Opening a Casket of Worms [SWC]

Intended Capture: Snorunt & Staryu
Characters Required: 30-40,000
Character Count: 34,176

Prologue:
John Arturo glanced up from the papers he’d been looking through, now obscured by the shadow of a woman. He was surprised to see his daughter’s caretaker in his office at this time of night; both ladies aught to be asleep by now. John removed his glasses and absent-mindedly wiped them on a cloth, content to leave her waiting to reinforce his low opinion of her.

The live-in childminder had been hired by his late wife; John had never liked her then and was even less fond of her now, wishing that his daughter would spend less time with her kind. Unfortunately for John, Alison was still quite badly shaken by the death of her mother and clung to Coppélia as a replacement; so John was stuck with her.

He carefully replaced his glasses on his face and took a side-long glance at the antique clock that stood in the corner of the room, confirming his suspicion that it was far past bedtime. John then finally turned to look properly at the woman stood in front of him, carefully looking her over. She had a slender figure, accentuated by the simple blue dress that she wore, and was of slightly above-average height, possessing a pretty face that housed a piercing pair of hazel eyes and was topped with flowing auburn tresses. John supposed that some people would describe her as a beauty, and would probably agree if not for her origin. It was impossible to tell what she was from the way she looked, but he was well aware of the nature of her kind and refused to entertain the notion that they deserved to be treated as equals.

John decided that he had endured her silent presence long enough, and so, knowing that she would not be the one to break the silence, asked, “Coppélia, I trust everything is all right?” It was more of a statement than a question, and his tone clearly carried his disapproval of her.

Coppélia of course remained as unmoved as ever by John’s attitude, simply choosing not to be bothered by his bigotry. “Your daughter is fine sir. I need to speak with you about another matter.”

“Need to, or want to?” John asked churlishly, “Because as far as I was aware I decide what has to happen…”

“I know the truth about the Fissure,” she interrupted, deciding that she couldn’t afford to put up with his petulance.

John remained absolutely calm, no part of his immaculate features displaying the rage that seethed beneath his façade. His mind ran through all the possibilities, but each time he came up empty; security within the Department of Amalgamation was too tight for her to have discovered the truth, it was impossible. “I have no idea what you are referring to Coppélia, the Fissure is simply what it appears to be. It’s a tear in the fabric of space-time that runs throughout the entire Fresian Plateau, through which objects and creatures from other universes occasionally pass.

“If you’re talking about the fact that the Fissure extends beyond the confines of our main facility or that we don’t manage to make brilliant lives for all of our ‘visitors,’ that’s all very well known. We try our best, but some people simply choose not to fit in to civilised society.”

Coppélia considered allowing Director Arturo to continue his carefully rehearsed denial speech, but decided against it; she wanted to finish talking with him before he summoned someone to ‘deal with’ her. “Three days ago there was a terrorist attack in the nation’s capital, targeting several government installations. Despite my insistence to Allison that your facility was safe, she would not stop panicking until I found a way to prove it to her.”

She agonised over how much of the next part to edit out, before quickly coming to the conclusion that she couldn’t remove anything incriminating of others without making her story impossible to follow. “I plugged myself into her computer and used it to contact the server at the main base. After I had explained the situation to the server, he agreed to allow me through the fire-walls to access the security cameras so that I could show Allison what was going on.”

“What!?!” John cursed the sense of camaraderie that the machines seemed to share; this was yet another example of why they needed to find a better way to control them. “You damned clockwork bitch, what makes you think you have the right to invade my systems like that!”

The tirade of insults and racial slurs continued for a short while before Coppélia cut him off again. “When I got in I saw this,” she declared as she withdrew a wire from behind her ear and inserted it into the computer that sat on John’s desk. A blank look stole over her face briefly as she copied and transferred some memory files to the device. Once this was done her usual life-filled expression returned as a video file begun to play on the monitor.

The video was high quality footage of a large room dominated by a metallic ring, easily over 10 feet in diameter based on a comparison to the people in view. Large arcs of red electricity were flaring off the ring and a whirling maelstrom of crimson energy filled the space inside it. Without warning several forms wearing bulky yellow hazmat suits that covered them from head to toe emerged from the maelstrom, each carrying a rifle and dragging between them a dishevelled man wearing blue and white striped pyjamas and a flannel dressing gown.

At the bottom left corner of the image a familiar form, dressed in an immaculate black business suit, stepped into view, the deference of the other people making it clear that he was in charge. The man was probably in his mid-to-late-forties, his hair beginning to turn grey and the small amount of muscle on his feeble frame starting its journey towards becoming fat. Feeling a mild horror, John heard his own voice emanating from the recording, “So who is this?”

“He’s a roboticist, and a damn good one at that. You should have seen some of the units they had walking around there, they make ours look like cheap toys. Unfortunately I don’t think we’ll be able to get anything more from that universe sir; we had to kill a few people when we nabbed him and I’m pretty sure the entry-point will be swarming with military mechas by now.”

“Ah well, such is life,” said John as he approached the team. He leaned down to bring himself level with the kidnapped scientist, “You are going to be very happy here in our universe working in the Cybernetics Division. If you refuse to cooperate we’ll simply have to…encourage you, and believe me we’ve managed to acquire some frightfully effective techniques.”

Coppélia reached forward and tapped a button the on holographic keyboard that was projected above John’s desk before the recording could continue. “I showed Allison a heavily edited version, just to verify that you were fine,” she said, allowing herself to vocalise some traces of disgust. “This video has been sitting in my memory for the last few days whilst I have been debating what to do with it. My loyalty to you and Allison does not supersede my morality programming; I have to take this information to the correct authorities. I just thought I would give you some warning, for Allison’s sake, so you can prepare yourself, or flee the country or whatever you choose to do.”

John flopped back in his seat, absolutely crestfallen; he’d been completely unprepared for this. When he opened his mouth again, his voice was quiet and weak, he almost sounded like a different person. “Thank you for giving me this opportunity Coppélia, I…I’ll…” he sighed heavily. “You may return to Allison’s room now, I think that it is best for both of us if I don’t keep you informed of my intentions.”

“Of course sir,” Coppélia bowed deeply; however much she disapproved of him and what he did, he was still the closest thing to a family that she had. She turned and left John in his office, understanding his desire to be alone.


Chapter 1:
To humans, dreaming is something that comes quite naturally, but for us machines it is a wholly alien concept. The only time in our lives that we experience anything remotely similar is during a system reboot, or on initial start-up if our personality and self-awareness software has accidently been installed before the operating system. In the case of this machine dream, an artificial memory is created due to system conflicts, because the operating system is designed to be installed on a blank machine.

The first thing that I can remember is one of these dream sequences; a flock of blue-skinned sheep covered in yellow wool were gambolling about in a field of flowers. Admittedly it was quite tame and idyllic compared to some dreams that I have heard of, but for an android such as myself it is frightening to experience; it stems from our deep-seated fear of being reprogrammed, a horrific violation of our sentience.

Fortunately I did not have much time to worry about the dream; although the memory would always remain in my systems. Within a few picoseconds my systems had reintegrated and I was immediately taken to my diagnostics program, which showed up a few serious errors:

*** Main chassis damaged, operational capacity 46.92%
*** Wireless networking disabled due to unknown error
*** Error: File Corruption in Memory Blocks 12-775
*** Error: Error message #34 not found

Though I was worried about the 2nd and 4th messages (having unknown errors was always troublesome, but regrettably was simply a fact of life), the other two messages were more immediately concerning. I accessed the more detailed diagnostics of my chassis in order to assess the damage, deciding that my physical needs took priority; I was sure that backup memory files would exist somewhere. The damage was not as extensive as I had feared, though more wide-spread than I would have liked. My body should have been capable of functioning at the same level as an average human under the circumstances, excluding the right arm which was completely non-responsive from the shoulder downwards; far below my standard capabilities, but still sufficient.

Having reassured myself about the physical damage I turned my attention towards the mental, taking stock of what memories I could still access. Most of my operational memory was still intact, so I still knew the history of my world and how to perform necessary tasks (judging by many of them I had been some sort of child minder). The problem was with my personal memories, I was left with barely anything but a few isolated incidents and my name; Coppélia.

I would have suspected some sort of massive system failure if not for how surgically my memories had been excised. Although my storage software filed the operation and personal memories in different places, both were freely intermixed on the actual hardware; the chances of an error striking only one kind were astronomical. That implied that someone had been through and purposefully deleted my memories, and it had been done in such a way as to prevent me from recovering the files.

The prospect of someone doing that to me chilled me to my very core, but also awoke a terrible fury. Whoever had done this had violated me in a profound way, and there was no way of telling if they had altered any of my other programming at the same time. I allowed myself a few nanoseconds to let the twin feelings of horror and anger overwhelm me, and then quelled them to a background level; not entirely gone, but not controlling me either. Once I had done that I then formulated my next plan of action.

Firstly I would have to activate my sensory apparatus and work out where I was. Assuming that there was no immediate reassessment needed based on my surroundings I would then locate the nearest Justicar Outpost. Altering the programming of any self-aware machine was a heinous crime (thanks to years of fighting for equal rights), and the Justicars would do everything they could to discover the identity of my attacker and bring them to justice. I would then have to search the city’s computer systems and also my own dwelling to attempt to locate any backup memories I may have stored.

Confidant that I had adequately planned my next moves; I switched my brain from internal mode to external mode and prepared to engage with the world around me. Immediately all my senses were overwhelmed, prompting me to quickly calibrate their sensitivity so that I could actually sift some useful information from them.

My personal appearance was the first matter than concerned me, mostly for the point of a visual damage assessment although I will admit that there was also an element of vanity. The fact that came most immediately to my attention was that I was naked, although I do not possess full sexual characteristics, meaning there was nothing more than my breasts to cover for the sake of modesty. In some ways my nakedness was a boon, as it allowed my to make a thorough inspection of my body, which showed almost no signs of damage; there was a large gash in my right arm, above the shoulder, through which a few wires and torn synthetic muscles could be observed, but it was nothing irreparable. A few other parts of my body showed signs of ‘bruising’ that occurred with rough handling, and I worried about any similar damage done to my head, but as there were no immediately available reflective surfaces I dismissed those fears.

That was when I turned my attention to the environment that I had found myself in, and the sense of fear once again ratcheted up several notches. I had been dumped on top of a large pile of rubbish, amidst dozens of similar piles, each filled with discarded detritus that presumably came from the City visible on the horizon. The vast rubbish dumps that belonged to the various Cities of this world were known as a breeding ground of lawlessness, because they were in unclaimed land that was beyond the jurisdiction of the Justicars. Getting back to the City was by no means a certainty, particularly in the condition I was in, but this was not the only thing about my location that concerned me. Within the last few years the Cities have been trying to reduce the levels of waste and pollution that have turned much of the planet into uninhabitable wastes, and the stringent recycling rules meant that all shipments (both private and commercial) were thoroughly checked before leaving. That meant that either the Justicars already knew I was out here, or that whoever wanted to get rid of me had the capacity to outwit or bypass them, and neither prospect was entirely appealing.

I quickly scanned the nearby rubbish for any signs of activity and was relieved to see nothing more the expected packs of animals and destitute humans and other sentient life-forms; many of them were poor unfortunates who had fallen through the Fissure from other universes. Both animals and sentients were desperately searching the piles for scraps of discarded food, though the sentients were also on the lookout for valuable technology that could be sold on the Outcast Market in one of the various small settlements populated by those who were unable to return to the Cities; either because of outstanding bounties (both legal and privately contracted) or some inability to fit in with the society that they had found themselves trapped in.

The animals had no interest in my mechanical body, and the people either had not noticed or did not care, and so I was safe for now. I had begun casting my eye about the nearest rubbish piles in an attempt to find some sort of garment when I heard a strange jabbering speech that sounded vaguely familiar.

Coming across the junk towards me was an eclectic gathering of sentient creatures from various universes, and as I looked at them my onboard database displayed information across my field of vision relating to what they were. The wealth of information that I possessed on Fissure related events indicated to me that I had possibly worked with the Department of Amalgamation in resettling victims who had fallen through the Fissure, but I pushed those thoughts aside; I did not have the spare processor power to devote to idle speculation.

The group was led by an androgynous man, taller than the human average, made of light brown rock; the database identified him (or more accurately it) as a member of the Kronan species from Universe-616, typically strong and warlike. Several links appeared relating to incidents with members of their species, few of whom had attempted to integrate into society, but without access to the global network I was unable to gather more details. The Kronan seemed to be the leader of the small group, probably due to the ‘rule of strength’ mentality amongst the Waste Dwellers, and was entirely unencumbered by possessions except a loin cloth and a single length of chain.

This length of chain led from the Kronan’s outstretched hand to a black bipedal organism covered in an almost insect-like chitinous armour, from its elongated, cylindrical head to the tip of its bladed tail. My database had very little information on this creature, identifying it only as an Alien, Universe-426, a predatory creature that it was impossible to communicate with but that theoretically possessed human level intelligence and sentience. Current popular theory stated that it was a Hive-mind creature and suffered from being away from its Hive, explaining why they seemed subdued whilst here compared to computer logs recovered from Universe-426, but there was no way to prove this. Thankfully very few had fallen through the Fissure, and most of them had been captured and eradicated swiftly, although some had fallen into the hands of criminal elements and were used as more intelligent and dangerous guard dogs.

Following just behind the stone man was a human-looking male, dressed in an archaic style of clothing and otherwise unremarkable save for the fact that there was a small nub of a horn in the middle of his forehead. This man was from one of the more unusual places that had been contacted through the Fissure; a dimensionally bifurcated world known as both Proton and Phaze from Universe-1934. This particular world had two alternate realities, almost like separate universes latched on to each other, and this man hailed from the one known as Phaze, a fairytale world of magic. He was a unicorn, and like others from Phaze he would have had serious trouble adjusting to a world where magic did not operate, preventing him from his usual shape-shifting and imprisoning him in his current form.

The final member of the group was the one that worried me most, and the one whose high-pitched jabbering language had alerted me to their presence. Hidden beneath a brown cloak, only a pair of yellow lights that were presumed to be eyes were visible (none of its kind had ever submitted to a medical examination, so no one knew for sure), the Jawa stood about half the height of a man and was animatedly pointing in my direction. On their home planet in Universe-1138 Jawas are renowned as scavengers and technology experts, and I was sure that its job was to locate valuable technology. Even at a distance its experienced eye had been able to pick me out as a machine, and elements of the group’s conversation drifted across the wastes to me.

“Are you sure it’s a robot Tteel, I’ve never seen anything more advanced than a toaster thrown out here in working condition,” the Kronan asked in an, ironically, gravelly voice.

The Jawa continued to jabber in his strange language, which the unicorn interpreted, “She says that there’s no question about it. The unit appears to be a bit damaged but is probably still worth plenty, the fact that it seems so life-like is evidence that this is a particularly advanced model.”

“Well then there’s no reason to wait for someone else to snatch it,” the Kronan said as he begun to unwind the links of the chain from around his fist. “Fetch it Cam’Run, and if you damage that thing any further you’ll get a shock from the inhibiter like nothing you’ve felt yet.”

I did not stop to look at the Alien’s reaction to this threat, realising that it would easily outpace me even if I were undamaged. I turned and fled, desperately looking for anything that I might be able to use to fight it off. My eyes quickly located a broken length of pipe that would serve as a crude club, but seconds before I seized it I felt an immense pressure on my back and was cast forwards into the rubbish.

I rolled over sideways and attempted to rise, but the Alien leapt onto my chest, pinning me to the ground. The wicked blade on its tail came swinging towards me, stopping mere millimetres from my neck, as the creature sat there hissing menacingly whilst it waited for its masters to catch up.


Chapter 2:
My mind quickly ran through all the possibilities, but no avenue of escape presented itself to me. Even if I had been fully operational I would have been sorely pressed to escape the creature that sat on my chest, if the scant records we possessed on them were correct then the Aliens were the end result of centuries of specialisation for hunting. As for the rest of the group the Jawa presented the biggest threat, given their propensity for carrying weaponry designed specifically for incapacitating Synthetics, followed by the Kronan who would be my equal in terms of physical prowess, if I were undamaged.

The only hope that I had lay in outside help, some Good Samaritan to save me; a laughable concept in these lawless lands. But I was out of other viable options, so I begun yelling as loudly as my vocal processors could handle, desperately crying out for rescue.

“Help! They are going to kill me, please someone…”

My cries were interrupted by the Alien, who had balled up his clawed hand and begun repeatedly punching me in the throat, in an attempt to silence me. I suspected that I had not been designed to withstand such rough treatment, and was proven correct as the force of the impacts dislodged some of the carefully calibrated components of my vocal processors. The damage severely distorted my voice to the extent that my cries became indecipherable, and I ceased yelling in the hopes that it would stop hitting me and thus not cause any permanent damage; I knew that the processor’s magnetic field would be able to reposition the components into a workable position, given time.

“Good work Cam’Run,” the Kronan said as he entered my field of vision, “you’ll get to eat that incompetent rookie tonight.” He rubbed his hand across the Alien’s head whilst casually talking about devouring a sentient being, in the same manner on would ruffle a dog’s fur to congratulate it. “So what does the rat think this thing’ll be worth Cleff?” he asked, turning to face the approaching unicorn.

“Give Tteel a minute to examine it Gorn, even she can’t work that quickly.”

Despite my efforts to control my emotional simulators, a panic settled over me as I saw the diminutive Jawa join the other two and begin to crouch down towards me. In a few seconds she would probably begin pawing through my innards, removing systems that were worth the most, doing who-knows-what to me. In some ways this would be worse than having parts of my memory erased, because I would be conscious for the entire experience; at least I was not able to remember having someone tinker around with my programming.

I thrashed around in desperate attempt to escape, but my feeble efforts achieved nothing, nor did the inhuman wailing that escaped my still damaged throat. It looked like I was doomed, but suddenly Tteel was thrown to the side by an unseen force.

“Damn it, trust them to show up now,” Gorn cried in dismay, jumping backwards as a wave of intense cold washed over the area.

As the Alien also recoiled in response to this bizarre phenomenon, I was able to crawl away from my attackers, silently thankful to whatever had just happened. A powerful stream of bubbles shot across from behind me and struck Gorn’s rocky chest, knocking him to the ground, and I turned to get a look at their source.

Standing at the top of a nearby rise of rubbish was a tan coloured, five-pointed starfish with a bright ruby surrounded by golden armour at its centre, standing about two and a half feet tall. Perched on the pile next to it was another odd creature that resembled a black sphere wearing a yellow cone, its large grin twisted into a grimace of defiance and its small ball-like hands resting on what were approximately its hips.

My onboard computer brought up a wealth of information on these two animals, as well as several references to an unknown girl, identified only as Allison, who apparently loved them and their kind. According to my systems they were a Staryu and Snorunt, two of many creatures called Pokémon from Universe-493, creatures that possessed amazing powers of elemental generation and manipulation and were often owned by humans, known as ‘Trainers’ in their home dimension for the purposes competitive battling, not unlike the old practice of cock-fighting. Ever since the discovery of that universe Pokémon had been incredibly popular with the people of this world, particularly children, as pets, and coincidentally it seemed that the Fissure intersected with Universe-493 more than any other. An unrelated file appeared in the top corner of my vision, flagged as urgent, but I dismissed it instantly; it didn’t appear to be related to my immediate survival so I was confidant that it could wait.

I briefly wondered why these two Pokémon had come to my rescue, although in all honesty I did not much care; as long as they had better plans for me than Gorn and his crew I would gladly accept their aid. As I quickly sifted through the information I had available the answer became apparent. Just like other animals of near-human intelligence, most Pokémon, particularly those who had been owned by Trainers in Universe-493, had an affinity for humans and would help them wherever possible. Either these two were unable to distinguish me from a human or I was human enough for them to consider worthy of saving.

“You two are worse than the damn Justicars, your justice and honour have no place in the Wastes. I swear this is the last time I let you interfere with my operations; there’ll be much richer pickings here once you two are eliminated.” Evidently the Kronan had been foiled by this particular pair before, and judging by the expression on his face he truly loathed these self-proclaimed heroes. “Cam’Run, Cleff, bury them.”

The Alien responded far quicker than the unicorn, darting forwards on all fours directly towards the Pokémon, followed by the unicorn reaching into the bag that he carried and withdrawing a pistol.

Staryu turned briefly to Snorunt, the few clues from its body language and posture indicating deference to the conical Pokémon. Snorunt issued a few quick orders in Pokéspeak, the curious language of these creatures that at the best consisted of its species name (in this case Snorunt), and at worst was nothing more than animalistic growls; the pitch of Snorunt’s voice implied to me that it was a female. Both Pokémon then leapt into action, starting with Snorunt blasting a stream of small shards of ice towards Cam’Run. Staryu then floated forwards and the ruby in its centre glowed brightly before it generated an almost invisible wall of light between us and our attackers, blocking a couple of swift shots from Cleff.

Unfortunately it seemed that this screen was not designed to withstand the brutal onslaught of the Alien, as it dived at the screen and repeatedly slashed until the barrier shattered. Cam’Run then swept his scythed tail around and slashed it across Snorunt’s face.

I was beginning to feel a little helpless sat on the sidelines, and decided to offer some tactical advice to my rescuers. Pokémon were often instructed in battle by their Trainers, so I reasoned that it would be helpful to them if I assumed this role. I brought up in front of me a list of various attacks that these two Pokémon were known to be capable of using, and selected one that sounded powerful and appropriate for close range encounters.

“Snorunt use Crunch,” I called out; my vocal processors had almost fully repaired themselves and so my voice carried only minimal distortion.

Snorunt squealed as she was slashed again by Cam’Run’s tail, but she appeared to hear and obey my orders. I was unable to see exactly what happened as she attacked the Alien, but in short order her teeth were clamped down hard on the fleshy part of its tail, causing it to screech in agony. Snorunt remained suspended from its tail, looking almost comical as Cam’Run thrashed it tail around to try and dislodge the Pokémon.

Meanwhile Cleff had taken advantage of the break in Staryu’s barrier to fire several more shots, and Staryu had been sorely wounded by them. There were several bullet holes in some of his limbs, and an odd white fluid, presumably analogous to blood, was oozing from the wounds.

I sought for an attack for Staryu to use, and quickly spotted one that with any luck would operate in the way that I hoped. “Staryu use Recover and then fire off a Bubblebeam at the man with the gun.”

A bright yellow light was generated by the starfish’s ruby core, which then spread out and suffused its entire body. Once the light faded it was apparent that Staryu’s wounds were completely healed, and it immediately launched a stream of bubbles from the tip of its topmost point, striking Cleff’s arm and knocking his gun away.

Whilst this was happening Snorunt had continued to attack Cam’Run, letting go of its tail in mid-swing and firing a blast of super-chilled air from above, freezing the Alien to the ground. As she landed she fired a second blast in the direction of the other three attackers, which Staryu backed up with a torrent of water from its topmost point. The water saturated the group and they were soon as iced-over as their comrade.

“Runt, Sno Snorunt,” the icy Pokémon cried, indicating that I should follow them and fleeing across the rubbish piles.

Seeing little option but to go with them I turned and ran in the same direction, hopeful that the Pokémon would continue to defend me. As we retreated across the rubbish, the file that had shown up earlier appeared again, still flagged as highly urgent. I was tempted to dismiss it again, until I noticed the name of the file’s creator; Coppélia…me.


Chapter 3:
The discovery that a file created by me was still left in my system was both puzzling and exhilarating. It indicated that something of myself had survived the eradication of my memory, but there were other connotations as well. I surmised that this file was probably buried in unrelated or innocuous material, which meant that I had known what was going to happen and had left it behind purposefully.

Leaving some of my systems to continue tracking the two Pokémon and following the pair of them, I begun a more thorough examination of the file. Beyond the author, size and creation date (which had no meaning, as I didn’t know what the current date was), it contained only audio data, so there was nothing more that I could do to analyse it without playing the file.

“Greetings Coppélia, I do not have much time to explain myself so just listen. I am sure that your memory will be erased, but am hopeful that operational memories will be left alone, so I am burying this file amongst data on Pokémon; they are common enough that the file should not stay hidden from you for long.

“You previously worked for Professor John Arturo, the Head of the Department of Amalgamation, as caretaker of his daughter. Within the last few days you discovered that the Department is responsible for stealing and kidnapping people from across the Fissure, and they are currently hacking their way into my systems to delete my memories; they don’t want the conspiracy to be revealed.

“In the event that you are still operational afterwards I would like for you to expose their actions to the public. Before I told Professor Arturo about my discovery I left a backup copy of my memories on an external storage device in the hands of a fellow android who works in a bar called ‘The Blue Screen.’ I do not know how many people know about the Department’s actions, but I suspect that there are a lot of people who will be committed to stopping you. I know that you are quite likely to be a different person to me, and I am sorry to lay so much responsibility on you, but people need to know the truth.”

I played the file through a couple more times, just to be sure of its contents; the revelation that my entire society was founded upon lies and that possibly the entire government was out to get me was earth shattering. As I suspected though, there was no hint of deception in the recording; I had truly believed what I said, and the actions taken against me were further indication that the accusations were accurate.

“Sno?” The Pokémon had stopped fleeing and Snorunt had walked across to me with a look of concern.

“I am fine, just lost in thought,” I replied, crouching down to her level. “I just realised that I have not thanked you for rescuing me.”

“Snorunt,” she happily declared, patting me on the arm; I got the feeling that she was modestly accepting my thanks.

“Based on what the Kronan said, I get the impression that the pair of you have saved a lot of people around here.” The smile and nod I got in response was reassuring, because that meant that I was more likely to be successful with my following request. No matter how different I may be since the erasing of my memory, I would complete the mission that had been left for me; even if only to get revenge on those who had done this to me. But I would not be able to do it alone.

“I know that this is a lot to ask, but I need more help from the two of you,” I said, explaining the content of the message I had uncovered and the implications that it had. “Now I don’t know if you two were brought through on purpose, or if the entire Fissure is a product of our sciences rather than the natural phenomenon that they claim it is. But whether you are innocent victims of man or nature, I ask you to look into your hearts and think about your feelings upon being torn from your family and loved ones, even the very universe that you know. I have not been through that, but I know that it is wrong and that we need to stop those who are responsible. Will you help me?”

 

Re: Opening a Casket of Worms

Crossovers and cyberpunk.
Huh.
That was fun to read!

(edit)
Actually, since I shouldn't take up space in threads with meaningless posts...

Claimed for grading. You're second on my list.

 

Re: Opening a Casket of Worms

Glad you liked it, the fact that I got praise without soliciting it cements my idea of entering it into the SWC.

EDIT: Just had it pointed out to my that my Characters Recquired were way too high for Snorunt alone. I tagged Staryu's capture on to the story at some point during writing and forgot to update that - fixed now.

 

INTRO
What impression did I get when I started reading this?

Your beginning is ambiguous. Who's the main character? Is it Arturo or Coppelia? (I won't be using accented letters in this grade.) Ambiguity can be a good thing, particularly in a story such as this one where the morality goes all gray. Cyberpunk's often that way. You treated the ambiguity well, too; by switching to first-person in Chapter 1, you set the Prologue apart and let us know: Coppelia is definitely the protagonist. This was a risky proposition, but in this case it went smoothly.

The introduction itself is also good. Coppelia gets mixed up in something sinister despite her best intentions. You punish her naivete by having her memory-wiped and dumped in the slums. We also have the stereotypical but interesting evil corporation and dimensional portals, and Dr. Thomas Light even makes a cameo. Shout-outs like these draw the reader's interest, particularly in crossover fiction.

Overall, it's a good introduction. You should probably have made more clear that Coppelia is a gynoid. Perhaps John could have added "robot" or whatever to the list of racial slurs. If you don't care about cliches, you could also go the robot-girl-anime route and stick electronic components on the sides of her head. For the Internet audience, that's generally a dead giveaway of "artificial human."

PLOT
Is it a good story?

It is a good story. Coppelia gets punished for her naivete but turns out to have backups. She gets put out in the wider world after a sheltered life as a nanny. You write a quick mental reassembly as Coppelia remembers some of who and what she was and decides to repair herself. You then have her come up against a gang of imported characters and a pair of Pokemon, using their innate violence to drive events. You have the Pokemon as the "good guys." That's always nice, considering this is the Ultimate Pokemon RPG.

You have Coppelia instinctively start commanding the Pokemon in battle. This is a way to make a conventional Pokemon battle seem fresh and interesting; since it doesn't often happen in this universe, Coppelia has to figure it out herself. Nice job.

You end with a rather conventional plot point: Coppelia has sent a dead-man's switch message to herself. She decides to try and recruit the Pokemon for her mission, but it was a good thing you didn't have the actual response in this story. I'd have thought that it moved too quickly if you had.

Plot hole: why is Coppelia still operational? That's an extremely inefficient disposal job and in direct violation of the Evil Overlord List.
Rule #13: All slain enemies will be cremated, or at least have several rounds of ammunition emptied into them, not left for dead at the bottom of the cliff. The announcement of their deaths, as well as any accompanying celebration, will be deferred until after the aforementioned disposal.

The shout-outs and references are numerous and interesting. We have Rockman, Star Wars, Alien, Piers Anthony, Philip K. Dick, and Marvel. You even matched up the numbers; I laughed when I saw the 1138. The world itself, with isolated cities and criminal-infested garbage dumps, seems similar to that of Battle Angel Alita/Gunnm, although I confess I've not actually read that series. This good stuff, although you have to be careful about keeping it up. You might choke on continuity issues if you bring in too many universes, but you don't want to disappoint the reader, either. Multi-crossovers can get ponderous, so watch out.

You've set things up so that Coppelia is about to dive into the underworld. She has two possible gangster companions and an appointment at a bar. You are getting ready for fun times, yes you are. Oh, yes.

DIALOGUE
Do we understand what they're saying?

The dialogue in the prologue's okay. You bring across John's evilness pretty smoothly. He even pretends to be defeated. It seemed suspicious to me, and then you confirmed those suspicions. Nice one.

Later on, everything's in first person narration. It works all right; we can see Coppelia's robotic logical processes. You even include error messages. Really giving that impression of inhumanity can be difficult, though, especially the subtle bits. You can look for Keith Laumer's Bolo series to see how good robotic narration can be achieved. Besides all the obviously robotic things (components, error messages, internal data handling) Coppelia's dialogue could reasonably be said by a human as well.

The gangsters talk like gangsters. The Pokemon talk like Pokemon. It's all good.

Coppelia's lines at the end are rather more sophisticated than anything she's said to this point. Having her appeal to feelings, etc. seems a little unexpected, i.e. cheesy. Then again, she was pretty formal in the prologue, too. Maybe you could tone it down just a bit, though. Do robots really appeal to feelings? Maybe this one does.

CHARACTERIZATION
Are your characters original, well-defined, and compelling?

Coppelia is a robot maid. You go against stereotype and make her clever, resourceful, ethical, and absolutely non-fanservicey. Good on you. That said, she doesn't have any interesting quirks. You've set her up as a fairly conventional heroine; she wants to reveal the truth but was too naive and got into a bad situation. If you make her a little more roboty, but not stereotypically so, it could improve her a lot.

You have a possibility of Coppelia counting as two characters. Coppelia after the partial mindwipe may develop somewhat of a personality of her own, which may then conflict with her original one once she retrieves her backups. This happens fairly often in cloning/backup stories, but that's because it usually makes the story more interesting.

The other characters are minor. John is nicely evil, (and by nice I mean your writing, not him) and, again, the gangsters are gangsters and the Pokemon are Pokemon.

GRAMMAR
Does you talk pretty?

Pretty good job overall. You have some minor typos and stuff but it's not a big deal.

There is one issue. Please remember to put commas around names that are called in dialogue:
"Not so fast, Two-Face!"
"Batman, you're crazy."
"You, Joker, were voiced by Mark Hamill."

DETAIL
Can we see what you're saying?

You use the technique of Coppelia being a relative outsider to the setting of this story (junkyard) to find new ways to describe familiar things like Pokemon battles. That's what I like about alternate-universe fiction.

You could still play up her electronic thought processes a little more, though. I mentioned this before.

I did think you did a good job with Coppelia partially rebuilding her identity, though.

PLAUSIBILITY
Does it make sense?

You mention a fleshy part on the Alien's tail. Do Aliens have fleshy parts? I thought they were all hard armor plating and sharp teeth and acidic blood and H. R. Giger-ey creepiness.

LENGTH
Is it long enough?

Double capture.
Snorunt (MEDIUM 10,000-20,000)
Staryu (HARD 20,000-50,000)
Total 30,000-50,000
You: 34,215
Sure.

OVERALL
What did I think, personally?

My initial reaction as in my first post still stands. This was excellent. Write some more!

FINAL
To catch, or not to catch?

Spoiler

Enjoy your two new Pokemon! I feel they were well-earned.

 

thanks for the fast grade Taras, I'll keep your points in mind for the next chapter (which I will get around to eventually). I completely agree about the ending, but I kinda ran out of steam by the time i'd gotten there, in all honesty I thought it was kinda weak as well, I might retcon it right at the start of chapter 2 whenever I write it.