You're right about the sentence structure on all counts.
This may just be me, but I feel like Darkrai's "You're finished" would have a little more impact if the "You're" were italicised. As it reads now, it took me a moment to figure out what Darkrai meant and why he was echoing Mewtwo's words, and I think that "
You're finished." would give a greater measure of "Oh, snap!" to the realisation that Mewtwo's move is about to backfire on him. But this is just my feelings on the matter, and it may be that in your head Darkrai simply didn't actually say it like that, in which case that's fine.
This is a result of copying and pasting the text; that word was in fact italicized.
While I don't
think "the land Hoenn" is actually gramatically incorrect, something about it just strikes me as odd - it's not the way you usually hear things said. Changing it to "the land of Hoenn" would flow better and still be in line with your writing style.
You're right again' that sounds terrible. It's a typo.
These two parts if the sentence don't quite seem to run together. The "if" of the latter part makes it seem like the former part should be a more conditional statement - something like "The ground might have been unforgiving - if there were any present". As it stands, it sounds like you're saying that if there
had been ground there, it
definitely wouldn't have been unforgiving - but since there wasn't actually any ground, how would Deoxys's narration know that? If it were me, I'd change it to something like "The ground wasn't unforgiving. It wasn't even there", but you'd probably be able to think of a way to word it that fits better with your writing style.
I have a serious problem with overusing dashes, and I'm not surprised you don't like the way this sentence sounds. It came about as a result of noticing I was abusing semicolons, but of course dashes can't replace semicolons in all instances.
Talking more generally, while these chapters were entertaining to read in and of themselves, there is a slight feeling of... disconnectedness about some of the events in them. Yes, there is the clear overarching plotline of the reverse moon, which is responsible for Mew seeking out Arceus, probably has something to do with Darkrai's mysterious pursuee and therefore also is linked to why Deoxys chose to get moving - but the specific scenes of Mewtwo fighting Darkrai and Deoxys getting accosted by a group of murderous Spiritomb currently feel like they're just kind of
there, almost as though you wrote them just for the sake of some action. I'm aware, though, that this is probably me jumping at nothing because this is very early on and there hasn't been time for things to pan out and show the significance of everything - I imagine it's pretty likely that Mewtwo will continue to be a participating character and that something plot-related is going on with those Spiritomb, especially as you're apparently hoping to do a whole trilogy with this so you've probably got everything fairly planned out. But if for whatever reason there
wasn't any real significance behind the Mewtwo and Spiritomb incidents other than to have some cool action scenes, then that's something to think on.
I agree with you on the appearance of the Spiritomb if nothing else. You see, there's something that's been lost here from the original (bad) version of this fic I wrote years ago. In that, there was a stronger connection between "the moon is doing bad things" and "evil Spiritomb are free to attack passers-by." As I thought such a thing was insignificant to mention (since the Spiritomb are never brought up again), the idea of them being released from some curse/binding/whatever by the moon's energy was dropped and now they're just a band of whackjobs who like to cause harm. I don't recall deciding Deoxys should fight Spiritomb simply for action's sake; rather, it's just a way to introduce him and his abilities, but I see where you're coming from with the disjointed feel.
Rest assured, things come together soon enough...
Even assuming you do have plans for all this, though, as it is you could have written it a little differently so that certain aspects would
seem more like they were significant in the grand scheme of things. This isn't such a problem for the Spiritomb, since the mere fact that a group of regular Pokémon seem to have got it into their head to try and murder a legendary is a sure sign that something's probably up (it was mostly your "Why Spiritomb? I have no idea" at the end of the chapter that made me wonder). Mewtwo, though, is different. Looking at it logically, of course I should assume that he's going to be a participatory character in future, because he's a legendary and this fic is clearly stuffed with them. Reading the chapter, though, I just don't get the impression that he's anything more than a one-time threat for Darkrai to fight. It's because you move so quickly past his introduction, I think - he has barely two lines accusing Darkrai of trespassing and then they're into the fight scene. You didn't introduce him as a
character; you just introduced him as an opponent, if you see what I mean. I get that Darkrai is definitely the type to fight first and ask questions later - that did make me chuckle a bit - but if Mewtwo's going to continue to be a participating character then I reckon it might have been nice to have just a little bit more focus on him as a person if possible, just to give the readers more of a feeling that he might be important.
It's funny you should mention that. Mewtwo is an aside to this story, although he once wasn't. I won't go into specifics because my ideas were awful, but in draft number one he ended up part of the plot... I guess he's a device to develop Darkrai, now. He makes his appearances later on, and at those times he has more characterization.
One thing also jarred me a little about the Darkrai vs. Mewtwo fight itself - namely that these two legendaries who are both very Special-oriented Pokémon were engaging in a fight that was mostly
physical in nature. It just seemed odd, when both of them are strongest with special attacks and should logically have a fighting style that centres around that, that they would drop that expertise and just throw themselves at each other in a fight that at times wouldn't have looked too dissimilar to an ordinary brawl between humans. It got better once they got on to the Dark Pulse and the shielding bubble and that kind of stuff - that's much more the sort of thing I'd expect from a fight between Darkrai and Mewtwo.
More fun to write, and I hate dipping into Dragon Ball Z territory where combatants just whale on each other which increasingly big energy blasts. Said blasts are also a pain to describe, and it's my worst nightmare to have a fight scene like "Mew fired a beam of energy. Mewtwo dodged it and launched orbs of crackling energy. Mew caught the projectiles on an energy barrier and shot quick energy pulses at Mewtwo."
From a technical standpoint, I've only come up with four nouns to call energy attacks: energy, power, force (usually
pure force etc.), and light.
Laser sounds stupid. Words like
pulse,
beam, and so on are better used as modifiers.
From an action standpoint, haven't you ever seen Ultraman? The titular superhero and all his nemeses can fire death rays, but that doesn't stop them from having karate fights first.
Another thing I found slightly eyebrow-raising about your fights was the characters' tendency to call their attacks out loud. While I could just about swallow it if this were the kind of universe where it's a given that
everyone calls their attacks
every time, the fact that they did it sometimes but not always makes the sometimes seem even more strange. I guess it could be that the legendary in question feels like being a bit melodramatic mid-fight, but eh, Darkrai did it at one point and he doesn't strike me as the type for melodrama. If you want readers to be aware of exactly which attack they're using, it shouldn't be too hard to integrate the attack names into the narration describing them, especially for those used by the POV-character who'd know what they're called.
This is just a quirk of my writing, and one I hope isn't difficult to get used to. For attacks like garden-variety lasers and energy balls and whatnot, characters don't say anything because the techniques have no manes. For 'moves' in the Pokémon sense, techniques that have names, they do. This is why "Dark Pulse" and "Psycho Cut" are spoken. Beyond that, moves
I make up that I still want to have the impact of a Pokémon-style move ("Black Driver") are also named.
And the one last thing (last nitpick, I swear!) that stuck out at me is that you had Psychic-type moves affecting Dark-type Pokémon more than once. I suppose Mewtwo could have managed it if he'd got off a sneaky Miracle Eye that Darkrai was unaware of, but even then Darkrai should still have been surprised about being affected, since he should be used to being immune to psychic assaults. Again, the Psycho Boost on the Spiritomb could also be chalked down to Deoxys, as a legendary, being so much more powerful that it managed to affect them even despite the supposed immunity, but again it probably should have shown that the Spiritomb - who were clearly overconfident in their ability to take Deoxys down - weren't expecting it to work and were suitably shocked when it did.
I disregard types completely in this story. Type effectiveness just doesn't fit with the world I'm trying to create.
But anyway! Despite those nitpicks I had, overall this has been an enjoyable fic so far. I'm particularly looking forward to seeing more of your characterisation, as you seem to be doing a decent job of it in the short space you've currently had - I enjoyed Arceus's portrayal as a friendly, benevolent god, and I've already got a good sense of Darkrai's antisocial nature. The overarching plot is also interesting and certainly seems like it could go places. So I'll be reading, although I'm afraid me popping in to review again isn't quite as certain, as I tend to be insufferably lazy with reviewing most of the time.
Thanks!
Dark Moon [Part 1 of 3]
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Anyway, I'll be looking forward to more!
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Originally Posted by MHugs
