[Pokémon] Biohazard (PG)

[Incinermyn]

And so the recluse returns...

Dark Nostalgia
Biohazard​

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Rating: PG for occasional language, moderate violence, dark themes, and some humor
Genres: Dark Fantasy and Science Fiction
Bases: Pokémon Mystery Dungeon-Blue Rescue Team and Explorers of Time, Original Characters, and (in part) Life After People
Disclaimer: I own no part of the Pokémon franchise, its properties, trademarked criteria, so on and so forth. This piece is a work of fiction written by a fan author (myself), and in no way are things from the Pokémon series that I use in this story my own. However, since I use original characters, there are some things I've changed within and added to the Pokémon Mystery Dungeon setting to better suit my plotline.
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Prologue: Resurgence​

Time betrays us all in ways unimaginable, but Pain is resolute and ever-present…~Unknown

Doxisite slunk silently through the air ducts, contracting his long snakelike body only slightly with each movement. The years of rust scraped harshly against the leech's skin but did little to hinder him as he focused below.

With his eyesight, the thermal signatures of the Pokémon walking through the lower corridor stuck out like the moon at night. The first was apparently a hearty dragon with a strictly upright gait. He gauged that the bluish-white reptile stood approximately 1.7 meters high, and that it had a sturdy frame despite being somewhat bottom-heavy. Its partner several feet ahead he assumed was a humanoid. Unlike the beast, the one-and-a-half meter tall biped looked much less appetizing; its weak magenta body was just offset by the fact its cranium was a vibrant yellow, but he knew the creature was nowhere near as filling as the other.

Corrosive saliva leaked through the numerous daggers in Doxisite's maw as he hungered. They had been on the island for days, clearly to plunder the city of whatever treasures they could find. It'd been years since his last meal, so there was no way he was letting this prey escape.

Several moments passed before the twosome abruptly stopped. Perturbed, the predator retracted his body into a thick cone with a stumpy head and watched. Anxiety turning to anger, he ejected the notched spines coursing the length of his back.

The humanoid looked upwards. Then there was a violent creaking as a painful, almost-burning sensation instantly spread through all of Doxisite's cells. It stopped within seconds, but he had to fight all instinct to scream. Instead he squirmed ahead while the Pokémon quibbled amongst themselves.

When he came upon an open vent, he stopped to recover. That attack took a lot out of him, though he couldn't fathom why. Were it telekinesis he should've been immune. But then, he'd been dormant for so long… No, these Pokémon were as inefficient as their ancestors. Natural evolution would never produce anything capable rivaling his species.

Looming over the hole, he waited for his quarry. After a few minutes, they passed beneath him. His mouth frothed again, more rabidly this time. Some even dripped onto the floor once the dragon went by.

"What the…?" a gruff voice said. Suddenly a faint pair of russet-red eyes appeared from nowhere; it was a shock at first but he knew it was too dark for this creature to see him.

"Tyranitar!" one of the others called.

The building quaked as the creature lumbered towards its comrades near the fork in the hallway. Once the tremors stopped, Doxisite stretched his neck through the opening and continued along the ceiling.

As he approached the threesome, the leech noted their formation. The humanoid stood dominantly in the center of the hall, while the dragon took point at its right. Therefore, the other Pokémon was likely off to the left.

"What is that stuff?" Tyranitar asked.

"An amoebic colony. Strange, but not unmovable," the humanoid replied. There was a gurgling sound followed by several loud pops.

The dragon bent forward and said, "Come on! It can't be that tough!"

"It's dissipating my powers!"

Doxisite lunged and bit into what he hoped was Tyranitar's midsection, just breaking its rock-like skin. Right away he injected it with neurotoxins. His victim then hollered painfully as his teeth withdrew.

"What wrong?" its allies shouted.

Spotting Doxisite first, the dragon tried to speak up, but the leech already had his maw clamped around its neck and started to yank it back down the passage. During the haul, he shot numerous tubes into his prey's vena cava and made for the three-chambered heart. There, he punctured the muscle's walls and began draining body fluids.

"Charizard!" the humanoid cried.

"Get…off!" Charizard coughed when Doxisite sat him down.

The leech dropped his body down and wrapped it counterclockwise around his meal, binding strongly to its chest and abdomen. Charizard clawed at the fiend's head but his nails slid right off. Shortly afterwards, the beast gave a final gasp and relaxed his entire body.

"GY-YE!" Doxisite screamed as his tissues burned again. But now the sensation had complete control, making him loosen his bind and then fly towards the others.

"Are you all right, Charizard?" Tyranitar huffed, hunching over. After that, Charizard's corpse just flopped to the ground belly-first.

"Who are you? Why did you attack us?" Alakazam barked as he brought the winding parasite before him.

"Sustenance!"

"And you think that justifies killing our friend?" Tyranitar managed to yell before he finally collapsed.

"What's wrong?" Alakazam demanded.

"You like? My biochemistry is destroying his central nervous system. He'll soon be dead," the bloodsucker clicked, "Unlike you…"

Something howled throughout the entire complex, its cries shrill and echoing. A spike immediately jabbed its way into the stem of the humanoid's neck. Then he and Doxisite both dropped onto the floor.

"We thank you for your contributions," Doxisite commented, surveying the victims. With a satisfied grin, the leech turned back to the shadows and slithered away…leaving them for the colony.

<End Prologue>

 

[Azurne]

Overall, this was a well-written piece. A bit outlandish for my tastes, but still alright.

My only problems with this is that I have no idea where this is taking place, nor do I know what this "leech" is. I think you were trying to keep the colony's location a secret, and/or the readers are not supposed to know where it is, but a little more explanation on what the colony is, or the outside around it (underground, windows, etc) would sate the reader's appetite without spoiling it, methinks.

The leech is good, very predator-like, although this line seemed to have killed the fear factor for me:

"You like? My biochemistry is destroying his central nervous system. He'll soon be dead," the bloodsucker clicked, "Unlike you…"

It's classic villain, and a little too cheesy, IMO. A predator is a predator, if he hasn't eaten in so long, he's not going to give them a chance to bother explaining how he's killing their friend. This is your character though, if you want him to seem more animal-like, I'd consider changing that up, but if you're going for human-rivaling intelligence and classic villain, then by all means go for it.

Grammatically, I didn't catch anything, but if I did I apologize.


Different, but far too early to tell if this is a good or bad different. :P

 

[Incinermyn]

You do realize that this is a PROLOGUE, right? For the love of God, they're not supposed to have all the crap you're preaching to me about! Furthermore, did it not once occur to you that this took place inside a building, in a part where there's not much to describe. Also, if you didn't get it with the narration, Doxisite is a mutant. He'd not bound to be limited to drone-like thought, because he was created in a laboratory. That's why I mentioned that little bit about how 'natural evolution would never produce anything capable rivaling his species.' It was a reference to biological evolution, not Pokemon evolution. People aren't stupid; they can put two and two together without full on explanations!

 

[Obsidian Blade]

Although I liked your opening paragraph and the third one down in particular, specifically your phrasing when you write of how the rust "did little to hinder him" and the corrosive saliva leaking through "as he hungered", I found the action in this prologue difficult to follow due to the way in which you swerve between giving precise details and being very vague.

To give a few examples:

The humanoid looked upwards. Then there was a violent creaking as a painful, almost-burning sensation instantly spread through all of Doxisite's cells.

There's no real link between the humanoid's movement and the effect on Doxisite. Having read your reply to Azurne's review I'm aware that you have some faith in your reader's ability to piece things together, but as it's not even clear that the humanoid is Alakazam until much further on I doubt many people are going to infer that the look upwards represents an attack. In fact, I'm not even sure what afflicted Doxisite at all, seeing as he comments "Were it telekinesis he should've been immune." My confusion over that utterly ruined my appreciation of what was a very good description of pain, too.

Moving onto another:

"What is that stuff?" Tyranitar asked.

"An amoebic colony. Strange, but not unmovable," the humanoid replied. There was a gurgling sound followed by several loud pops.

The dragon bent forward and said, "Come on! It can't be that tough!"

"It's dissipating my powers!"

...What stuff? What's dissipating whose powers? What gave the gurgling sound? I feel like you know what you mean to the extent at which you fail to recognise the points at which a reader is going to be left grasping at straws.

Spotting Doxisite first, the dragon tried to speak up, but the leech already had his maw clamped around its neck and started to yank it back down the passage. During the haul, he shot numerous tubes into his prey's vena cava and made for the three-chambered heart. There, he punctured the muscle's walls and began draining body fluids.

On one hand, you have a detailed and awesomely gruesome depiction of what Doxisite is doing to Charizard. On the other, you have this undefined "passage". I have no idea what passage this is. I thought Doxisite was on the ceiling prior to this attack?

I also agree with Azurne's point regarding Doxisite's line. It is very Bond villain-esque, and something of a let down when he's been coming across as a particularly creepy predator up to this point.

All this said, you have created the appropriate hooks for an attention-grabbing prologue, what with the ambiguous nature of the colony and, indeed, Doxisite himself. It's mysterious and makes me want answers - the only problem with it is that the action itself is so mysterious in places it's almost impossible to follow. With a bit more explanation I think it could be very good, so I wish you luck with that.

 

[Astinus]

You do realize that this is a PROLOGUE, right? For the love of God, they're not supposed to have all the crap you're preaching to me about! Furthermore, did it not once occur to you that this took place inside a building, in a part where there's not much to describe. Also, if you didn't get it with the narration, Doxisite is a mutant. He'd not bound to be limited to drone-like thought, because he was created in a laboratory. That's why I mentioned that little bit about how 'natural evolution would never produce anything capable rivaling his species.' It was a reference to biological evolution, not Pokemon evolution. People aren't stupid; they can put two and two together without full on explanations!

Really? Azurne took the time to read through your prologue and leave a review, and you essentially call her stupid (since she didn't understand what you meant by "evolution" in a Pokemon fic), say her review is crap, and that she "didn't understand your writing".

You could have nicely declined her review. You could have politely said that you read over her review, but that you didn't feel like you had to change your writing because it was a prologue. Instead, you break out the CAPS LOCK, the "for the love of God", and call the review crap without saying a word of thanks.

That's just not how things are done here at all, and it's not fair at all to the reviewers. They took the time out of their day to read your story and write up a review that actually showed that they read your story and thought about it. And you just toss their help back into their face with insults.

Just show a little bit more respect here, is all I'm asking.