…
Staring at the perfectly round stone between them, Otoshi remained in a still, serene pose. His shirt was off, his hands clasped together, and his legs crossed, the pounding of a waterfall filling the air around them with thundering sound.
Like his partner Marowak, his eye were closed and all his mental images were being pushed into the stone.
"…..Has it been two days yet?" Otoshi opened his mouth slightly.
"Maro," his partner rasped back.
"Then it appears that that monk had the wrong idea on how to access the power in this stone and we have simply been doing nothing for 48 hours."
"Wak."
Like an explosion the two darted for the waterfall, sticking their mouths into the flow and swallowing all the water they could return to their systems.
The stone lay where they had left it, held in place by Marowak's bone. Its secrets still a mystery to them.
…
Frowning the author looked over the scene, observing the tale it created with the mighty writing tool.
"No…no…can't figure out what to do from here. What can Otoshi do that would warrant his own story, unless I was to add that into an actual chapter of the main story…but I already jump around enough already I don't think I can survive doing it for vaguely important matters. That Solidad scene pushed it as was."
Sighing the author pointed the writing tool at the scene.
"Well, time to cut you away. Sorry Otoshi." And with that, the writing tool of Reset Bloodlines, a chainsaw, revved up and was ready to cut the scene into pieces.
"Wait!"
The chainsaw was stopped from cutting the scene to shreds by a figure without a face, distinct only by a well-manicured suit and a large silver watch. The author deactivated the chainsaw, but didn't sheath it as he turned to the figure.
"What do you want?"
"To improve production of course," the faceless entity noted.
"Execu Tivem Edlin, what are you going on about?" the author questioned as the figure took out an vanilla folder and flashed its contents.
"This is Ashes of the Past: do you see it?"
"Yeah."
"That fic updates constantly, several times a month. Look how far it is, and compare it to this fic. Clear mismanagement." Execu declared as the author sighed. "You don't even have 1000 reviews yet."
"It also has been around for longer than Reset, and it stalled for about a year around the second movie's events. I'm also fairly certain that Saphroneth writes chapters in pieces constantly, I only start serious work on them after the previous chapter is uploaded. I find the feedback useful going forward and implement it as I write. As for the reviews, give me a few chapters."
"You still could be a lot more efficient and accurate."
"Everyone can be more of something," the author noted as the executive adjusted the non-existent glasses on his face. "I sadly can't work on the fic all the time, let alone put down ideas. I've tried to force ideas before…look at my second Harry Potter fic and third Naruto one for how that ends. Actually don't do that…"
"You really should follow my advice. Executive guidance aides has fixed many series and allowed them to become great. Watchmen, Codename Kids Next Door, Dragon Ball Z, One Piece. Executive guidance makes good decisions all the time."
"Pokemon alone has so many places of known or likely executive meddling that I can use it alone to counter all those points. Shall I start with the issues that popped up during the early Shudo run I actually agree with to some extent, or perhaps the GS ball backtrack that made Johto into a slog? Movie's 3 changed ending is hardly a major one outside of a unfortunate implication about Molly, but then we get into the foggier ones. The entire incident with Tobias for example, though I admit I am not sure if that was executive meddling or a last minute willing decision, and Unova's league makes me wonder who scrapped the original plan and how much time did the poor buggers have. Alain's not nearly as reeking of the stink of meddling as they are, but I still have my suspicions. Not as much mind you, but still."
"What, a writer who thinks that Shudo isn't the great perfection? How refreshing, mind spreading whatever illness you have to the X-Men, Kirby, and MLP fandoms?"
"I try not to get wrapped in up that. Plenty of characters are written well outside their original authorship, and no writer is perfect. Comic books offer many examples of this phenomenal. Plus have you ever seen Shudo's notes? The guy had ideas, wrote good episodes, and a vision…but his vision is frankly unsettling."
The executive tapped the air, manifesting a pair of light novels. He skimmed through them, grinning.
"This is brilliant. Truly your story would benefit from these ideas."
"Did you even read those, or my story? I do adapt bits of it: trainers have a decent failure rate, Gym Leaders can be shut down for losing streaks, though not at the unreasonable number of three, the fact that Delia owns a restaurant though that I think was specified only in the Summer Camp Gaiden…"
"The what?"
"But I am not bringing in some of the needlessly gritty parts. I do not want extensive poverty; bits of it are fine but not to the extremes he wanted. That unearthed and translated comment of his implying that the entire series was just a daydream of Ash's will not apply, for this is not a Creepy Pasta or W.M.G page or something. Pallet Town didn't get its name from the one good trainer it had, trying to explain how a guy who was like 950th out of 1000 is better than Gary or Ash in the anime has more holes in it than half the fanon clichés in Naruto and Harry Potter combined. Most men don't turn to crime, nor do they wallow in their failure for the rest of their lives. I do not need ten year olds being married, I aged them up for a reason, and the slightly foggy but persistent comment on 'Misty having nothing but bad luck with men', is staying the heck out. Misty has a backstory, it's established and it is sufficient. I am not adding implications to it of that nature. I am not Frank Miller!"
"You know boy, that last one gives me an idea."
"All Star Ash and Pikachu will not happen. Fans got annoyed when the series said Ash Ketchum was age ten once."
"Not that. If we want to catch up to Ashes of the Past, we need a hook that it doesn't have."
"We do have hooks it doesn't."
"We need better hooks, no we the best hook of all. We need cheesecake."
"You want Ash and company to visit a Cheesecake Factory restaurant? Well, I suppose that wouldn't be of any harm, though-"
"No you fool, I am not talking about food. I am talking about fanservice. This fic will swarm with fans if you give them what they want."
"Character development?"
"Ba! No one cares about that. They want purple prose on curves and breasts, and maybe some detailed descriptions of musculature for the ladies reading. No, they want Lemons."
The author frowned before whacking the script with the butt end of the chainsaw. The frozen scene of Otoshi faded away, and was replaced with another one.
….
It was late at night in Hoenn's sunny shores. Max was asleep, and May was off with friends for the night. Grinning Norman leaned down to wife and whispered into her ear.
If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.
Caroline giggled, before grabbing her husband by the neck and LEMON LEMON LEMON LEMON LEMON LEMON LEMON LEMON LEMON LEMON LEMON LEMON LEMON LEMON (Honey, those were new socks I just bought) LEMON LEMON LEMON LEMON LEMON LEMON LEMON LEMON LEMON LEMON LEMON LEMON LEMON LEMON LEMON LEMON LEMON LEMON LEMON LEMON
LEMON LEMON LEMON LEMON LEMON
LEMON LEMON LEMON (The Pokemon based pun was promptly so bad 4Kids twin self from an alternate porn self would never say it).
LEMON LEMON LEMON LEMON LEMON LEMON LEMON LEMON LEMON LEMON LEMON LEMON (Max was oblivious, and would be when he went down for breakfast tomorrow, as was for the better).
LEMON LEMON LEMON LEMON LEMON LEMON LEMON
LEMON LEMON LEMON LEMON LEMON LEMON LEMON LEMON LEMON LEMON LEMON LEMON LEMON (Their marriage was quite healthy, as was their love for one another)
LEMON LEMON LEMON LEMON LEMON
LE-LE-LE-LEMON
(And now, the weather. Rainy with a 20 percent chance of thunder.)
…
"What the Distortion World?"
The author shook his head at the executive's use of that realm as a hell term.
"You wanted lemons. I don't think I'll ever wrote Lemon in this fic, so there you go. That's as close as I'll go."
"But…but…"
"….Look, I've done a lot of things writing. I've experimented, and I know what I can and cannot do. Also I am rather sure that would cost me readers, more than whom'd I gain, and it would risk the rage of the mods. I wouldn't even be able to bother the Spacebattles community for help if I did so. So, as I am an old fan of New Chance even if I don't read much Naruto fanfiction anymore, I'd thought I'd borrow a joke from it."
"Why?" the executive questioned.
"Because based on feedback I got trying to figure out what to do for April Fools day I was told that it would be a bit of a slap in the face to write a chapter that was completely made of jokes. That scene is thus canonical to the Reset story, occurring around the same time as the next chapter does as it spans two in fic days, giving this some sort of importance. As it is, there are a limited amount of characters in fic who are currently in positions to be able to have sex with a consistent partner, and as those two are both married and vaguely plot important…"
"This fic is quite clear whose getting with whom. Why not just skip the formalities and have Ash LEMON with Misty, Iris, and Anabel?"
"Because people happen to like reading the fic for the formalities. Plus none of them are at a point they'd realistically do that. Ash isn't quite in tune with romantic relationships yet, Misty isn't at a point she'd be willing to push for a relationship with Ash, Iris won't do so unless Misty does or she takes too long to do so, and Anabel's a new main character and has to develop first. Unless you want to argue either of them would be willing to pay a prostitute for an evening, they aren't LEMON for a few chapters."
Execu Tivem Edlin took out another vanilla folder and began skimming it. The author assumed he might be ready to give up and he'd go bother some other incarnation of the writer's muse.
"Clemont, Falkner, Georgia, Dakim, Lorelei."
"Two gym leaders, an anime only character, an Admin, and an Elite Four member. What of them?"
"The Resetverse has other authors who write in it. Have one of them write LEMON."
"None of them have ever asked me about that," the author pointed out.
"Make them write one."
"I don't do that. I don't tell them to write any character: they ask me if I can, I make sure they aren't going to write Tobias as if he was Velma Dinkley, and they do so. I don't interfere outside of canon flow and the occasional decline of a character because of my concrete plans or because someone else is writing them. I occasionally give suggestions when they ask, but other than that they are free to do whatever they want."
"Like LEMON."
"Why do you keep saying that in singular all caps? Again I reiterate that no writer in the Resetverse as of now has any plans on doing those as far as I know. If someone came up to me and asked 'can I write LEMON' I would not be totally against it. Sure the writer would have to be aware that he or she'd get a lot less links than the others do, I think T.V Tropes has a rule about that, but as the side writers serve a role as filling out elements of Reset that I am only able to partially explain in the main fic, like Twenty Gyarados Bill and the twins from Chapter 2, or ones I am not willing to touch, like the theoretical LEMON or Human x Pokemon romance, also theoretical, those will only happen because someone asks to do them. I am not going to order anyone to do anything they don't want to do. Honestly one of the parts of this fic I truly enjoy is what the co-writers do, with ideas I would have never considered being fleshed out. For example…"
…
"And this actually works?" Jeanette questioned her traveling companion. Said companion grinned, sitting underneath the freezing waterfall in only his pants alongside his Sandlash
"It does. Trust me, getting your Pokémon used to what they are weak against helps control their panic and gives them more resistance to it. Sure it won't halve the damage or cancel it out, but every bit more they can endure from attacks helps."
"I see…" Jeanette noted A.J's words, before glancing down at her Bellsprout.
"Well, I don't think we have a hot spring around here we can use, but we do have a cliff. Tell me A.J, do you think that paragliding will help with damage from Flying-type attacks?"
"Maybe Gust…." A.J suggested as Jeanette procured a paraglider, and then one Bellsprout-sized as both trainer and Pokémon eyed the cliff with determined expressions.
"…I would suggest you not do something that drastic as your first one. Maybe you could work with ice and get under this water. It's really cold under here."
"Oh…" Jeanette mused, before putting away the paragliders.
"Very well, I am prepared for that as well. Allow me a moment behind that sycamore."
And the girl and her Bellsprout walked away, both of the human's faces blushing slightly. Bellsprout seemed more confused why the tree was needed.
…
"It sounds like you are writing by the seat of your pants, like the Dragon Ball writer. Thus you need my, Execu Tivem Edlin, to ensure you don't write something stupid."
"Toriyama was suffering from burnout at that point. A lot of Shonen writers do that, it's probably what killed Bleach. True Oda just got hornier, but Oda is an odd fellow whose starfish learn to speak via word puns. As to outlines, I do in fact have one. I have a general idea where the fic will go, and where it will end, and the major plot points that come up. The one oneshot I ever rejected completely was because of that. However I run a flexible operation, I change my plans all the time. Ash didn't get Dawn's Buneary at the time he got Snivy, they didn't just find Anabel lying on the side of a road, and Belladonna and company weren't in the original script. I think they worked out for the better. The co-writers can expand characters in their own way, like Georgia, the chapter 2 twins, Falkner, and Lorelei for example, and it doesn't do anything negative. It only is a positive."
"But one of those one shots did change a plan of yours. You wanted…"
"Spoilers," the author deadpanned.
"But it was a plot element…"
"An easily changeable one and probably better in hindsight to change. Now…" holding up the writing chainsaw at Execu Tivem Edlin the faceless executive backed away slowly.
"Do you want to be written upon?"
"Very well, you seem to be in somewhat capable hands, for now. But I will always win in the end. Now, I have golf with Darkern Edgier this afternoon, so I bid you adoo."
With that the executive left as the author shook his head.
"How one makes Golf darker and edgier I have no idea. Now, I probably do need to end this at some point, probably with something the readers would actually be interested in. Hmm, I once did silly trailer esc things back in my early days, why not something like that, and even if I don't show every scene in it 100% it won't matter because I can just say it was a joke! The perfect escape clause!"
Grinning the author swung the writing chainsaw and began writing the final part of this chapter.
...
Standing amongst the flames of the ruined lab, the being heard a sound he was not familiar with.
A chopping sound, even amongst the flames.
Mechanical sounds then replaced the chopping sound, even as a figure approached him on two legs. A Persian walked along his side, only on four legs.
The human grinned.
"So, this is the end result of Doctor Fuji's research. I must admit, I am surprised."
The scene shifted from the burning island to a battle field, surrounded by cheering fans. Two teenagers, both with black hair, stared at their opponent, whose Pokemon was a massive Mudsdale.
"I never did get a chance to truly battle you, now allow me to show you," the woman declared as her ring began to glow, even as she and the Mudsdale moved in sync.
"The power of the people and Pokemon of the Alola Region."
The scene shifted to a battle field enclosed by walls, where a Squirtle was staring down a Nidoqueen.
The Gym leader, a young girl dressed as a ninja, pointed as the Nidoqueen roared and charged at Squirtle, who dodged the attack and blasted with a water stream.
The scene shifted again to a youth dressed in blue, staring at a decaying building, ravaged by time. Walking towards it he bent to a knee and dusted off a lump in the sand.
The shape of a faded blue bell was revealed.
Another scene change brought a computer screen littered with the names and stats of his competition. Ash K, Gary O, Red T, Jeanette F, Pete P, and dozens of others littered the purple haired youth's screen.
The scene then changed to a temple in a black beach, where a pink haired pretty boy and a tall girl with black hair and z marked cheeks entered. The pink haired boy placed the ball before an icon, even as the girl looked at the ball in unease.
"Great Tapu Fini..please, heal this Pokémon."
The scene shifted again a final time to a traditional looking, sandy beach where a legion of armored men stood like an army, a tall figure leading them.
Opposing them was a line of white uniformed men and woman with many pockets, a gang of hooligans, and normal looking people with rings on their wrists. A slouching man in black, a stout man in a yellow jacket, and a tall blond with green eyes seemed to lead them.
The two sides glared down each other for a minute, before both charged at each other for battle.
COMING SOON TO RESET BLOODLINES
THE FUCHSIA TAG TOURNAMENT ARC!
WES'S ORIGINS!
POKEMON THE FIRST MOVIE, RESETVERSION!
INDIGO CONFERENCE RESETVERSION!
AND COMING TO THE RESETVERSE ONESHOTS: TEAM CIPHER VS ALOLA! THE CLIMACTIC BATTLE THAT WILL REVEAL A MAJOR SECRET OF THE RESETVERSE!
The Author put down the chainsaw smiling, before pinching his lips.
"I probably should add a list of suggested readings." And so the chainsaw revved up again.
TO FOLLOW THE PATH TO ALOLA VS CIPHER: DAKIM GAIDEN, CLAY INTERLUDE, CIPHER INTERLUDE, GUZMA INTERLUDE, SANPEI INTERLUDE, KIAWE INTERLUDE, AND FUTURE INTERLUDES THE AUTHOR WON'T SWEAR TO AT THE MOMENT. STAY TUNED! (*)