Shade (RPMD) (Jaded Pirate AU)

(MASSIVE CONTENT WARNING FOR SELF-HARM AND ATTEMPTED SUICIDE) 

Jaded Pirate AU is an incredibly personal AU of mine which ties into real-world events.

After a heated argument at the guild which Shade had indirectly caused, Shade felt lower than ever. The fact that he had caused so much harm with nothing more than words shook him to his very core. He had only been trying to help-- how could he know how things would go? That Nea would else up revealing the information he had given her? He hadn't meant to treat a certain someone as if they were somehow a danger, but Shade wasn't stupid. He knew that someone was in a very emotionally volatile state, and he himself had been injured by that Pokémon's outbursts before. Not that it hadn't been deserved, but still; Shade was very acutely aware of such things once he took the time to look into them. All he'd wanted to do was give Nea advice so that she didn't make them uncomfortable, if he had known that others would find out about the things he'd said, he would have never opened his traitorous filthy mouth in the first place. 

And of course, most of them just had to side with her.

Shade had said things, so many things that he couldn't take back. He'd said things to Nea, to Guildmaster Rillaboom, to them... even Cindy had been a target. He'd just been so angry, so distraught that his good faith was being weaponized against him. While some of the things he said felt justified, others... others were just stabs to the heart, to make them feel just as much pain as Shade was feeling. During the fever pitch of emotion, Shade fled the guild, grabbing a knife in the process, running until he could run no longer and finally collapsing at a cliff's edge. When the full emotional weight of what he had just done finally crashed down upon him, Shade was shocked. He hated himself more than ever before, loathed the fact that he could say such awful things. Never before had he wanted to die so badly-- even his few attempts at self-sacrifice had never caused him to wish for death quite as strongly as this did. So, Shade did what he had to do to make things right.

Because he had hurt the others with his words, he cut out his tongue.

At some point, Cindy had noticed that Shade was gone, and subsequently, the missing knife. She managed to find her partner just in time to save his life, but the damage had already been done. Shade's tongue had been severed, and he lay limply on the bloodstained grass. Cindy and Rillaboom rushed Shade to the nearest hospital as fast as they could, and after a few days, Shade woke up. Alive, but not unaltered. Communicating only through writing, he spoke to Cindy and Cindy only. He vehemently resisted any of Rillaboom's attempts to go back to the guild, refusing any and all of his requests. Shade knew he would be leaving friends behind-- Marigold, Evergreen, and... no, she wasn't friends with zir anymore, that was clear-- but he did not care. The things he had done, he felt were inexcusable. Shade felt it was for the best that he leave the guild, and nothing anyone could say or do would change his mind otherwise. But of course, Cindy was not trying to change Shade's mind. Nea was her friend too, her apprentice, practically her daughter. The way that the guild had lashed out at innocent little Nea... Cindy knew that the guild wasn't her home. Not hers, not Nea's, and certainly not Shade's.

Cindy took Shade, Nea, Peter the Charmeleon and Draco the Honedge back to the seas, and sailed her ship without much fanfare. Jack the Hisuian Zoroark had been keeping things in check while they were away, and while he was certainly concerned (and curious) on why everyone was so quiet and Shade was covering half his face with a mask, he wisely kept his mouth shut. As the days went on, Cindy tried to find ways to cheer Shade up, without much success. She even offered to make Shade some sort of replacement so he could speak again-- a literal silver tongue. But each time, Shade denied her efforts. He felt as if allowing himself to have a new tongue would undermine the very point he was trying to make. His scars, his lack of a voice... they were shameful. He wanted them to be shameful. For his actions, he had marked himself for the rest of his life.

Shade, however, did eventually find a new way to speak. As a Zoroark, he was capable of all sorts of illusions. Including those of the auditory variety. It took a bit of practice, as Shade had never been one to use illusions before now, but he was soon able to speak with his illusions. They weren't perfect-- the voice seemed to be whispering and snarling at the same time, it was always just a bit too loud, and it didn't even sound like Shade, but it was at least a voice. Shade, who had once been a chatterbox that always had something new to say, started to communicate in short, choppy sentences. Two to three word answers that only got the point across. It was better for everyone else that way. His eyes also glowed blue when he spoke, causing his pupils to disappear whenever he used his illusions, but Shade never minded that part. The lack of pupils made him look monstrous, and Shade believed himself to be a monster, plain and simple.

Dressed in all black and having lost his love for life, Shade became a fearsome pirate second only to the likes of his beloved Cindy, the Blazing Poseidon herself. He was her unwaveringly loyal second-in-command, and the work he did was quick and efficient. While Cindy used Draco for a sword, Shade acquired his own after rival pirates had attempted to take over the ship and topple Cindy's throne. Shade had caught their Kinggambit leader off-guard with a well-timed flamethrower, and he finished him off without much fanfare. He took one of the Kinggambit's blades for a sword, not only a trophy, but a deadly weapon to use in hand-to-hand combat. Always carrying it at his side, Shade looked like a force to be reckoned with.

What was surprising, though, was that things seemed to be getting... easier. Shade would never regain the ties he had lost, but that didn't mean that he didn't have a family. Cindy and Clover still loved him, and even Nea had grown to forgiven him. Cindy's children, Petey, Peter, and Petal, even looked up to him as a dad, much to his shock. he found himself growing to look forward to each new day, looking forward to training with Petey and reading with Peter, to cuddling with Nea and indulging Petal's theatrics, to sparring with Jack and going to bed each night knowing that Cindy was safe. 

Shade would always believe that his relationship with the guild and them was completely shattered, unable to be fixed. He would always believe that cutting out the thing that had caused him so much pain and suffering in the first place was the right decision. No amount of convincing would ever make Shade believe that harming himself was not the answer. But he would always want to live. He would always want to love. He would always want to stay with his family. 

And dammit, he'd made a lot of mistakes, but he would always do his best for them.