[Pokémon] To the Nature of the Past

[Bun_Bun]

Hello guys!

I am a writer who simply had not written stories for a long time, Pokemon or not Pokemon-related alike, due to commitments and also lack of interest. Despite so, a friend of mine has urged me to revisit those creative desires, so here I am, trying to write something decent to satisfy the taste of the community here.

I may not update as fast as others, but I am confident that a new chapter will be ready in every few weeks at worst. I hope you guys enjoy this story!

Spoiler:

As the ashes continue to fall, a boy emerged from the pile of rubble. The explosions had shattered most of what remained. He managed to survive by hiding underneath his bed. The boy wandered about, looking for anyone, anything he could spot with his immature eyes. His parents. His toys.

Gone.

He stared out desperately, looking for signs of comfort. He caught a glimpse of a cat-like figure. Curiosity got over him as he strode towards it, careful not to make sudden movements that may scare it off. The pink coloured kitty meowed loudly, and dashed towards the boy. The boy was too dumbfounded to react, and next thing he knew was the cat was right on top of him. But cats are cute, right? They are cuddly and do no harm.

"Myuu!" the Skitty said as the TNT on its back exploded.

---

What started as a chain of friendship between humans and Pokemon, became an all-out dangerous food chain where humans are the mice, and Pokemon are the cats. Once considered tameable, Pokemon have now ravaged most of the remaining facilities standing on the ground. Unstoppable. Unbreakable.

Let's take a trip back in time, you and I. To a time when Pokemon trainers were still a legit occupation which may pass as a hobby for some, and pure dedication for others. When Pokemon were not the ones determining the future of the world, hanging precariously on the balance.

25th March, 204X. It all started in the hub of Genova City, in the heart of the Pantheon region. A new research organization, named the Atlas Corp, has broken into the mainstream Pokemon battling news by making a huge breakthrough in Pokemon technology. The demand for perfect Pokemon with flawless natures and superior Individual Values (often known as IVs) has not gone off the eyes of the new organization. With that said, Atlas Corp announced a Pokeball that is of top quality and something no other PokeBall merchants could think of. A PokeBall that has the ability to manipulate the nature and IV of a Pokemon at will, by altering the DNA structures of a Pokemon that is caught. It was named the PokeDNA Ball, and received huge demand from Trainers and Pokemon enthusiasts alike.

Despite some protests from some non-governmental organizations who believe Pokemon should be used naturally and not genetically enhanced, their words have fallen on deaf ears as the sales of PokeDNA Ball soared to new heights. But as high as a kite may fly, it will eventually descent.

16th June 204X. Mysterious happenings start to occur with Pokemon held captive by the PokeDNA Balls. Some Pokemon have started losing memory of their owners. Some trainers have met with disobedience from most of their Pokemon. And in worse cases, some Pokemon went berserk and injure their owners badly. Naturally, fingers were pointed at Atlas Corp, as they were the ones responsible for releasing the production of such a PokeBall.

"The disobedience of Pokemon is simply due to a trainer's lack of skills in handling their Pokemon. Such news are just brainwashing to reduce our popularity. Our product has no defects and are friendly to everyone regardless of age." The CEO of Atlas Corp, Miss Janette, released a statement as such one morning. Such an answer was not taken kindly by trainers. The situation escalated as numbers of such 'disobedience' cases start increasing rapidly.

Eventually most people are fed up of Atlas Corp and start organizing protests and angry mobs. A week later, Miss Janette was found dead in a dark alley, her body covered with plenty of rope bruises. Police have marked the case as homicide, but her murderer was never found. Despite stringent questioning by the officials, her staff vehemently denied any knowledge of her death, simply describing that she may have lots of enemies due to her success with the PokeDNA Ball product.

The problem only escalated from there onwards. Eventually all Pokemon held captive by PokeDNA Balls have gone berserk and see humans as their enemies. Strangely, this effect has spreaded to all sorts of Pokemon, even those held captive by other type of PokeBalls and those in the wild. Scientists have studied hard to figure out the cause, but not a single clear cut answer was found. It seemed that the DNA strain of all the Pokemon in the wild had also been altered, but by what exactly? Hypotheses were made suggesting it could be a highly futuristic virus that infects through airborne means, but currently technology possessed by mankind has no knowledge of such a virus. No cure was found for the problem, and wild Pokemon ravaged more and more of civilization until nothing much was left. Even the last bastion of defense, the military, could barely do much when forces of nature such as Tyranitars, Aggrons and Tyrantrums simply tore them apart.

Months and months passed by, with no hope in sight. Perhaps mankind has lost its way in the face of power, and till today, 18th June, 205X, there was not much to hope for, but perhaps a man has a method to change something…

---

He had finished it. He took out his goggles and stared at the wonderful creation he had made alone. Sweat dropped off his forehead as he took out a handkerchief. This took ages for him to finish, and he hoped his experiment would work this time.

Dr. Hierro was a scientist in his 30s, working in the prestigious Mason Laboratory in Genova Town. A man known more for his knowledge than his quirkiness for engineering, he has researched intensively on Pokemon, and also has a deep interest on machines. He had lived long enough to see the destruction Pokemon had done since the fateful date. He had the brains, and somewhat enough brawn, to do something most people could not have done.

He looked at his time machine. It was small, but could barely fit him inside. With his calculations, he presumed he would travel back at least 5 years ago. It is hard to say if he might get it right, because physics can be unpredictable sometimes. But he was ready to take the risk. This world has nothing left for him. He remembered crying out loud as he saw his wife eaten alive by a Garchomp. This was a man, determined to go back in time, to change the past.

After a quick bath, he was ready. He took one last look at his room. A rather messy one, made underground to hide from preying Pokemon in the wild. The walls are fortified with titanium such that even Dugtrios cannot get past them. He was glad his friend recommended him to make an underground base, even if it was expensive. It had saved his life.

"Goodbye, world." He said as he took one step, then another, and another. It felt like a walk through an endless journey, with no end to see. What was he, a protagonist hoping to change the fate of the world? He laughed at himself bitterly as he walked on, hoping this test would work. He would no longer be returning here; the machine only works for one way trips. He though one last time about his wife, and walked on towards the abyss that holds the prospect of the past.

 

[Ice1]

You set up a really cool premise and a really cool version of the pokémon world. A piece of writing advice often echoed is to not preload the story with world, and I think that would be apt here. An interesting world is not as strong a pull as an interesting characters, in most cases. The coolest way to experience a world is to experience it and have it told. So to just jump in with the character and put us right there with them often creates a more vivid experience. That way the world can slowly unravel and the danger feels more imminent.

It also makes a setting more memorable, because we can imagine the scene. The more we get to experience with characters, the more we into the narrative we get. A technique often used to really get a reader into a story is to put the POV as close as possible. This is why YA novels use first person. It makes everything a scene rather than an overview and gives us thoughts and a perspective to attach to. We're living with a character, not trying to connect to dates. It doesn't have to be first person. A third person limited POV often accomplishes the same goal.

Show don't tell is another piece of advice often given. And it doesn't hold true universally, but it's something to keep in mind, generally. It's the difference between "the man who lost was angry," and showing us the man losing, his fist clenching, his teeth grinding as we feel his anger. It creates identification. Because the word anger just conveys the concept, not the emotion.

I think Dr. Hierro has quite a cool motivation and backstory. A man who lost everything, willing to give everything to fix it. That's really fucking cool. Through show don't tell, you can really put a reader in his head and make his motivations not just clear, but also have the reader cheer them on, because they feel his pain.

The balance for that is always a bit hard to find. You don't need to expand everything into a scene, as often people just remember or categorize.

To close off, I wanna discuss grammar a bit. First point is simple. I think you use on in sentences where you shouldn't. I'm not going to pinpoint them all, but tools like Grammarly can be super helpful for that. Secondly, dialogue grammar. It's a nightmare topic that plagues editors, but just being aware of it can help a lot.
We often don't display sound as dialogue, except in comedy. "Bork," said the dog feels awkward because of that, and people resort to "the dog barked," instead. The real difficult part comes at the commas, quotation marks and interpunction.
" "Goodbye, world." He said as he took one step, then another, and another." should read as " "Goodbye, world ," he said as he took one step, then another and another. " Dialogue is embedded into a sentence and when it is connected with said, or any other dialogue tag (laughed, screamed, yelled, whispered), it is connected through a comma and no new letters receive capitalization. This still holds true when the sentence ends in a question mark or exclamation point.

 

[Bun_Bun]

Thank you for your feedback!

I admit I may have overdone the world description; to be honest I was somewhat afraid people would be wondering what the world is like without any detailed explanation. But narrating it from the protagonist's point of view also makes sense, it just missed me when I was writing it.

I most probably will show 'show' more than 'tell' in the next chapters. Usually I write the first chapter of fics this way to make the readers get a feel of what the world is like, but your points also carry weight and I'll try my best to include those aspects in the future.

I'll have to sheepishly admit that prepositions is not my strongest suit when it comes to English language. I'll consider using a tool for grammar checking someday. As for dialogue language I'm honestly quite confused on which format to use, so thank you for the explanation on that matter!