[Pokémon] Kamatayan (PG 15)

Kamatayan


Chapter 1: The Shot

"No... I muttered panting, sweat dripping down my cheeks. I was in shock...i looked forward. The man smirked, his mask covering his face, as he walked away. Suddenly, I was dripping in blood...The blood, of my sister. He then walked away, laughing maniacally, as I sat...and waited...


...It all started that morning, as me and Liza walked to the gym. We were confident no badges would be given today, and I was all smiles...Liza, however, was almost depressed...I felt she was hiding something from me, so I pressed her.

"Are you alright, Liza?" I asked, holding the gym door open for her. She smiled, and responded, "Why wouldn't I be?" I could tell the smile wasn't genuine. "Liza...What's up with you today?" I asked, giggling, thinking life was much simpler then it actually is. "Look Tate, it's nothing, she said, almost as if she was about to explode in emotion. A tear fell down her face, as we sat down in the spot where we would meet the trainers. Soon, more and more gym trainers began entering, and we had a couple trainers. One of them, I'd never forget.

"Hey, you two!" He called, walking towards us. He wore a red hat with a pokeball on it, and had a Pikachu on his shoulder. We walked over, smiling, but then he called out a grovyle.

"Only ONE of you battle." He said with a smirk. He pointed to my sister, and told me to scram, as gyms are only meant for one person, and she was stronger. I shoved him to the ground, but he retaliated and kicked me in the face. I wanted to fight, but Liza told me to leave. I walked away, but hid in a near bye corridor, still able to see them.

"Liza...You rotten Maghimagsik tulala . I knew that meant something in some language, but I wasn't exactly sure what. He made his grovyle push Liza to the ground and cut her arms, but from my view it looked like it was just grovyle attacking one of her pokemon. Next, a masked man wearing all black walked beside the red trainer and pulled out a pistol, pointing it at Liza, who was on the ground. I immediately ran towards them, but the other trainer restrained me as the masked man pulled the trigger, killing her. I ran towards her, but it was too late...My sister, was dead.

"Damn you..." I muttered...

"DAMN YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

I didn't know what just happened...Couldn't comprehend it. Why did my sister die like this...I thought she was alive...Or at least I wanted to believe that. We were so close...How...?"

"Well, Tate, by the way I see it, Liza was shot by two men looking for easy badges." A police officer told the teen boy, looking slightly grim.

"Look, Mr. Officer," He said with a passion, "My sister, just DIED in there, and you wanna tell me it's because of our career choice. No. It has to be larger then that..."

"Well, Tate, you'll have to find that yourself...We don't have any leads."

"You're the POLICE FORCE! Aren't you supposed to be INVESTIGATING!?"

"Yes...But uh..."

"FINE. Just don't get in my way." He said, pushing him aside as she walked into the house. They lived in a quite home, with a kitchen, living room, and two bedrooms. Immediately, the boy kicked down her sister's door in rage...But something fell from the space between the door and the ceiling. It was a paper, with only two lines of writing on it. on it...


"Maghimagsik 1545: Liza Tumarez, Gym Leader. brother present. (Tate Tumarez) 16 year olds. Madali.", was printed in typing, while,

Liza...You're profiled. Get out as fast as you can.

Was under it in red pen. He thought for a moment,

Ohh Crap...This is it...I'm getting to the bottom of this...I WILL AVENGE LIZA!

Before I get into this, I just wanted to ask something very superficial:

You know Tate's a guy, right? (I mean, there was one translation of Special that changed his gender, but that was a translation error.)

Just asking.

JX Valentine said:

Before I get into this, I just wanted to ask something very superficial:

You know Tate's a guy, right? (I mean, there was one translation of Special that changed his gender, but that was a translation error.)

Just asking.

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When the hell did that happen? *Edits*.

My bad.

Thanks for that and sorry about the superficial note. I was just curious, in part because I'm really interested in seeing fic about the Hoenn twins but wasn't too sure about your interpretations here.

That being said...

Because I'm going to be intensely lazy, I'll just let you know that normally, I do a grammatical review in addition to the usual plot and characterization review. However, there's a lot of oddities here, and I've got this vibe from you that tells me that you're not a native speaker. So, all I'll say is be careful about things like punctuation. (Also, limit your exclamation points to maybe two at the very most.) Remember that every time you change speakers, you actually should start a new paragraph, and also, the pronoun I is always capitalized.

It might even help you if you looked into getting a beta-reader to help you clean that kind of thing off. Cleaner grammar just makes it easier for your reader to get through because it'll be easier for them to take your work seriously, and readers tend to subconsciously stumble if they come across a bunch of errors. Think of it like trying to drive straight down a road, only to find out that there's lots of potholes along the way.

So, yeah. Going to just focus on wording, characterization, and plot, really.

FaWa said:

The man smirked, his mask covering his face, as he walked away.

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Remember, it's always a good idea to read your work carefully after finishing it. Not only will it help you get rid of typos (before sending it to a beta-reader), it might help you straighten out things that might strike the reader as odd. (For example, he's wearing a mask, but Tate can see his smirk?)

He made his grovyle push Liza to the ground and cut her arms, but from my view it looked like it was just grovyle attacking one of her pokemon.

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Be careful with first-person POV. Remember that you're limited to only including the details the narrator can see. For example, if it looks like Grovyle is attacking Liza's Pokémon from Tate's view at that moment, he'll most likely only see it as that. (Of course, if he's looking through her eyes, you might want to address that because that might actually bring up a whole 'nother set of issues to explore.) He won't be able to see Grovyle on top of Liza, and he probably won't see that the gun is pointed at her.

This wording ends up being especially important because it's the difference between Tate knowing what was going on and running in to try to stop them and Tate just standing there and going WTF. I guess he might still run in if he thought the gun was pointed at a Pokémon, but other than that, you'll have to address why he ran in if he can't see that it's Liza being attacked and not one of her team members.

Also, wait. After they killed Liza, why did they walk away from Tate? He's a witness, isn't he? O_o

"Well, Tate, you'll have to find that yourself...We don't have any leads."

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Except him? O_o

Tate's got a point, though. It's a little strange that the police aren't really working all that hard on this. On the other hand, that could be the beginning of a conspiracy, but if that's not what you intended... yeah.

He said, pushing him aside as she walked into the house.

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Be very careful about POV. You switch from first person (telling the story from Tate's point of view) to third (telling it from the point of view of a godlike narrator). It would have been interesting if you maintained the first person POV, just because it lends more of a noir feel to your fic.

Overall, yeah. It needs a bit of cleaning in the proofreading department. Aside from the grammatical oddities, you've got a few things that end up contradicting things in your story, and for a crime drama, you'll want to make sure the only things that are contradictory are intentional. Otherwise, you might accidentally drop clues for the reader that aren't actually clues. Alternatively, you'll cause the reader to stop and blink a little bit. (Like at the instance of Tate being able to see and not see Liza being attacked.)

Beyond that, it's not a bad beginning. You set up the mystery without actually beating the reader over the head with it, and it sounds like something worth keeping an eye on. My main qualm in terms of plot are these:

1. It seems like the entire paragraph where Tate wanted to fight but Liza told him to bugger off could be longer. You've got the first conflict of the story right there, and it's a pretty important one. Instead of just telling us what happened, try showing us Tate getting back up and getting into a fighting pose. Give Liza a line of dialogue there. Just draw it out a bit to add more suspense.

2. Same thing with the shot and what followed. It just seemed like it was a silent killing because there wasn't much of a bang, and you don't really have Tate express much emotion here. Sure, he's angry, but his sister just got shot. What about the shock right then and there? What about the description of her body hitting the ground and the blood everywhere? Most importantly, where did the killers go?

This, of course, means that the next scene (Where Tate is outside... in front of their house, maybe? Or the gym? Hard to say.) comes abruptly, and the reader can't quite tell where it's happening or how much time lapsed between the killing and the interview. Did the police actually go into the gym and look around? Something like that might ruin the crime scene (if the police were incompetent, at least), which in turn would make Tate's attempts at playing Sherlock a little more difficult.

What about how Tate did after that? Was it all a blur? Did he undergo an interview with the police? Did he remember that part, or is it hazy in hindsight?

I guess what I'm trying to say is it's a great concept. The problem is mostly in the delivery. You'll just need to be a bit more careful in how you word things/use the language, and you'll want to be thorough in your descriptions of events, just because, given that you're writing a murder mystery, you'll rely heavily on the smallest details to get the biggest effect.