[Pokémon] The Village

Part 1 - Banco and the Village

The sun shone brightly upon my sweaty face. My legs were aching and I felt like fainting. My business partner Sarah and I were heading to a village far out into the desert on Route 4 in Unova. The village is tiny and is very secretive. I don't think I could make it there without collapsing. I looked over at Sarah, her face was bright red and sweat dripped from her face. She was lucky, she still had a tiny bit of cold water left. There was silence besides our gasps for air and our moans of pain.

"Is that…the village…up ahead?" She mumbled softly and she was having a hard time talking from the heat.

I squinted up ahead, there was about twenty tiny shacks made of adobe bricks. They were each about the same size and they all looked fairly similar. There were no windows or doors in each of the shacks. Next to each house was wooden rack for drying clothes and a large bucket for water. There was a larger shack in the middle of the village. It was long and made of adobe as well. It had a circular shape and it was connected to another circular shack. This shack was much smaller but yet it was larger than the houses. Tiny Darumaka's roamed around the village, they were stealing things from the shacks. I laughed to myself, Darumaka's are such mischievous little creatures.

Sarah was taking pictures of the village as I observed the houses. There seemed to be no one here. I was puzzled, it looked like every one was here. There were clothes hung up on the racks that were still wet, like they had just been washed.

Suddenly, I saw a man hiding behind a house. He was observing Sarah as she took pictures. He turned around and started gesturing to a rock and more people started coming and observing Sarah. They had no clue that I was here too. This made me angry, I was hoping that they wouldn't hurt Sarah at all. The man walked up to Sarah from behind the shed. He was right behind her and Sarah didn't notice at all.

"Sarah! Look behind you!" I yelled.

The man behind her was startled at my voice, and when Sarah saw him he ran behind a shack. Sarah screamed at the sight of the man and dropped her camera.

"Hey!" I yelled out to the mysterious people, "Um…we come in peace! We are from a magazine!"

"Stop Richard!" Sarah whispered angrily, "You are going to get us killed."

The man that saw us before came out from behind a shack. He had dark skin and electrifying blue eyes. His hair was jet-black but he had strips of lighter brown hair. It was long and tied back into a pony tail. His expression was serious, but I could tell that he was scared. He walked up to us slowly, and observed us. To be honest, I was scared myself. He nodded after he looked at Sarah and I, then he picked up her camera. He grunted as he accidentally took a picture of himself. He was startled by the click noise.

"That is just a camera…" I told the man.

He looked up at me with the same serious expression. He gestured me to walk over to him, I did as he told. He wrapped his arm around my shoulder. This is when I got nervous, I tried to escape his grip, but he only tightened it.

"You say you are from magazine?" His English was choppy and he had trouble pronouncing words.

"Yep, Unova Daily, we want to write an article about your village." I told him.

The man grunted, "Un-ova…Day-lee?" He had no clue what I was talking about which irritated me a little.

"Never mind…anyway, we come in peace!" I said softly.

The man nodded in approval at me. He let go of me and gestured to the hiding villagers to come and greet us. There were about thirty or so villagers in this village. I felt bad, a lot of them were poorly clothed and were skinny to the bone. Everyone was dirty and it seemed as if they never stopped working. There was an elderly man with a long cane that was an extremely slow walker. He seemed to be the oldest person in the village, the other villagers seemed to treat him with extra respect. They lined up in single file to observe Sarah, and then me. Sarah enjoyed being observed. I, on the other hand, felt very uncomfortable. Especially when the kids came over, they were extra bony and underfed. They were feeling my clothes and my shoes. One kid even felt my nose.

After they all finished observing us, the first man that we saw rounded them up and spoke to them.

"These are friends! They will help us with work! But you must share homes and niceness!" He shouted at them. They all nodded in approval. Then the man turned towards us.

"My name is Banco, I am chief. Welcome to family!" He cheered.

Suddenly, all of the villagers started cheering and swarming Sarah and I. They were hugging and kissing us both. I looked over to Sarah who was laughing and hugging them back. She was having fun. She is ready for this experience. She grew up in a small village like this. I however, did not. I was always a pampered child and I am pampered as an adult today. I am not going to enjoy this experience. Arceus help me!

Hey! I saw your username and decided to read your fic. Interesting, so far. As I am new to reviews and proofreading, I only spotted a couple errors.

"Is that...the village up ahead? She mumbled softly, she was having a hard time to talk due to the heat.

Add a quotation mark after 'ahead?' (typo, I bet.) Instead of 'She mumbled softly, she was' I would have 'She mumbled softly, and was' or 'She mumbled softly, having a hard.' INstead of 'to talk' I would add 'talking.' So 'She mumbled softly, she was having a hard time to talk due to the heat' would become more fluent with something like 'She mumbled softly, having a hard time talking due to the heat.'

I would also add a few more details for a better vision.
ANyhow, I like the story's concept and it has me interested on what direction it's going to take.

Interesting beginning with them being adopted into this, I am guessing, primitive village. Had they expected that to happen? I wonder just how well it'll go down with the narrator though as he doesn't sound pleased at all. XD

I'm not too sure yet how Pokemon really comes into it - thus far with the setting and lack of actual Pokemon it could very easily be an original story, so hopefully the Pokemon elements will come into play later. If not consider reverting as a Pokemon fic which is more about people in a primitive village isn't really about Pokemon at all.

Your description at times tends to be a bit listy as well in that you give a lot of details about a person or place the moment they are introduced. Try instead to spread out some of it - it isn't necessarily bad to do that at times but it seemed too much in this chapter and can slow down the pacing of the story if nothing happens during said description. Try to mix it with events if possible so something is happening while you tell us what something looks like. Besides that it's fairly solid.

The sun shone brightly upon my sweaty face. My legs were aching and I felt like fainting. My business partner Sarah and I were heading to a village far out into the desert on Route 4 in Unova. The village is tiny and is very secretive. I am a journalist for Unova Daily, which is a magazine that gets published around every two weeks. I get payed a lot of money, and I live in a fairly big house. Anyway, we were supposed to write an article about this village and our experiences there. However, I don't think I could make it there without collapsing. I looked over at Sarah, her face was bright red and sweat dripped from her face. She was lucky, she still had a tiny bit of cold water left. There was silence besides our gasps for air and our moans of pain.

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You tend to use a lot of shorter sentences which I feel might be a touch over done... anyways sometimes what is in the paragraph seems disjointed in subject as well. It started with the weather, then what they were doing, the village, his job and him being rich and the size of his house before going back to what they were doing...and so it goes. It's a bit too sudden for my liking in terms of changes and details like his house being fairly big didn't seem to add much to the story as well.

"Is that…the village…up ahead? She mumbled softly, she was having a hard time to talk from the heat.

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Missing quotation mark there, firstly. I feel the second sentence is a run-on - the comma doesn't quite work there after softly as the pause created doesn't feel right. Try a semicolon instead or reword (refer to darkpokeball's post on that).

"Yep, Unova Daily, we want to write an article about your village." I told him.

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Note that as 'I told him' doesn't work as its own sentence here as it's referring to the dialogue, the two parts ought to be treated as one full sentence. Hence rather than a full stop, you should use a comma after 'village'.

"My name is Banco, I am chief. Welcome to family!" He cheered.

Suddenly, all of the villagers started cheering and swarmed Sarah and I.

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If 'He cheered' isn't meant to be read as its own sentence then change the He to he to treat the whole line as one sentence. Also note that 'cheered' followed by 'cheering' in the following sentence is a touch repetitive. I suggest changing one of those.

Not a bad start all in all though. Good luck with the rest of your fic!

Hm. This is certainly an interesting start to a story; I'm not sure if I've ever seen two unsuspected journalists absorbed by a primitive village within 1000 words of the story's beginning before.

Nevertheless, I have to agree with bobandbill: your sentences are short and choppy, meaning that we get information. In fits and bursts. Like this. And after a while. It gets slightly. Monotonous. Vary the length of your sentences, break free of the awkward rhythm of the first paragraph, and you'll be able to capture and hold the reader's attention much better.

I also agree with his point regarding your description. Bits of backstory are injected almost at random into the protagonist's narration; for instance:

The village is tiny and is very secretive. I am a journalist for Unova Daily, which is a magazine that gets published around every two weeks. I get payed a lot of money, and I live in a fairly big house. Anyway, we were supposed to write an article about this village and our experiences there.

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Sandwiched between two sentences about why they were at the village is one about, of all things, the protagonist's salary and the size of his house. The reader doesn't really need to know about that; it's safe to assume that they're not even going to think about it unless you mention it at some point. I'd recommend cutting it, and trying to work in relevant description as you go along rather than shoehorning in facts about the hero as you go.

"Hey!," I yelled out to the mysterious people, "Um…we come in peace! We are from a magazine!"

"Stop Richard!" Sarah whispered angrily, "You are going to get us killed."

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Another thing you seem to make mistakes with is punctuating direct speech. For instance, take the first bolded part of the quotation, the 'Hey!,'. You don't need - and it's ungrammatical to have - both an exclamation mark and a comma. Use one or the other. If he's yelling, it'd probably be better to just have the former.

Additionally, when you start a new sentence within the quotation marks that does not follow on from what was said on the other side of the dialogue tags, you don't put a comma after the dialogue tags. That was complicated, so I'll put an example.

"Why are you so obsessed with Baruch Spinoza?" she asked. "He only wrote Ethics."

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Since the speaker says two separate things, there is a full stop after 'asked' rather than a comma. Conversely, if the sentence continues after the dialogue tags, you would use a comma:

"Hey, you'd better mind what you say about Spinoza," he replied, "or I'm going to punch you."

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Applying this rule to the dialogue you have here should get it all punctuated correctly. You make the mistake at the second and third bolded parts in the above quotation.

Anyway. This isn't at all a bad start, and I look forward to seeing where you'll take this strange idea.

F.A.B.

Wow! I wasn't expecting this many reviews! Sorry, I had a little bit of writer's block for this part. Without further ado, here is part two!


Part 2 – Creepy Blessings and Dead Darumakas

Banco led Sarah and I to our own shack. The shack was basically a tiny room with one tiny bed. I sighed in disappointment and I saw Sarah give me a sharp look. I looked over at Banco and smiled at him.

"Thanks for the…uh…lovely home." I said sarcastically.

"You are welcome! You are now like family!" He exclaimed as he came over to hug me.

I frowned in anger, these people were too dumb to understand my sarcasm. I avoided Banco's hug and pushed him aside. Banco looked over at me in sorrow and disappointment. I could see the despair in his eyes. He was trying his best to make us feel like we were family, but I didn't care. I hated it there and I wanted to escape somehow. Then, I came up with an idea. I was going to sneak around the back and call my boss to pick Sarah and I up. I couldn't stand this dump at all. I felt dirty and disgusting just being in the same presence as these scoundrels. I took out my X-transceiver and walked outside.

"I'll be right back!" I shouted before I walked out.

I was surprised at the temperature difference between being outside and being inside the shack. It was so much hotter outside and I was beginning to get sunburn on my shoulders. I sneaked around the back and made sure that no one was watching. Then I called my boss. The dial tone seemed to last forever, and he didn't answer. I dialed his number again and waited, again no answer.

"Come on!" I yelled in anger as I dialed the phone one more time.

Suddenly, the same little boy that felt my nose before jumped out on me. He was sweaty and dirty. I took a step back from the little monster, everyone scared me here. I couldn't take them. The dial tone continued and I continued to wait as the boy stared at me with a puzzled look on his face. I realized he was cradling a baby Darumaka in his hands. The Darumaka was asleep and was quiet and peaceful in the boy's arms.

"What are you doing?" The boy asked in his choppy English accent.

I ignored him and continued to wait for my boss to pick up his X-transceiver. There was no answer and in anger I tossed my X-transceiver into the wide open desert. I ignored the little boy and walked back inside. Banco was still in there with Sarah, they were talking casually and they completely ignored me. I looked around the shack for something to do, so it wouldn't be extremely akward. There were pretty much nothing. Then I remembered I had a Pokémon with me! How could I forget about her?

My boss gave me a Mudkip for Christmas last year instead of a bonus. I was pretty disappointed but I still kind of enjoy having a Pokémon. When I was little I was never allowed to go on a journey like everybody else did. I was forced to study and train to become a scientist. I learned about all kinds of Pokémon in private school, but I never got to experience being able to train them. After a while it didn't really bother me, I kind of got bored and careless of Pokémon. My father always tried to bring up my enthusiasm when it came to Pokémon, but quite frankly, I didn't care at all.

I walked over to my bag quietly and pulled out the pokeball that held my Mudkip. I stuffed it into my pocket, and walked back outside. The little boy was still there with his Darumaka, it was still sleeping soundly in his arms. The boy walked over to me and bowed, then he grabbed my arm tightly as he whispered something under his breath. Was it some kind of dark incantation? I swatted his arm away, he was starting to scare me. He stopped whispering and looked at me, his eyes began to fill up with fresh tears.

"Oh…uh…I'm sorry." I apologized.

"I was trying to bless you." The boy mumbled, and then he ran into another shack with his Darumaka still sleeping in his arms.

I ignored him and released my Mudkip, she stared blankly into the desert. She wasn't used to being in this kind of terrain. A wild Darumaka popped up from behind a shack and began to play with my Mudkip. I watched as they interacted, my Mudkip was definently not used to meeting new Pokémon. The Darumaka greeted her, but she took a step back in disgust. There was an akward pause as they stared at each other, the Darumaka attempted to befriend my Mudkip once again. My Mudkip thought for a moment about what to do, I always wonder how Pokémon think. They seem to not be rational creatures at all. Mudkip smiled and laughed at the Darumaka, and they immediately became friends. For the next hour or so, I sat on the sand and watched them play together.

Suddenly, on the corner of my eye, I saw a villager. It was a grown man, but he looked much younger. He had slick jet-black hair and his skin was dark like most of the other villagers. He was holding something in his right hand, but I couldn't see what it was. He sat behind the shack quietly, and he too, was observing the Pokémon play together. What happened next was so horrific that I am afraid to describe it. The man leapt from the shack and extended his arm above his head. That is when I noticed he had a knife in his hand. In one clean swipe he killed the Darumaka. Mudkip ran over to me and I recalled her back into her pokeball. I was in absolute shock. The villager picked up the dead Darumaka and started to walk away casually.

"Hey! Why did you just kill that Darumaka?" I asked angrily.

The man turned around and smiled at me.

"This is dinner at feast!" He laughed.

I felt my stomach become queasy, that was absolutely repulsive. I am not going to eat dead Darumaka for dinner at this "feast!" The man turned around walked into a shack to cook the Darumaka. I walked back into my shack, I was afraid that I was going to regurgitate. Banco was just about to leave when I walked in.

"Remember! Feast tonight!" He yelled out as he stepped outside.

Sarah was lying on the bed, reading an odd book. She ignored me
and continued reading.

"Hey," I said, "What are you reading?"

She continued to ignore me.

"Hey! WHAT ARE YOU READING?" I shouted obnoxiously loud.

She looked up from the book. I could see the disgust for me in her eyes, she was obviously mad at me.

"I am reading a book written by Banco, but you probably don't want to touch it. It has villager germs on it." She retorted.

"What is wrong?" I asked, I thought playing dumb was a good idea.

"I don't know why dont you ask Banco-Oh wait! You are going to catch his disease!" She yelled.

I knew why she was angry, but I continued to play stupid.

"I don't know what I did." I muttered.

"Yeah sure! You did nothing wrong! Being racist is a perfectly fine thing!" She shouted sarcastically.

"Be quiet! You are going to gather attention!" I yelled.

"You are so immature! I cannot believe you! I am going to the feast now and when you meet me there, you better change your attitude!" She said as she stormed off.

"WE AREN'T EVEN LIVING HERE! WE ARE STAYING FOR TWO WEEKS! I HOPE YOU KNOW THAT!" I shouted out to her.

I heard her groan in anger and I laughed to myself. This feast is going to be crazy, I hope I can actually change my attitude.

"Be positive…be positive…be nice…" I whispered to myself as I walked outside and over to the big shack for the feast.