment, figuring that Wanda was briefed on him at some point, Elsa asks, "There won't be a trial?" "Oh, I'm sure there will be a trial..." Mariana rolls her eyes, "But it certainly won't be a fair trial. It'll be our word against the Magmas'. I doubt the Experiment will show up to testify, but if he does, I'm sure the Magmas will push some button that forces him to say 'the Aquas were committing the crime of the century'." "That sucks..." "Yeah. Big time." Mariana stands up and immediately collapses onto the cot that Elsa was sleeping on - the only cot in the dank little jail cell, "Now, if you don't mind, I'm going to take a little nap. Maybe some glorious escape plan will come to me in my dreams." She shuts her crystal blue eyes and lets out a sad sigh. Finding little else to do, Elsa wanders over to her cell's tiny barred window. She places her hands on the window's steel bars and gazes out at the lush green grasses surrounding the prison. She squints her eyes to make out a building in the distance. When she recognizes the building as Verdanturf's Asylum, she gasps in horror and backs away from the window. Tears in her eyes, Elsa whispers, "From one prison in Verdanturf to another... This just isn't my town." -Elsa