Ok, this is way too short. Try to make it longer next time, about five pages of Microsoft Word worth.
*sigh* Length of the story depends on the actual storyline. There
is such a thing as a prologue or even chapters that are only a page or so in length, but they still are workable because the content makes up for it. (I'm thinking in particular a friend of mine, who has written an epic with chapters only a page or so in length. It's actually fairly well-received because it's actually
well-written, so if you're ever on Bulbagarden, feel free to drop by Blackjack Gabbiani's
Obsession.)
The story looks very unoriginal. You might think you're the first one to come up with it, you're not - this is basically the Pokemon version of 24 if my suspicions are correct.
Way to actually analyze the storyline and point out
why it's not original. The goal of the reviewer isn't to put down the writer. It's to point out the weak points
and the strong points of their work and suggest ways to improve upon them.
Also, your corrected example with the ellipsis capitalizes in the middle of a sentence.
That said...
As the Snowpoint Barge pulled up to Viridian city...Umanouski felt a sense relief.
Three things. First is more of a grammar nitpick, but you should capitalize the word "City," as it's actually part of the name (Viridian City). Second, I'll have to agree with Lord about the ellipses. They're really only used when the speaker is trailing off or leaving off a certain amount of information. In other words, they're really used rarely, in situations where you absolutely
must create a sense of drama. For a first sentence, however, you don't want to start off with the softness an ellipsis creates. You want a strong, dynamic sentence that
grabs the reader's attention. Therefore, you don't want to sound like Captain Kirk and trail off in the middle of a sentence (which is really the sort of voice that you create when you use that mark of punctuation), so you'll want to drop the ellipsis and join the entire thing together in one strong opening.
The third thing is more of a canon-consistency problem. Viridian City is a landlocked location, if I recall correctly. How's a barge from the next region over getting in? O_o
He left the personal hell of Sinnoh. You see...he was a orphan. His parents died at the hands of Team Galactic.
You could probably pull off the idea of Sinnoh being a personal Hell if you actually wrote out scenes where either Umanouski is forced to remember the loss of his parents and reacts to it or the story flashes back (later on, when the information about their death at the hands of Team Galactic becomes relevant) to the scene where they died. Or, generally put, if you just showed a bit of reaction/backstory told by a character, rather than simply told the reader in the second sentence that something major happened in his life.
As it stands, we really aren't forced to
feel for the character because all we've got is the narrator, who is supposed to be the objective voice anyway, telling us that his parents are dead. We don't see his emotions, nor are we given his thoughts or even a scene that would show us what happened and why. There's really nothing there.
The headmaster, a old unsuccessful trainer,
An old, unsuccessful.
If you're going to use the a/an articles, remember that "a" comes before words beginning with or sound like they begin with consonants. "An" goes before words that begin with vowels.
Likewise, you'll need the comma between those two adjectives to separate descriptive words.
forbade the children to live in contact with any Pokemon.
Any particular reason why? I'm assuming that it's because he was an unsuccessful trainer, but even then, it doesn't really make sense that he would
completely forbid contact with wild animals just because of that, especially since there's been unsuccessful trainers
in canon that have no problem being around Pokemon.
He soon made contact with a Ralts. And when the Headmaster learned of this, he scolded Uman.
It would be a good idea to let the reader see some of this, such as how he met the Ralts and how he was scolded by the headmaster (which shouldn't be capitalized, by the way, unless that's his name). It's really for the same reason I've mentioned above: to create a stronger work of fiction by allowing the reader to see what's going on and relate to the characters through emotion. Remember that we can't see into your mind, so if you have a scene in mind for backstory, it's usually a good idea to find a way to work it into the story to give us a better insight into your characters.
Also, as a grammar nitpick, you should drop the period after "Ralts," add in a comma, and form a compound sentence after this. Otherwise, the flow of your narration feels a little jerky, what with all those short sentences.
On top of the mountain Umanouski and Ralts
What mountain? Also, did Umanouski have the Ralts the whole time
in the orphanage, despite being scolded by the headmaster?
As the snow continued to fall and the wind howl,
Howled. Or continued to howl. Something that would make that a full thought to match up with "the snow continued to fall." This is mostly for consistency and therefore the flow of your story. The smoother the flow at this point, the easier it is for a reader to imagine what's going on.
Umanouski walked, holding the Ralts in his frozen arms.
Side note, but if someone's limb was frozen, that's usually a sign that they're about to lose it soon. Frostbite kills tissue.
Then finally... he fained.
I'm assuming you mean "fainted" here. Always read over your story aloud before submitting it. That way, you can catch a lot of the errors and odd points of your work before you make it public.
He awoke to a old man...
I'm trying to think about this image. You usually don't awake to a person. You may awake to see a person or because of what a person is doing, but you really don't wake up just because they're there, which is what the phrase "[insert something here] awoke to" tends to imply.
He instead, praised him.
I'm thinking this sentence could be rearranged to place the instead in front of he. Alternatively, you could put a comma after he in order to separate instead from the rest of the sentence.
From that day foward...
Spell check as well before submitting your work. It's just generally easier to take a piece of literary work seriously if there's very few spelling and grammatical errors, and anyway, it tends to be easier to read, as some people tend to get tripped up on something they notice is a quirk.
And eventually, he won a couple of gym badges with the old man by his side.
...While living in one town?
The reason why a lot of new trainers need to leave home, aside from the fact that many Pokemon can't be found around their hometown, is because multiple Gyms aren't exactly down the street. They need to travel from city to city in order to complete a badge quest.
As it stands, I'm starting to feel as if things are a bit convenient for your character (self insert?). Orphanhood aside (which really tends to be one of those cliches of Sue or Studom anyway), he's already earned two badges seemingly easily, and he has three rare Pokémon to his name. The Torchic I can believe, but wild Bagon and Ralts are pretty rare. Ralts especially, as even aside from being a Radar-only Pokémon (which, okay, probably won't mean much in a fanfiction world) only, according to the Pokédex, appear before cheerful people.
I guess what would make this a bit more believable is if you spent a bit of time explaining the backstory to these Pokemon as well, rather than just say, "Oh, he has so-and-so now." Otherwise, you're once again telling instead of showing the audience what has happened to the main character, but you're also pretty much just handing opportunities to him, rather than show him struggling for it, especially since you've given him rare Pokémon, rather than just any other he could find fairly easily in those particular areas. Same thing goes with the badges he's obtained and the evolutions of his Pokémon.
and Umanouski weeped.
The past-tense of weep is wept.
His first battle came at Lake Verity. Where he drove off several Team Galactic Grunts who were trying to place a small bomb in the middle of the Lake.
This should be its own sentence, and again, you're rushing through things to get to Point B (wherever that might be), rather than spending a bit of time to show us how he managed to achieve this.
They then threw him on a barge headed to Viridian City in Kanto...far...far away.
Why would they do that instead of take him back to headquarters or kill him on the spot?
Overall, the main problem (albeit a fixable one, so don't worry) with this story is more along the lines of you're rushing through it, rather than taking time and describing events. Yeah, I know it'll seem like it's tedious to go back and detail how he's grown into this Galactic-hating fighting machine, but it's definitely worth it to get your point across and to avoid creating a weak narration where the narrator just says, "Look, this is how things are. Take it or leave it." That probably won't get you too many readers thereafter. So, what you need to do is definitely sit down and take your time. While, no, you don't necessarily have to write huge chapters, you at least want to provide the reader with actual
scenes that show his growth from one event to the next -- something that shows some action being taken, rather than just something that tells the reader that he's an orphan or that he was scolded by the headmaster.
Show us Uman getting scolded by the headmaster.
That sort of thing will
definitely add something interesting to your work.
Also, I get the feeling this was meant to be a self-insert, but be careful about them. Sometimes, when people make self-inserts, they tend to be over-the-top with how they do it and inadvertently create a Mary Sue or Gary Stu, or a character that's so exaggerated with powers, abilities, backstory, or even with their team (as in, having multiple legendaries on a team for no apparent reason or an entire team of powerhouse Pokémon obtained and trained with no shown effort) that they become unbelievable. And by unbelievable, I mean fairly weak characters. The story ends up focusing on their use of their traits or abilities, rather than on what they
do and how they get to the end of the story. And, on top of all that, the writer tends to compensate a lack of personality for all those little traits or abilities.
So, to avoid it, all you really have to do is spend time with your character. Develop him a bit more by thinking about who he actually
is and how that works into your story concept. Give him a personality and some life, maybe even a flaw or two that hinders him and creates problems for him in the story. However, to do this, you'll also need to really work on your story
itself, which just goes back to what I've said earlier.
Now, for the reason I've stated above (that your story is a little underdeveloped right now, assuming this is just a prologue anyway), I can't say for certain that your character is a Gary Stu. However, angsty past, exceptional trainer, rare Pokémon for the region, and an unusual name tend to be the stereotypical red flags for spotting Gary Stus. So, all I have to say is be careful and try to develop your story a bit more.
Also, don't forget to proofread your story carefully before submitting it. Read it aloud as well as run it through spell check. That way, you can get rid of as many of the little bumps as you can eliminate.
Overall, it's a better read than a few others I've read, but there's room for improvement. Just take your time and give us some scenes, and you'll be on your way to bettering yourself as a writer.