[Pokémon] Alpha and Omega

Adâm1 · Apr 17, 2010

This is my first story In quite awhile, so it may not be up to my usual standard. Still, if you enjoy it, any feedback would be wonderful. No insults, but constructive criticism is always welcome!

"I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last"
-The Book of the Revelation of John

Chapter 1-
Alpha

A teenager, of perhaps 14 or 15, walked down the street in New Bark Town.. Sun filled the sky, but still thunder loomed in the distance. The boy turned his head to look behind him at the sky, and saw a blanket of black storm clouds approaching menacingly towards the town at a faster speed than usual. He The boy grimaced slightly and picked up his pace; he didn't want to be caught out in a storm. Not today. Not on his big day.

'So then, child, your adventure begins today.' The old priest said as he stirred his cup of tea, looking out the window nonchalantly. The boy looked at him, taking in all the features of his old mentor. He had a white monk's cut for hair, and he wore the traditional black uniform of a priest. His face sagged down, like it was too tired and sad to go on holding itself together. His eyes were grey and seemed to look beyond what he saw, to something else, to something that hadn't happened yet. The boy shook his head as he came back to reality.
'Yes, I'm going to collect my Pokemon in a couple of hours, father Uley.' The boy mumbled. 'In fact, I... I was hoping to receive the blessing of God. I don't know what will happen, but I on't want to get hurt.' He said, looking up. The priest smiled, and when he did, his face seemed to come back to life. The corners of his eyes crinkled up and his teeth showed. He looked twenty years younger.
'You are such a good child, Adam. I will be sad to see you go. But I can't restrain you, any more than I can the sea.' He sighed, standing up. He took out an old book and went to a specific passage he always went to when giving blessings, and Adam knelt and bowed his head.

'"I am the one true God. Walk with me as you walk this world. Hear me in the wind and in the trees. See me in the beauty of all the world. Think of me always in victory and defeat, and find in me true solace. But above all remember, I created you and I will be your end. I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last. Love me and fear me, always. For I will always be with you. And I will always guide you."' Uley shut the Book and sighed. 'Go then, child. May God watch you, always.' He said, making a sign with his hands. Adam stood up and shook the old preists hand. He realized this ould probably be the last time he would see Father Uley. He looked so old, so small, so frail.
'Thank you so much, father. I'll never forget you.' Adam said, smiling. He blinked back tears as he left the building. The church bell rang for the last time... And it started to rain.

Two hours later, and Adam was in New Bark Town Lab, talking to Professor Elm.
'Surely, Professor, here must be something I can do to help.' Adam frowned.
'No, no, it's far too late, the thief's probably long gone by now.' He sighed. 'I just hope that poor Pokemon's going to be ok... He didn't look too kind.' He grimaced. He sighed again and shook his head, still frowning.
'What actually happened?' Adam asked.
'Well, I was working on a report on Eggs and Evolution when this red-haired, cruel-looking boy broke in through the window. He was holding a shard of glass, so I backed away. Then, before I could stop, he ran over to the Poke balls over there,' He nodded towards the two remaining balls, 'And then he jumped back out of the window. The police have been informed, but... I don't know if I'll ever see that porr Pokemon again.' He sighed. He looked out of the window and a tear fell from his eye. He shook his head and wiped it off.
'Well, this arrived for you today. I'm sure you'll take good care of it.' He said, morosely. It was against his personal morals to be so sad on a day like this, but today he just couldn't help it. He walked over to the machine and picked up a Poke ball.
'From your father. He sends his love and reminds you to visit him in Ecruteak.' Elm said. Adam stared in awe at the Pokeball Elm was holding out to him.
'Do you know what Pokemon it is?' Adam whispered as he took it from the Professor's hands, as if it was made of glass.
'No. Your father made it very clear not to have a look inside.' He frowned. 'Very clear... Anyway, open it up, let's see what it is.' Elm said, with a bit more brightness coming into his voice. Adam smiled and dropped the Poke ball. In a flash of red light, a Pokemon with one red eye and a blue body with four spikes sticking out from it's back. 'Beldum!'

Adam was walking down the rainy pathway with Beldum floating around his head. 'Hmm... What to call you? How about... Floaty? Magnus? Beady? Rusty?' Adam babbled, mostly to himself rather than his Beldum.
'Ooooor... you could give me a normal name?' A voice echoed through Adam's head.
'What was that!?' Adam cried aloud and looked around, searching for the voice.
'I thought I'd ended up with a smart one.' The voice echoed again. 'It's me! The rather clever Beldum floating around your head? You know? Psychic and all that?' It echoed, sounding slightly annoyed. Adam glanced at the Beldum staring at him. He rolled his eyes at himself.
'Uh... Oh. Hello. I mean... Uh, Sorry. I didn't think... Anyway. What would you like to be called? Do you want to stay as Beldum? Or...?'
'No, I was thinking... Something cryptic. Something clever. Something that makes me sound important and great.' Beldum thought, thinking of a good name.
'How about... Albert?'
'That's a bit too old for me.'
'Maybe... Merlin?'
'You must be joking.'
'Ok, fine... How about...' Adam smiled as the idea clicked into his head. 'Alpha. The first.' He looked towards his Beldum, who seemed to be considering the thought.
'Alpha... Yes, it's good. I like it. Alpha. I am Alpha.' Alpha repeated the word in it's mind, making it right. It performed a cartwheel in the air and signalled for Adam to go onwards. The rain stopped, but the cloud cover remained, ominously looming over the pair... But they didn't mind. Nothing could stop their joy. Nothing could stop this wondrous beginning.

Azurne · Apr 17, 2010

This is my first RP In quite awhile, so it may not be up to my usual standard.

RP? Don't you mean story? Hehe.

Yes, father, I'm going to collect my Pokemon in a couple of hours, father Uley.'

I think you said the word father one too many times here. The first one can be rid of, I believe.

I'm not sure where you're going with this religious thing, but it's good. I've never seen a religious trainer before, and this could be interesting. :D

Two hours later, and Adam was in New Bark Town Lab, talking to Professor Elm.
'Surely, Professor, here must be something I can do to help.' Adam frowned.
'No, no, it's far too late, the thief's probably long gone by now.' He sighed. 'I just hope that poor Pokemon's going to be ok... He didn't look too kind.' He grimaced.

Not entirely a fan of how you handled the lab break-in. It's not bad, per say, but it's not grade A either. I think you could add a couple more lines of what happened to fill the reader in. (Even though we already know how and why the lab was broken into.)

'Anyway, today's not a sad time for you. Today's a good day! For you and your new Pokemon!' He chuckled.

Well Professor Elm seemed to bounce back fairly quick. One Pokemon was just stolen, but no biggie, here's yours! It just didn't seem like he cared at all, and that's a vital part of a Professor's character.

In a flash of red light, a Pokemon with one red eye and a blue body with four spikes sticking out from it's back. 'Beldum!'

I'm not entirely sure I like Adam getting a Beldum. I can only justify it since he's getting it from his father, and his father could have gotten it from god knows where, but the fact he received a Hoenn Pokemon from a Johto Professor, and is travelling the Johto region… It's meh. I do like the name Alpha for a Beldum however.

I'm also curious how Alpha can talk. Is it because he's a psychic Pokemon? Or can all Pokemon talk in this fic?

I also liked the background setting you had going in here. It was thunder storming and raining, instead of the bright sunny cloudless day. It gives a heavier feel to the story.

Good luck on any future chapters~

-Azurne

Adâm1 · Apr 18, 2010

Oops, I was writing an RP and a story at the same time... I'll just edit that slightly. Thanks!

I understand why you dislike the break in and his sudden bounce back, but it's going to be involved later on in the story, so it's necessary to keep it secret-ish. And the sudden mood change... Is unrealistic, yes. I'll edit that...

The reason he got a Beldum from his father will be revealed later on, plus the Beldum family is my personal favourite.

And it "Speaks" in Adam's mind because it's a Psychic Pokemon, in my story, all Psychics can do that. But Pokemon, overall, cannot speak.

Silawen · Apr 18, 2010

Good morning! Just wanted to leave a quick review and hopefully help you out a bit. ;)

~

A teenager of perhaps fourteen or fifteen walked down the streets of New Bark Town.

There's no need for all those extra commas, because this could actually be one, ongoing sentence.

Write out numbers, especially those below a hundred. It looks neater and doesn't interrupt things so much.

I would say 'walked down the streets of', because there is not just one street in New Bark. There are more than one and so 'the street' sounds wrong.

You only need one period/full-stop to end a sentence, not two.

Sun filled the sky, but still thunder loomed in the distance.

So the sun is shining, yet in the distance there's thunder? Actual thunder? Doesn't sound very realistic. Maybe mention that a thunderstorm is gathering nearby?

The boy turned his head to look behind him at the sky, and saw a blanket of black storm clouds approaching menacingly towards the town at a faster speed than usual.

Like this. So is there, or isn't there, already thunder?

The boy grimaced slightly and picked up his pace; he didn't want to be caught out in a storm. Not today. Not on his big day.

Please proofread. Extra punctuation and random words don't make for a great story and you could easily have prevented this.

Also, I hope 'his big day' isn't referring to the start of his pokémon journey, because kids can get a starter from the age of ten and starting later wouldn't make sense.

'So, then, child, your adventure begins today,' the old priest said as he stirred his cup of tea, looking out the window nonchalantly.

There's a pause after 'so', so I'd add a comma. (No pun intended.)

Punctuating speech is very difficult for a lot of people, so I'll explain it to you so you can get a better grasp on it. I know it's tricky, but once you get the hang of it you'll be totally fine. :)

"Hey," she said.

'Said' is a speech verb. Much like 'whispered', 'hollered', 'asked' etc. it's a verb that produces speech. When you're using such a verb, you need to end the spoken sentence with a comma and have a lower-cased word following it. (Unless that word is a word that is always capitalized, like a name.)

The same goes for questions and shouting, except them the comma gets replaced by a question mark or exclamation point.

When you're not using a speech verb and the two sentences aren't directly connected - the second sentence isn't indicated how the first is being spoken - you do something different.

"Hey." The girl waved.

She's not 'waving a sentence', so you don't get a comma and you treat the sentence after it as a separate sentence. (Meaning you capitalize the starting word.)

That's the basic idea when it comes to speech punctuation. Now, there is quite a bit more - especially regarding fragmented speech, or speech tags in-between bits of spoken text - but I'll leave it at this for now so I don't swamp you with information. If you want to know more, let me know.

Very important bit of info, but you start a new paragraph every time a new person starts talking.

"Hey," Jay said.

"Hey." His friend didn't look up.

"What's wrong?" Jay was confused.

Also, I prefer to use "" to show speech, as I think it's clearer, but that's just personal opinion. :)

The boy looked at him, taking in all the features of his old mentor. He had a white monk's cut for hair, and he wore the traditional black uniform of a priest. His face sagged down, like it was too tired and sad to go on holding itself together. His eyes were grey and seemed to look beyond what he saw, to something else, to something that hadn't happened yet. The boy shook his head as he came back to reality.

This is basically an info-dump. You tried to disguise it by claiming the boy was lost in thought, but it's really you just dumping all his features on us. We don't care what exactly the priest is wearing, or what part of his face sagged. Just a quick identifier would have worked. "His mentor - knowing, grey eyes focused on him - sat opposite him, clad in his tradition uniform."

'Yes, I'm going to collect my pokémon in a couple of hours, Father Uley,' the boy mumbled. 'In fact, I... I was hoping to receive the blessing of God. I don't know what will happen, but I don't want to get hurt.'

I would say 'pokémon' and not Pokemon. I don't know what keyboard or system you're using, but on mine you can get the é by combining ALT and 130 on your number pad. Also, I prefer to lower-case pokémon, as you would capitalize 'animal' either, but that's a huge, messy discussion that I'm not willing to go into.

'Father' should be capitalized, as it's part of his name here. I also showed speech punctuation again. I'm not going to do that for everything, as you can use the information I gave and edit it yourself, but there's another example of how it's done.

Also, 'don't'. Spellcheck before posting, maybe?

I'm not entirely sure about the inclusion of religion here. (And that's not just because I'm an atheist. *grin*) I've found that the pokémon world doesn't really seem to follow our types of religion, so God wouldn't be very important there. (If they even know who this 'God' is.) They seem more interested in worshipping legendaries than they do any of our gods.

The same goes for that passage from the bible.

Adam stood up and shook the old priest's hand. He realized this would probably be the last time he would see Father Uley.

I know I've said it before, but you really need to spell-check. These are some basic errors.

And it started to rain.

You know how they said in school that you should never start a sentence with 'and'? Well, though that's not quite true when it comes to creative writing, it is true that you should generally avoid it when it's not necessary. Here it's not necessary. You could easily have either combined this sentence with the one before it, or left out the 'and'. "It started to rain." is a perfectly good sentence.

'Surely, Professor, there must be something I can do to help.'

'I just hope that poor pokémon's going to be okay... That boy didn't look too kind.'

You write it out as 'okay' when used in writing. Also, I would identify who you're talking about in the sentence, otherwise it may appear as if you're talking about the pokémon not being too kind.

'Well, I was working on a report on eggs and evolution when this red-haired, cruel-looking boy broke in through the window.

You don't capitalize words simply because research is being done on them. You wouldn't capitalize 'frog' or 'water' every time they're mentioned in a paper on frogs and their habitat, would you?

He was holding a shard of glass, so I backed away. Then, before I could stop him, he ran over to the poké balls over there.'

He was holding a shard of glass? Even before he'd broken the window? That makes no sense. Or are you implying that he broke through the window, managed not to kill himself, and then immediately grabbed a piece of glass - again not cutting himself - before Oak had a chance to do anything about it? This is Professor Oak, a pokémon expert, surely he could have used any of the dozens of pokémon he had lying around?

I don't know if I'll ever see that poor pokémon again.'

You really need to proofread better. I know that people make mistakes, even after extensive proofreading, but your chapter wasn't long at all and so many obvious mistakes shouldn't slip through. Maybe you could get a beta to help you out?

In a flash of red light, a pokémon with one red eye and a blue body with four spikes sticking out from its back. 'Beldum!'

Wait, wait, he's getting a beldum? Not only is a beldum the basic form of a pseudo-legendary, but it's also a pokémon that a person from Johto wouldn't be able to get his hands on easily. You can actually catch them, however, in Sinnoh, so it would have made a lot more sense to have the character's father come from there.

I'm not at all happy with a beldum as a starter, though, but I suppose you'll have a great explanation for him receiving one.

By the way, when you're talking about the possessive form of 'it', it becomes 'its'. 'It's' stands for 'it is' and is not the possessive here. Always 'its' for possessive, never 'it's'.

Adam was walking down the rainy pathway with Beldum floating around his head. 'Hmm... What to call you? How about... Floaty? Magnus? Beady? Rusty?' Adam babbled, mostly to himself rather than his beldum.

You need to be careful with your scene-transitions. They're very abrupt, yet don't to serve any purpose. You could easily have written a line stating he headed out, instead of throwing a scene-break in.

I don't capitalize species names. Now, again, I know this is a very hot topic, but I do it because the rules of English say you shouldn't capitalize 'beldum' here.

'Ooooor... you could give me a normal name?' A voice echoed through Adam's head.

Aaaaand:

'Okay, fine... How about...' Adam smiled as the idea clicked into his head. 'Alpha. The first.' He looked towards his Beldum, who seemed to be considering the thought.
'Alpha... Yes, it's good. I like it. Alpha. I am Alpha.'

Alpha is not a normal name. At all. I don't know how many people you know called 'Alpha', but I can't imagine it being very many. In fact 'Rusty' is a much more normal name - one the beldum ridiculed for being silly - than 'Alpha' will ever be. You're showing conflicting wants here.

'I thought I'd ended up with a smart one.' The voice echoed again.

How would the beldum know this, though? He's never met the boy.

Alpha repeated the word in its mind, making it right.

Another example of the possessive of 'it' being 'its' and not 'it's'. ^^

The rain stopped, but the cloud cover remained, ominously looming over the pair... But they didn't mind.

This is a bit of a mess. I'd suggest rearranging it, because as it stands now it reads very awkwardly. Maybe something like this?

"The rain stopped, but the cloud cover remained and loomed ominously over the pair. They didn't mind."

~

All in all, this could use a bit of work. I'm going to point out a few things I think need attention.

Plot.

There isn't one. So far this chapter has managed to do nothing. Apart from the character getting his pokémon, nothing happened. He talked to his mentor, he talked to his pokémon, he talked to Elm, but nothing was actually done. Too much talking and not enough important things happening.

Try to think of something. Having a religious person go on a journey could be interested, if executed well, but right now I don't see much of anything. It's also not a plot. You need to think of what's going to happen, when it's going to happen, and how it's going to happen. Imagine how the story's going to go before you start and plan out when pivotal things are going to happen. Opening chapters like this - without any meaning - don't really entice the readers.

Character.

Your character's defining qualities are that he's fourteen or fifteen - why don't we get to find out which one it is? - and that he's religious. This doesn't really interest me much. Maybe it's because I'm, like I said, an atheist, but I think it's something else.

First of all, him being fourteen and without a pokémon doesn't make sense. Kids can get their starters from the age of ten - at least, in the anime they can, which you're basing it on - and not getting one seems strange. Why would a guy like your main character not get a pokémon? There's no explanation for this oddity, nor is there any indication that they know it's strange that he's so late with his adventure.

Also, as a result, he should lose to kids three or four years his junior. Talk about embarrassing!

The religion angle could be interesting, but I'm a bit concerned that you seem to have based it on Christianity. Christianity doesn't have much of a place in the pokémon world and I think you could have made it a lot better by giving the boy a religion that is based on pokémon world beliefs. Maybe he's part of a church for dialga, or arceus, or whatever. It would make things a lot more believable.

Pokémon.

He gets a beldum. Oh, boy. Now, I'm all for new, interesting starters, but this is going a bit far. He gets, for no clear reason, a pokémon that evolves into a pseudo-legendary. Not to sound cliché, but...what's up with that?

It won't make your character any interesting. In fact, it makes it unrealistic. His father just happened to own a rare pokémon from another region? One that evolves into a pseudo-legendary? Really? Choosing a more normal starters would have made things so much more exciting.

How about a bellsprout, or a budew? How about a ponyta or slugma? How about a geodude or aron? There are so many awesome pokémon that don't evolve into a legendary. They'd make things more fun and more realistic.

Spelling and Punctuation.

You need to spell-check. There were simply too many mistakes. Punctuation also seems to be an issue, but I've explained a few things and hope this will help with that.

My biggest suggestion for improvement would be to get a beta reader who can help point out errors for you. It'd be a great help.

~

The religion angle is one I haven't seen too often, so you could have something interesting here. I just don't think you've thought things through.

Good luck and let me know if you have questions!

[Pokémon] Alpha and Omega

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