I'm not really remembered by any old members, because I didn't join until around 2012, but this place is the reason I still write. I made an account just to start some shitty RP that I ripped off of that book about Greek demi-gods that was popular back then, and my grammar was atrocious. In retrospect, I should have been crucified for it all.

But I wasn't. Jerry sent me a revised version of the original post for the RP with all the errors corrected, and people actually joined. That RP is about 76 pages long in all, and it's overall pointless and had no sense of direction because I was new, but just the sense of nostalgia I get from thinking about it is enough to make me glad I did it. Two of the people that joined that RP I still talk to on Skype to this day.

I eventually moved on from just the RP section to join a guild, though, Elemental Elites. I didn't know anything about the game on a competitive level, but I wanted to act like I did. It was probably really easy to see through all of my bluffing, but Roloc ignored all of that and still helped me out and taught me to battle.

Some of my best memories from this site were made on PO. Not just battling, either. Roloc can tell you a few of us weirdos used to use it as a place to write before I knew what Skype and Google Documents were. It also gave us gems like this:



I don't even know why I remember it, but I can still remember the day I was hanging out in the main chat and that was said. Weird stuff like that used to happen all the time. It was really fun to just hop on see what shenanigans the server was getting up to that day.

All good things must come to an end, though, and I guess this really is the end of the line for Pokemon Universe. It's been a great time, thanks for teaching me to write and helping me mature from the stupid teenager I used to be.

Hope you all have the best of luck in whatever you go after.

Aaron
Aaron looked up at the scene displayed on the monitor: a TV-headed man VS an armored crab lady. "Yeah, it was." He snickered, recalling the battle that Discord had come in third place one-vs-one. "It's hard to believe you two didn't notice me." He shook his head, looking away from Jessie, back to the battle that was currently underway.

The smile on his face curdled like rotten milk left out on a sunny day when he saw Goldlock pull the drone out from her shell. Memories that he had forgotten rushed back to the front of his mind like a tidal wave, leaving him slightly dizzy and nauseous, his stomach turning precariously. "I remember her now!" He groaned, smacking his palm into his forehead hard enough to leave a red whelp. "I can't believe I didn't recognize her before. . ."

Steven/Discord


As the words echoed out, Steven closed his eyes, sliding a hand over the gray, glowing symbol on his forearm out of habit. The world seemed to shift and change around him as he felt himself divided up, until finally, all of him made it to a body.

In a clearing of the forest, sparks of color began to fly out in every which way, before a single, massive die was thrown into the air from seemingly nowhere; rolling for several seconds above the forest, before flashing a single number in every direction: One. In immediate response, the die seemed to explode downwards in a myriad of color, as a single figure was constructed from the ground up amidst the chaos. Inconspicuous, his entrance was not.

The figure stood a bit taller than Steven, however, a good bit of that was simply his head. Atop his body was an old, CRT-TV, with several dials on the front. The display by default showed a bit of a color-spectrum, before fizzling out into a static-y mess. The static was interrupted as a smile was 'drawn on', in mess of scrambled colors; until a flash of light overtook the screen, and the display turned to a blank screen.

His outfit was rather normal in comparison to his head; he wore a a striped dress-coat with a white dress-shirt, and an orange bow tie. He wore white gloves, with a pair of brown dress-shoes at the bottom of it all; and in his left hand, he carried a wooden cane, similar to a Sheppard's crook in shape. At a snap of his gloved finger, a pair of small dice appeared over his left hand, palming them as he began to walk around.

A muffled whistle echoed out through the forest as he walked; prompting him to pause, and tuck his cane under his arm as he began to turn the dials. His voice grew clearer, ever so clearer with each turn, until the number '58' was displayed on his screen; and his voice came through crystal clear. Perfect. "Aha! There we go!" He exclaimed, as he took his cane  and began to lean on it. "Now then... Where is our opponent?" He asked aloud, his volume increasing as he twisted a different dial up; perhaps he was trying to lead them to him.

Aaron took a moment to gather his thoughts before he answered the interviewer. His heart was pounding heart enough that he was scared it was going to burst out of his chest, like some freaky alien in those B-movies he had seen, and staring out at the crowd wasn't doing him any favors. He had been in front of a stadium of people before, but never to this scale and they had never been focused solely on him. "Uh.. It, uh... Yeah... I've only been battling for the last two years, and uh..."

The interviewer laughed, in the fake way a new's reporter does when they tell some shitty joke about the weather, and he patted Aaron on the shoulder. "Take your time, kid, we're in no rush!" He turned toward the audience. "You all aren't going anywhere, are you?" The roar of the crowd was more than enough assurance that they were, in fact, not leaving until they got their monies worth.

Aaron nodded, taking a deep breath and screwing his eyes shut hard enough he saw fuzzy colors, like the snow on a broken television. It helped him reign in his nerves and his thundering heart, and when he opened them again and looked it the crowd, he smiled. "It feels great to be here in general, but it's really cool that I won. Ash gave me a great match!"

"Well what do you know, it looks like we've got ourselves a rare species here: a good sport!" The interviewer was obviously experienced at his job. He pandered to the crowd and hyped up whoever his subject was, and then seamlessly shifted onto the next question before anyone got restless. "What were you thinking when he got up after that attack from the sky? That really looked like it was time for you to meet your maker, from our end."

Aaron flashed back to the moment he had watched the Dovahkiin rise from the rubble of the forest, and the hopelessness that had overwhelmed him as he plummeted from the sky. He had thought that he had messed it up again; he had failed Sun Wukong again, just like he had in his first battle with Jessie and Samus*. "At first? I was... well, I was pretty bummed out. I wasn't sure I could beat him without the Ruyi Jingu Bang or Nimbus Cloud, and I was a lot more hurt than he was."

"But you pulled it out in the end. What gave you the drive to finish the battle?"

The desire to not fail Sun Wukong. To prove that he did belong here, no matter what anyone else thought or said. The need to win and reassure himself that he could do it, and he wasn't in over his head. Aaron wasn't sure how to explain in just a few words everything that had been going through his mind. "I guess I just really wanted to win, and so did Sun Wukong." He smiled and leaned back slightly. "It also helped that we'd been in the same situation a couple times before, and a friend has been helping me out on staying synced."

"It sounds like you've got yourself a good team!" The interviewer glanced at his watch, and obviously he realized the time, because he shifted to the next question. "How do you think you'll do in terms of the rest of the tournament?"

The teenager wasn't really sure how to answer that one. He was still riding on the high from his first win: the thought that he had four or five more battles hadn't occurred to him yet. "I'm not sure. I'm just gonna take it a day a time and see how it all goes, y'know?"

"I certainly do! Don't want to stick your foot in your mouth, eh? Smart move!" He laughed and motioned with his hand as if to wave off his own bad joke. "Well, that's about all the time we have! Anything you want to say to any fans you have out there before you go?"

That was a thought that forced Aaron to stop his current thought process, sending his train of thought flying off of his mental train tracks, where it collided with the side of a mountain and exploded, just as the conductor jumped out the window and kicked a stray tourist in the head. He could have fans? He hadn't even considered that people would look up to him, and wasn't sure how to feel about it in the slightest. His entrance earlier was suddenly much more embarrassing. If he had fans, had any of them stopped being so when they had seen how much of an idiot he was? "Um... I'm the Monkey King?"

God damn it all, Aaron...

The interviewer burst into a bout of laughter at that, pinching the bridge of his nose and holding the mic away so it didn't pick up the noise he was making. "You're really something, kid," he said quietly, and then reigned in his laughter and brought the microphone back up to his mouth. "You heard him, folks! He's the Monkey King! Lets give our primate overlord a round of applause while we get ready  for the next battle!"

The stadium clapped for him (possibly out of pity for how awkward he was), and Aaron was lead off the stage by the interviewer. "Good job out there, and don't worry too much about it. I've seen much more embarrassing things in my time." A smile tugged at the edge of the older man's mouth. "Go ahead and tell the next two contestants to head to the sync station, Monkey King."

Aaron face was stained permanently red from embarrassment. He graciously took the opportunity he had been provided to slip into the lounge where the rest of the battlers were waiting, keeping his head low, and only raised it long enough to loudly say, "Steven and Alexa, they want you to head out to the stage." The latter of the two names - which he had read off of the paper they had been given - seemed somewhat familiar, but he shrugged it off.

---

*: Aaron had a battle with Jessie the first day he arrived, which he lost because she survived his ult, and he de-synced due to lack of experience.

Sun Wukong VS Dovahkiin: Part 2
Wukong was a veteran at fighting trained martial artist and reading the body language of his opponent, but he was too busy taunting to notice the tackle until it was far too late to dodge. It lifted him off of his feet and knocked the wind out of him, and he ate the dirt hard enough that there was a loud CRACK that he was sure was one of his ribs shattering, because there was suddenly a sharp and throbbing pain in his abdomen. “Plegh!” He spat the mouthful of dirt and grass out into the Dragonborn’s face, and sharply brought his knees up to smash into the Dragonborn’s chest in an attempt to seesaw him off.

“Aarrgh, I’m blind!” The Dragonborn was pushed off and landed on his back. He was scrambling to his feet while trying to clear his eyes, somewhat panicked. “You’re dead you damned ape. Dead!” He swung wildly, seeing everything as a blur.

The Monkey King kicked back up to his feet quickly, unable to hold back a heavy grunt of pain as his full weight was brought down onto his wound. He easily swept the desperate attack away with a flourish of his staff, knocking the Dragonborn off of his balance, and the immediately followed up with a heavy blow to the stomach, snapping one foot forward and twisting his hip to achieve the full power of the swing.

The Dragonborn was knocked onto his ass again, but this time he decided to do something risky. He pushed up from his position towards the direction his foe just hit him. “WULD” he shouted, careening towards Wukong and balling up. He decided to cannonball this bastard if it was the last thing he would do.

Sun Wukong started to somersault over Dovahkiin, his muscles bunched and already bending at the knee to launch himself into the air, but the pain in his side flared white hot before he could and he seized up, gasping in pain. The blow hit him square on the chest and his breastplate shattered, and he was propelled into the trunk of an ancient tree that was behind them. He collided into it with enough force that the tree gave an agonized groan and slowly began to tilt on top of him. Sun Wukong reflexively raised his left arm to try and shield himself from the crushing weight, which proved to be a mistake, because the bone snapped like a dry twig. The Monkey King was buried completely under the tree, just the very end of his right hand and his feet poking out.

“Holy poop that actually worked?” The Dragonborn got up from the ground, a little tired, but not done. “You got more tricks marmoset? Or are you actually done for? Guess not seeing as your hairy ass is still here.” He inched towards the flattened primate, sword pointed at where Wukong’s torso should be beneath the tree.

“YOU DARE TO STRIKE THE GREAT SAGE, EQUAL OF HEAVEN?” Sun Wukong’s voice was like rolling thunder, booming out from every single corner of the arena like he was everywhere. “I’LL SHOW YOU, FOOL!” He lifted the tree off of the ground with a single arm and held it above his head and threw it at Dova, cradling his limp and injured arm close to his chest.

The Dova tucked and rolled out of the way. “Guess playtime is over!” He was smiling. “This is what I’ve been waiting for.” He tossed his sword aside. It already proved to be useless against Wukong. He was going balls out with this one. “Hey, Mankey King! MUL QAH DIIV!” With the utterance of his Dragon Aspect shout, the dragonborn was coated in armor resembling a dragon. The power seemed to explode from him. He ran towards his foe to fight mono-a-mono. “Fight me like a man!” He went with a left hook, and would try to follow it with a right haymaker.

Sun Wukong easily sidestepped the left swing, and caught the right in the palm of his good hand; the sheer strength of the blow was enough to drive him back several inches, and he was forced to dig his  feet into the ground to hold out. “I am no man, mortal. I am much more, for I am the Monkey King!” The sky above parted and made way for a regal golden cloud that zoomed down toward them, and Wukong somersaulted above the treetop to land on top of it. “Witness my true strength!”

The Sage raised the Ruyi Jingu Bang above his head with a single hand as the cloud rose into the sky. It began to grow and widen at an immeasurable rate, and did not slow until it was twice the length and width of any tree in the arena, and probably ten times heavier. It stretched so high into the sky that it eclipsed the sun and threw an entire portion of the forest into a seemingly unending darkness, and yet he still managed to control it with a single hand. It looked like he was holding a skyscraper above him. “Never challenge the Great Sage, Equal of Heaven again!” He bellowed and channeled all of his strength and rage and pain into this final strike. The Nimbus Cloud hurtled toward the ground like a falling golden meteor, and Sun Wukong swung the staff down at Dovahkiin.

“You should dodge.” The dragonborn spoke in the back of his mind, but Ash had a better plan. “Nope, we’re catching that, and we’re gonna send it back to him” He raised his hands up and caught the pole, but it was a lot heavier than he thought. "WULD!” He tried to use the force of the shout to push back, but it only caused the ground around him to crack. “WULD!” A second time, but it still refused to stop. "WULD!” he slowed it down, could this be it? No, maybe one more time. "WULD!” Now he was pushing back, but it’s not enough. One shout, he had to make a choice. "WULD!” With that last word, he pushed to staff to the side of him, and jumped. The earth beneath him began to give way, and he made a mad dash towards safety. His armor would wear out any moment. Steady ground was just a few feet away…

The force of the staff hitting the ground shook the arena with the force of two planets colliding, and the entire forest trembled and the earth shook. Every tree for a mile was ripped away by their roots like a leaf blown in the wind, and a huge storm of dust had completely overtaken the section of the forest like a bomb had gone off, making it impossible to see anything but shadows. Sun Wukong knew he was in trouble. With his magic gone the Nimbus Cloud gave way beneath him, and the Ruyi Jingu Bang started to fade into oblivion. He was falling through the air, fast, and hit the ground beside the crater his attack had caused, making a much smaller version of it himself. “Eegh. . .” He groaned, but the combined will of astral and battler was enough to keep it together and stay synced. They had to win their first match.

With a gargantuan display of determination and grit, Sun Wukong climbed to his feet. His fur was matted to his flesh by blood and sweat and dust, his armor lie around him in ruined and fragmented pieces, and his broken arm still hung limply at his side.. He inhaled raspily, and coughed more blood into his good hand. “F-face the Great Sage, coward!” He roared to the sky with half of his normal volume, but all of his normal charm, his eyes narrowed to look for the shadow of a figure through the dust. He may have been weaponless and injured, but he had trained in Martial Arts longer than his fool of an opponent had been alive. He slid into an advanced offensive stance he knew utilized kicks more like second nature, and glanced around suspiciously.

Though the Dragonborn’s armor wore off, he wasn’t going to back down. His sword was good as gone, his magic pool was out, and all he had were steel covered fists. “You got one thing wrong about me friend. I’m no coward.” He went in with both fists clenched. He went with a right jab, and would follow with a straight kick to the sternum. “Let’s do this like grown folks do!” There was a look of respect on the dragonborn’s face.

Wukong weaved away from the first punch, but the immediate kick caught him off guard and he was sent reeling back a foot. What martial art style was this? There was no finesse to it, no display of skill; it was just brute strength and force. He could do the same. The Monkey King struck out at Dovahkiin with a feigned  open-palmed strike at his chest meant to bait him into a false defense, and then quickly launched into a pattern of complex attacks directed at his stomach and face.

The Dragonborn fell for the bait and the other attacks landed perfectly, causing him to stumble back a few feet.. He still had enough in him to keep going, so he sent a punch into the stupid monkey’s face.

Wukong avoided the hit by barely an inch, and he felt the wind from it rush over his ear as it sailed by. He quickly forced the Dragonborn away with a roundhouse kick, desperately looking for an opening he could abuse before he was gassed. He was easily the more skilled of the two in hand-to-hand, but he had taken the brunt of the pain their first fight.

Dova kept coming, and responded with a kick of his own. Wukong saw his opening and tucked to the side to avoid the kick, then smashed a kick of his own into the side of Nord’s unarmored knee. There was a loud snap. The Dragonborn screamed in agony, and collapsed to one knee, but tried to endure it and get a punch in.  Wukong caught the slow punch with his good hand, and then kicked him in his remaining knee. Dovahkiin fell to the ground, but planted both hands firmly into the soil and tried to push himself up. He refused to lose to an overgrown chimp. “I told you… I don’t go down that easy.” He had a plan, but didn’t know if it would work.

Sun Wukong spoke with a smirk, “Improve your skill! Then find me again.” The Monkey King went to end the fight, but the Dragonborn somehow managed to power through all of the pain and rise from the ground and launch himself in one final attempt to hit Wukong with his elbow.

Sun Wukong—tired of the same game and still in excruciating pain—pivoted on his heel and executed the most powerful reverse-roundhouse kick he could muster. The heel of his foot caught the Dragonborn hard on the jaw before he could reach him, and Dova’s momentum worked against him as  his head snapped to the side fast enough to give him whiplash. The ground rushed up to meet him, and it was finally enough to put him away. Dovahkiin de-synced.

WINNER: Sun Wukong

Aaron de-synced but remained in his seat dumbly for a minute. His entire body ached as if he had been the one to take the metaphorical train that Dovahkiin had run over Sun Wukong. Instinctively he held the arm that had been broken close to his chest to protect it, and kept the foot that had been hurt in the last strike off of the ground. The crowd was roaring louder than he had ever heard, but it was like he was in a completely different place. None of this seemed real: how could he have won? Everything had been stacked against him.

In the arena, Ash was rubbing his jaw. “I can still feel that. Good game kid.” He put his hand out to shake Aaron’s hand. Normally he shoots his opponent in the face with his nerf darts, but he had nothing but respect for this guy.

Ash’s hand being shoved into his face broke Aaron out of his trance. “Thanks man, you too! I really thought you had us when that tree broke Wukong’s arm, and I’ve never seen anyone try to lift the Nimbus Strike like that!” The teenager  looked like lightning trapped inside of a bottle: contained, but bouncing around and desperate to get out. Aaron was struggling not to start dancing around the stage to celebrate. “Great fight thou-....”

Ash walked off the stage, his team meeting him “Good fight Ash. We’ll go over the footage and consult Amadeus.” Ash put his hand up, “Fine, but do your research a little better for my next opponent. I don’t want to go in thinking their weakened and get knocked into another damn tree. If you guys need me, I’ll be down the street at the bar.” The team tried to stop him, but he just shoved them aside and kept walking. “Amadeus isn’t going to like this.” One said. Another simply shook their head and motioned the others to head back to the suite for analysis.

Aaron followed Ash off of the stage after awkwardly being ignored, but instead of exiting he headed to the battler area backstage where the rest of the competitors would have seen the battle. He was used to celebrating success with a team, and even though he didn’t have one here. . . maybe he could find a friend or two to enjoy the victory with him? That was the plan at least.

Aaron
Aaron brushed himself off, doing his best to make himself presentable. He pulled his beanie down more over his head, and straight his unbuttoned flannel to make sure that his sponsorship symbol was still visible beneath it.

"Sorry for the misunderstanding, Jenkins," He rubbed the back of his neck, his cheeks stained by an embarrassed blush. "I'll make sure to be here on time - and in the right place - next time."

Without waiting for a response, Aaron pivoted on his heel and sprinted onto the stage. He could feel thousands of eyes staring at him and judging him, and it made the hair on the back of his neck stand up out of sheer fear, so he chose to focus on his opponent instead. "Hey, man, sorry I was late! Hope we can still get off on the right foot... Ashley, was it?" Aaron thought it was a weird name for such a huge, intimidating guy.

While he was talking, he hurriedly punched in his information into the console, doing his damnedest to make up for lost time. He didn't even take time to marvel at how cool it all was, like he normally did. It pulled up a 3D image of Sun Wukong on top the Nimbus Cloud, with his name above his head in bold orange letters, and displayed his strengths, weaknesses, and abilities beneath that. "Ready whenever you are."

Aaron
This dinner rush is going to be the death of me! Aaron flipped several of the burgers on the grill over, struggling to hold back his coughing as the smoke stung at his eyes. They had him trying to do way too much at once; he was the only person cooking burgers for the entire joint, and he still had to take the fries out of the fryer.

"God, the fries!" He nearly dropped one of the burgers on the ground in his haste to turn around, splattering a bit of grease into the air, which landed on his arm. "Ow!" Aaron did, in fact, drop the spatula that time, cradling his stung arm to his chest and trying to wipe the grease off.

"What's taking so long?" The manager, an older man who had worked there longer than anyone bothered to remember, shouted from in front of the counter. "And what's that racket?!"

"Nothing! They're almost done, sorry!" Aaron yelled back, hurriedly throwing the spatula in the sink, already moving toward the fryer. He pulled the basket out, and to his great relief, the fries were only slightly overcooked. The majority of them were still crunchy, golden shards of greasy goodness. He didn't waste anytime throwing them onto plates by the handful, ready to be served up with the hamburger.

The waiter - a sweet, sixteen year old girl that looked just as flustered as him - took the orders as soon as she could, and Aaron heaved a sigh and gave himself a second to relax. When is he going to let me go? The normal dinner cook had called in sick that night, and so even though his shift was supposed to be done over an hour ago, he was still here. He glanced at the clock apprehensively. I'm gonna miss the match if I don't get out of here soon.

Just the thought of forfeiting his first match made Aaron's stomach turn. He had been working overtime to make sure he could afford to take the next two days off to train, and now it was probably all for nothing. He had come all this way just to be behind before it all started. "No, that's not gonna happen. I can still make it on time if I get going soon."

"Are you talking to yerself, kid?" His boss, standing in the doorway, glared at him like he had grown an extra head. "Y'know what, don't answer that. We got another guy in here, you can go ahead get gon--" By the time the man had looked up, Aaron was gone from behind the counter, and the door to the restaurant was swinging in the wind. His was work hat was lying on the floor, in the spot he had been moments before.

"THANKS, BOSS, I'LL PAY YOU BACK SOMEHOW!" Aaron hollered over his shoulder, squirming out of his work shirt, which had his sponsorship shirt beneath it. He did his best to keep running while he was changing, hopping on one foot at one point while he changed his shoes from the ugly, black no-slip shoes to his worn down sneakers: he still had a mile to go, and the match started in eight minutes!