[fic] What happens when all the world is a lie?
Okay, as promised, Bad End Adrian fic is under the cut. Uh, warning, he's insane. Like, very. So just. Keep that in mind. It does suggest some rather horrible things, because come on. This is Adrian we're talking about.
Okay this thing like, started a fic wave, so... Here's Archie's side and then here's one from Theo.
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There's an old house, on a cliff by the sea near Meteor Falls. It's nothing big or fancy. It was probably once a cute, homey cottage with a beautiful garden. Now it stands forgotten, a tumbledown shack with a garden of weeds. It, like its occupant, watches the world through dim and empty windows. Together, they stand testament to the ravages of time and lies.
Who would live in such a dilapidated house, far from the path of any other person? Not many. It's been adopted by a young man, no older than in his late teens, who is just as broken as the place he calls home. He sees the world in black and white now. Black, with white outlines. Evil, with a thin shell of light lies. He never speaks. He hasn't spoken a word since the day he met himself.
His name is Adrian Aspen, and he is one of those once known as Surrogate Trainers
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Cracks. There had always been cracks. Since the beginning, when he first became a trainer... Every single time he first became a trainer. He had started with Treecko, and named his new friend Edge. How appropriate. He had already been broken, and was teetering on the edge of a knife.
There was a time Adrian had been oblivious. He had known nothing of himself. He walked the path set before him, and played the role he was given. He played it quite well. He had his two best friends, Theo and Carys. Nothing could go wrong. He was happy, despite any failure meaning poverty for his family and all the myriad accidents he found himself in. He was happy.
He traveled all over Hoenn. He defeated many gym leaders and many trainers. He caught new Pokemon and made new friends. He saved the world. He lived the best life he could ever have wanted. The only problem was one he didn't know, namely that he had lived the best life he could ever have wanted twenty times.
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He lives all alone, though sometimes his friends from before he broke still visit him. He released his Pokemon long ago. He couldn't stand the sight of them, or the thought of being a trainer. He spends his days staring out at the sea he fears so much, lost in the thoughts of a madman. Sometimes he tends the weeds, giving the appearance of caring. He doesn't care about anything.
Adrian used to stroll through the world, enjoying life and being alive. Now, he moves as if in a nightmare. He walks, and the ground flies up behind him, dissolving into dust. The dust feeds the storm clouds blotting out the digital screen of the sky above him. No wind blows for him. The world is dark and still.
Though Carys, Archie, and many others have been trying to help him, it's hopeless. He's beyond the point of repair. For a long time, his mind had kept itself intact with amnesia. He was broken, but if he didn't know it, he wouldn't shatter. His face is always the same, an unblinking, smiling mask. No one can see behind his mask. No one can see he's always been broken.
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A rift. There had been a rift forming for a long time. The world was dividing, and Adrian didn't know why. It was taking his two best friends with it, and they were on opposite sides. Adrian was caught in the middle. He watched, confused, as the ground beneath his feet split in two. He couldn't understand it.
The workings of the world had been explained to him many times. He couldn't remember. He could never remember, not after the cracks in his sanity were made. That was why the Project had him so entangled in its shadowy grip. He could never remember what he was told about it, because they'd traumatized him beyond the compass of his wits.
His family wasn't really relying on him, the Project wasn't really paying him a thing. He'd watched them all get slaughtered, and held himself together with lies. Unfortunately, his lies couldn't last forever.
Once the rift had rent his world to shreds, it was over. The war had come and gone, and the Project was destroyed. He had been shivering on the ground when they came for him. There had been so, so much fighting, all because of his employer. He couldn't believe what he'd witnessed. Things got worse when his life had been explained to him.
Then he met himself. More specifically, he reunited with his memories. No one had realized the reason he couldn't be told about the Project was because it would trigger memories of something much worse. No one had realized just how badly the Project had messed with Adrian's head. The battles he'd witnessed, including those between Theo and Carys, had stripped away his mind's defense. His amnesia didn't stop him from remembering the horrors of his past. He couldn't take the strain of his own trauma. He shattered.
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Madness. He's plagued by madness. Adrian is far too young to have lost his mind, but then, he isn't truly so young. The Surrogate Project took everything away from him. His family, his age, his memories, everything. After learning the truth, he was never the same again. There's no denying it; he's gone insane.
His friends moved him to this house several years ago to protect him from himself and others, as well as others from him. He's been found, at times, unconscious, stranded in some place or another. Sometimes he's badly injured. Sometimes he shows telltale signs of having badly injured others. The garden of his new home has kept him from having these violent outbursts many times, though he still breaks things.
Stray trainers who have found their way to the cliff side have described him as ghostlike, and indeed, they're right. He's only a shade of his former self, an empty, wraith-like being. Even now that his mind has snapped, the world is too much for him.
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Slow and purposeful, he goes through the day. He eats a simple breakfast, fruit salad, then goes to stare at the sea. He stares for hours, long past sunset. He sits there, staring, until the sun rises, and then until it sets again. He then stands, returning inside. He's not sure how long he sat there, looking at the sea. He stops as he passes the kitchen. There, on the counter, lies the knife he uses to cut fruit. It's clean, he always cleans it meticulously. The blade shines, grinning at him. He picks it up, admiring its gleam in the moonlight. The sly, beautiful, happy blade...
Adrian doesn't flinch as he plunges it into his stomach.