In short...I don't know.

To be a little more descriptive, I really don't know what excuse to use. The best I can give you is that...I'm maybe getting bored with it? This is the first time in a very long time that I can go days without even thinking of writing, letalone updating. It worries me a little, along with confusing me. Writing is a fantastic escape and usually keeps my mind off things that it shouldn't be on, so I'm not quite sure what happened there.

A part of me wants to feel bad for not updating, but the other part is pretty much saying I just don't care anymore. It's sort of a double-sided sword. It's true that I was writing at the very least, but I feel like I was doing it for all the wrong reasons. I wrote because I felt like I had to, not because I wanted to.

I can't even blame the fact that I'm so far away from completing OAM. That wouldn't explain why I've produced no oneshots lately. Admittedly, OAM probably does take a role, but still.

...Anyway. I didn't really think it fair to drop off the face of the earth (again) with no word. If you happen to be awaiting an update from me, or even just want to hear that I've written a little again, all I can say is...I don't know.

And, as always, long live Wizard.

It Takes a Genius

Dusk is a boy of 14 who finally gets his own Pokémon, allowing him to complete the single goal in his life: get out of Twinleaf Town. Dawn, his newest friend, is by his side. She seems to be an emotional, almost whiny girl, but with patience, Dusk intends to find out what's bothering her so much.
Along the way, they happen upon two extra pairs of hands that give them a little company. At first, they weren't going to stay very long...but fate decided otherwise.
With the fated team in tow, all that's needed is a set of hardened, if not stereotypical bad guys, and we'd have ourselves a story spanning half of Sinnoh...that takes place in a little under two weeks. No one said that realism was necessary.

Characters

Dusk
Umbreon, better known as Dusk, is the unanimously-decided leader of mysteriously-named Team Missile. He's mostly a go-with-the-flow person, though he can quickly lose his temper if somebody says or does something that he considers going off the line...like stealing his Pokémon. He never thinks twice about stepping in front of a bullet for his friends, or a knife, given the case. There isn't a whole lot to this boy, and he'll be one of the first ones to admit it.

Dawn
Dawn is, without a doubt, Dusk's closest partner. This is more than likely the reason that she's definitely second-in-command of Team Missile. Despite the almost sibling-like amount of trust they have for each other, Dusk and Dawn can sometimes be at each other's throats, as well. Through and through, she's a great friend to everybody, and refuses to let her heart-wrenching past break past the laughter and smiles that she tries so hard to wear. Though already accident-prone, this girl's biggest weakness is her family, which she finds herself mourning for nearly every day. A single mention of her family, especially her sister, can send Dawn into tears almost instantly.

Brendan
Brendan Maple is probably the most experienced traveler out of the entire group. Commonly never taking much of anything seriously, he does his best to keep a light-hearted spin on all the drama that surrounds Team Missile. Underneath this false cover is somebody who really does care about his friends. Though generally not the preferable choice, Dawn has relied on Brendan to get her back on her feet more than once. Hidden behind his endless sarcastic remarks is quite a bit of physical strength, and a vast amount of medical know-how.

May
To define May in one word would be impossible for any of her friends to do. She's as close to the epitome of forgiveness as the human race will ever get. No matter what anybody may do to her, she will always look past it, with the exception being the multiple antagonists that she runs into. May takes it upon herself to help everything that she possibly can. She does an amazing job of that, which explains why she's Dawn's go-to person when the girl becomes too shy to talk to Dusk. Of course, she's also a top contender for Dawn's "Best shoulder to cry on" award.

Jun
This incredibly spastic blonde boy instantly gained a burning friendship with Dusk and Dawn...pretty much before the two could figure out what he was saying. He's been clocked at being able to run 27 MPH for hours without getting tired, and he only gets faster as days pass. Some wonder if his mouth is the only thing that can outrace him. A first meeting with Jun is usually an awkward one; he commonly talks so fast, he doesn't give the other person a split second to respond...even after he asked them a question. Even with his personality quirks, Dawn seems to grow a fond, if not unexplored interest in this boy.

Kartock
Kartock is a rather mysterious male the team first met in Veilstone, right before they fought the Town's branch of Galactic thugs. He gave Team Missile great assistance by taking care of the guards on the outside, while the rest of the group worked on taking Venus and Team Rocket down. Put directly, Kartock is a bounty hunter, despite his rather young age for such an occupation. Though his true motives are never gone into detail, it's possible that he doesn't even care that Team Galactic's stealing Pokémon; he just wants the money for hauling them into the big house. Either way, he's been quite a help to the team, and though they just met him for the second time on top of Mount Coronet, the event back in Veilstone was enough to lift their trust to respectable levels. He has Pokémon...but that doesn't mean that he always lets them do all of the fighting.

Ashley
Ashley, whose name alone is a huge bite of irony for Dawn, is Kartock's companion. Unlike her sarcastic teammate, Ashley will absolutely never talk unless she needs to. When she does talk, you can expect a rather cold, emotionless voice to accompany it. She has, what Kartock calls, 'a bad habit' of always being right; unless she's certain everything she says will help somehow, she keeps it to herself. She fights alongside Kartock in his personal criminal stopping mission, though it's possible she takes it a bit less seriously; unlike her partner that you can usually find in either protective or camouflage gear, she always wears a simple red dress. No one knows if she keeps any weapons on her. Even fewer know what her and Kartock's true relationship extends to.

Roark
Roark is the annoying antagonist that likes to appear at the worst possible times. The amount of sarcasm he uses is even worse than Brendan's, making him almost sickening to just be around. He's never found with the same Pokémon twice; for one reason or another, they always end up getting taken away. Nobody knows where his endless stock of them comes from.

Team Galactic
The evil-doers of the story. Team Galactic consists of two Commanders, a "Boss," part of another, previously disbanded group called Team Rocket, and a swarm of nameless thugs that never ceases to increase in number. Though their true motives remain a mystery, these astronauts marked themselves for death the moment that they decided to steal Dusk's Pokémon.

.:Complete:.

Only A Madman

A darker continuation of ITAG. After Dawn stumbles into a bad boy in blue, it's not long until they find more of them...and more, and a little more after that. Something's going on here, and it has to run deeper than a fashion-challenged clan deciding to start a spree of petty criminal acts. Almost right off the bat, Team Missile learns a very disheartening lesson: This adventure won't be quite as straightforward as their previous one.

Characters

Dusk
It's possible one might laugh after being told that Umbreon Corsica's only been a Trainer for a little over two weeks now. If his skills aren't enough to prove himself, his reputation of taking down Giovanni will gladly do it for him. Though still keeping with his famed lack of a real personality, Dusk has recently begun entering into absolute fury over otherwise-passable things. While in this mindset, friendship means nothing to him--he won't stop until whatever is bothering him is taken care of, and he doesn't seem to care about hurting anyone, including Dawn, while he's doing it. Interestingly enough, most of those incidents include Wizard somehow.

Dawn
Dusk's partner-in-crime-stopping. Though these two had a rocky time after leaving Sinnoh, things calmed down quickly between the two Team Missile leaders after they arrived in Hoenn. This allowed their trust to once again return to maximum levels. Finding out about her past did indeed break her heart, but Dawn's striving as hard as she can to keep her eyes on the future. Speaking of the future, the girl hasn't forgotten her dream to be a Pokémon Coordinator...the way she battles their newest enemies is quite a sign of that. Dawn's ability to attract pain is lowering; While she still suffers the occasional injury, they're commonly nothing more than glancing blows and scrapes anymore. She wouldn't say that she minds the change much.

Latias
With no questions asked, Latias is the most shocking addition to the group. Even though she was originally to do nothing more than transport Dusk and Dawn, she eventually formed a bond so strong with the latter that she simply didn't want to leave. Since then, the two have entered into a contest of seeing who can be more defensive of the other. Dusk is sometimes quick to be jealous of the amount of time that Latias spends with Dawn, but always remembers that the Dragon-type helps the team too much to ask her to leave. Latias has many unique abilities, one of which is taking Dawn's figure down to the molecule, which she does every single chance she gets. While tempted, Dawn hasn't worked the courage up to ask Dusk to officially invite Latias as a member of Team Missile.
Dawn is also nothing short of oblivious of the obvious crush that this female dragon has on her.

May
While the Sinnoh Trainers were worrying about Team Aqua, May was worried about staying alive. Having blown severely off-course due to a dreadful fog, the young woman fought against nature and won. At first, she thought that arriving in Littleroot Town would be a big enough trophy, but was pleasantly surprised when the trophy came with her closest friends. Understandably, she requested an explanation, but was thrilled both before and after she finally got one. May seems to be a bit more on-edge than she was in Sinnoh. Having not seen Brendan in days may or may not have anything to do with that.

Brendan
It took Brendan seven and a half chapters to hop into the plot, but the original Team Missile comedian is more than willing to start on another adventure already. After getting blown away from his beloved for awhile, Brendan seemed to have an even harder time staying alive than May did. It's never gone into very deeply, but it's heavily implied that he ran into a very useful partner somewhere along the line. Much like May, Brendan not only kept a member or two from his old team, but brought along a few new teammates for the ride. The Hoenn Trainer seems to have lost a touch of his sarcasm from his days in Sinnoh, but as he put it in a tale long forgotten, perhaps we just "need to give him time to get back into it."

Key
Key is the mysterious soldier-of-fortune that rescued Dawn, even though she seems to insist that it was Dawn that saved her. She has an annoying habit of popping up for only awhile before vanishing again. She tirelessly hunts the Team Aqua members down--however, neither Dusk or Dawn can seem to get out of her why, exactly, she's searching for them.

Silver
The easiest way to sum Silver up would be to say that he's pretty much the exact opposite of Key. While he's also hunting Aqua down, he takes the term a little too seriously--scarcely a grunt that's crossed paths with him has lived to tell about it. It's safer not to tell Silver that he's heartless, since he would take that as an understatement of his abilities. Silver and Key seem to have quite a history with each other, originating with the sudden Aqua outbreak. As said, however, Key always vanishes before much can be inquired about the subject, and neither of the protagonists will turn to Silver if they can help it. When blood needs to be shed, Silver's the name to call. No pay needed.

Gold
Appearing just in the nick of time to stop Alexia in her tracks, this athletically-gifted young man made one of the most dynamic appearances in the story so far. Possibly even moreso than Roark, Gold has a personality that you either adore or can't stand at all. One of the incredibly few times that you won't see him smiling, he'll be embarrassing himself with naivety. He's not the quickest on the trigger, but with a complete roster filled with power-packing Pokémon and an attitude that can only be defined as comic relief, Team Missile couldn't possibly deny having his assistance. Silver, however, may have a different opinion.

Winter's Fortune

Love in winter is like a robot. Pretty hard to maintain, but overall worth it in the end. Lucas and Dawn, along with a mysteriously random Shaymin, travel throughout Sinnoh in the coolest time of year, dealing with the expected, and not-quite-so expected problems one would expect on such a journey.

If I Want it to Be

Barry. He's been Dawn's friend for a long time, but it's just recently that she's started to feel...more than that. Could it actually be...love? With all the rest of her friends scattered across the globe, she decides to pick one and ask her for assistance. May. Being one of her few female friends, she knew that May would be a pretty reliable rock to fall onto. That said, the only thing that remains is to tell Barry how she feels...right?
.:Complete...?:.

Brutality of this World

A mysterious Pikachu with an unimaginable disability is cast out of his clan, forced to survive on his own. That's not really that easy, and he learns this the hard way. His past is painful to describe, but are there others out there that are willing to look past it? Probably not.
.:Complete:.

The True Elite

A poem I made. I'd been thinking about it for a couple days, and...well, why not? I'd never written a poem before, and for anybody who's interested in trying it...I assure you, it's not as easy as it looks. Ah well...It was fun, and truth be told, the main reason I did it was to celebrate my third month of being on this site. Cheers!
.:Complete:.

A Dude Named Victor

Ugh...Ugh, ugh! What else am I supposed to say?! So I made it to the Grand Festival. Again. Through --I won't deny it-- luck, I'm in the very final match. My blood's pumping inside of me, obviously. You just wasted the better half of the past year trying to get to this spot, and you tell me that you wouldn't be excited. The spotlight shifts from me to this prize...Victor Logan, or something like that. He looks like he's ready to take the next Mr. T convention by storm, not win a Grand Festival. The battle goes well enough. Four minutes into the five minute match, and I'm up in points by more than half of what Logan's got.
...But then...
.:Complete:.

You Didn't Have To

Friends never understand. They never realize how much it really hurts you when they leave. Forget about you, like you were never a part of their lives. Even if they didn't want to.
.:Complete:.

Just Have Faith

Sometimes, life is truly amazing. Sometimes, it seems that nothing can remove the smile on your face. And sometimes, life isn't amazing. Sometimes, you have no reason to smile. When those times come upon you, there's only one thing you can do...Just have faith.
.:Complete:.