[Pokémon] Pokemon Ranger - Ringtown Duo!

[DarkGreiga]

This is my first pokemon ranger fic, enjoy!​

Pokemon Ranger – The Ringtown Duo!​

Chapter 1 – Battle, legendary dogs! ... Or is it?​

The sky of Fiore was full of dark clouds. Those dark clouds came from a very high place, the highest in Fiore, the Fiore Temple. On the foot of the temple, there were two rangers in their teenage years. One was a teenage boy with blue eyes and dark blue hair. The other one was a teenage girl with red eyes and light blue hair.

"Go-Rock Squad, you're going down!" the boy yelled, then turned to the girl beside him. "Solana, are you ready?"

"Yeah! I got your back, Lunick!" the girl whose name was Solana replied.

"Let's go and kick some Go-Rock butt!" the boy whose name was Lunick ran towards the stairs that lead to the top of the temple with Solana following him on the back. Solana giggled a bit when Lunick said 'kick some Go-Rock butt' but he didn't notice her giggling.

Lunick and Solana climbed up the stairs to reach the top, but soon stopped by a top ranked grunt who was with a Bayleef, a Quilava, and a Croconaw.

"Well, well, well! What do we have here? A happy ranger couple, going on a date! How sweet!" the grunt laughed as the teen rangers looked away from each other, blushing madly.

A while after that, Solana snapped out of it and looked back at the grunt. "Um, w-what are you guys up to?" Solana said, her face was still a bit hot.

"Heh, it'll be a surprise!" the grunt looked at the top of the temple and grinned evilly. "And it looks like our boss is done up there, but I still won't let you pass from here! Go, pokemon!" the grunt sent Bayleef, Quilava, and Croconaw at the teen rangers.

"Don't worry Lunick, I got them! You go on ahead while I take care of them here!" Solana pulled out her Capture Styler.

"No, Solana! I can capture them by myself!" Lunick was about to pull out his styler but Solana held his styler back, preventing him from using it.

"No, save your styler's energy for whatever is waiting for us up there!" Solana paused, "Plus, I wanted to show you how great I can be!" Solana winked at Lunick before turning to the trio 2nd stage Johto starters.

Solana's Plusle ran to her side to help her captures. During the capture, Lunick was quite speechless by watching her. Solana drew loops to capture them one by one carefully with Plusle's help. Lunick was even more speechless when Solana finished her captures without even damaging her styler. But Lunick wasn't the one who was speechless by the capture.

"What the…? But how…? Huh, fine! Go on ahead and see if you can stop us! You're just going to give up your jobs as rangers!" the grunt then laughed evilly while going down the stairs.

Both Lunick and Solana looked at each other nervously. After several seconds, Lunick closed his eyes and smiled a little. "I know that I've wanted to become a ranger ever since I was just a kid, and here I am, wearing my own ranger uniform and doing a real ranger mission. I don't want this to end so quickly, but don't really care what happens to me up there because I have to protect the people I hold dear from any kind of danger!" Solana was surprised at what Lunick had just said. She didn't know how much he wanted to protect the people he loved.

The two then walked towards the stairs that would lead them to the top of the temple.

"Lunick, are you ready? I can feel that there's something bad up ahead." Solana said as Lunick nodded.

The two climbed up the stairs as their partners, Plusle and Minun, held onto their rangers' shoulders. Once they reached the top, they saw 3 dog like beasts.

"Huh? Aren't they… Raikou, Suicune, and Entei? What are those legendary pokemon doing here?" Solana asked, before looking to the side to find an old man playing an organ with some monitors on it.

"That was a very good question!" the old man stood up and turned to the rangers. "It looks like we have a very familiar face here, isn't that right, boy?"

"Wait a minute… are you… Gordor!?" Lunick said, a bit surprised to see him.

"That's right, boy! I'm Gordor, the old man that you escorted out of Lyra Forest." Gordor replied.

"W-What!? But Lunick, why did you…" Solana was interrupted.

"He tricked us! I can't believe that he was actually the boss of Go-Rock Squad!" Lunick yelled angrily.

"I can't believe it myself that you rangers are very stupid!" Gordor laughed as Lunick and Solana growled angrily. "Okay, now that's enough chatting! Let me introduce you to the Super Styler that Hastings was planning make, the styler organ! The styler organ, it's wonderful music can capture and control every kind of pokemon in Fiore, even your Plusle and Minun!"

"Mai mai!"

"Pla plah!"

"We won't let you do it! You can't take anyone's pokemon for yourself!" Lunick stepped forward.

"Huh, fine then! Your Plusle and Minun are worthless anyway, I already have caught 3 legendary beasts! With them, I'll shower Fiore with thunderstorms, rainstorms, and fire storms! Go-Rock Squad will come to the rescue and replace you rangers! Raikou, Suicune, Entei, finish them off!" Gordor commanded.

The 3 legendary beasts charged at Solana and Lunick, who had their capture stylers ready. Suddenly, Entei jumped high and ready to knock Lunick off the temple. When he saw that, Lunick couldn't move a muscle because of fear. Solana was pretty busy herself with Suicune's clones. When she looked at where Lunick was standing, she saw that Lunick had already been knocked off the top of the temple by Entei!

"Mai mai!" Minun looked at his fallen ranger desperately with his watery eyes.

"NOOO!!!" Solana yelled as tears started to fall down from her eyes.

 

[darkpokeball]

Cool story. I was really into Pokemon Ranger for a bit, and this gave me a bit of deja-vu at the beginning, since it was the final misson before the special missions. I like how you added the twist at the end of Lunic getting knocked off the temple, but in the real game it went: Raikou, Suicine, Entei. There's no way Lunic can stand up to Entei right now! Maybe Raikou should've knocked him off. Also, if you're going to make a twisted video game plot, like this, I would love it if you had Solana and Lunic(if Lunic is still living) meet Kellyn and Kate. And remember not everyone has played this game. Try to be as descriptive as you can and give the character's personality so the reader cares about them. So when Lunick fell off, I just smiled. Just sayin'. Also, when's Chapter 2 coming out?! PM me for I'm working on other things.

 

[JX Valentine]

As a side note, some of the oddities in grammar are things that you end up repeating a few times throughout the course of the fic. I'll only point them out once as clearly as I can because you look like a smart cookie who can figure things out from there.

The sky of Fiore was full of dark clouds. Those dark clouds came from a very high place, the highest in Fiore, the Fiore Temple. On the foot of the temple, there were two rangers in their teenage years. One was a teenage boy with blue eyes and dark blue hair. The other one was a teenage girl with red eyes and light blue hair.

It's not a bad beginning, but I feel like you could add more detail. For example, it's nice to know that they were at Fiore Temple and that dark clouds were surrounding its top, but remember that ambiance doesn't have to just be about dark clouds and that the reader can't always picture canon areas with as much clarity as you. In this case, you could describe the crumbling rock walls, the Go-Rock Squad members peering down at the rangers from the higher levels, maybe even the overgrown vegetation that might give the temple a mysterious look. All of these give the reader a clearer image of what they're looking at, and all of these invoke a feeling of "oh crap."

I mean, sure, when you write fanfiction, you tend to assume that the reader is already familiar with canon places and whatnot. Still, it never hurts to add in a few details, if only to give the reader that sense of foreboding.

"Yeah! I got your back, Lunick!" the girl whose name was Solana replied.[/FONT][/COLOR]

Because the other ranger was addressing her, you actually don't need to say "whose name was Solana." That's running a risk of beating the reader over the head with the obvious.

the boy whose name was Lunick ran towards the stairs that lead to the top of the temple with Solana following him on the back.

I want you to read this quote. Notice how it actually stands alone as a full sentence? That's how you know it's not a dialogue tag – or a part of speech that describes how a quote is being said. For that reason, you actually have to treat it as its own sentence and capitalize the first word.

Now, if you said something like this:

the boy whose name was Lunick said.

Then that'd be a dialogue tag. Notice how it doesn't seem complete because the reader doesn't know what Lunick said?

In other words, a dialogue tag doesn't get capitalized if it comes after a quote because it's not a complete thought. If there's nothing in a sentence that describes how something is being said, then it's a full sentence.

Solana giggled a bit when Lunick said 'kick some Go-Rock butt' but he didn't notice her giggling.

Another trick: Try covering up everything before the "but" and read everything after it. Now, cover up everything after the "but" and read everything before it. Notice how you get two full sentences as a result? This kind of thing is called a compound sentence, which means you need to punctuate it in a way that separates both halves. In other words, insert a comma right before the "but." This functions as a period-within-a-sentence and signals to the reader that they're about to go into a second complete thought.

Go, pokemon!"

If you're going to capitalize Pokémon species names when they function as common nouns (a Bayleef, a Quilava, a Croconaw), you'll actually need to capitalize every instance of the word "Pokémon," too. This is for consistency.

Solana's Plusle ran to her side to help her captures. During the capture, Lunick was quite speechless by watching her. Solana drew loops to capture them one by one carefully with Plusle's help. Lunick was even more speechless when Solana finished her captures without even damaging her styler. But Lunick wasn't the one who was speechless by the capture.

Remember to add description to what's going on. Think about how the games work. They're very visual mediums in the Ranger series, aren't they? You can see the capture line being drawn, you can watch Plusle help, you're given shots of the Pokémon running all over the screen and attacking the capture line, that sort of thing. You want to have that translate over to writing because otherwise, you end up missing opportunities to make your fic more exciting. After all, in a Pokémon fic, usually, the most exciting and magical parts are the parts where Pokémon engage in battle of one sort or another. There's something thrilling about watching the world light up with a Pokémon's fire or about watching razor-sharp leaves slice everything they touch in half or whatever else have you.

If you don't show these things, your readers might end up getting bored because they can't picture what's in your head. So, they end up drawing mental blanks as to what's happening in your fic, which means they feel like they're missing something that could be potentially important. They can't feel as awestruck as the characters over this perfect capture because they can't really imagine what it looked like. So, they don't really get as much into the story as you probably would like them to, which means it'll be harder to hold their attention long enough to get them to keep coming back chapter after chapter.

"Lunick, are you ready? I can feel that there's something bad up ahead." Solana said as Lunick nodded.

Remember how I said a dialogue tag (a part of speech that describes how something is being said) isn't its own complete thought? That's also because it's actually attached to the quote on a literal level, too. You'll need a comma at the end of any line of dialogue that leads into a dialogue tag to signal to a reader that you're not quite done with the thought yet. Otherwise, what you're constructing is the verbal equivalent of a large ditch the reader has to stretch their legs to cross. It can be done, of course, but it's just rather jarring for the reader.

Once they reached the top, they saw 3 dog like beasts.

Two grammatical notes here. First, don't use numerals for any number from zero to ninety-nine. Instead, spell them out with letters. (Three, in this case.) There's exceptions, of course (dates, times, addresses, ordinals, et cetera), but for everything else, yeah.

Second, because "dog" and "like" serve as one adjective meaning they looked like dogs, you actually need to hyphenate it.

Besides that, again, describe. It's not really sufficient to just leave it at the idea that they look like dogs. Beyond that, give us a bit more. Say that the yellow one had electricity crackling off its fur. Say that the blue one's purple mane streamed in the wind. Do anything that tells us that these dogs aren't Chihuahuas. Remember, ambiance isn't just in showing us dark clouds. It's in showing us a lot of different things that let us know that a serious battle is about to occur.

Solana was interrupted.

I'd suggest replacing this with "began" or "said before she was interrupted." The problem with just saying she was interrupted is the fact that she wasn't at the exact time she spoke. A dialogue tag, remember, is a piece of text that describes how something is being said. It feels like jumping the gun to try using it to describe how she's being interrupted in the next line.

The 3 legendary beasts charged at Solana and Lunick, who had their capture stylers ready. Suddenly, Entei jumped high and ready to knock Lunick off the temple. When he saw that, Lunick couldn't move a muscle because of fear. Solana was pretty busy herself with Suicune's clones. When she looked at where Lunick was standing, she saw that Lunick had already been knocked off the top of the temple by Entei!

As a side note, here, I'm going to have to disagree with darkpokeball's comment. It's nice to see you deviate from the game's storyline because, well, Gordor sent out all three beasts against the rangers. The only reason why only one of them goes against the hero avatar at a time is because the final battle would be impossible if this happened. So, because it's basically a melee (as seen by Solana trying to help out), it's perfectly possible for Entei to knock Lunick off the temple. My only qualm with the battle is the fact that we seem to lose track of Raikou at this time.

Also, don't use an exclamation point in the narration (or the parts outside of quotes) unless you're telling the story in first person. Third person especially has to be pretty objective because you're either telling the story from God's point of view (i.e., the point of view of a narrator who can read minds and know what's happening at all times) or as if it's from an invisible unnamed bystander (no mind reading and possible focus on a handful of characters). In other words, the more you give your narration emotion, the more it looks like you're giving the narrator an opinion – like it's rooting for one side or the other. You'll want to avoid doing that so your readers can make judgments about who to root for just by reading about what each character does.



To sum it up, you've got a few grammatical oddities to fix up, but that's the easy part of it. What concerns me more is a lack of description throughout this chapter. You've got a final battle and a battle leading up to the final battle in the same chapter, but you didn't really give the reader a chance to imagine what's going on. We don't know how Entei knocked Lunick off the temple or what about it made a trained ranger fail to jump out of the way in time. We can't see what was so amazing about Solana's capture that left Lunick awestruck except for the fact that it was a perfect capture. Heck, we can't even see much of the temple or hear the music that Gordor is playing. There's just not much here, which makes it difficult to really get into the story and get excited about this final battle between good and evil and the forces of nature themselves.

For that reason, although this was supposed to be an exciting bit of plot, I don't know. I could have been more excited about it, but it just felt like you were reciting what was happening at the end of the game without really getting in there and making your readers imagine it as if we were actually there instead of just looking down on it from above a DS screen. As a fic writer, you really do have the liberty to add more to a scene than what a game presents. Don't be afraid to do so.

 

[DarkGreiga]

@darkpokeball : The first chapter is the final mission with some changes since I have a very bad memory and about Lunick's battle, I made him battle both Raikou and Entei at the same time. (if the game's like this, I think I wouldn't have beaten the game until now, Raikou is a very tricky opponent and Entei has those fireballs thingy around him so I might have broken the styler before I successfully capture them) There will be some deja vu on the second one, but third and so on there won't be anymore rewrites from the game. And about your idea involving Kellyn & Kate, you've completely read my mind! I had that idea for the sequel. Btw, chapter 2 is almost ready for upload.
@JX Valentine : Well, I've read the whole chapter again and I actually noticed that there were some parts that was a little odd. (Or maybe, very odd...) But don't worry, I'll fix them later when I got some time to redo my chapters.

EDIT: @all this story will be discontinued forever as I won't be opening my profile here anymore, but I'll NEVER give this account to anyone. For the next chapters of this story, just browse through the internet for them yourself as I'll delete all of my links in my sig.