[Pokémon] Story of Benki

shadowpikachu0426 · #1 December 2nd, 2012, 04:53 AM

Alright, Preface before the Preface. First off, this is my first 'Fic. I'm putting it on FF.net as well, but, I'd like to post it here too. Please note, this hasn't been Beta'd by anyone yet, due to my FF beta still not accepting the document transfer. :\ On to the Story.

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Hello! My name’s Benki. I’m a Quilava, raised under Red. No, not the famous Red of the Kanto region, just a trainer in the Johto region. While he isn’t famous or anything, he has amazing battle skills. I’m going to be writing these, so everything will be in my point of view.
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“Go, Benki! Flamethrower!”

I nodded and eagerly ran on the battlefield, adrenaline pumping through me. I always loved this moment, the feeling of anticipation before I fought a powerful opponent. I took aim at the Pokemon in front of me, and felt warm flames beginning to lick at my mouth. I opened my mouth, and shot out a long line of flames at the Pokemon, watching as it attempted to dodge, only to get it’s wing seared.

The Pokemon in question cried out in pain, though quickly regained it’s concentration. “Alright Crobat, fight back with Air Slash!” it’s trainer cried. The Crobat crossed it’s arms, and a few seconds later wind was visibly gathering in an ‘x’ shape. The Crobat fired at me, falling backwards a bit from the recoil.

“Benki! Dodge using Quick Attack!” Red shouted, and I obeyed. I jumped in the air, the ‘x’ of wind grazing my hind legs, and became a blur of red and blue before landing a punch in my target’s stomach. I heard an “Oof!” sound, and the Crobat instinctively swatted at me, using it’s claws. I jumped back, awaiting orders. “Crobat, use Poison Fang before it attacks!” The trainer called, and the Crobat darted at me, it’s fangs glowing an ominous purple.

“Benki! Use flamethrower again! Avoid the fangs!” I nodded, feeling the warm flames forming in my mouth. I shot them at the Crobat, who visibly flinched as the flames hit it dead on. It’s eyes began spiraling, and it fell to the ground on it’s back. “You did good Crobat! Take a rest!” It’s trainer called, and the Crobat turned red and shrunk into the red-and-white ball in the trainer’s hand.

Red and Crobat’s trainer walked over and shook hands, then began walking seperate ways, with the trainer heading to the Pokemon Center in Goldenrod City, which was south of us, while we walked north to National Park.

“Good job Benki!” Red said, patting me on my head. I was always amazed at how he managed to pet me without being burned. I smiled, then turned back to face the route in front of me. Only a couple of meters until the gate.. “Race ‘ya!” Red said, causing me to break into a grin. I sprinted, along with my trainer, loving the moment. Red was somehow managing to get in front of me, and I used Quick Attack to get ahead of him, stopping at the doors with a smirk on my face.

“Beat ‘ya.” I said, earning me a light slap from Red. “Shut up. You cheated.” He responded, though he was still grinning. His brown hair had been blown sideways while he was running, laying on one side of his head, covering parts of his red bandanna. Red always wore a bandanna, even in his sleep. Unlike a boy we kept seeing in the news, he didn't have a white sock covering his hair. People from other places just dress funny.

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We walked into the gate, entering National Park. I always loved coming here, with the relaxing music playing and the fountains. It made me a bit said to know that the music here was going to be changed soon.

Red sat down on a bench, relaxing. I sat at his feet obediently, watching as strangers went by, occasionally the younger ones coming to look at me. A little girl walked over to me, her father directly behind her, and asked Red if she could pet me. Before Red said anything, I dimmed my flames on my head, allowing her to pet me without being burned.

“He’s sooo cute~~!” The girl cooed, making me go a bit red. Red laughed, and the girl and her father continued walking around the park. After a few minutes of resting, Red got up and began a short journey to Ecruteak City.

When we arrived in Ecruteak (after me and Red defeating several trainers on Route 36), we headed straight to the Pokemon Center. I always hated coming here, because I was forced to return to my PokeBall. Reluctantly, I allowed myself to return. The scenery changed from a sterile hospital to an endless green forest, which would be relaxing if it wasn't so claustrophobic. Suddenly, the forest disappeared and was replaced by a big red plus sign, accompanied by a little ringtone. My bruises and scratches vanished, and I felt energetic.

The plus sign vanished, and the green forest returned. After a few seconds, I released myself, appearing next to Red’s shoe.

“Sorry, I needed to get your HP up.” Red said, looking a bit sheepish. He knew I hated these places. “It’s fine.” I sighed. He smiled, then walked into an area behind the Healing Counter, where several rooms where for travelers. Red opened one of them, and I ran inside. I fell onto the bed, and stretched out my legs. Red laughed, then walked in and closed the door. Red began searching through his bag for his pajamas, and when he found them he went into a bathroom on my right.

I crawled over to a window next to the bed, and watched as the lights in the city flickered on one by one, until the entire city was aglow with a nice yellowish glow, which was much more natural looking than the stark white light Fluorescent lights gave off. I watched as people and their Pokemon began walking home, most of them from watching the sunset.

Red came out of the bathroom, changed and clean, and came over to me. “Whatcha lookin at?” he asked, then noticed me staring at lights. He gave me a look that said are you really that bored? then laid down on the bed.

I jumped off the windowsill and laid at the foot of the bed, and quickly fell into the clutches of sleep. Blackness enveloped me, and a blurry image began to form.. Oh crap. I’m dreaming.

“Go, Quilava!” The teen (who was not Red) commanded, thrusting out my Pokeball, which popped open. I stood up, looking at my enemy. I was shocked to know it was a water-type, to which I was weak against. The Pokemon was actually a Marill, who looked a bit sorry to be battling me.

“Quilava, use Quick Attack.” My trainer said, and I obeyed, sprinting forward, and punching the Marill in the stomach. ‘Sorry’ I muttered. The Marill fell backwards, though quickly got back up. It’s trainer told it to use Surf, to which I paled at. I braced myself, and felt a huge wave of water pound me. I landed flat on my back, making a sickening cracking noise. Thankfully, I didn’t break anything, though I was incredibly sore and feeling sick. My flames were small, though sizzling off the remaining water on my skin. I got back up, although I was a bit wobbly on my feet.

The enemy trainer noticed, and commanded the Marill to attack me again, this time using BubbleBeam. I managed to dodge some of them, though others hit me spot on. I groaned in pain, though continued to fight. “Use Flamethrower!” My trainer commanded. Idiot! Didn’t he know Fire attacks were useless against water types? I obeyed anyway, and fired a Flamethrower at the Marill, who didn’t seem to react at all. It didn’t even wait for the command to use Bubblebeam before the world began to spin...

I woke up sweating, adrenaline pumping, rage and hurt and despair running through me, and a feeling of wanting to vomit. It took a few seconds before I remembered that I was in a Pokemon Center with my master, Red. I calmed down, relaxing. My flames began to shrink to their normal size, after flaring from the adrenaline rush. I sighed again, then walked out of the room into another room father back in the Pokemon Center. The room was full of targets, and I began shooting assorted fire attacks at them, in an attempt to blow off steam.

It took about 30 minutes before Red woke up, and about a minute to find me (it took 5 seconds to realize I wasn’t there). When he had found me, he simply stared at the wall I had been target-practicing on. The entire wall had been scorched, though he was not in the least concerned about paying for it (a new wall was only ¥300). “Jeez Benki, what’s gotten you so ticked off?” Red asked, to which I replied with a 'hmph.'

“OK, You don’t wanna talk about it..” Red said, though he was obviously worried about me. “Anyway, let’s take out the team, since you decided to train so early in the morning..” Red said, then pulled out 4 other PokeBalls, and released all of his other Pokemon.

A Pidgeot, an Eevee with spiky hair (he always managed to get it that way), a Poliwhirl, and a Scyther exploded out of the Pokeballs. All of them had nicknames, none of which I could remember. The final team member was still an Egg, so obviously it wouldn’t come out.

Red commanded each of us to attack some targets, occasionally coming up with new, improvised moves. One of which was me setting myself on fire then using Quick Attack, which was really fun, plus I got to see Scyther freak out when I started burning (he had a habit of doing that whenever he saw me play with my element). I watched as Eevee practiced using his Tackle and Quick Attack, each of which were pretty powerful for still being basic moves. Eevee was really serious about his training. He never slacked off, and had a Serious nature.

Poliwhirl was busy shooting Bubbles at his targets, sometimes using a more powerful Water Gun. I involuntarily flinched when I saw him spraying water, my mind flying back to the battle with Marill...

The Poliwhirl noticed, and looked at me with a small smirk. “What, do you think I’m gonna spray you? Besides, even though I have a slightly higher level than you, a Bubble attack wouldn’t do much damage, even if I have the type advantage.” Poliwhirl was such a know-it-all, though he was right. I had the lowest level out of all of the team, minus the Egg.

When we had finished training, Red returned us all to our Pokeballs (aside from me) and walked out of the Pokemon Center, into Ecruteak city, in order to challenge the gym leader there.

Oh Mew, the Gym Leader uses Ghost types... I’m gonna die.

Alright. This is ‘me’ here, AKA the author. While Benki does the opening write, I get to do the closing. Anyway, I managed to write this all on Thanksgiving, which is due to me being sick with a cold. I’ll be writing these during breaks and when I have free time, meaning you might be seeing an update every other week.

Quick Notes:

Benki is Kannada(ian?) for Fire. (Not Canadian)

The Boy Trainer that Benki was dreaming about will be reflected on more in later chapters.

Again, I do not own Pokemon in any way.

Thanks for reading, please review, tell me what you’d like to see, what I need to improve, etc. Happy (belated) Thanksgiving!

bobandbill · #2 December 2nd, 2012, 07:17 AM

Hey there, and welcome to the section! =)

A fairly decent beginning I feel to the story. Already a different way to the typical trainer fic in protrayal so that's a plus, and the writing is decent too. Neat description and writing style, and I quite like Quilava as well. The battle was fine (enjoyable to read) as was the training sequence too.

There's some small typos here and there, but I'll just start from the top. At any rate mistakes are consistent which is always good.

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Hello! My name’s Benki. I’m a Quilava, raised under Red. No, not the famous Red of the Kanto region, just a trainer in the Johto region. While he isn’t famous or anything, he has amazing battle skills. I’m going to be writing these, so everything will be in my point of view.

I do slightly question the choice of Red as the namee of the trainer - it's fine, but I do keep thinking half the time of the canon character Red than this guy whenever the name comes up which is a slight disadvantage (basically it can distract the reader from the story itself which is not ideal, even if it's only to a minor degree). Doesn't mean you should go change the name or whatnot, but maybe something to consider. Certainly it is good that you mentioned it at the start though, as that does help a lot.

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I nodded and eagerly ran on the battlefield, adrenaline pumping through me. I always loved this moment, the feeling of anticipation before I fought a powerful opponent. I took aim at the Pokemon in front of me, and felt warm flames beginning to lick at my mouth. I opened my mouth, and shot out a long line of flames at the Pokemon, watching as it attempted to dodge, only to get it’s wing seared.

Here's one of the traps of writing in first person (or first Qualiva? =p). Each of the four sentences of this paragraph started with 'I ___'. This can make it sound a bit repetitive to the reader and hurt the pacing, etc of the story itself. You don't do it too often but do watch out for it such as here, and consider changing say one of them at least to break it up.

The last sentence sounded a bit awkward to me there. A bit abrupt in the use of pauses. For instance the comma after 'my mouth' creates an uncomfortable sounding pause even if it is before 'and'. I also feel you could reword after 'attempting to dodge' (e.g. '...to dodge but only manage to get...' or the such). One good way to check is to read it aloud and see how something sounds and work from there in editing, I find.

Lastly, a consistent mistake in its/it's. The former is the possessive one you want (its wing, its name, etc), while it's is a shortening for 'it is'. It's something you do throughout the chapter so be sure to fix those errors.

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“Crobat, use Poison Fang before it attacks!” The trainer called, and the Crobat darted at me, it’s fangs glowing an ominous purple.

Besides pointing out the it's thing again occurring here, that 'The' should be 'the'. Basically whenever the part following dialogue can be treated as the same sentence as it (that is, it flows on and tells us for example who said it, how it was said, etc), then don't capitalise the first word after the dialogue (unless of course it is say a name/proper noun). E.g. '"Woof!" said the dog.' is one sentence, while '"Woof!" Then the dog ran off.' is two, and so Then is used rather than 'then' in that case.

Again, it happens a few times so watch out for that.

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Unlike a boy we kept seeing in the news, he didn't have a white sock covering his hair. People from other places just dress funny.

This got a laugh out of me. XD

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I was always amazed at how he managed to pet me without being burned.

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Before Red said anything, I dimmed my flames on my head, allowing her to pet me without being burned.

This was a bit confusing - if it is to imply that he didn't dim the flames for his trainer for petting, then why didn't he do that? Seems a bit odd to me.

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My bruises and scratches vanished, and I felt energetic.

The plus sign vanished, and the green forest returned.

'vanished' twice in two sentences is repetitive so consider changing one of them.

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“Go, Quilava!” The teen (who was not Red) commanded, thrusting out my Pokeball, which popped open.

I'd suggest avoiding including details in brackets like that, as it may do something called break the fourth wall in a way. It sorta sounds like the narrator here is suddenly addressing the reader about a detail rather than it coming up in the story naturally which can disrupt the flow. Again, the use of commas here also sounds a bit off like with the last sentence in the opening paragraph, so try the reading aloud trick to see if it sounds right. I'd say something like... '“Go, Quilava!” a teenageer commanded as he tossed my Pokeball which popped open. I glanced back and noticed that he did not look at all like Red'. This way you could also then include a bit more such as how does the Quilava feel about this in the dream (confused, for instance?).

I also wonder how he knows it was a dream just before that part of the story starts.

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It took about 30 minutes before Red woke up, and about a minute to find me (it took 5 seconds to realize I wasn’t there).

Again going to mention the bracket thing here, plus question how the Qualiva knew it took 5 seconds there and then. It seems an unnecessary detail in a way as well - it doesn't tell us much, nor does the amount of time it took exactly either (that part can stay if you wish to keep it, but knowing it took Red another minute is odd and again implies that Quilava somehow knew it took that long... which doesn't seem possible if he's in another room to begin with).

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“OK, You don’t wanna talk about it..” Red said, though he was obviously worried about me. “Anyway, let’s take out the team, since you decided to train so early in the morning..” Red said, then pulled out 4 other PokeBalls, and released all of his other Pokemon.

Stick to one . (full stop - note here though if you want that you need to use a comma instead for the dialogue as the sentence does not end there), or three (...) for an ellipse.

Watch for the flow of sentences due to comma use again at the end. And lastly note that with numbers you'd typically want to write out anything smaller than 100 (so four rather than 4).

A good start, all in all. Good luck with the rest of your fic!

psyanic · #3 December 2nd, 2012, 05:16 PM

EDIT: bobandbill beat me to the review by being in Australia, so some things I say may be redundant.

About the beta thing - PC has its own little Beta Corner you can check out if you need a beta, and you don't even need to go through the hassle of document transfers and what not. All you would need to do is send your beta the manuscript via a PM or e-mail or however you're communicating. FF.net isn't the only place with betas, and forums are usually pretty good with this sort of stuff.

Anyway, onto the story.

I found the game-mechanics incorporated into the story disjointing and weird, because in reality, I wouldn't go around and say, "I have more levels than you do," or, "I need to get more HP by eating some pizza." I mean, think about it. You go on about how Pokemon have 'HP' and 'levels' so I get that you're trying to follow the games, but is that really the way to go about telling a Pokemon story? Just think about it. I personally find it weird if a character says to another that they have a higher Attack stat, which could easily be translated to a character claiming they're physically stronger. I'd suggest mixing in the game mechanics into reality, just as I mentioned with the Attack stat. Generally speaking, Pokemon Centers refresh Pokemon or literally heal them after battle, so referring to constitution as HP, to me, sounds funny, and not in the 'ha-ha' way.

The story starts out in en media res, which is generally a solid opening if you want to get readers involved. After all, watching people fight is far more entertaining than watching people talk about their new iPhones. However, I found the battle itself weak. There are a number of odd things running around I'll get to later, but most prominently, you don't really describe things particularly well, which is practically a given when you use the first-person narrative. The battle scene read as command-attack-attack-command-attack-attack, etc. It was a bit predictable and bland. There wasn't much flavor to the course, a pizza without any cheese or tomato sauce. There are, however, many sentences that are simply straight attacks and lines of dialogue with the trainers shouting commands. However, what you should have focused on was Benki's view on the battle itself. Benki, obviously, was very excited in the battle, since you explicitly stated that, but his thoughts are conspicuously absent after you go on about 'adrenaline' and whatnot. Keep in mind that there are more to battles than just Pokemon hitting each other as hard as they can; think about why Pokemon battle and how they feel in that moment. It's a tense atmosphere, no matter how light the actual battle is, and it's brutal in many ways. A Pokemon's few, subsequently, would reflect a lot of chaos on confusion, since they're stuck right in the middle of a battle. Emotions run high. But all you've said was Benki was excited.

And the keyword was said. If you haven't heard of "show, don't tell" you just did. What it means is what the name implies: Show readers what's happening rather than telling them. Now, that can be tricky, but take this for example:

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I like pie.

This statement is a bit bland, isn't it? It's just someone saying they like pie. So take a look at this:

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Apple filling hid under the crust, but its presence was given away with a sweet aroma permeating throughout the kitchen - I stole a quick bite and remembered why I got into the pie business to begin with.

This statement is substantially longer (that's not an element of show, don't tell but this is simply an example), so I hope you can see that this sentence, in essence, is the same as above. It talks about someone liking pie. However, it doesn't tell you directly someone likes pie. The narrator describes the pie in such a way that you can tell they like pie. So with Benki, you want to show that's he's excited about the battle, not simply tell the readers.

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