Twilight Always Falls

Part 5

When the evening falls and the daylight is fading,

from within me calls - could it be I am sleeping?

For a moment I stray, then it holds me completely.

close to home - I cannot say.

close to home feeling so far away.

As I walk there before me a shadow

from another world, where no other can follow.

carry me to my own, to where I can cross over...

close to home - I cannot say.

close to home feeling so far away.

Forever searching; never right,

I am lost in oceans of night.

Forever hoping I can find memories.

those memories I left behind.

Even though I leave will I go on believing

that this time is real - am I lost in this feeling?

Like a child passing through, never knowing the reason.

I am home - I know the way.

I am home - feeling oh, so far away.

@->->-

An icy and bitterly resentful wind whipped the shoulder length blue hair about the young man’s face cruelly as he stood before his master, clad in black from head to foot, his garb consisting of a shirt not unlike the ones he had worn what seemed like so long ago, as well as pants and just barely knee height boots. The outfit was strikingly similar, even possessing the traditional black gloves he had once worn, save for one indisputable difference, the long flowing coat with a blood red capital ‘R embroidered over his heart; the unmistakable, well known, and utterly dreaded uniform of the elite Team Rocket assassin. It was his first day in the clothing, and he had not slept the night before, so the dark and disconsolate shadows beneath his lifeless eyes reflected his already breaking soul.

Visions of his wretched childhood danced through his mind at every crack of the whip, and he could not help but wonder, if it was his true destiny to be a puppet. He knew his beloved was gone from his grasp forever, what other choice did he have but to give up? There would be no other life for the blue-haired young Rocket, and he resigned to it, the ice around his slowly blackening heart becoming thicker with every attack, every lash, and every victory over Pokemon twice his size.

The youth looked up with spiteful emerald eyes burning with the fires of hate at the arrogantly mocking and condescending soul across the small concrete enclosed arena as the thin serpent’s silhouette of a whip cracked through the air. “Again!” the dark figure commanded maliciously. Cerulean hair flashed in the dim wintry light of mid-day at the command as the young man dashed forward, disappearing with his speed to the human eye, and then materialized for a split second upon one of the seemingly hundreds of jagged rock formations before vanishing again, only to appear in mid air directly in front of Giovanni, turning a lissome flip before landing delicately upon the ground on bent knee. He looked up to the man who held him at his disposal then, his handsome features etched into the same expression of a broken soul he had worn for as long as he had been under control, awaiting further instruction.

Giovanni smiled crookedly, and with a small flick of his wrist, had the long snake of black leather around the youth’s neck, forcing him to stand and pulling him closer. “Excellent James, your agility gets better every single time, but right now I have a treat for you!” he whispered in a voice that mocked sweetness. James’ expression never shifted as he spoke to his master evenly, his voice quiet, and subdued, the former jovial and almost child-like tones completely wrenched free of the eloquent and velvet tones. “And what would that be?” he asked.

Giovanni’s bitter smirk only widened as he turned, and motioned to two roman clad guards standing at the exit to the personal training arena of their leader’s Pokemon. They nodded simultaneously, and opened the gate, a defiant shriek sounding from behind it, and the next thing James saw was a thin, wiry figure of a white-clad Rocket being dragged ruthlessly into the arena to be thrown at his feet. For a mere fraction of a second, James’ stomach twisted as he thought he recognized the figure sprawled upon the gray earth, only to heave a sigh of relief when he saw that neither was the Rocket female, nor possessing her beautiful crimson locks.

James didn’t flinch as he felt Giovanni’s hand upon his shoulder, and didn’t bother to turn his head to look him in the eyes as he spoke. “Who is this? And what purpose does he serve to me?” he asked softly. “Hey boss! Pretty pathetic punishment if ya ask me! Bein’ killed by wimpy lil Jamesie LeBlanc? You really have lost it! The guy’s such a pansy!” the blonde-haired man on the ground laughed.

James’ breath caught in his chest, and he closed his eyes, shaking his head gently as he realized exactly what his oppressor intended for him to do. “No, no I won’t hurt him,” he whispered. “James, meet Clyde, unfortunately, we discovered him in his room with more than convincing evidence that he is a traitor, and you know what the punishment is for betrayal. I want to get you out in the field as soon as I can, now show me what you can do,” Giovanni said and released James’ neck from the whip, shoving him forward roughly.

The Rocket approached the man on the ground slowly, making no move to touch him in any way, his expression never faltering as Clyde looked up at him, and smiled vindictively. “Jamie, long time no see buddy! Been a while since I gave you that black eye during training!” he laughed pointing. “Look Clyde, Giovanni has lost his mind, but he’s not lying when he says I can kill you,” James said firmly, “Please don’t make me.” The sincere and somber statement only sent Clyde into more hysterics, rising at last to his knees with one arm about his aching stomach. “You? The pathetic, weak fruit who always has his nose in a flower? The one who holds the record for losses in tactical combat training? The biggest fucking loser and disgrace to Team Rocket, that James? Yer gonna make me die laughin!” he replied loudly.

James snarled under his breath and took another step forward, a light breeze tossing his hair and black coat majestically about his frame, and even Clyde’s laughter abated as he noted the grave expression chiseled into his oddly indifferent features. “Just shut up and get out of here, I’m not going to kill you,” James hissed sternly. “Of course not! You couldn’t kill me if I asked you to! I always thought you were gay but this just proves it! I guess now when Jessie comes back I can move in on her!” Clyde replied deviously.

James clenched his fists at his sides, squeezing his eyes shut to control his steadily rising anger, and the vines that threatened to burst free at any given moment and strangle the Rocket at his feet. “Leave my Jessie alone, and I told you to go!” he yelled, his even voice finally rising. “Oh she’s yours now is she? Well, you’re dead! Ha! And besides, everyone knows all bitchy Jessie Burkely is good for is one night of fun! Too bad she won’t let anyone touch her, I swear, virginity is wasted on the beautiful, she would be a great fuck,” Clyde quipped harshly.

James roared in anger and Clyde barely saw his movements as a vicious pair of green vines erupted from his palms, wrapping themselves voraciously about his neck and lifting him from the ground. He hung from them, gasping for breath before James finally let go just barely enough for him to speak, the only thing he could see the bitterly narrowed and furiously blazing eyes. “Holy shit! What the hell are you?” he gasped. “Don’t you EVER talk about my best friend and the woman I love like that you son of a bitch!” was James’ only furious response. “Good James! Use your anger! Now finish the mother fucker off!” Giovanni laughed demonically.

James seethed and clenched his teeth, but forced himself to drop Clyde roughly, retracting the vines with a definitive hiss. The cried out in pain as he hit the ground and sat up swiftly, eyes wide and disbelieving as he rubbed his neck and gasped for breath. “I will not kill him!” James shouted, his voice breaking with tears, and shrieked in pain as he felt the whip upon his back. “Damn you James! This is your destiny! Embrace it! Kill him, and feel the rush of power! Kill him now!” Giovanni’s almost disembodied voice rang out.

“Yeah, kill me, let’s see what ya really are! Or are you really a worthless stupid freak of nature? Kill me, come on!” Clyde chided sarcastically. “No! NO!” James responded, putting his hands over his ears as the voices that had ceased to speak to him flared again, this time with a new intensity, biding him to kill the man who had insulted him, and his soul mate. “I won’t kill him damn it!” he screamed. “It is what you were made to do! Do it now!” Giovanni commanded and he himself drew back in fear as James whirled around to face him.

He smiled crookedly, and cocked his head audaciously to one side as he sauntered gently forward. “Made to kill was I?” he asked brightly. “Keep back you freak, I am your master you will obey me!” Giovanni snapped brutally, lashing the whip. James rose his arm nonchalantly, yet blindly quickly, and caught the strip as it wound about his arm harmlessly, jerking it with a furious cry of mental agony to bring the old man closer to him. “You want to see me kill him? You want to see me kill him?! Fine! But you’re next,” he snarled, and shoved his master to the floor, not even flinching at his sharp cry of pain.

“I give up,” James thought to himself as he turned around to face the now horrified Clyde on the ground, “Giovanni’s right, this is what I am now, I’m never going to see my Jessie, or Meowth again. I’m a slave, I don’t feel, and I shouldn’t, I’m only going to get hurt again.” James let the ice, anger, and utter hatred overtake his heart and soul as time slowed to a near stop for both himself, and the young Rocket cowering at his feet. Clyde held up a hand, screamed for him to stop, to spare him, and James remembered well what Giovanni had said he wanted, and that it was now his duty to fulfill that desire. He felt the surge of heat in his hand as he gathered the energy, face chiseled into a solemn expression of a heartless demon, and pointed it in the direction of the cowering man. “Never again, I’m never going to let myself be hurt again, not by anyone, my heart no longer has a use,” he thought and with a fierce battle cry, allowed the flame to erupt from the palm of his hand.

James was oddly lucid and composed as Clyde’s deafening scream of anguish rang above the roar of the fire as it plowed into him, carrying his limp and instantly seared body to collide roughly with a stone. It exploded as it struck with a horrific flurry of embers and charred flesh, swirling away as it extinguished in the presence of the obstacle, leaving in its horrible wake a blackened and very dead body. James felt only the slightest twinge of remorse at seeing the man dead before him, the life that had ended by his own hand, and slowly turned around, narrowing his wild emerald eyes bitterly at Giovanni.

James was no longer in control of his actions, he had made the decision to give up, and abided by it, allowing what little emotion remaining to take over his body, while his conscious mind did whatever it saw fit to nurse his mutilated heart and soul. He knew he must never allow himself to return to the surface again, for if he did it would only be beaten back like it had so many times in the past, Jessie and Meowth the only ones who were able to coax his free self from his deeply scarred heart. James was satisfied with his friends, and the woman he loved, knowing that their hearts too, were marred by pain, Jessie’s perhaps even more so than his own, but he knew that with finding each other they had overcome the torment they had endured in the past. The youth watched his heart break all over again in his own hands being separated from them, being used again, and treated like a possession, and knowing his soul was now far too locked away and frozen for the light to ever melt it and find him again.

The stalemate between Giovanni and his creation screeched to a silent halt, no one daring to move, not even to retrieve the body James had just destroyed, and the only sound that permeated the arena the gentle rustling of the wind in James’ black as death coat. “You,” he hissed rancorously, shattering the quiet as he pointed an accusing finger at Giovanni, “You killed me you bastard! Now I’m going to make you suffer the same fate as the three lives you so mercilessly destroyed!”

James thrust his hand forward, his eyes flaring a cold psychic blue as his shoulder length hair was tossed gently into the air by an unseen and unfelt force. “Stop it James! I-“ Giovanni attempted to speak, but found his air supply rudely cut off from his body. James grinned in relish and lifted the hated body from the ground, narrowing his eyes to concentrate better, and gently drifting his hand upward to find a suitable place to drop Giovanni to his death. “What are you waiting for!? Restrain him!” he managed to croak.

James didn’t even bother to look as he felt cold metal encircle his neck, dropping Giovanni to focus his attention on his new assailants. He turned, palm extended to execute an attack, but when he focused to chose which one, he felt an excruciating bolt of electricity tear through his body and with a hideous shriek of agony, fell to his knees. When the pain did not abate, he was forced to double over, wrapping his arms about himself in a vain attempt to soothe his body, looking up only when he saw a pair of dirty dress shoes shuffle toward him. “You’re a damn fool James, you can control your powers, but yet you’ve let your anger poison your mind,” Giovanni began. “At least…” James started, unable to finish due to pain, “At least I ended his life, instead of sending his soul to a black purgatory and leaving his body and mind intact as you did to me, and my friends.”

James barely flinched as Giovanni snarled and slapped him across the face, turning his head in same direction to lessen the pain. “Why you insolent…” Giovanni stopped, forced to look away from James’ cocky smile, “Take him away, get the wretch out of my sight! NOW!” James stood as the guards commanded him, allowing them to cuff his wrists behind his back with the same metal he wore around his neck and following the path they instructed him to walk, casting one last abhorrent glare at Giovanni, sending a cold shiver down his spine.

The older man turned away from the emerald stare to the kind and compassionate gaze of Deirdre, who reached out to James wistfully. “I’ve failed haven’t I?” he asked quietly. “Oh no sir! Not at all! James just needs to be broken a bit more, trust me, he’ll be everything you want him to be,” she replied with a large grin. “Why are you so happy today Deirdre?” Giovanni inquired as they headed back inside. “Oh no reason really, one could say that I’m, moving on from my previous state of being,” she answered, and nothing more was said as the duo parted ways.

@->->-

James stepped obediently into the cell the four guards directed him into, never putting up a struggle as they freed his wrists, and attached the metal collar he wore with a thick chain to a bolt in the wall. He tugged at it experimentally, and when he found that it was securely attached, sighed dejectedly and perched himself upon the thin cot in the corner of the cell. “You’ll be fed later, and Giovanni said to try and rest,” one guard said roughly and James chuckled. “Giovanni should be worrying about his own rest, he may not want to sleep very long tonight,” he commented. The guards backed away nervously and James sighed, rubbing his temples ruefully as he leaned back against the cold stone wall, jerking roughly at the collar about his neck.

“Damn him!” he hissed under his breath, folding his arms across his chest. He knew then what the thick band of metal he wore did to him, and what it’s intentions were, and not wanting to hurt himself further by using his powers in the restraint that was meant to inhibit them with pain, gave up his struggle. He laid down carefully, placing his hands behind his head and crossing his ankles casually with a sigh, looking up to the window to see the fiery red disk of the setting sun flare tenaciously about the landscape. “OooH! Somebody new! Hiya Mr. Person in the house next to me! How areya?”

James jumped, startled by the shrill and overly cheerful voice, sitting up swiftly to see a little girl locked in a cell just across the linoleum pathway leading along the storage area for experiments. “Hi, who are you?” James asked gently, frowning at the odd features of the creature that smiled broadly at him with deadly looking fangs.

She looked to be a young girl of no more than six, but she had a gigantic plume of electric pink hair with a lightning bolt streak of yellow searing through the center of it, one eye the same color, the other the same pink. Her cheeks were crimson ovals, not unlike a Pikachu’s, and though she wore a tiny pair of jeans and an extremely revealing top, James could see that she was covered in a silky golden fur, brown stripes adorning her back. She hopped resiliently from her bed, and the young man winced as he noted the jagged tail reminiscent also of the electric Pokemon the girl in general so resembled.

She smiled again, and extended a clawed hand out of the bars just far enough for James to grab, which he did, shaking it firmly. “My name’s Callie! What’s yours!?” she chirped brightly. James managed a small smile, and sat back down, but edged closer to the odd little girl. “My name’s James,” he answered warmly. “That’s a pretty name! Why are you down here with me, Mr. James?” she asked, the Pikachu’s ears James only noticed then pricking up to their full height. “I’m down here, because I’m an experiment, and I’m dangerous,” he answered solemnly.

Callie frowned, but only for a moment before clambering deftly up the bars of her cell, hanging upside down from them and peering closer at her new friend. “I one of those experimerents thingies too! You look so sad, and sweet, not dangerous! I’m dangerous! I killed someone, did ya know that?” she proclaimed proudly. James winced at the words, and hung his head, only then realizing the severity of his actions. “Yeah, so did I,” he whispered. “You have a collar too! Does that mean you have powers? I have powers! But Mr. Giovanni said that I can’t control them and I’m a-a Menerace to society!” Callie said with a huge toothy grin. “A menace to society, and to think, now he’s creating assassins,” James whispered mournfully.

“You seem so sad Mr. James, why?” Callie asked piteously, to which James sighed deeply. “Because I’m lost, I don’t know what I am, and I don’t know what to do,” he answered. “You’re not lost! You’re here, and you’re you! And you should do what you feel!” Callie answered, flipping artfully to land on her mussed and obviously unattended bed. James snorted quietly at her words, tossing his hair cynically. “Feel, how can you feel when you know you’ve been created? Altered? Defiled while you slept…When you don’t know whether you’re a Pokemon or a human, and whether or not you’ll get your heart broken again,” he said. “My heart’s never been broked, is yours?” the girl asked. “One too many times and now beyond repair, I myself, personally, choose not to feel anymore,” James said evenly.

Callie pressed a hand to her heart sympathetically, nodding in agreement. “That’s sad…You losted someone you love, huh,” she whispered, almost reverently. James nodded, looking up to the crisp pinpoints of stars just beginning to appear in the darker portion of the sky, and wondered if Jessie was watching from them, or perhaps still alive, and looking at the same star. “I did Callie, I lost someone I loved more than anything else in the world, but I try to forget about her, it hurts too much and I know she’s gone forever,” he said mournfully. “Oh Mr. James, never forget her! That happened here too, to me. I memember, there was a Vaporeon boy who lived in the cage over there,” Callie chirped, pointing to the cell in question, “We would talk, and we called each other brother and sister, cause we was borned on the same day! But then the men in white took him away, and he hasn’t come back. The pretty lady with purple hair said he wouldn’t come back, and I got really sad, but now I remember the happy stuff about him, and I’m not sad! I know that whatever happens to me, in the very end, I’ll see my brother again, and that’s all that matters!”

James felt a slight twinge of tears in his eyes, but didn’t allow them to fall, sighing deeply and looking up to the cheerful smile of the Pikachu girl. “Well you hold on to those memories, but I’m afraid I’m going to be down here for a very long time, and I don’t want to be sad anymore. Don’t worry about me Callie, I’ll be okay, I promise you, I’m a survivor,” he said warmly. “And always remember, you’re anything you want to be! Pokemon, human, both, you’re always you, you’ll always be pretty Mr. James! I’m gonna go to sleep now, cause I’m sleepy, and I see nice pictures and sometimes I play with my brother when I sleep! Nighty night!” Callie said, and plopped practically into the nest of fabric she had created for herself.

James smiled slightly at the little girl, but it quickly faded, replaced by the hardened, almost emotionless line it had been since he had begun his training under Giovanni. He lifted his hands to his face, and winced, finding them slightly burned from the immense fire attack he had exacted upon his hapless victim earlier that day. He buried them roughly in the pockets of his coat, one slightly later than the other, stopping at his neck to adjust the cold metal and wires of the collar bolted firmly to the wall. The chain rattled mournfully in the dark, and James finally decided to sit up, curling his fingers gently about the freezing and cold iron bars sealing the window of his cell away from the world.

The blue-haired young man peered cautiously outside, and watched as a few lonely Zubat wound their way about the maze of trees, their supersonic screeches echoing coherent messages in James’ ears. He sighed and closed his eyes as he turned away from them, burying his face in his hands and letting his back slid down the wall, collapsing into the bitter firmness of the cot.

He clenched his fists tightly, and pressed them hard against his shut eyes, hoping to ward off the horrific images of Clyde’s bitter and gruesome murder at his hands. Though he tried to forget what he had done, there was no denying it, or lightening the fact that he had ended a human life, he had killed him in cold blood, and out of spite. “I…I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I failed everyone, I really am completely worthless,” he whispered, “A useless freak, the only purpose I serve is to Giovanni now, I really am…Dead.”

James’ own words barely even scratched the surface of his cold heart, knowing then he no longer cared about himself, or what should happen to him. His fate had been artificially shifted in a black direction, and the path had wavered too far from the light for him to see it, much less find his way back to it. He walked down the road chosen for him, voices echoing about him, praising him for the correct decision, and he finally accepted his duty. The time would come when he would be released upon the world as a black twilight of bane and malignancy, and Giovanni’s reign of terror would shroud humanity, and James felt no remorse at the sudden knowledge, that he would be the upholder of the holocaust. Feelings, emotion, even now his love he crushed within an icy grip, forsaking them in his sorrows, convinced if he forgot about them they would leave him be.

James was wrong, for though he could not feel them, love and compassion, his soul elements, those he had praised so long ago and thanked whatever omnipotent force had allowed him to overcome the obstacles of his past and love and rejoice again, retained a weak, but tenacious hold upon his psyche. James wished so madly to forget his pain, he knew nothing but what he felt his duty was, and was almost glad he had shown Giovanni that he was not the cowering recreant he knew his master thought he was. His life had been pain, and Giovanni had been the source of so much of it, he yearned with all his heart to be rid of him, he deducted the best way was to prove once and for all he was not worthless, and he could control the powers better than any man alive.

Alone with a psychotic creation with the mentality of a five-year old and his own empty thoughts, James finally drifted off into a fitful slumber, filled with nightmarish visions of the red-haired beauty he somehow knew, yet knew must never be remembered. She would seduce him, and as soon as he would feel his heart begin to melt under her touch, his hands would wrap themselves around her throat, and he would clasp it as hard as he possibly could, staring coldly into her panicked and utterly betrayed azure eyes, until at last they would close, and his lost beloved would fall dead at his feet. The tears of blood ran freely then as he sank to his knees, his world fading into a black abyss, and he would get up after hours of wailing and sobbing to wander about the choking mists and foul stenches, calling out a name he didn’t quite understand, nor try to.

“Jessica…”

Chapter 6