User:NeoCerebrate

Banette’s Revenge

I love Pokemon. Always have. Ever since I saw my first episode of the anime, I was hooked. All my friends were, too, and we played constantly. I even had a stuffed Charmander doll that I did everything with. We ate together, played together, and I even slept with it. When the seam of the leg was torn, I flipped out, crying and begging my mother to fix him. She did, using heavy, coarse black thread that stood out clearly on it’s red-orange leg. Soon after, we moved to another state. I was sad, but eager to meet new people and make new friends. Unfortunately, I soon learned a hard truth. As Pokemon fever infected the US, so too did Yu-gi-oh! fever. And sadly, the town we settled in, fell into the latter category. Because of my love for pokemon, I was bullied relentlessly, with tactics that bordered on overkill for such a small matter. It came to a head when one day, for some reason I still don’t remember, I brought my charmander doll with me to school. Sadly, it was seen, and the bullying reached such a level that I threw it away and swore I’d never play pokemon again in front of the entire class. After school, I tried to go back and find my doll, but the trash had already been taken out and my doll was gone. Forever. I felt terrible, but there was nothing I could do. Depressed and on the verge of tears, I returned home. Several years later, when pokemon diamond and pearl came out, I finally picked up the game again. I was stunned at the sheer number of new pokemon since the first generation and delighted in the new types and attacks. It wasn’t long before I came across a pokemon called banette. Naturally, being catch-happy as I was, I threw an ultra ball and caught it. The pokedex entry caught my eye, claiming that banette was ''“A doll that became a Pokémon over its grudge from being junked. It seeks the child that disowned it.”'' Creepy, but I shrugged it off. The banette went into my PC and I kept playing. The next time I randomly encountered a pokemon, it played as normal, but instead of my Infernape coming out, it was a banette. This was weird since I hadn’t put banette into my team. And I certainly didn’t name it Why. Bringing up my team menu, I was shocked to find my entire team had been replaced with level ten banettes. What chilled me to the bone, though, were the names. In order from top to bottom, they had been named Why, Did, You, Throw, Me, Away. Without even saving, I shut the ds off, then wondered why I was reacting so strongly. The game was hacked, had to be. Nevertheless, a nagging thought made me wonder if it wasn’t that charmander doll I had thrown away ten years ago. Shrugging it off and resigning myself to playing from my last save, several hours prior. You can imagine how shocked I was when, after turning the ds back on, the game resumed at the exact point I had turned it off, only now my team was mostly back to normal, except for the last two slots, which were level 20 banettes, now named Found and You. For some reason, I stared at the names, chills crawling up my spine. Slowly closing the ds, I took a deep breath and opened it again. My team had been changed again, now with a level 15 charmander on top but five level 30 banettes below: You, Can’t, Hide, From, Me. That was the last straw. With a shout I threw the ds into the wall, where it snapped into several pieces. Breathing hard, I struggled to control my racing thoughts, my unbridled fear. I had finally gotten myself back under control when I heard it. Banette’s cry, rattling through the ds’ broken speakers. I’d had enough. Stopping just long enough to grab some shoes I left the house, running as though the devil himself was after me. I ran and ran and ran until my sides burned. No sooner had I stopped then I heard it again, banette’s cry. It sounded like it was right in my ear. Terror lent new strength to my limbs and I starting running again. It continued like that I was ran around the entire city. Every time I stopped, banette’s cry sounded in my ear, growing louder with every cry. Finally, I ran back to my own house, up the stairs to my room and slammed the door shut. What I saw on my bed froze my blood. A stuffed banette doll lay on my bed, one leg sewn with coarse black thread, as though it had been torn and repaired. In a blind animal panic, I lunged at the doll, only to have it disappear. I heard that rattling cry as it vanished, as though it were laughing at me. I knew it had to be here somewhere, so I tore my room apart, the cry ringing in my ears again and again, endlessly. When my parents came home, they found it wrecked, as I had pushed furniture around, smashed my fist through walls and tore out the drywall, all to find that damnable doll. I must have looked like a madman, my clothes soaked with sweat, my hands bloody from tearing everything apart, screaming about banette. For weeks, all I heard was that cry. I couldn’t work, couldn’t sleep, couldn’t eat, because that damn cry rang in my ears like a choir of the damned. Eventually, I realized I wasn’t at home anymore. I couldn’t move either, something was holding my arms tight to my chest, the walls, floor and even ceiling were soft, covered with some kind of padding. It was the sudden silence that made me take stock of my surroundings. I was in an asylum, and sitting across from me, out of reach and grinning with it’s zipper mouth, was the banette doll. And I swear, as I stared at it in horror, that cry sounded one more time in my ear….and it grinned wider.

The following is a fragment from the psychological profile of *name deleted* at the Redville Psychiatric Institution: Subject is suffering from hallucinations, seemingly focused on this “banette doll” that he claims to be the vengeful spirit of a stuffed animal thrown away years ago. Further discussion with the subject has become impossible, as he sits in his cell screaming “They threw me away! They threw me away!”