From: "Rob" <robfrompw@yahoo.com> Subject: [PW!] [SST] Reconciliation: Impossible Date: Thursday, February 05, 2004 11:52 PM Aerie, a little purple-haired girl, and Alexandria, a tall brown-haired young woman, step into the S.S. Tidal's Pokemon Center. Alexandria had told her Combusken and her Murkrow to go look for Nori right before she entered the Pokemon Center, wanting additional privacy for her family counseling session. The first thing Aerie and Alex notice when they enter the room is that Marcia, the Center's blue-haired nurse, is mercilessly beating a Heal-O-Matic machine in frustration. "Hi, mommy," Aerie says, walking up to Nurse Marcia with her hands behind her back, "Whatcha doin'?" "I'm trying to fix this stupid machine," Marcia answers, slapping the Heal-O-Matic, "It didn't recognize a Pokeball and now it's not working." "Oh. Heh. That's not how you fix it. You fix it like this," Aerie informs her mother as she casually pushes a few keys on the machine's keypad, informing the Heal-O-Matic that the offensive Pokeball has been removed from the system and requesting it to restart. "There! It'll be working just fine in a few seconds." Nurse Marcia is surprised when the Heal-O-Matic chimes to let her know it's ready to accept Pokeballs. She asks, "Where did you learn how to do that?" Aerie smiles, answering, "Daddy showed me one time when we shared memories. You really should let him do that with you. You'd learn a lot!" Marcia shudders at the thought of Doppler invading her mind and comments, "I'm not sharing anything with that Ditto. Especially not my memories." Seeing Aerie pout at her mother's lack of interest in her father, Alexandria frowns. She reaches for the Pokeball of the shiny Unown she recently caught and says, "I understand you have some issues with Dee, Marcia, but you two have a daughter together, so I really think you should reconcile your negative feelings for him." Addressing Alex for the first time she entered the Pokemon Center, Marcia glares at her. "How does my relationship with Dee, or lack thereof, concern you?" "I'm friends with both him and Aerie and I want to see them happy," Alexandria replies, hugging her short friend, "I've been spending much time with Aerie and Dee and they've both been very nice to me. I think if you just gave Dee a chance, you'd find that he's not so bad, after all." Nurse Marcia squints her eyes at the teenager and asks in a tone that conveys both disbelief and offense, "You dare come tell me how I should feel about Doppler after having known him for just a few weeks?" "I've known him long enough to know that he loves you," Alex blurts out. When she sees Marcia's face contort into one of anger and disgust, she tones down her approach, "I'm not saying you should love him back, but at least stop arguing with him for the sake of your child." "You have no idea what you're asking." Alexandria sighs and defends herself, "I think what I'm asking is simple enough. Just treat Dee with respect the next time you see him." "Respect?" Marcia scoffs, "Ha. The last thing that Ditto deserves is respect." Tears once again start to well up in Aerie's eyes - hearing Marcia say that about Dee, she's glad she didn't promise Alex that she wouldn't steal her shiny Unown. Noticing Aerie's tears and bothered that Marcia doesn't seem to care about her daughter's sadness, Alexandria says, "I was afraid that this wouldn't be that easy. That's why I came prepared." She drops the Pokeball she reached for earlier on the floor of the Pokemon Center, releasing a shiny Unown shaped like the letter "Q". Cue sparkles momentarily, then uses its eye to examine the six foot tall nurse before it. Marcia raises an eyebrow, wondering what Alex meant, "A shiny Unown?" "Cue here is great at Questioning others," Alexandria explains, gesturing to the small shiny Unown hovering near the floor, "I'm sure that if you openly and honestly answer Cue's Questions, we'll get to the root of your problem with Dee and be able to help you deal with that problem. Will you cooperate? For Aerie's sake?" "I'll answer whatever I feel like answering," Marcia states, not planning to answer any of the Unown's questions. She suddenly hears a voice in her head. #Who are you?# Not considering the question to be particularly probing or inappropriate, the blue-haired woman answers, "Marcia." #What is your profession?# "I'm a nurse," Marcia answers, not bothered by that question either. #Why are you a nurse?# Figuring that Alex already knows about her criminal past since she's been traveling with Dee and Aerie, she answers, "I'm making up for mistakes that I made in the past. Mistakes that made two of my Pokemon so unhappy that they both weren't able to evolve until I stopped committing them." #What mistakes did you commit?# Hesitant to reveal details, Marcia simply states, "I hurt many people and Pokemon." #Why did you hurt them?# Staring directly at Alexandria, Marcia says, "I wanted to teach people that there existed suffering in the world that no one could do anything about. I wanted to cure their ignorance. I wanted to teach them that endings weren't always happy, that love didn't conquer all, and that things didn't always work out for the best." #What was your motivation?# "Does that really matter?" #What was your motivation?# "It's none of your business." #What was your motivation?# "You want to know? You really want to know?" Marcia turns her attention to the shiny Unown, "I had been hurt many times throughout my life, often because I trusted in people and believed the fantasies I saw on TV shows when I was a little girl. Every time I was hurt, I would think: 'If only I had been told how things REALLY were in the world... If only my hopes had never been brought so high up, then I wouldn't be so hurt right now'. That was my motivation." #What fantasies did you see?# Forgetting her present company, Marcia continues the rant she just started, "The shows I watched led me to believe that families were supposed to be loving and understanding, friends were supposed to treat each other with kindness and respect, and bullies could be dealt with by standing up to them. In my life, I found none of this to be true. I would tell my family about my dreams and my worries, only to be met with callous indifference or unadulterated rage. I would place my trust in peers, thinking that by doing so we could grow closer, but they would always later betray me and hurt me. I stood up to gang members who were harassing me one time, hoping they would leave me alone, but they took the opportunity to beat me up and steal my first Pokemon. I cried and I cried whenever my family hurt me, whenever my friends betrayed me, and whenever bullies harassed me. After being hurt enough times, I decided to leave my family and stop making friends." #Did you ever find anyone you could befriend?# "..." Marcia hesitates, not sure if she wants to answer the question. She looks at Aerie, who's taking in everything she hears, then glances at Alex, the young woman who thinks so highly of Doppler. She finally decides that she should answer the question, despite the fact that she hasn't talked about the only human friend she's ever had in almost ten years. "Yes. I did befriend someone in my life. When I was nineteen, despite my cynicism, I opened up to a member of Team Rocket. He was the first person to ever treat me with respect. Actually, he didn't just respect me - he loved me. And I loved him." #Why did you love him?# Marcia lets out a quiet sigh before revealing, "He had an amazing personality - he was passionate, confident, humorous, and very clever. He always looked out for his fellow Rockets. When he first met me in Celadon, he thought I was a lost cause since I was so awkward, even after being with Team Rocket for four years. Despite this, he took it upon himself to teach me how to be a more intimidating Rocket. 'You're not scaring anyone with that tired motto, love,' he'd tell me, 'You need to strike fear in the hearts of the people you meet - make them remember you! Taunt them with dignity, threaten them with a passion, and laugh at their misfortune. Grab their Pokeballs and don't let go! Jennys be damned, Marcie, leave an impression!' He listened to me and made me feel special." #Did you spend much time with this person?# "I only spent a little over a year with him, but that year was the happiest year of my life." #Where is this person now?# "He's dead." Marcia frowns when she replies, "Doppler killed him when he destroyed Celadon City's Rocket Base." #How did that make you feel?# "I cried for three days straight, promising myself to never cry again after that. I never have. I entered a deep depression. I changed my outlook in life and decided to start killing Pokemon, thinking they were all soul-less monsters, like the Ditto who killed so many innocent people. The Ditto who killed the only person I ever truly loved. The Ditto I hated with a passion. I went so far as to change my name to 'Minax', to make the personality adjustment complete. 'Marcie' wasn't a good name for a murderer of Pokemon. Had I kept the name, that would be tantamount to a leader of a terrorist organization demanding he be called 'Maxie'." #Do you still hate the Ditto with a passion?# "At times. He's been kind to me in recent years, but I can never forgive him for what he did to me in the past. I honestly believe I would have never started killing Pokemon had he not destroyed Celadon City, and killing Pokemon is what I regret the most in my life. I regret all but one kill. There are times when I've felt that he and I could, in theory, be friends despite what he did to me since he seems so different now, but I still suspect that he could easily revert to his old ways at any moment. He IS a Ditto, after all. I still snap at him sometimes for what he did to me in the past, even though he doesn't tend to hold the negative things I've done to him in the past against me. But I can't help it." #Why can't you help it?# "What kind of a question is that?!" Marcia asks, glaring at the inquisitive shiny Unown at her feet, "Is his killing the only love of my life not a good enough reason for you?! Is his prompting me to start murdering Pokemon not enough? Fine. I'll list some more reasons. He spent months stalking me, trying to force himself and his ideas upon me. He made clones of me. He used my DNA to create a child for me in a laboratory. More recently, he wanted me to lie to the daughter he created for me. The list goes on and on, but I don't feel like telling you more." #Fair enough.# Marcia blinks, then she asks, "You make statements too?" #Why do people keep asking me that?# After Cue issues that final thought, Alex recalls the shiny Unown into its Pokeball. Nurse Marcia looks at Alex, crossing her arms with a frown on her face, "Now do you see why it's not that simple for me to start treating Doppler with kindness and respect? If you were in my position, you would probably feel the same way I do." -Marcia