[Pokémon] First Attempt Writing

. . . in the wake of its destruction its features silhouetted amongst the fire and destruction it had wrought. It towered over, its pointed face of scales merging into bony horns on the edge of its head. It's nostrils flared. A puff of smoke released, preparing for another jet of flames. The boulders in the immediate vicinity, now a pool of magma from the creatures first breath. Its teeth glistened like opals amongst the smoke. White, the tips charred black. Its enormous bulk blocked what was left of the house the small boy once called home. The sky behind it blackened by its wings as they rose up to the sky, preparing itself for flight. No, not for flight. The wings arched back. To propel itself forward allowing those three clawed talons to reach its victim. Despite the terrifying nature, it was the eyes that held its prey victim. Glowing blue in the background of fire. Not empty, full of thought and malice. As if the creature were relishing the enjoyment of the inferno it had wrought and anticipated the pleasure it would receive from more wanton destruction. Those eyes, glaring down, closer, closer, closer.

The nightmares were getting worse. They had somehow added in more detail than David could possibly have remembered. Originally he had only remembered the eyes. It's fateful leer signalling its vile will. He did not know whether these details were being added by his subconscious, or he was in fact remembering that night. Regardless, the image had continued to haunt his nights these last ten years. Intermittently surfacing like the flickering flame of the beast. It was concerning to think that David had been one of the lucky ones. Fortunate enough to have fled the island before the collapse.

David disapproved of his childhood monster constantly resurfacing but took solace in the fact that today his subconsciousness was considerate enough to wait until dawn before forcing him to wake up in cold sweats. The sun began to rise above the horizon and flood the city with light. The blue aura of the city began to creep from the shadows. Like a mist through the stillness of morning. Or ionised particles from the power station to the right of town reacting with the large meteorite fragments to the left of town. Most occupants of the town however preferred the mystique of being a water city with a haunting blue glow. It was beautiful regardless of the explanation one gave to it. It granted a calmness to the city that had not been felt anywhere since before the Island Wars.

"Breakfast is ready" a pleasant and uplifting female voice called out. David's mother was what one would describe as a morning person. Much to the dismay of her son. David slowly lifted himself from his bed and gathered what he would require for his research. Safety glasses, coat, boots, repel, pouch. With that he headed downstairs to the living room where a simple rice based meal lay waiting. Miso, it must be a third-day he thought to himself. "How is the research going?"
"It's going fine". David replied un-eager to continue the conversation at what was in his opinion such an early hour.
"Any luck with the sproutling genetics?" she asked valiantly trying to continue the conversation.
"Not as yet" David replied sullenly. His enthusiasm for conversations with his mother on his research was low at the best of times, let alone over breakfast. You see his mother was a naturalist and while accepting the need and value of her sons work, she did not morally agree.
"Well I hope you start to have some success" and with that she stopped and returned to the government paperwork she had previously been working on. Data processing mostly, some pattern recognition. Well within her capabilities but there was little call for advanced mathematics currently and competition was strong. She was however lucky enough to be able to contribute unlike so many in the town.

Upon finishing his breakfast David left and headed north of town. He waved goodbye to Mrs F. across the hedge still pondering why he called her that considering her surname was Shelly. The training gym of the city was still being repurposed so life in the town was quiet, particularly at this time. As a result David often became lost in thought. People didn't have much they could do except what was required of them. Still, it was full of silent character, or at least he had convinced himself so. Next door to the Finch's for example was a weekly training group. They could not actually train due to the repossession and balls were far to expensive to be sold to the public. They instead would discuss tactics and theory craft. What if scenarios based on the abundance of information provided partially through necessity, partially through military propaganda. Their knowledge was limited as no veteran would be party to such endeavours. The few that existed found it difficult to accept that the methods of war had become sport. No trainers were apart of the group either. Pointless if alone and having two would be rare indeed outside the capital. The house next to that was the last before Nugget Bridge. The residence of the Archeologist. Rumours has it that he found an old amber on a dig. Long enough ago that people cannot remember whether it happened or was merely a story. That tended to happen a lot. He holds regular seminars on digs every fifth-day evening. The seminars typically were full of overly optimistic children hoping to dig up complete fossils of prehistorics. The Archeologist hadn't the heart to tell dispel their naivety. It did give structure to the children's lives, imparted information and most importantly gave their parents a night off. The older kids tended to hang out on Nugget Bridge, named after the designer Victoria Nuggent. David was one of the few people whom wondered why the N was dropped from the name. Another story lost in time. The water below the bridge was eerily still that morning. Perhaps agriculture had begun to take its tole. To the west rows of rice fields stepped up following the contours of the land. Artificial yet somehow natural in appearance. Much of the embankment used to be limestone. The stillness was probably a result of an increase in exoskeletal aquatics forcing their more mobile cousins out he thought to himself. David was a scientist by nature and could not help but ponder the reasons why.

The path to the laboratory was overgrown. While abundant in plant life, little of anything else. The war had left a mark everywhere it had seemed. After a brisk walk through the overgrowth David arrive at the laboratory a few kilograms heavier due to the abundance of thistles now attached to his coat. The laboratory appeared to be ageing faster than the world around it. Only kept in operation due to the lack of building contracts. It hadn't received new equipment since the outbreak of war. Anything new being sent to the more secure island laboratory to the south west. It mostly consisted of scientists sitting at computers creating theoretical models. Application space was limited and so only the best models were ever tested. These models were determined based on the focus which was now in biology. Increasing crop yields being of primary concern. David being one of the few physicist by trade had had little success in his genetics research. He was however a valuable member to the other scientists as he was able to lend unique insights into their work. Upon arriving at his desk David noticing a stack of papers which could only be described as comically high. He picked up the first page. "Transgenic Theory" it read. This was Bill's work. Bill was a friend and colleague of David's. They would regularly bounce ideas off each other and were infamous for their four hour game of Go in the laboratory's staff tournament. David sat down and slowly edged the paper to one side so he could access his computer, careful not to topple small mountain. Behind the paper, attached to his screen was a small note. "Please come find me in Lab 6, Bill". It would have made more sense to place the note on top of the paper stack he thought to himself as he headed past the first five labs.

"David!" a voice cried out the instant David had peered in through the glass window of the door to lab six. "Come in please, have a look at this." David entered the room, scanning it in an attempt to ascertain what the excitement was about. To little success. "Hurry up, come here!" the voice cried again. Unable to discern at first the voice was quite clear to David now. It was definitely Bill.
"Yes Bill" David began before being interrupted "what is going. . ."
"Shhh, come here. As you know we have been unsuccessful in our research."
"Yes."
"Well, I was looking at the genetic code of Melanie here, well here take a look. Tell me you'll look." Bill switched the computer display to show an image of a cell. "Look, look, what does that look like?"
"This came from Melanie?" David asked equal parts puzzled and intrigued. "This would mean. . ." before he could finish he felt a nudge on his ankle. He looked down. There was Melanie having responded to her name. She was sitting on her plump little back legs starring up, barely a foot high. Her front left leg was lifted after having gentle nudged David to let him know she was there. The cherry colour of her eyes bright in contrast with the pale bluish-green of her small body. The big eyes in her little round face looking up at him, like a child patiently waiting to see if they could be of any help. David couldn't help but smile "sorry Melanie, we were just discussing you, it's OK". With that Melanie jumped up and quickly went running around the room. Bouncing from place to place with sheer exuberance and delight. Chasing an imaginary object only to suddenly stop, lean downwards, present a vine from the bright green bulb on her back, whip the floor gently, let out a little yelp, and go bouncing in the opposite direction.

"Yes" Bill began "this came from Melanie, which means either she is symbiotic or we have to re-write what we know of plant and animal genetics. We are in the process of repeating the test to see if we get the same results. Isn't this exciting! Tell me your excited." To say Bill was over the top was somewhat of an understatement but the results warranted excitement from anyone. David starred at the cell trying to comprehend the implications this could have. The cell had shared genetic traits of both plant and animal. Until this moment it was believed they were incompatible. Lost in thought he finally returned to the present situation.
"What can I do to help?" David asked enthusiastically.
"Well, I left a few of my work notes on your desk" Bill said. David quickly interjected.
"I'll look over it and then get back to you." David knew Bill felt awkward asking anything from anyone. He also knew though that he was not up to date with all of Bill's work and a lot of reading would be required if he was to be of any help.
"Thank you so much" replied Bill.

David forwent his usual routine of perfected his cross genetic model in favour of looking through Bills research. His own research would be ready in another month or two and he say no reason it couldn't wait a little longer. He sat quietly and slowly sifted through the mound of paper work tied to Bill's research. The main floor of the laboratory was always deadly silent if one excluded the keyboards being tapped away at. Most of the research being done in this laboratory was civilian based now. Increasing crop yields was a large focus. Geoconstructing was also popular due to the inability to actually go out and take accurate geophysical readings. While interesting, the lack of ability to do more than create models for the most part had begun to drain the enthusiasm from the scientists. Except of course from Bill. He could observe a grain of rice and think the day was off to a good start. Provided you told him how amazing the gain of rice was. The day progressed into the afternoon and slowly as David read while others typed. Most of the scientists were elderly and did not have any family left so. They were content to work long into the evening for something to occupy themselves. David and Bill were one of the few exceptions. David looked out the window and noticed the sun was getting lower in the sky. He packed up his things and headed back to town. Karen would be finishing up soon.

Karen worked in the Repatriation Office in town. Currently she was helping develop small businesses. A bike shop to be exact. She was hoping to have it up and running in anticipation for the building of cycling road. Karen was a scientist by training but was intelligent enough that she could fulfil any role assigned to her. She disapproved of the military requisitioning control of scientific research and so chose to work on rebuilding. Fixing the damage cased. She finalised her last building order for the day and headed out. David was there waiting for her on a bench a stones throw away. She began heading over to him when she heard a voice cry out her name. "Ms Cape!" the tiny voice cried out. It was Polly, a girl who lived in the south of the city. She ran towards Karen and lept up into her arms.
"How are you going today Mrs Whirl?" Karen asked in a very proper voice.
"Noooo, that's my mum silly." The girl laughed back.
"I am so sorry, you just keep getting bigger every time I see you that I keep mistaking you." Karen directed her gaze over Polly's shoulder to her mother "Hi Mrs Whirl, how are you today?"
"I am fine" replied Mrs Whirl who had recently arrived on the scene. "And please, just Jinx".
"I can't, I laugh every time I try". With this Karen knelt down to allow Polly to place her feet on the ground.
"Are you gonna come play with us today?" asked Polly.
"I don't know, I may not be allowed to. You would have to go and ask David. Be careful though, he is a very grumpy individual." As Karen finished, Polly peered around Karens right leg over at David. He looked slightly ominous in the distance with his large coat and face covered up by the shade of the tree he was standing under. Polly clutched Karens leg tighter, nervous about talking to the strange man.

David avoided staring but was keeping an eye on the conversation between Karen, Jinx and Polly. He noticed Karen whisper in Polly's ear and with that she ran the other way disappearing out of sight behind one of the buildings. Karen then waved at him, beckoning him to join. He picked up his belongings and headed over. He could not help but smile as Karen's face became clearer as he got closer. "Hello you two" he called out. They did not respond but waved back at him. As he neared, he noticed them both trying to hold in a laugh. "Did I miss something amusing" he asked as he joined them. Suddenly he was knocked to the ground. Polly had come running out from the other side of the building and leapt on top of him. His folder containing his paperwork from the lab flying open. A look of distress came across Polly's face when she saw the pieces of paper flutter in all directions as the wind swept them up in a twirl. She jumped off him and quickly hid behind Karen.
"Sorry Mr. I didn't mean to spill your papers." Polly said again hiding behind Karen's legs.
"I'm terribly sorry" began Polly's mother. "Polly, quickly collect all these papers."
"I bet I can catch more of them than you" said Karen as she began running around collecting the papers.
"No you can't" replied Polly quickly dashing up collecting even the furthest flung pieces of paper".
"Here let me help you up" explained Jinx lowering her hand to David.
"Thank you" he said placing his hand in hers lifting himself up. "No harm done and at the rate those two are going all the papers will be collected in no time. How have you been lately?" The two caught up as acquaintances living in the same neighbourhood do. Polite, kind but somewhat superficial. It wasn't long before Karen and Polly had collected all the sheets of paper. Polly cheering as she placed the clearly larger pile back into the folder. Karen smiled at her intentional loss, quickly reverting back to a competitive expression when Polly turned back to look at her. After a brief conversation they exchanged goodbyes and went on their way. Polly and her mother continued to the park just outside of town while David and Karen ventured south.

They journeyed south of the city. The countryside was slowly regenerating from the recently abandoned infrastructure. The roads used to be the main thoroughfare from the southern cities to the northern battlefields. Now it was seldom used as the cities, stripped of surplus became self sufficient. Low land shrubs had begun to grow encouraging wildlife to return to the area. Birds began settling in the area, no longer merely content flying over. Some people had begun daring to venture out to try and capture some of the returning land fauna. Mostly for use as pets but some for training. No one had yet been successful though. If anyone in town did know of a natural method they were not sharing the information. The area was peaceful due to the stillness of the surroundings. Only one residence lay along the roadside between the connected cities. Nestled between the trees that lined the edge of the highways. A single family had lived in the house for more generations than anyone has cared remember. As Karen and David headed towards the house they spoke about the events of the day.

"So Bill really thinks that Melanie is actually symbiotic? That's amazing. I wouldn't have thought it would be a beneficial enough arrangement for it to have occurred. It doesn't seem parasitical but what does each party get?" Karen queried in her usual accelerated mode of speech.
"I don't know" replied David. "Judging by what I read he hasn't really worked out the details of his theory. The genetics matches up and he wants to keep testing until something happens."
"The research you do is far too practically driven. You must miss out on so much. Understanding the evolutionary history should be your first step."
"Come work at the lab and you can do just that" David had quite expertly put his foot in it. While Karen had no objection to David working at the laboratory, she did not like how he regularly dropped comments that she should go back to science. David meant well. He honestly saw the research being done as being of great benefit despite being controlled by the military. He like Bill was more pre-occupied with what came next than what had lead them there. Karen was also one of the smartest people he had ever met and thought her talents wasted in the repatriation office. "How is town planning going?" He asked attempting to metaphorically scamper up the sides of the hole he had inadvertently thrown himself in.
"Good. Just today we finalised a bike shop for town."
"Wisp Co. to bike shop. Just one easy step".
"Do you really want me to explain the merits of equitable city macro economics?"
"Please, not that again."
"Individuals tend to congregate where the greatest investment of infrastructure. . . " As Karen began David turned and began walking the opposite direction. "Get back here you." David rejoined Karen with a smile. "Besides" Karen continued on a new train of thought "how is Caldera ever going to get used to other people if you don't regularly visit him."
"I don't like Caldera. He always looks at me funny. And he steps on me with his hoof."
"It's because you look at him funny."
"No I don't."
"It's hardly your fault. You look at everyone funny. Those scientist eyes of yours trying to break down and understand what is in front of you as opposed to just enjoying it."
"You are so evil."
"I know. Stop sulking, we are almost there. Anne already thinks you are surely enough as it is."

David went to grab Karen in playful revenge for the things she had said but she had anticipated this and skipped forwards. She turned around, smiled then proceeded to run towards the house. She approached the fence which enclosed Caldera. She placed both her hands on top of the fence which came up to just below her shoulders. With a single movement she gracefully flew herself over the fence. Despite her gentle landing, Caldera lifted his head and turned towards her, reacting to the sound of her entering the enclosure. He lifted his front hooves and began to head towards her at an incredible speed. Within only ten steps he had gathered enough speed that his hooves barely touched the ground as he galloped. In mere seconds he had crossed the paddock. Almost as quickly as he accelerated he stamped his hooves into the ground in front of him. He slid a few metres, tearing up the ground before coming to a halt right next to Karen, nuzzling her cheek.

"Hello Caldera, how are you? I see Anne has been feeding you well. Perhaps too well. Is that a tummy I see on you?" After hearing this remark, Caldera lifted his head and shook it vigorously. "I'm joking. Arian, you remember David." Karen turned to face David as she said this. David was standing on the other side of the fence looking slightly nervous. Caldera, lowered his head, a skeptical look in his eye. David waved gingerly at Caldera with a forced smile. In response, Caldera turned his head and stood upright facing the opposite direction and flicked his bright red tail as if in protest at Davids presence. "Oh come now" said Karen "he isn't that bad." She said simultaneously giving a coy smile to David. "How about we go for a ride and we can work on you two being friends later" Caldera flicked his hair around and stamped his feet in excitement. "I'll meet you at the house David. Green tea please." With that Caldera bent his front legs, lowering his entire body to allow Karen on. Karen climbed atop with a single step and he lifted himself up. Karen held on tightly as Caldera sped off around the paddock.

David couldn't help but smile as the two sped off. They each obtained so much joy from riding with each other it almost seemed unfair that they ever had to stop. After the initial rush of over excitement the two appeared to ride with more thought and less passion. With this David began the trek around the paddock to the house. He knocked on the door. "Come in David" Anne called from within the house. David gently opened the door, taking his boots off upon entering.
"Hello Anne, it's David" he called out.
"Oh I know dear. I could tell by the thunderous sound of Caldera's hooves that Karen was here, and she would only ever come here with you. Come in, set yourself down dear boy. I'm in the kitchen." David began heading towards Anne's voice. As he entered the kitchen the smell of baking filled his nostrils. Within moments his sense of smell had betrayed him and he craved the baked goods.
"That smells wonderful Anne."
"Hands off sonny. Those aren't for you. But if you are nice I may let you have one."
"And what if I were to make a nice pot of tea and have a conversation with an elderly lady whom lived alone?"
"Well if you were to be that kind to an old lady I guess you could have some." Despite having been coming here every third day for over a year Anne still insisted on her little game. While she wanted to live here it was evident she was lonely and derived great pleasure from Karen and David's visits but would not dare show it for fear of being seen as a burden. She had little or no family left. No one knew which for sure. She removed some rolls from the fire she was cooking in and placed them on a bed of green leaves to cool. David proceeded to make a pot of tea for the two to share. The table was set with tea and baked goods and they each sat opposite each other. To the outside observer they would have appeared awkward and merely talking out of politeness for having a common friend. In reality, while the conversation was incredibly formal in process, the two enjoyed specifically each others conversations.

"How is your research going?" Anne began.
"Progressing at the usual rate. I am still refining the variables in my model."
"No deary, I mean your research." David was taken aback by this comment. He was unaware Anne was familiar with his out of office research.
"I. . . It's going well." He paused for a moment to gather his thoughts. "How much detail did Karen go into."
"Oh not much. She began talking about energy matter transfer but I didn't understand much more than that." Despite her saying this, it was evident by how clearly and easily she had said energy matter transfer that she did indeed understand. David smiled at Anne indicating he clearly did not believe her. "Don't you worry your little head. I may not be in favour of using what you discover but that doesn't mean you shouldn't try and understand it better. Besides, Caldera is bound and it doesn't seem to have done him any harm."
"As long as we can ensure the conversion is flawless there shouldn't ever be any harm."
"You keep saying that to yourself dear. Very little in this world is flawless." Just as she had said these words, Karen leaned in the window.
"Is the tea ready? What are we talking about" she enquired. David was quick to reply.
"Well we were just catching up but I think the new topic of conversation will be about serendipitous moments". He knew that by drawing attention to the coincidence first, Anne was less likely to tease him about it. Anne recognised this and smiled.
"Come in young Karen, you will catch your death out there even standing next to Caldera." Upon hearing his name Caldera poked his head through the window pushing Karen to one side. David and Anne laughed as Karen was awkwardly squashed up against the side of the window pushing in vain with all her might to move Caldera's head out of the way.

Karen joined the other two and the three spoke until sundown. The conversation went in all directions like a perfectionist spider jumping from strand to strand on its web. Karen found time every second day to come visit while David only visited once every half cycle. Because of this when the three were together the conversations tended to go on endlessly without pause. Biology, city development, history, ethics. In deed every topic of conversation tended to be made save one, Anne herself. While younger Anne had been a highly skilled trainer. She was able to see patterns of behaviour far more easily than others. This allowed her to observe where deficit skills would emerge and modify training accordingly. That and the kindness she showed created a desire to never disappoint. Two very potent traits. While initially she was willing to contribute to the war effort in her own way, something happened which caused a rapid shift. She immediately withdrew back to the isolated house, became a naturalist, and never spoke of her past again. It was only by chance that Karen had an encounter with Anne and the friendship bloomed. When Karen was a child she went playing along the southern bushes, jumping over high foliage. Not paying attention she stumbled into Caldera's paddock when he was only a metre high. Anne noticed from the window and witnessed Caldera galloping up to Karen. Anne was rightfully concerned as Caldera looked Karen in the eye intently and lifted his right hoof preparing to stomp in anger. Anne quickly moved towards the door and burst through in fear and concern that Caldera would hurt the young girl. In the few seconds Anne had lost sight of the two, Karen had lifted her arms up and grabbed Caldera by the nose. The next thing Anne witnessed was the two of them playfully running around the paddock with Karen trying to grab Caldera's tail. From then on Karen had been welcome to come back whenever she wanted to play with Caldera and eventually learn to ride.

As the sun slowly hid behind the mountain Karen and David departed. As they walked away along the fence line, Caldera walked with them only stopping once reaching the outer edge of his paddock. All the time Anne was standing out front watching them until they disappeared into the darkness. The road they journeyed on would have been impossible to navigate had the moon not been shining brightly over head. They ventured up the road together. The area was its usual stillness, almost entirely devoid of life. The children from town occasionally would venture down to play but apparently not tonight. The two approached the southern edge of town, a tangled mass of trees before them. They traced the tree line to the west to an opening in the dense forest near an old overgrown requiem sign. The inscription was of Paul's axiom.

"When you were a child you thought as a child, you reasoned as a child, you learnt as a child. As an adult you left childish things behind. Our friends are no different. With them as with you, be sure you do not leave childhood behind before learning all that you need to".​

Just next to the sign was a gap through the dense foliage that encircled the southern end of town. The two stopped and sat under a large tree. Its long branches had clambered high in the sky and almost appeared to lean to one side due to the great weight of its mighty structure. Its tilt had created a canopy under which growth was slow without direct sunlight. David and Karen sat nestled against its mighty trunk with space enough for a great many more couples to join them. "Another generation or two and this gap will be overgrown with Tangela Vines. See, you can already see their blue tendrils slowly creeping." remarked David. Karen leant her head on David's shoulder and held his hand. She shut her eyes and listened to David's gentle breathing, content.

Hey there, welcome to the forum! It's always a pleasure to see a new face, especially when they've brought a new story with them. :)

Here's my response in a nutshell: I'm intrigued by the premise, but you have plenty of work to do in the editing department to the point where the chapter's a bit difficult to read. I prefer to discuss grammar at the end of the review, but your usage of the period is likely to trip up most readers so I want to address that first. The bottom line is that with few exceptions you should use the period to delineate grammatically correct sentences. If you frequently use the period to represent "a longer pause than a comma" it comes across as overly-halting speech with misleading intonation. An early example is this:

Little Ritchie said:

The wings arched back. To propel itself forward allowing those three clawed talons to reach its victim.

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The first sentence works fine on its own, but the second is a fragment. It has infinitives but no subject and no verb. The key thing for the reader though is that the first period makes them think that "The wings arched back" is a self-contained statement, but it's supposed to be joined with the second clause. This means that the reader hears the second clause as the start of a new idea, which it isn't, and they have to backtrack to get the picture. This happens fast and usually doesn't hurt comprehension for more than an instant, but it disrupts the flow and makes paragraphs more laborious than they should be.

On that note, many of your individual paragraphs should be multiple paragraphs. The first one where this bothered me was the one that starts with "Upon finishing his breakfast...". It's really, really long, but more importantly there are at least four main topics in there. You discuss the training group, the archaeologist, Nugget Bridge, and the local agriculture/topography. (Also, I have no idea what "exoskeletal aquatics" and "their more mobile cousins" are supposed to mean.) If your instinct is that there should only be one paragraph between when David leaves his house and reaches the lab you might be right, but the answer isn't to consolidate what should be multiple paragraphs into a single paragraph. It hurts the pacing and in this case it's a lot of detail all at once that could have been spread out.

Now for the things I liked: I'm a sucker for stories about people in the Pokemon world who don't know as much about Pokemon as we do, and you're doing a fine job at planting the seeds for a scientific angle at introducing Pokemon. Your use of scientific jargon is accessible but also convincing enough (jargon isn't necessarily a bad word!). I'm interested to learn more about David's out-of-office research--something to do with special attacks or Pokemon-types I'm guessing--and I'm hooked by the suggestion that something is going to go wrong.

Another good thing is how you've depicted David and Karen's relationship. I liked the prank with Polly, and the other little bits of physical playfulness between them. It does a lot to humanize David, who otherwise might have come across as just another scientist character so far. I also like how despite their positive chemistry there's this major disagreement that's hiding below the surface and which David quickly tries to move away from when he touches on it. It rings true, keeps the relationship from seeming saccharine, and sets the reader up for future conflict.

I'm also interested in learning more about the war and the disaster depicted in the dream. You've done a good job so far of showing how the war and military in particular permeate through the characters' everyday lives and jobs.

This is the part of the review where normally I'd discuss grammar, but I've already addressed what I think is the main problem. There are a good number of minor errors, like "far to expensive" and "David starred". I suggest doing a few rounds of careful proofreading. Keep an eye out in particular for sentence structure, and also look out for tense and spelling.

Also look out for sentences that add little to no new information. This one caught my attention:

The road they journeyed on would have been impossible to navigate had the moon not been shining brightly over head. They ventured up the road together.

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The second sentence doesn't add anything beyond the fact that they're going "up" the road as opposed to "down" it. We already know they're venturing/journeying on it together, so you could replace "journeyed on" with "climbed" cut the second sentence entirely. You'd still be conveying all the information but without any feeling of repetition.

Two last nitpicks: In this forum it's preferred practice to double-space all paragraph breaks including those resulting from dialogue. And typically the title of your thread is the title of your story.

tl;dr: There are grammar and pacing issues that impede the readability of your story, but your good ideas and character dynamics have me interested in the next chapter.

And once again, welcome! Hope you have a great time here at PCFF&W! :)

Had a brief read over your comments and they are fantastic. The chapter does need a lot of editing and I probably should have added it was a first draft. My intent was to develop story more as incentive to do the slowest (and in my opinion the most painful) part of writing, editing. My use of language was a concern throughout my time at uni and I am worried it will be a factor here. I approach things differently to most which means my wording tends to come across as less intuitive. I do need to work on it with my editing.

The feedback my girlfriend (whom is not really a Pokemon fan) gave was much the same. Lots of editing obviously, the arts that humanised David were important and the relationship dynamic worked well. Also she thought I should get rid of the first paragraph as it was too abrupt for an opening. I am happy that you have becoming interested in some of the ideas. I intentionally placed small references which will slowly be explored.

I have written chapter 2 which ramps up a bit more but will try to do a bit of serious editing prior to posting and follow the format etiquette you gave. I'll try and get it done before I fly out on Saturday.

FYI: the exoskeleton reference will be mentioned later but is more a side note about the pseudo science of water Pokemon. In this world their are two types. The first permanently live in water (goldeen for example) and when they use water abilities they merely act like a pressurised hose drawing water from around them. The other kind of land based ones (e.g. Squirtle) that have a strong exoskeleton that allows them to contain pressured water inside them (like a fire hydrant) making water attacks vaguely plauseible.

Thanks a lot for the feedback. It is great and really helpful. As such I hope for more :-).

I've been writing for seven years now and I have to say don't worry about nasty comments. I just skimmed it and while the grammar could use some work (you need to understand how to stop at certain sentences and use a comma), just posting it and trying to get feedback is the first step. I remember I was so nervous I couldn't even post my work cause I was afraid of what people might say. If you wan't to look at some of my earlier work from 2012 (they're really bad) and see how far I've come for a little inspiration, if that might help for you, your more than welcome.

You've got a story going, which is the first step. Keep going! Just make sure you have good grammar. I learned the hard way and looked on all sorts of sites (just Google them, you'll find sources, there's great ones on DeviantART.)