The Legendarian Chronicles [Revision 11]

[chammy76]

I didn't know you were continuing this here! I was always following it on DA...I'm going to have to reread the whole thing now, I've totally forgotten what's going on ^^;

[katiekitten]

Only had time to read the first two chapters, unfortunately, but I will certainly be back for the later one - I really enjoyed this! Been meaning to read this for all too long, I've seen you around/heard about your work since I first came to the forum. :3 Delightful! I didn't find the first chapter disjointed at all - having not read the earlier drafts I wouldn't have guessed that it had been revised at all x3 Your writing style flows delightfully, and the plot is really intriguing - it plays upon those elements that I personally find fascinating, the conflict between the 'gods' (who are delightfully fallible and realistic from what I've seen so far) and man, and does it well, which is rare to see. :3 Considering the number of revisions you've done and readers who have already picked through it, I didn't find any grammatical/spelling/etcetera mistakes, but to tell the truth I was too drawn in to look for them. Your first person is wonderful. x3 I found it strangely gender ambiguous at first, although that's probably just me: I initially got the feeling the character was a boy until her name was said. That unfortunately probably says more about my preconceptions than about your writing, although from a feminist slant it's delightful that your character avoids traditional categories ;D *shot*

On chapter two - A little niggle, but probably one limited to just me, but wouldn't such a large organisation due to its emphasis on secrecy have a better policy for keeping witnesses silent then just murder? People going missing would only raise suspicions - threatening them to ensure silence, however, particularly in the case of a young child, would be more plausible? Or is the suggestion of murder just a sign of the inexperience of the driver, an over the top suggestion that mirrors the one he acted on by kidnapping the witness? It just seemed a little anomalous to me, despite the seriousness of the operation she oversaw, particularly given her age, but that's probably a personal observation. :3

And finished - would read the final chapter (trust me I want to) but I have final exams to revise for and this took up a little more time than I'd expected haha!

Very enjoyable overall (if I've repeated this several times it's because I've been adding to this review as I've gone along x3), your characters are engaging, the plot is certainly very exciting, and it was a delightful read! Chapters are well paced, and not at all choppy, you've been able to revise them well. Really nothing left to add, except that I'm dying to read more now. x3

[Chibi Pika]

I really tried to make my spoiler not easy for people to get, but now I see that it was ambiguous enough to confuse you as well. Gah.

It's okay, the ambiguity was appreciated. =)

I didn't know you were continuing this here! I was always following it on DA...I'm going to have to reread the whole thing now, I've totally forgotten what's going on ^^;

Oh, you're only two chapters behind. :P Imagine back when, in the old version of the thread, I'd waltz in after being gone for six months and be all "O hai guys chapter 21 is out now : D"

Your first person is wonderful. x3 I found it strangely gender ambiguous at first, although that's probably just me: I initially got the feeling the character was a boy until her name was said. That unfortunately probably says more about my preconceptions than about your writing, although from a feminist slant it's delightful that your character avoids traditional categories ;D *shot*

Heh, I think that might actually be caused by me being the writer, since I'm somewhat gender-neutral as a person. The old version was so silly, it just went and shouted in your face, "HAY GUYS JADE IS A TOMBOY." But then I realized that in this new version, since a 1st person character lengthily describing their own appearance is silly, there is no longer any indication of Jade's gender until chapter 2. xP

On chapter two - A little niggle, but probably one limited to just me, but wouldn't such a large organisation due to its emphasis on secrecy have a better policy for keeping witnesses silent then just murder? People going missing would only raise suspicions - threatening them to ensure silence, however, particularly in the case of a young child, would be more plausible? Or is the suggestion of murder just a sign of the inexperience of the driver, an over the top suggestion that mirrors the one he acted on by kidnapping the witness? It just seemed a little anomalous to me, despite the seriousness of the operation she oversaw, particularly given her age, but that's probably a personal observation. :3

Tyson is most definitely over the top in nearly every way. xD I should probably have his superior snidely mention that you can't just murder everyone who discovers the slightest thing about them, especially something that no one would ever believe (note, however, that as Tyson messed up and brought her in the base (the Viridian central HQ, no less!), at this point they aren't intending to let her go alive. I figure they'd just kill her with a Fire-Pokemon and throw the body out on Route 26 where the Entei incident happened.)

Thanks for the comments, everyone! Chapter 4 is coming very soon. I've had a lot of real-life stuff come up lately (job hunting, finding a new apartment,) and the chapter has turned out longer than I thought, but I still want the total wait to be less than two weeks, so expect it within the next two days. Also, I intend to have artwork for Spencer up before that. So yeah.

~Chibi~

[Ga'Hooleone]

Ah, I remember silently reading this story. You never posted the second part of the last revision iirc, but this was a great story.

I'l try to get around to a full review soon, but KIU! The whole idea of this story is intricate and the details are just amazing. Easily one of my most favorite stories on here!

[Sid87]

[FONT="Garamond"]
[SIZE="3"]“If the Legendaries are so superior, then why do the humans speak of them as though they are nothing but pawns…pieces of a plan that must be obtained? These so-called Legendary Pokémon are in danger, that much is certain.”

-Mewtwo

Interesting start. Definitely adds a little flavor, the way it is treated as something that, say, Winston Churchill could have said (all things considered).

A pair of eyes snapped open suddenly, radiating with an eerie cobalt aura and illuminating the inky blackness within the depths of the sea.

The "with" there is extraneous. It could just be "radiating an eerie..."

The story was well known amongst the Order of Legends,

This is at least the second time you've used that phrase, and I adore it. It gives me the feeling of a pokemon pantheon, with the legendaries gathering regularly at some sort of meeting spot and casually discussing the state of affairs. Very mythological feel to it.

Pushing all thoughts from its mind,

Heaven knows I'm guilty of this, too, but that might be a little too colorfully worded. I would just say "Clearing its mind". The way it is now makes me think it's going brain-dead. And if it has no thoughts, what's the narrator doing still talking to me in a line or two about how it is caught up in the joy of flight?

It couldn’t help feeling caught up in the simple joy of flight, for it had not experienced the feeling in quite some time.

I don't know what it is, but this line is significant. It makes me feel for Lugia (? I guess we're not CERTAIN it's Lugia yet) that it has not had an opportunity to fly in so long. Good establishment of a connection.

A loud ringing filled the air, which meant the end of class for the day. I quickly stuffed my books into my backpack, following after my classmates and pretending I hadn’t heard the last-minute homework that we’d been given. It would have been just like any other afternoon, except my head was still filled with rumors from earlier that morning.

Oh, shifting P.O.V.! That's certainly tricky. I wasn't expecting this, either.

Ajia laughed. “Yeah that class is confusing doom when you first start out. It gets better later on, though,” she said.

"Confusing doom"...? There's an odd phrase.

“Yeah…” I replied, my mind wandering back to what had been bothering me most of the day. “So, uh…have you seen Starr? I didn’t even see her at lunch.” I fidgeted a bit, not really sure how to bring up the topic. “Is it really true, that…?” My voice trailed off.

Ajia sighed sympathetically. “I think she didn’t want to talk about it with you ‘cause she knew you’d take it the hardest…”

“What? What does that even—ugh, I’ve got to talk to her before she leaves.”

“She’s right outside, actually,” Ajia pointed out.

I blinked. “Huh? She’s not taking the bus home?”

“No, her mom’s picking her up. If you hurry, you might catch her.”

“Right. I’ll see you on Monday, then!” I exclaimed, immediately taking off through a pair of double doors behind me.

I would have gone with fewer dialogue tags. You didn't use too many, but some were still a bit extraneous. "blinked", "pointed out". I would have dropped those. An astute reader could easily follow the conversation without the reminder of who was speaking. You can trust us!

“Where’re you moving to?” I asked cautiously. I could tell she didn’t want to talk about it, and almost didn’t want to know.

This reads a little tough because it initially seems like Starr didn't want to know. Especially since you used the comma, put an I after it. ", and I almost..."

Her voice was blank as she replied, “Cianwood.” I didn’t even know where that was supposed to be.

Everything felt silent after that. It was like all the commotion going on with the other kids didn’t exist. I couldn’t get my thoughts straight—all of this had come up so fast that I couldn’t figure any of it out.

“It’s not fair!” I suddenly exclaimed. “You only just moved here a month ago. And moving on your birthday? What’s up with that?”

“I don’t know…it’s all my mom’s idea, and she didn’t tell me anything. But my dad’s staying here,” Starr said gloomily.

I folded my arms. “Huh. You never really saw your dad very often before…did you?”

She shook her head.

“Still…it’s stupid that your mom won’t tell you why all of this is happening,” I added.

“Yeah…she keeps saying that she wants me and my brother to have a better life that we couldn’t have gotten here, or something like that…she never really explains,” Starr mumbled.

“Hey, that’s right, what does your brother think about all of this? Isn’t he friends with Ajia?”

Starr sighed. “I don’t know, Lexx has been acting weird and not talking to me much lately,” she said with a bit of a scowl.

I love the dialogue...very realistic and childlike, and I simply fawned over the "I don't even know where that is supposed to be" line. Such a good addition! But again...fewer tags! (this is maybe my second biggest writing pet peeve aside from unintentionally inconsistent narration, but I promise not to harp on it any more)

We sat there for some time. It was probably only a few minutes, but it seemed like forever. And then Starr glanced up suddenly, her attention caught by a blue car that had just parked along the curb. She stared at it for a few seconds, then stood to her feet and threw a backpack over her shoulder before walking towards the car heavily. She had only taken a few steps when she paused suddenly and turned to face me one last time.

“Bye.”

YES. Do you see how powerful that "Bye." is just floating by itself with no tag? Very strong line there. (I apparently lied aboyt not talking about it again!)



-So the prologue is quiye interesting; I was not expecting shifting P.O.V., but it's intentional, so I can appreciate it. Nice juxtaposition, too. We have Lugia worrying about the world and ancient prophecies....and then we have some fifth graders worrying about moving apart from each other. And yet, the second concern is portrayed in such a way that it is not only NOT dwarfed by Lugia's more important concern, but also in a way that I actually care more about it! Impressive! Let's see if I have time to read chapter 1 before lunch ends...

A note: In this fic, the Pokémon Training age limit is twelve. I am aware that I’m breaking canon. And while I generally believe it is good to follow canon, I will change things to make certain aspects of the Pokémon world, in my eyes, function better with the rest of my headcanon. And exploring my headcanon is pretty much the entire reason I'm writing this fic

Certain characters need to be a certain number of years older or younger than others. If the training age limit was 10, I’d end up with ridiculously young Team Rocket leaders. Heck, even the way it is now is barely believable..

I'm the last person to complain about this, so I have no problems. You do whatever fits your story!

I sluggishly pedaled upward, still watching him race toward the ramp. And then—wait, what?

Before I had any idea what was going on, a black blur had raced out of nowhere and skidded to a halt right in front of me. I swerved instantly to avoid hitting it, but then—crap, I was heading for a parked car, turn, turn! I spun too far, felt my wheels hit the curb awkwardly, then found myself toppling over into a sprawled heap on the grass.

I LOVE quasi-stream of consciousness first person POV. One of my favorite stories of mine ever uses it, and I think it's so damn entertaining and fun.

Well, that was random. But there was really only one thing that could have done that. Sure enough, I felt heavy paws on my chest immediately afterward. Black fur filled my entire field of vision, and the air was filled with musty, hot breath and uneven panting.

“Ow…get off, Ebony!” I yelled, shoving the dog away. She lumbered off, but sat down less than two feet from me, apparently fighting the urge to jump on me again. With an exasperated sigh, I said, “You’re never gonna get tired of this game, are you?” Sure, she knew who I was, but still felt determined as ever to “protect” her territory and owner—who was now standing next to his bike, cracking up.

“Pfft—shut up, Rudy” I laughed, climbing to my feet and wiping the grass off my baggy shirt and jeans. “How’d Ebony get out this time?” I glanced back at the energetic young dog Pokémon, who was now wagging her short, stubby tail with the apparent hope that she could play with us.

Since the same person is talking--and about the same subject matter (Ebony)--I might not have broken that up into two paragraphs. It confused me at first because I thought it was Rudy talking initially in the second paragraph.

I had to admit he was right. Summer was really the best time for trainers to start their journey, even though you could apply to take the exam at any time during the Pokémon Handling class, so long as you were twelve years old and had passed at least two years of semester-long courses beforehand. Rudy would have gotten his trainer’s license last year if he hadn’t been missing some credits—failing Pokéspeech the first time hadn’t helped much either.

I'm hoping we get an introduction as to what Pokespeech and Pokemon Handling class are. They work as throwaway concepts, but I really want to know more.

“What do you mean ‘if’? Of course I passed, and why the heck would I pick anything other than Charmander?”

“Right,” I said, rolling my eyes. “Because obviously having one Fire Pokémon just isn’t enough. This way you can light even more random crap on fire.” I guess the flame-tailed Charmander would be a perfect match for him, in that case.

More impeccable child-like dialogue, which is impressive because (and I don't know how old you are, but I'm guess late, late teens at the youngest) writing little kids is HARD to do realistically!

We stepped onto the grass and over to the fence where Rudy opened a gate and let her in with Chloe, another puppy Pokémon of his. Chloe wagged her fluffy, cream-colored tail and rubbed her orange-furred nose against the fence, but to no avail. The Growlithe then blinked her large eyes at us before deciding to roughhouse with Ebony. Rudy glanced around the backyard and clapped a hand to his forehead.

It's very intriguing to see the difference between Lugia and these two. Lugia was cognitive and had an actual thought process. These two are very pet-like (which I like; it's how I've handled Vlam and Bree in my story). It's quite a gap in their mental capacities.

I sped down the streets of Viridian City, glancing around at the familiar sights of the town.

Like what? I'm guilty of this to an extent, too, but...show me these sights!

ft gave a low string of chirps. This time they had meaning, and I had taken enough classes on Pokémon language to understand his words as, “*It’s bad…you should see.*”

I think Cracked.com calls this Lassie Syndrome, where two species can understand each other perfectly, even though neither speaks the other's language. It is kind of weird, and I'm sure almost all pokemon fiction has it, so I'm not calling you out on it. I just think it's funny because it reminded me of that article.

The name did seem…familiar. Faint memories of the news surfaced at the back of my mind, but they were obscured by time and the fact that, well, I didn’t really pay attention to those things when I was a kid. “Sort of…why?” I responded.

Good observation. I might have been especially oblivios, but I was 8 or 9 years old when the Berlin Wall came down, and I remember not know until I was 20 that it even happened in my lifetime. Kids don't pay attention to that stuff.

He pulled out a red and white sphere and pushed a button on it, causing it to enlarge and open. In an instant, a flash of white light burst forth from inside it and began to take the form of a huge dragon, upright and majestic. Shiny, flaming orange-colored scales covered most of its thickly muscled body, save for a massive pair of blue wings. I widened my eyes—it was a Charizard, the fully evolved form of Charmander. This was the first time I had seen one in person.

He replaced the Poké Ball and climbed up onto the dragon’s back. It flexed its wings and outstretched them, flapping against the air and sending rushes of wind into my face. I held my hair against my head and watched as the reptile ascended into the sky.

“I’ll see ya,” the trainer said, soaring out of sight.

What...an odd scene, altogether. Who was the man (Lance?)? Why was he here just watching Team Rocket? What did the Charmander have to do with anything? I'm very perplexed by all this, because it's just all so oddly mysterious.

“Er, later,” I said more to myself than him, wondering how and why I’d see him later. I looked at the small card he had given me and read.

If you have received this card, it is because you have been recognized as either a beginning trainer with the potential for skill, or an ambitious young trainer willing to face danger for the sake of stopping Team Rocket. If you are serious about joining a rebellion against the Rockets, then meet in Vermilion City prior to the following date for further instruction. The cruise ship, S.S. Anne departs on July 7.

This seems so unusual. I have to assume I'd believe it is a trap, some means to ferret out people who'd want to oppose Team Rocket, put them on a boat, and then explode them or something.

[Psychic]

Ohai! It’s good to have you back.

I’ve always meant to read this – literally, it’s been something like five-six years – and finally doing so is kind of bringing me back to the old days when I was still a bright-eyed newbie and all that. I even realized that I had started reading this once upon a time – as Jade arrived at the clearing, I vaguely knew that she was going to encounter a legendary Pokemon there. XD That said, I’ve only read up to Chapter 1 and I dislike reviewing when I haven’t read the entire story, but I fear putting it off and never getting back to it.

With all that said, I really haven’t got a whole lot of general things to say. XD I feel like this is very standard fare from when I was younger, like this is something I’ve read a fair number of times (I likely have seen the prologue in multiple versions) and it feels oddly nostalgic, which is weird since I’ve never gotten much into your fic or even really commented on it to my knowledge. This is weird. But let's get to it!


The first scene of the prologue, like I said, felt pretty standard. A legendary Pokemon is reflecting on legendary Pokemon stuff, then things get suddenly urgent and it shoots up into the air. You probably could have gotten away with a little more flowery description here – Lugia is awesome, after all, and this is just a good place to show off some fun writing. With the second scene, I have to say it didn’t quite feel like a nine-year-old all the time. I feel like most nine-year-olds are more likely to say “Kay, bye!” than “Right. I’ll see you on Monday, then!” Looking back, I can’t really pinpoint any other moments – her reactions, while simple, seem appropriate enough. Again, I think you can be a little more playful with your writing here since you’re dealing with little kids.

The first chapter also looked pretty fine. While I don’t feel you take us very deep into Jade’s psyche, we do get to learn enough about her and what she’s doing these days, where her friends are at and so on, which is quite important. I have to agree with Dragonfree about finding it strange that some guy just randomly told Jade everything, including the Giovanni bit, which seems like it would be pretty unbelievable. I imagine that he’s have control of the media, or at least find plenty of ways to make him look like this great guy to really mask what he does. Anyhow, his utter trust in her is really something, and I’m also surprised that this news isn’t more amazing or scary to her – I feel like knowing that a criminal organization has the power to take over the region would kind of rock your world.

I am also obliged to mention that don’t you think finding and taking in a cute little Charmander is a little overdone?. I’m sure it’s a revision thing, and don’t worry about it – I get it, I just was obligated to mention it. XD That said, I kind of completely forgot she was holding it for the entire rest of the chapter - throwing in references to it, like having it stir in her arms, or it starting to feel heavy at some point can help. It feels more like a prop than a living creature in this chapter.

And now it’s nitpicking time!

    Spoiler:- Nitpicky:

Show Spoiler

 
Prologue:

The creature shot up from the ocean trench like a silver torpedo, the water slowly growing lighter as it rushed for the surface.

You can mention other changes here, like difference in pressure or the water Pokemon that scatter as Lugia shoots up.

It couldn’t help feeling caught up in the simple joy of flight, for it had not experienced the feeling in quite some time.

Show don’t tell – emphasize that it’s been some time since Lugia's flown through things such as Lugia stretching, enjoying the air in its lungs, between its feathers and so on.

Everything felt silent after that. It was like all the commotion going on with the other kids didn’t exist.

There’s a bit of a dissonance in showing and telling when you show a character notice something and then have them say they don’t notice it. They noticed it if they’re mentioning it, so just...don't mention it. XD

She looked like she wanted to tell me something else, but then decided not to and stayed quiet.

Since this is first person limited, I’d take out the “then decided not to” so that you only describe what Jade sees.

She stared at it for a few seconds, then stood to her feet and threw a backpack over her shoulder

I’d say “her backpack” instead of “a backpack” since Jade probably knows it belongs to Jade.

before walking towards the car heavily.

What does it mean to walk “heavily”? I can imagine it, but I’d like to see it described – is she hunched over, lumbering, lurching? You use this adverb again in Chapter 1, I believe.


Chapter 1:

but then—crap, I was heading for a parked car, turn, turn!

This kind of came as a shock. I imagined they were in a grassy park or something, not on the street. I’d find a way to throw in some description earlier to show where they are so the car doesn't seem to come out of nowhere.

And while I couldn’t deny that I’d been excited when I’d opened the results envelope to see a passing grade the day before…it didn’t mean much if I wasn’t allowed to leave on a Pokémon Journey.

Ellipses aren’t necessary here – you can make it a comma.

I caught sight of an aerial figure passing over the trees above me.

“Aerial” doesn’t really describe in any way what this figure might look like – all it really means is that the figure is related to the air or in the air, which we know. “Bird-like” should do fine here.

One moment we were within the thick of the forest, and the next, there was nothing but ravaged ground and the charred remains of tree trunks. In fact, it didn’t look at though the area had burned to the ground, but rather had been incinerated instantly.

Describe “ravaged” – I assume everything’s been burn to the ground, the grass is blackened, maybe ashes litter the ground. Also, “at” should be “as.”

I pulled the burnt remains away from it and slowly wiped the soot off the lizard, awkwardly attempting to avoid harming its blistered skin any further.

So the Charmander doesn’t react to some human touching its tender skin? Doesn't flinch or look at her or anything? What does it feel like – is its body burning hot or vaguely warm, are its scales sharp or is its skin smooth and soft? What does the soot feel like? These kinds of details make scenes that much more visceral and feel real. Touch is an important sense – don’t forget it!

A brilliant flash of fire tore across the mountainside before stopping suddenly in the middle of the clearing and unleashing a blazing heat wave outward from itself.

You can stop at “outward” – the “from itself” goes without saying.

Its face was, in short, amazing—rimmed by brightly colored crests of red along the side, blue over the muzzle, and a crown of yellow over its eyes.

I always thought it was more of a grey than blue, and in my opinion, calling it a crown of gold sounds a bit more impressive than yellow, but that’s an authorial decision.

A large group of Pokémon charged forward from behind the vehicles, unleashing torrents of water at their target. Entei stood its ground, but was noticeably affected by their assault.

Maybe throwing in some Pokemon Jade recognizes might add a bit here, and also describe the water actually hitting Entei and Entei’s reaction – what does “noticeably” mean? How is Entei acting and reacting? Does it ever roar? In fury, in pain?

A long time ago you probably heard about all kinds of raids on cities, Pokémon deaths, and other stuff.

“Other stuff” sounds a bit too casual when referring to raids and deaths. “And so on” might fit better here.
 

I don't really have much to add. Don't be afraid to describe and get visceral, especially by using as many of the five senses as possible whenever possible. Don't allow your reader to forget that the air is filled with smoke or that there is a dying Charmander in your main character's arms! Those are the kinds of details that can really draw a reader in if you describe them well.

No promises, but I definitely would like to keep reading (for once in my life)! Keep it up! :>

~Psychic

[Cometstarlight]

Wow, I got done reading this yesterday and I can't believe I like it. I truly and sincerly like this story! Considering good stories are rarity. I totally look forward to reading your next chapter!

[Chibi Pika]

Holy comments, Batman! Thank you everyone!

I would have gone with fewer dialogue tags. You didn't use too many, but some were still a bit extraneous. "blinked", "pointed out". I would have dropped those. An astute reader could easily follow the conversation without the reminder of who was speaking. You can trust us!

Hm, that's interesting, especially since that particular exchange had a lower percentage of tags than usual. I can see how "pointed out" is a bit extraneous given the line, though. In general, I don't like omitting more than two tags in a row because then I become conscious of the fact that I'm not describing how things are being said. But I'm sure that some of them can be extraneous, so I'll keep an eye out for that.

-So the prologue is quiye interesting; I was not expecting shifting P.O.V., but it's intentional, so I can appreciate it. Nice juxtaposition, too. We have Lugia worrying about the world and ancient prophecies….and then we have some fifth graders worrying about moving apart from each other. And yet, the second concern is portrayed in such a way that it is not only NOT dwarfed by Lugia's more important concern, but also in a way that I actually care more about it! Impressive! Let's see if I have time to read chapter 1 before lunch ends…

I am SO GLAD you took note of that, because that was really what I was going for, especially since my prologue required two sections (the plot stuff with Lugia was important, but the Jade/Ajia/Starr interactions were crucial character backstory.)

Since the same person is talking--and about the same subject matter (Ebony)--I might not have broken that up into two paragraphs. It confused me at first because I thought it was Rudy talking initially in the second paragraph.

Actually, that's funny because when reviewing your story, I was tempted to criticize the opposite (having many pieces of dialogue all in one paragraph felt like it kind of weighed the paragraphs down.) but decided not to since I realized it was a personal preference thing. I generally don't like putting more than two pieces of dialgoue in the same paragraph, particularly if they're addressed to different characters (Ebony in the first, Rudy in the second.)

More impeccable child-like dialogue, which is impressive because (and I don't know how old you are, but I'm guess late, late teens at the youngest) writing little kids is HARD to do realistically!

Heh, I think it's because I've been writing this incarnation of these characters since I was their age. Fourteen was just when I was starting to become passably decent as a writer, and that was when the characters first started to develop into what they are today.

It's very intriguing to see the difference between Lugia and these two. Lugia was cognitive and had an actual thought process. These two are very pet-like (which I like; it's how I've handled Vlam and Bree in my story). It's quite a gap in their mental capacities.

Ah, interesting that you noticed that, but unfortunately it's a one-off thing. Those two are just very young and kind of goofballs. xP Later on in the story, the Pokemon tend to be more vocal (and Jade can understand Pokespeech), so sadly the effect given here is infrequent.

All right, I could not make it very far in before lunch ended, but I do want to post what I got so far, and I get into the rest of it later on. Sorry for not being able to finish up right now!

Quite alright, I understand the feeling. I'll keep an eye on that post so any edits you make don't go unnoticed.

I’ve always meant to read this – literally, it’s been something like five-six years – and finally doing so is kind of bringing me back to the old days when I was still a bright-eyed newbie and all that.

You know, I just realized something--I really love it when I see other people mention the fact that I've been posting this fic on this forum for stupidly long amounts of time. You'd think I'd be embarrassed of it, or try to gloss over the fact that I'm still writing this all these years later, but I just feel inexplicably happy when I see other people mention it (maybe the fact that I'm not the only person in that situation has empowered me or something.)

That said, I’ve only read up to Chapter 1 and I dislike reviewing when I haven’t read the entire story, but I fear putting it off and never getting back to it.

Bwaha, don't worry, I know the feeling. xD;

I feel like most nine-year-olds are more likely to say “Kay, bye!” than “Right. I’ll see you on Monday, then!” Looking back, I can’t really pinpoint any other moments – her reactions, while simple, seem appropriate enough. Again, I think you can be a little more playful with your writing here since you’re dealing with little kids.

You know, funnily enough, I was actually just looking at that line and feeling tempted to alter it earlier yesterday. I feel like I’m getting closer to capturing the childishness in the prologue (especially after Dragonfree’s review), but not quite there yet.

The first chapter also looked pretty fine. While I don’t feel you take us very deep into Jade’s psyche, we do get to learn enough about her and what she’s doing these days, where her friends are at and so on, which is quite important. I have to agree with Dragonfree about finding it strange that some guy just randomly told Jade everything, including the Giovanni bit, which seems like it would be pretty unbelievable. I imagine that he’s have control of the media, or at least find plenty of ways to make him look like this great guy to really mask what he does. Anyhow, his utter trust in her is really something, and I’m also surprised that this news isn’t more amazing or scary to her – I feel like knowing that a criminal organization has the power to take over the region would kind of rock your world.

I'm actually a bit surprised both you and Dragonfree interpreted that scene as Stalker trusting her, which is pretty much the exact opposite of how I thought most people would see it (as in, I figured everyone would be all "She shouldn't trust him! He's manipulating her, aaahhh!" But maybe my old readers were a bit overzealous with the plot theories.) When you say the Giovanni bit, at first I thought you meant unbelievable as in she shouldn't have believed him, which actually is a valid point and I could have standed to make Jade more skeptical, given Giovanni's immaculate public appearance (though it's important that later on in the story she greatly regrets her naivety here.) But then you go on to bring up his trust in her, and so then I'm confused as to which point you're making.

Actually, I was going to leave this out until his next appearance, but there is something I've been considering—the next time she sees him, he is wearing a mask and cloak, and explains that he wore that when he was seeking out trainers to "interview" for his team, but hadn't particularly been expecting to find any recruits that day and so was unprepared. That doesn't totally fit his character, though, so I was going to ask everyone if I should edit the mask into chapter 1 as well. (Except…then Jade is following around a masked guy she can't even see the face of, which brings up obvious problems on its own.)

I am also obliged to mention that don’t you think finding and taking in a cute little Charmander is a little overdone?. I’m sure it’s a revision thing, and don’t worry about it – I get it, I just was obligated to mention it. XD

Oh, believe me, I know. xD;;; This is one of those silly things from ten years ago that I'm stuck with now. (ask Dragonfree, she can tell you how annoying those situations are.) I will not attempt to defend it or say that writing this fic for ten years gives me immunity to any relics of absurdity it still features; I'm just trying take those old and silly concepts and write them as best as I can. (Thankfully, they get fewer as the fic goes on.)


For once, I don't actually feel the need to respond to any of the nitpicks. Usually there are at least a couple of things I try to defend or explain my point of view on, but here I pretty much agree with everything. I'm actually very motivated now to go back and add more flavor to my descriptions—
Silverwing: OH NO! We have a Code 3, REVISION URGE! ABORT THREAD!!!
<_<; …but I will not. I can wait until after posting chapter 4 to fix everything up nice. (Chapter 5 was mostly revised up to Revision 11 standards during last summer, so I won't end up delaying it by doing this.)
Silverwing: Aww. You have too many readers now, I was trying to thin them out.

Speaking of which, holy crap I have a lot of readers, thank you all so much for commenting!!! :'D Really guys, it means a lot to me that you're enjoying it, since I've spent such a large part of my life writing it, and I love it to death, so being able to share it with you all it a great feeling.

Also, I am sorry that I don't have the chapter out yet! It's way longer than it was supposed to be, but there are a lot of loose threads that need to be tied up before I can charge into the next arc of the story. Tomorrow, I promise! (I would work on it today, but I really need to get back to animating things for the internet to love so the bronies can pay my rent. ...You read that right.)

In the meantime, have some Spencer art! Zoo wee mama!
    Spoiler:- Spencer:

Show Spoiler

 

 

Next chapter will have art of a new character! Don't wanna spoil who it is, though.

~Chibi~

[Sid87]

Chapter 2 review...

My only hope was to reach my bike—nothing was more important than that. If I managed to, then I could make it to town before they caught me and then lose them on the side streets. Just that tiny bit of hope was enough for me, but was I too far away?

It's very childlike to imagine Jade could escape a gang on vehicles by getting to a bicycle, so good job presenting that immature thought process. Like I said: you do youngsters very well.

“Shut the hell up if you want to live. We’re not supposed to have any witnesses, but you might get off the hook if you just keep quiet,” the driver muttered, climbing back into the front seat and driving off.

This feels a little...forced. The first line seems like a generic supervillain throwaway line, and the second is just an out to let the reader know "don't worry, they won't kill Jade".

After some time, I pulled myself up to look out the window again. We had just passed the outskirts of Viridian, now heading into the forests to the east of the city. And then I noticed that Swift was still flapping his wings quickly to follow the jeep, calling out to me—it was almost a painful sight. Upon seeing that I was watching him, he soared downward to fly alongside the window, apparently unwilling to leave.

“Just go,” I mumbled, though he couldn’t hear me. “There’s nothing you can do…”

That's good, sad imagery. Poor Pidgey. I really eel for it, watching Jade get abducted like that.

“Leave it,” he said. “It’s just a Pidgey. Doesn’t matter if it belongs to a captive.”

This also seems a bit generic. The bad guys are just giving the readers outs right when we should be getting worried. It feels almost like you don't want the reader to get TOO concerned.

I leaned forward to see out the back seat window and watched as he leaned over and lifted up a small hatch in the grass.

Too many uses of "leaned" in rapid succession.

And so I was left alone in the jeep. Well, not quite alone, as I quickly realized—the Charmander was still here, after all. I looked down at where I had set it next to me. A tiny flare flickered at the end of its tail, so it was at least still alive, at least. It probably wouldn’t survive much longer though. That fact seemed to make the already bleak situation even worse somehow.

That's better. Do I honestly think the Charmander is going to die? Not really. But at least I wasn't essentially told this time that everything would be okay. You let the reader start worry...and this time you left us with our worry.

“Of course no one ever feels like telling me a damn thing about the mission status,” the higher-ranked Rocket snapped. “And what the hell made you think it would be a good idea to grab some random girl who happened to see it? Sure, she reports some poaching of a Legendary Pokémon, big deal. No one would have any idea that it was us. But now she sure as hell knows too much. Honestly, Tyson, I don’t even know why I—”

Am I alone in not having realized Jade was a girl before this? LOL. I must have missed that. Accursed unisex names!

“I heard he was a part of the revolt.”

Yet another pause. This time the other Rocket seemed at least slightly intrigued. “So he might know more about us than we figured… But how many others left us that day? Have any of them accomplished much against us? I don’t see how this is any—”

Hello...what is this tasty morsel of a subplot? The only thing I'd have changed is I'd have cut the superior off even sooner to leave the reader with another question or two. "So he might know more about--" or "But how many others--" At those points, you see? But still....now I have questions, and that's fun.

“Well, if you’re convinced that she knows anything, it could be useful…but I don’t have time to question her, and I know none of the other Admins do.” Rather unexpectedly, he laughed. “I know, this is perfect—most of the head Executives are at the secondary headquarters right now. Stick the girl on the transport jet; let them deal with what to do with her.” With that, he walked off to discuss things with some of the other Rockets.

This seems like two characters just talking about things that each already knows. And wasn't the superior dismissive of the idea that there is anything for the girl to know, just, like, 5 seconds ago?

“So….” he said, flipping through it and pulling out my school ID, “Jade Arenesa, fourteen years old. I’ll be sure to get that on file.

At FIRST, I was going to be critical of that line, too (as it initially read as the Rocket basically saying "okay, readers...she's going to get free, but we'll still have this info so we can further the plot", but it actually reads less like that if you think about how the driver guy said she might be let go, in which case, this is a clever, subtle threat. "We might even let you go, but you better know we'll know who and where you and your family are at all times." In that context, it's a nice, powerful, quiet line.

Spencer stepped aside revealing a rather disgruntled Rudy standing in the cargo bay.

Hmmm. Rudy, Spencer, Jade? Ruby, Sapphire, Emerald. Is that intentional? Because it is immediately what I thought of; each of their names correlates to one of those games, either by sounding the same, looking the same, or having similar meanings. Not sure it MEANS anything, but it's a neat little Easter Egg. Or I'm imagining things that aren't there.

I didn’t really mind—just being free was enough. Really, just them being there was enough to make the entire situation feel better somehow. I wasn’t alone in this; with three of us there was no way we wouldn’t find some way out.

Nice childlike naivete. Jade was just told that Team Rocket controls virtually everything, but not that her two other kid friends are here, everything is fine!

It stared, apparently confused at my confusion. “*Yes…*” it said slowly, in a tone suggesting that it found the question to be very strange.

Oh, you weren't kidding about the Pokemon eventually just talking.

“Yeah, yeah! Just think—these could be like, super-powerful mutant Pokémon. If we used them to fight the Rockets, we’d be able to get out of this for sure!” Rudy said excitedly.

Yoy. This kid's a brat. I kind of can't wait for him to get his comeuppance. Is that bad of me?

Tyson stared at us in a sort of stupefied rage before turning his gaze on the experimental Pikachu and clenching his teeth. He then pulled one of the black Poké Balls from his belt and opened it. The flash of light from within took the form of a huge green mantis with an exoskeleton that was plated like armor. Its blank, pupil-less eyes flared mindlessly from a vaguely reptilian head. It flashed its impressive scythe-lined arms, seemingly cutting the very air. The Pikachu glared at the Scyther, its eyes wide with what looked like a combination of anger and dread.

“Thought you’d play with the hybrids did you?” Tyson asked, sneering. “Then have fun facing the strongest of them. Razors, attack!”

The three of us sat there, frozen in horror as the blade-armed nightmare of a Pokémon shot toward us, too fast to even see.

What could make a hybrid Scyther, I wonder? Can't wait to see.

[Chibi Pika]

This feels a little...forced. The first line seems like a generic supervillain throwaway line, and the second is just an out to let the reader know "don't worry, they won't kill Jade".

Oh wow...see this is why reviews are so helpful. That line is from Revision SIX. Every time I've rewritten the chapter, it's just sort of stayed there because it never occurred to me to fix it. I tend to just get used to a lot of the old bad things, to the point where I don't even notice them anymore, until someone points them out, and them I'm like, "Ogod why didn't I ever fix that."

Am I alone in not having realized Jade was a girl before this? LOL. I must have missed that. Accursed unisex names!

No, you're not alone. It occurred to me recently that there really is no other indication before that line. I couldn't think of how to do it, given the first person (and thought it would actually be a bit amusing to play with people's expectations.)

This seems like two characters just talking about things that each already knows. And wasn't the superior dismissive of the idea that there is anything for the girl to know, just, like, 5 seconds ago?

Huh, I wouldn't say he was telling Tyson things he already knew. And the way I figured it, he knew that if she'd seen someone apparently involved in the so-called revolt, it would be unwise to just dismiss it, even if he himself found it to be waste of time. So he decided to make sure that someone else could waste their time instead. xP

Hmmm. Rudy, Spencer, Jade? Ruby, Sapphire, Emerald. Is that intentional? Because it is immediately what I thought of; each of their names correlates to one of those games, either by sounding the same, looking the same, or having similar meanings. Not sure it MEANS anything, but it's a neat little Easter Egg. Or I'm imagining things that aren't there.

Huh, that's a funny coincidence. I thought their names seemed to flow together unusually well. Course, those names were made for those characters by three different people, so it is just a coincidence.

Nice childlike naivete. Jade was just told that Team Rocket controls virtually everything, but not that her two other kid friends are here, everything is fine!

I am SO GLAD you keep picking up on these bits. Jade is indeed hopelessly naive during this first arc, and I really wanted to make sure she came off as it, so it's great to have someone take notice.

Yoy. This kid's a brat. I kind of can't wait for him to get his comeuppance. Is that bad of me?

Haha, don't worry, he will. Rudy's development arc is a bit slower than Jade's since he's not the main character, but he definitely gets his eventually.

~Chibi~

[Sid87]

I needed a break from writing chapter 8 of Brothers' Bond, so I figured I'd catch up a little more here. This is chapter 3, which I BELIEVE is the last chapter completed so far! So...all caught up! Yay!

@Septic Scepti1e: Hey, don’t worry! Not knowing the middle is nowhere near as bad as not knowing the end. I’ve had a lot of discussions about this with a writer friend of mine, and we realized that knowing the end is really the single best way to ensure that you’re able to get through a story.

I'm just going to say I've changed the end to BB in my head about 5 times already. SO THANKS FOR THAT. But I think I'm happy with where it's going now.

“Ugh, what does it matter?!” Rudy exclaimed. “We’re not gonna get anywhere by just hiding!” Before I could protest, he pulled out a pair of Poké Balls and opened them, allowing both of his Pokémon to appear before us. I wasn’t surprised to see the familiar black firedog taking shape, or her subsequent attempt to tackle me. What caught me off-guard was the small, bright blue turtle now standing next to us—not that I really had time to question what the heck he was doing with a Squirtle.

Pikachu, Charmander, and Squirtle. I see what you mean about tackling cliches. Where's Bulbasaur going to come in?

Firestorm looked down and nodded vaguely. So now even he wanted to help in some small way. I wasn’t the only useless one here, but I was the only one who had just given up on being able to do anything. That realization was aggravating.

Nice touch there. Jade is being the "smart" one because she realizes the pokemon she and Rudy have are no match for the monsters already on the field, but everyone else's willingness to jump into battle makes her feel like a weakling. Will she give in to the pressure of everyone else wanting to battle (which would be a mistake, I imagine)? This is a big decision for her.

That pretty much sent Tyson over the edge. “What the hell are you even doing here?!” he roared. “I don’t have time to take this crap from you!”

So wait...does Tyson know Spencer?

Spencer seemed to realize this at the same time I did. “Backup, backup, definitely time for backup,” he muttered quickly, fumbling with the Poké Balls on his belt. He grabbed the first two he could get his hands on and opened them. His first Pokémon, an Electabuzz, gave a swish of its striped tail the second it appeared and began swinging its heavy arms in a windmill motion, causing sparks to leap off the prongs on its head. Alongside it stood a Pokémon I couldn’t recognize off the top of my head—a gray wolf with long capes of black fur running down its back. Its yellowish eyes held a bit of uncertainty, but it crouched defensively, ready to fight just the same.

You know what I'm just realizing I appreciate? Even with the Pikachu in play, the kids aren't getting by on youthful vigor and dumb luck, like I imagine would be the case in so many fictions. Without this older, experienced Spencer around to basically battle FOR them, they'd be dead meat.

“I thought you had six Pokémon,” Rudy said, sounding a bit let down.

“We’d be starting one crazy party if I let out all six of my guys. I don’t think the plane can handle that many fighters—this battle’s probably dangerous enough as it is.”

That was right…in fact, it was a good thing we were in such a large plane—any battle at all would have been impossible otherwise.

This feels a little too much like another read basically designed solely for the reader. I'm willing to suspend disbelief (heck, Typhlosion melted through metal that was attached to Jade's head...that should have burned the hell out of her unless her hands were a dozen yards away from Typhlosion's fire attack), so I don't need to be told this. Just my opinion.

The Pikachu made one last attempt to jump over the Pokémon and blast them all but failed. It fell to the ground and collapsed off to the side of the plane.

Well, it's the interior of the plane. That wording makes it seem like it's literally on the side of the airplane. See what I mean? I would say "off to the side of the cargo bay area" (or just cargo bay).

“So…think it’s gonna help us?” Rudy spoke up all of a sudden.

I shrugged. It was pretty much all I could think of to reply.

Drop the "pretty much" there. Just "It was all I could think of as a reply". Sounds better, and conveys the more apt meaning.

Everything happened so fast—it was hard to process all of it. First lightning, and then an explosion ripping through the back of the plane, sending all of flying back toward the cockpit. Before I could even think about what was going on, Spencer whipped out a Poké Ball to release an icy white seal. Its horn shone with a bright blue light as a wave of water streamed forward from its mouth. The instant the flames burning from the explosion had been doused, the Dewgong fired a glowing beam from its horn that completely sealed the gaping hole with huge, glittering ice crystals.

*all of US flying back...

And I'm confused. Pikachu was IN the cockpit, then ran AWAY from it to the back of the plane where, after the brief confrontation with Electabuzz, it blew a hole in the hull of the plane. If I'm right, this shouldn't have sent our heroes TOWARDS the cockpit, they (and everything else not nailed down) should have been flying towards the hole due to the pressure inside the plane rapidly escaping into the open air.

“Well I knew we’d never get anywhere with him having a gun and all, so with all the insanity that the Pikachu caused, I told Typhlosion to hide and take him down the first chance he got,”

I couldn’t think of anything to say. I was too shocked by how much the tables had turned in our favor with just that one move.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?! Do you have any idea who you’re dealing with?!” Tyson raged, struggling against Typhlosion’s hold.

“I think we’re dealing with someone I just beat,” Spencer said. “You should probably recall your Pokémon now, it’ll make things easier.”

Typhlosion flexed his claws threateningly to emphasize the point, letting wave of heat start to shimmer around them. Clenching his teeth, Tyson managed to unclip the Poké Balls from his belt and recall his Pokémon in twin beams of black energy.

That's pretty good thinking. On Spencer's part, yes, but it was a good creative way to end the battle, too. Very nice.

Rudy looked to be spending the time debating over training methods for strengthening his Pokémon. Spencer, meanwhile, was having an amusing discussion with his Pokémon, in which I could tell that he didn’t understand them much, yet it didn’t seem to stop him from responding to everything they said as if a split conversation like that were completely normal. I couldn’t help chuckling a bit at it.

So Spencer the mighty battler isn't that good at communicating, eh? Interesting. Everybody's got weaknesses, I guess.

“Yeah, okay, that was lame,” he said, putting a hand to his forehead. “Anyways, think he’s planning something?”

This is the second of third time that's happened this chapter. Someone saying something and following it up with "Yeah, that was lame; sorry". It's like the characters are having a race to be the most awkward. Just be careful in the future about repeating those kinds of things over and over.

“Actually!” Spencer exclaimed suddenly. “I just remembered I have somewhere very important to be, so y’know I’m just gonna have to take a rain check on the whole battling Rockets to the death thing, so sorry I can’t make it, very urgent, hope you’ll understand, hey guys you’re invited too, let’s go now, Arcanine!”

Something about this line was very Spider-Man-esque. And I love Spider-Man witticisms and obnoxious one-liners, so I loved this.

Okay! So I'm all caught up. I agree with your summation: this chapter was REALLY long.

[Chibi Pika]

Thanks for reviewing (again!) I promise I'll catch up on reading Brothers' Bond soon enough! Once I get internet back, that is. I'm sitting on the lawn of my university right now. :3

Pikachu, Charmander, and Squirtle. I see what you mean about tackling cliches. Where's Bulbasaur going to come in?

Her finding a Charmader is indeed a cliche, but I wouldn't say Rudy getting a Squirtle is. In my fic, nearly all trainers who go on a journey can apply to receive a starter after they pass the training exam.

So wait...does Tyson know Spencer?

Huh, I didn't mean for that line to come off as he knew Spencer, more like a sort on angry outburst at this random kid for being annoying and not even supposed to be there in the first place.

You know what I'm just realizing I appreciate? Even with the Pikachu in play, the kids aren't getting by on youthful vigor and dumb luck, like I imagine would be the case in so many fictions. Without this older, experienced Spencer around to basically battle FOR them, they'd be dead meat.

Ha ha, yes yes yes, a thousand times yes. That is the trope I play with the most in this fic. And even later in the fic, when the Charizard trainer is teaching kids to fight Team Rocket, I will be putting a lot of effort into keeping the conflicts realistic.

And I'm confused. Pikachu was IN the cockpit, then ran AWAY from it to the back of the plane where, after the brief confrontation with Electabuzz, it blew a hole in the hull of the plane. If I'm right, this shouldn't have sent our heroes TOWARDS the cockpit, they (and everything else not nailed down) should have been flying towards the hole due to the pressure inside the plane rapidly escaping into the open air.

Your breakdown of the action was correct, and I had totally neglected the effect that the air pressure would have, so I will go ahead and fix that.

This is the second of third time that's happened this chapter. Someone saying something and following it up with "Yeah, that was lame; sorry". It's like the characters are having a race to be the most awkward. Just be careful in the future about repeating those kinds of things over and over.

Huh, that's funny, I didn't notice any other lines in the chapter having that same feeling. I definitely wasn't intending to repeat a joke.

Okay! So I'm all caught up. I agree with your summation: this chapter was REALLY long.

Yes, it was. D: And the next chapter is even worse, gack!


To everyone: the chapter has been delayed for way longer than I had hoped, and should be up tonight! Sorry for taking so long!

~Chibi~

[Sid87]

Fantastic. I figure you might know this already, but add me to any PM lists you have going on.

[Chibi Pika]

Alrighty, time for a new chapter! Sorry this one took so long, guys. I cannot possibly overstate just how busy my life is right now. I quite literally have zero free time whatsoever—there are always things to be done. x.X; Anyways...the cool thing about this chapter is that every single scene has been not only rewritten, but radically altered from the previous version, so even old readers will have a lot of new stuff to enjoy.



~Chapter 4: Ace from the Past~

I found myself unable to do anything but stare at the ongoing battle, any feeling of hope dying rapidly. Really, the only advantage we had was our defensive position. Spencer’s Electabuzz was keeping most of the Executive’s Pokémon at bay with scattered bolts of lightning shot from its fingertips, but it constantly had to duck back to avoid the ridiculous amount of fire being thrown around by all of the Pokémon. Mightyena’s ash-colored fur was now charred black; by this point, all of its moves were sluggish, and every so often its limbs would tremble from the excessive burns. The Executive’s Rapidash was galloping around the outskirts of the battle, still glowing from its earlier fire boost and clearly trying to get close enough to attack us. The only thing keeping it back was the bursts of water that Dewgong kept sending flying into the air and crashing down on the opposition. Spencer’s Arcanine had clearly been forced to endure the most hits, and yet it still darted around the battlefield, using its Extremespeed technique both to land rapid blows and block its teammates from the relentless flames being thrown around the fray. Even from where I was standing, the waves of heat radiating outward were causing waves of sweat to drip down my face.

A small bit of movement out of the corner of my eye caught my attention, and I looked down to see the experimental Pikachu twitching slightly. I had almost forgotten that I’d brought him with us—now I wasn’t quite sure if it had been a good idea or not. He pulled his limbs underneath his body and attempted to raise himself from the ground, but couldn’t stop trembling from sheer exhaustion.

“You…you probably should save your strength,” I said tentatively.

He turned toward me sharply, looking strangely disoriented like he was trying to be angry and lash out at me, but couldn’t figure out how or why. After a few seconds, the experiment looked away to gaze out at the brawl taking place and the scattered bolts and flares flying past us nonstop. The sparks intensified. Small strings of electricity started to course over the rodent’s body, intensifying slowly. But then at once they gave out, and he collapsed again, muttering incomprehensibly to himself.

I let out a breath that I didn’t know I’d been holding. It was weird—I didn’t want to risk the Pikachu going on a mad rampage, but a part of me knew that he was still our chance at getting out of here.

I heard the sound of a Poké Ball opening and looked over to see Rudy now giving instructions to his Squirtle. He pointed at the opposition, and his starter nodded determinedly. I wasn’t sure what he planned on doing, but then suddenly the turtle spat out a lopsided ring of water, which flew over the battlefield and splashed into the Executive’s Rapidash, who shook it off, looking annoyed.

Rudy folded his arms. “Huh, that didn’t look quite right…oh well, let’s try again—Water Pulse!”

Of course—he’d been teaching his Squirtle all kinds of moves while we were on the plane. I immediately reached into my pocket and pulled out the Fire Blast TM that Rudy had given me, running a finger over the glossy case that enclosed the red disc inside. Any little bit could help turn the tide of the battle in our favor…I had to use it.

“Firestorm…could you come over here?” I said.

He turned toward me, looking a bit puzzled. I held out the TM, pausing so I could go over my words carefully.

“It’s a Technical Machine,” I explained. “Spencer’s Pokémon can’t handle this alone—if we’re gonna get out of this, we need to help too—” I stopped. We? What was I going to do? Nothing—that was just it…heck, I wasn’t even the Charmander’s trainer. I attempted to shake the thought out of my head and continued, “This thing can give you the ability to focus your power into a massive blast of fire. Would you be willing to learn it to help us fight them?” I was trying not to sound too forceful, even though—at this point—we couldn’t afford for him to say no.

Firestorm nodded almost immediately. I blinked, surprised at how willing he was to fight. Did he realize what kind of dangers this would involve?

Still confused, I held the device several inches from the lizard’s forehead, flipping a small switch on its side to unlock it and then pressing the largest button. The disc glowed for a few seconds and began spinning—giving off a sort of wave that would react with his energy signature, from what I had once read on TMs. Firestorm froze and looked as though he had been seized by some invisible force. Different parts of his body started to glow faintly at varying intervals. After nearly a minute, the disc slowed; I pulled it away, but he still had a sort of blank stare on his face.

I stepped back so that he could get into position with a good view of the battle that wouldn’t put him out in the open. The Charmander still looked a bit dazed, though, like he was locked into a trance that he couldn’t pull himself out of.

“…Firestorm?” I asked slowly, raising an eyebrow. I’d never actually seen a Pokémon’s reaction to a TM, so I had no idea if this was normal. I took one hesitant step towards him.

And then his gaze sharpened instantly. His eyes shot open with an unexpected ferocity and shimmering waves of heat began to leak from his mouth. At once, he spewed out a column of raging flames, which sent his small figure reeling backwards from the force. With a roar, the blazing stream of fire split off into five branches, twisting off wildly in different directions.

I stood there in shock, knowing well enough that this wasn’t what was supposed to happen. Firestorm’s eyes went wide, and he jerked his head, trying desperately to control the blaze, though nothing he did seemed to make any difference. Flames kept pouring from his mouth, even though he was clearly trying to force it shut.

“Did you teach the Charmander Fire Blast?!” Spencer exclaimed, running over to me.

“Err—yeah?!” I yelled back, now frantic.

He clapped a hand to his forehead. “Aw, crap…I should’ve warned you—pretty much every trainer tries it at some point… Arcanine, make sure no one on our side gets hit!”

The firedog barked out a cry and leaped to the front of the lineup, allowing one of the branches of the Fire Blast to hit it directly. The force of the attack made it recoil slightly, but otherwise the Arcanine was unaffected. By this point the other four strings of fire had flown off into the air, dissipating uselessly. Firestorm was finally able to sink to the ground, coughing and sputtering with brightly glowing flares still dripping off his tiny fangs.

“Using a TM just gives a Pokémon the power to do the move—if it’s one that’s hard to do right, you gotta spend time learning the details of how it works and training your Pokémon to pull it off. That goes double for the uber ones that’re hard to control,” Spencer explained to me, while directing his Pokémon back into battle position.

I felt like shrinking back into a corner somewhere. What had seemed like the only thing I could do to help had turned out to be completely stupid. I glanced down at the TM case, now noticing the label along the bottom corner that read “Rating: 120 (Highly Advanced).”

“I…I’m sorry—I didn’t know—” I mumbled.

“It’s okay,” he cut in, trying to look optimistic. “Arcanine blocked it from hitting the rest of my team. We’re still behind, but I’m not counting us out yet—”

At that moment, we had to shield our eyes from a blinding flash let loose from what looked like a raging flurry of steam and scarlet energy surging straight through the middle of the fray. The Executive’s Pokémon briefly retreated, giving it the opening it needed to plow straight into the completely unsuspecting form of Spencer’s Arcanine, sending brilliantly orange shock waves digging deep into the firedog’s body. A sickening howl filled the air as the canine’s proud and powerful frame collapsed limply.

“I…what? What the heck move was that?” I stuttered.

Spencer was frozen, looking unable to process whatever had just happened as he slowly reached for a Poké Ball to recall his fallen team member. Now visible in the middle of the battlefield, a stout crimson fox stood panting hard, its long ears drooping and steam leaking off its body. Was…was it the one who had just attacked?

“No. No, no, no, whyyy? That’s not fair… I didn’t even see that she had a Flareon out,” Spencer said, his words strained. He pulled out his Pokédex and pointed it at the fire-type Eeveelution, smacking his forehead upon reading something. “Superpower. Really? It used Superpower? Can I just forfeit now or get a handicap or something??”

No one said anything. With Arcanine down, the Executive’s Pokémon were now free to throw as much fire around as they wanted. Not even Dewgong’s water was making a dent in them now—the icy white seal cried out in pain as it was constantly bombarded with flames.

“I’m…I’m out of ideas,” Spencer said. “Any time you two want to reveal that you’ve secretly been ace trainers all along, I’d love to hear it.”

I looked miserably down at Firestorm. The fire lizard was still panting badly with embers dripping from his mouth. Swift, who was now standing next to him, looked almost embarrassed at being unable to help.

“I don’t know what to do.” Just saying it made my blood run cold.

“Stop talking like that, you guys—we can’t lose!” Rudy cried out, but even his voice was starting to break. His Squirtle was out of breath from attempting to pull off the Water Pulse move so many times.

We all just stared at each other hopelessly with the sounds of fire raging in the background. There was always the possibility of trying to signal a passing trainer, since flying on Pokémon was a popular method of travel. But there was no way Firestorm would be able or willing to use Fire Blast again, and we couldn’t afford to have any of Spencer’s Pokémon leave the fight, even for a moment. Already my brain was trying to grasp at ways that we could convince the Executive to let us go, all of them equally stupid. There had to be some way out of this. There just had to.

And then suddenly, a high-pitched sound filled our ears as an incredible orange and yellow energy beam surged through the air. The beam honed in on the Rockets’ Pokémon perfectly, striking them in a flash of bright light and sending shock waves running through the earth.

“H-hyper Beam?” I muttered, my knees shaking from the beam’s not-so-distant impact. I turned my gaze upward, where the attack had originated, and caught sight of a tiny dot in the sky, quickly nearing us.

“AeeeeeerrRRRRRAAAAAAW!!!!” the dot called out. I could barely make out a gray-scaled form with a long, thick tail trailing behind it. A pair of leathery purple wings beat rapidly, pushing it towards us with incredible speed. Was…was it an Aerodactyl—one of the fastest Pokémon in existence? As it neared, I was able to tell that someone was riding it.

“Hey, Jade!” the trainer yelled.

I jerked in surprise. I couldn’t see who it was clearly yet, but I could never, ever forget that voice.

“It can’t be…” I muttered. I couldn’t help staring upward, lost for words and unable to believe it. When the winged Pokémon got within view, I could finally see a petite teenaged girl riding on its back, light-skinned with a bright and confident face and short, dark brown hair blowing back with the wind.

It really was her.

“No way…Ajia?!” I yelled.

I couldn’t believe it. How could this possibly be happening—and right at this moment?! Still, there was no doubt in my head that the trainer flying toward me was my old friend, even though I hadn’t seen her in so long. Really, the only thing I could do was raise a hand to wave slightly, still in shock. Grinning slightly, she waved to us from atop the gray-scaled pterosaur.

“Who invited you here?!” Tyson shouted.

“Shut up, I’m the one handling this,” the Rocket Executive said, looking rather intrigued by the new arrival.

Her Aerodactyl swooped down to land behind the rocky ledge that we’d been using as cover, easily evading a burst of lightning that the Raichu had sent upward at the last second. After unbuckling herself from the flight harness her Pokémon was wearing, she slid off its back, now standing next to me at about my shoulder in height.

“What’s wrong Jade, I thought you’d be happier to see me,” she said, laughing and elbowing me lightly in the ribs.

That broke me out of my trance a little. Still, I felt more than a little overwhelmed as I struggled to find my words. “You…how…how are you here? I haven’t seen you in…over a year, at least. Not since you left to train in Johto.”

“I wanted to visit Viridian sooner, but I got caught up with things. And…from the looks of things, so did you…” Her voice trailed off as she looked over the bizarre setting, from the mangled jet plane to the crowd of jeeps, the Executive still glowering at us, and the mutant Pikachu lying a few feet from me. The look she gave me next made me suddenly aware of the fact that I was still covered in soot and wearing chains around my hands and feet. “…How did you even get involved in this mess?” she asked, rubbing the back of her head.

I put a hand to my forehead. “I don’t even know anymore.”

“Hi guys, I love reunions, and the best way to bond at a reunion is to beat the crap out of the people that want to kill us with awesome top-class Pokémon that you totally have, am-I-right?” Spencer cut in rapidly with an overly hopeful look on his face.

“That’s why I’m here,” she said simply, putting a hand on his shoulder. “Don’t worry, I’ve got this.” Spencer looked ready to collapse from relief.

Ajia turned sharply to face the battlefield, already pulling out several Poké Balls and quickly taking in the details of the battle with an expression that had shifted into intense determination. I looked over to see Spencer recalling his battered Dewgong into its ball. Now it was only Electabuzz and Typhlosion left in the fight, the former still desperately using its lightning to keep the opposition from getting to us, and the latter attempting to avoid blows by popping in and out of the ground and striking when it was least expected. The far edge of the hill had an indent cut into it from where the Hyper Beam had struck, but none of the Rocket’s Pokémon had fallen from the attack.

“She probably had the Raichu probably put up a Light Screen at the last second—at least, I wouldn’t expect anything less from her,” Ajia said to herself, almost in response to my thoughts. She turned to me and added, “My Aerodactyl’s Hyper Beam isn’t the strongest—he’s better at physical moves. It was the best long-distance option I had at the time, though.” She paused slightly, contemplating something. “The Raichu has to go down first…Pichu, you’re up!”

She threw a Poké Ball forward, and a flash of white light burst forth, instantly taking the form of a small, pale yellow mouse racing into the fray. Memories flooded my mind upon seeing her—I faintly recalled the day that Ajia had received the Pichu from her dad, nearly four years ago.

“She still hasn’t evolved?” I asked, watching the nimble rodent skillfully ducking under her opponents and letting loose small jolts of electricity at them.

“She didn’t want to,” Ajia replied, shrugging in a way that seemed to imply that she didn’t mind. “We’ve focused all our training on getting around it.” She was already pulling out two more Poké Balls, letting out a pair of fox Pokémon. The first one, an Espeon, outstretched its lithe frame and gave a flick of its forked tail, focusing its vibrant purple eyes on the battlefield. Alongside it, an Umbreon pawed at the ground in anticipation, its long ears twitching and ring-like markings glowing faintly.

“Umbreon, use Toxic; Espeon, Calm Mind; Aerodactyl, fly overhead and use Air Slash—be ready to dodge lightning!”

The dark fox charged forward, squirting out a noxious liquid from its pores and hitting the Arcanine right on target. Umbreon was much too slow to dodge the overwhelming blaze that soon followed, but it merely stood its ground against the firedog, wincing slightly from the intense flames, but looking like it could endure them all day. Overhead, Aerodactyl was ducking and rolling through the air, forcing the Raichu to expend all its energy just trying to land a hit, all while sending blades of air flying from its wingtips, keeping the Rapidash from breaking through the lineup.

“Alright, good…looks like I was right—this isn’t the worst situation to be in, and with them already being weakened by your friend, we should be able to come out on top without too much difficulty.”

I stared, chills now running down my spine. Everything that she’d said so far was starting to come together. “Ajia, you’ve…have you fought Rockets before?”

The question made her pause slightly, but she nodded nonetheless. And from the sound of things, she’d had much worse fights than this. I hadn’t really thought about it before, but the top members of Team Rocket had to be incredibly skilled trainers, travelling all over and honing their skills for years, just like any other ace trainer.

“Pichu, dodge and use Swift; Espeon, Confusion!” she called out.

My attention snapped back to the battle at once. Pichu darted past the Executive’s Flareon, easily evading the fire fox’s attempt to bite down with fangs that were glowing like hot iron. The Raichu kept trying to pause and charge up the power needed for one of its massive lightning assaults, but couldn’t seem to get a chance to concentrate with Pichu intermittently sending stars of white energy honing in on the larger rodent’s face. In the meantime, any of the opposing Pokémon trying to land a hit found themselves held in place by blue psychic energy from Espeon. Though it was easy for them to shake off the telekinetic control, the momentary pause in their movements made them easy targets for the blades of wind being thrown around by Aerodactyl, who had its tongue hanging out as it looped through the air, looking to be almost lazily enjoying its role.

I couldn’t help staring at the scene in awe of how well Ajia’s Pokémon were working together. Even though she hadn’t been giving any commands more than just the attack names, it was like they already knew what sort of strategy she wanted them to employ…like she had already spent the time training them in this sort of melee tactics. Half her team was darting around using small, scattered blows to draw attention and distract. All the while, half of the Rocket’s Pokémon were now covered in a toxic film, gradually dulling their movements the longer they had to struggle against the annoying and indirect tactics. Despite the ridiculously overpowered nature of most of the opponents’ attacks, they just weren’t able to pull anything off.

A pitiful cry drew my attention to the Executive’s Arcanine. It had just collapsed, the combination of its wounds and exhaustion and poison having finally overwhelmed it. I saw the familiar red beam draw it back into its Poké Ball and out of view.

“Alright! One down!” Rudy exclaimed.

I had to admit it was a definite relief. Finally a real sign that it was possible for us to win this. I saw Ajia grin slightly to herself before pressing the attack—her Pokémon had switched into more direct offenses now. Aerodactyl finally got an opening to soar low over the battlefield, slicing through parts of the ledges and sending a Rock Slide cascading down over the opposition. Raichu tried to send more lightning flying at the rock-skinned pterosaur, but Umbreon had taken to fighting it up close, not bothered by the electric mouse’s attacks. Espeon had leaped onto the Rapidash’s back, and though the fire horse desperately tried to buck the violet fox off, the latter continued to hit it with blasts of psychic energy.

And then I heard the sound of a Poké Ball opening, followed by a vicious howling that caught Ajia’s Pokémon off guard. No…no, it couldn’t be… I edged over to get a better view of the Rockets and—there it was. The Executive’s Arcanine was back in the fight, barking out Flamethrowers and looking completely refreshed. I stared at the sight, unable to believe it.

And then I noticed that one of the Rockets sitting in the jeep nearest the Executive was holding a sleek, capsule-like device almost like a rounded briefcase. I couldn’t quite make out what it was at this distance, but couldn’t help getting that feeling that it was important.

I pointed it out to Ajia, who slapped her forehead upon seeing it. “A portable healer. They would have one of those, wouldn’t they? Those cheats.” She clenched her teeth, looking worried for the first time in the fight. “Alrighty then…so they’re going to play that game. My Pokémon haven’t had to expend too much energy so far, but they can’t keep this going forever.”

“Could…could we try to destroy the healer?” I asked tentatively.

“Those are combat jeeps—they’ll have shields. We need to figure out a way to retreat. My Aerodactyl should be able to fly while carrying two people, at least.” She motioned to get Spencer’s attention. “Er, sorry, I don’t know your name.”

“Spencer, at your service,” he replied with a mock bow.

“Right, then—do you have any Pokémon that could fly while carrying anyone?”

Spencer’s face fell immediately. “I…er, well, I did. My Pidgeot got taken out at the start of the battle. If I had some way to heal him…” He paused, looking ready to smack himself. I wondered why, but then—then I realized it. We were complete idiots; there had been a massive box of healing supplies in the plane. If we’d only thought to grab some of them—I felt like kicking myself at the realization.

Ajia raised an eyebrow at the expressions of horror suddenly striking our faces. “Let me guess—things just got worse? Really, guys, this is enough surprises for one day.”

“It’s not that,” I said, putting a hand over my face. “We left behind a huge crate of potions and such in the plane. If we’d thought to bring ‘em with us, we could have done the same thing the Rockets are doing now. Or better yet, we could have figured out a way to escape.”

Ajia nodded, her expression tough to make out. She observed the plane’s wreck, now looking thoughtful. “So we just need to figure out a way onto the plane. It’d be too difficult for us to make it on there while they’ve got any Pokémon out.”

“And guns. Guns are pretty bad too,” Spencer piped up.

“Don’t worry, I’ve got a plan for that. But as for the Pokémon…since they’ll just get healed any time we take one of them out…” Her eyes lit up at once. “We just have to take them all out at the same time. Then we can storm the plane while they’re being healed and get out of here no problem.”

Her enthusiasm was rubbing off—I couldn’t help being momentarily excited by the plan, though I found myself filled with doubts almost immediately afterward. “We have to knock them all out at once? How the heck are we supposed to do that?”

“*I’ve got it.*”

The sudden voice in Pokéspeech caught me off guard, and I whirled around to see the experimental Pikachu finally pulling himself to his feet, swaying a bit but fixing his eyes on us intensely.

“…What?” At first it was all I could figure out how to say. It took me several seconds to really register the fact that he was trying to help us. “How…how are you supposed to—you’re out of power, what could you possibly do?”

I hadn’t meant to say it so bluntly. The rodent’s lightning bolt tail twitched a bit out of anger, and he didn’t dignify my comment with a response. Instead, he called out, “*Pichu, come here!*”

Ajia’s Pichu twitched her large, diamond-shaped ears upon hearing his exclamation, but otherwise didn’t respond, though she occasionally shot an inquisitive glance at Ajia.

“Well come on, she’s not gonna abandon the battle just like that—let us know what you’re planning,” Ajia said, looking amused. I tried making a face to let her know to be careful what she said around him on account of his unpredictability, but really had no idea how to communicate it.

The experiment turned away sharply, his expression fierce, yet somehow twisted, like he didn’t really know how to make any other face. Several seconds passed without anyone saying a word. Finally, he launched into an explanation. He spoke much too quickly for me to make out what he was saying, though Ajia seemed to have no trouble with it. Every so often I caught a phrase like “*can’t hold onto my power*” or “*but it will take all of them out.*”

Throughout all of this, Ajia had remained silent, though she glanced at the battle frequently, using hand signals to direct her Pokémon’s moves. After the Pikachu had finished relaying his plan, Ajia motioned to her Pichu, who raced over to us.

The experiment briefly explained something to Pichu, who looked up at her trainer in surprise. Ajia nodded, looking serious. And then the Pikachu put a paw against one of the electrical generators on Pichu’s cheeks, screwing his eyes shut in concentration. Strings of lightning suddenly began surging across his arm, flowing from the smaller mouse into the larger, causing him to recoil in pain. Still, he kept his paw firmly in place, not giving any indication that he wanted to stop, though his breathing was heavy and his limbs trembled occasionally. Sparks leapt off his fur erratically as the electricity surrounded him, causing the hybrid to grit his teeth before slowly and forcefully pulling the energy into himself.

“Can…someone tell me what is going on here?” I asked, feeling horribly lost.

“You couldn’t understand him?” Ajia asked, looking genuinely surprised. “Oh, right…you always had trouble with Pokéspeech class.”

“Er…well, I’m decent at it…maybe not fluent, but I’m way better than I used to be,” I mumbled, feeling my cheeks go a bit red.

Ajia nodded, realizing I didn’t want to talk about it. “Well, Pichu is channeling her power supply into him. He said he could absorb it—does he have the Lightningrod ability or something?”

“I…don’t know?” I said, shrugging. What he’d been doing didn’t seem to match with any kind of special ability I’d heard of, and I was pretty sure Lightningrod would have caused him to unconsciously draw all the electricity from the battle.

Several minutes passed, during which Pichu relayed all of her remaining power supply into the experimental Pikachu. She was forced to pause frequently, as though the strain of keeping a continuous flow of electricity was too much. When it was finally done, Pichu slumped to the ground, exhausted. And then the Pikachu slowly stood to his feet, fur standing on end and eyes filled with a renewed vigor.

Still, something about his plan just didn’t seem to make any sense. “I don’t get it,” I said to him. “I understand that your power is—I don’t know—more intense from being part Zapdos and all, but…if she’s just giving her power to you…what can you do with it that she can’t?”

He paused heavily. And then, for the first time I’d seen, he managed to wrench his face into something other than pain or rage: an ironic smile. “*Most Pokémon can’t drain their whole power supply into one move. It’s not natural. Their bodies aren’t designed to handle it. But me? I have a hard time not doing that.*” His words were slow and strained.

Ajia kneeled to pick up the small, sad form of her unconscious Pichu, pulling out a Poké Ball at the same time. “She normally prefers being outside the ball, but with what we’re going for now…” Her voice trailed off as she recalled her first Pokémon. “So…are we all ready?”

The Pikachu was the first one to nod, saying, “*Raichu is the only problem. He’ll be able to make electric barriers.*”

“Alright, so…we pretty much have to screw strategy and just take out that Raichu however possible. Sounds fun. Time for moves that never miss?”

It took Spencer a second or two to realize that she had addressed that last bit to him. “Oh? Oh, yeah! Typhlosion, Swift! Electabuzz, Shock Wave!” he yelled, pointing straight at the Executive’s Raichu.

“Umbreon, Faint Attack! Espeon, Swift! Aerodactyl, Aerial Ace!” Ajia commanded.

The orange rodent tried to make a break for it, but was hilariously unprepared for the ridiculous barrage of attacks now honing in on him, despite his best attempts at evasion. The Rocket Executive jerked backward in surprise, clearly not expecting that kind of battle move, and could only watch as her Raichu was completely overwhelmed by a flood of energy discs, strings of electricity, Umbreon phasing out of shadow right alongside him, and Aerodactyl pulling out of a dive with a rapid upward slice of its wings. The Raichu cried out in pain as he was smacked in between one attack after another, and his trainer had no choice but to recall him.

“Alright, it’s now or never!” Ajia exclaimed to the Pikachu, recalling her Umbreon and motioning her other two to pull back from the battle. At Spencer’s command, Typhlosion ducked underground again and Electabuzz stumbled back to where we were standing, looking horribly exhausted and sinking to its knees the first chance it could get. Rudy recalled his Squirtle, which made me realize that I’d need to do the same for my Pokémon, even if one of them technically wasn’t mine. It felt a little awkward recalling the Charmander into the ball, but I didn’t have much choice.

And then it was only the experiment standing between us and the Rocket’s Pokémon. The Executive had already passed her Raichu’s Poké Ball to the grunt with the portable healer, so we only had a small window of opportunity.

“*Time to end this,*” the Pikachu said. A flash of hate flickered in his eyes.

And then he raced forward into the fray, an explosion of sparks leaping off of his body. It wouldn’t have even been right to describe it as bolts of lightning; it was as if a flood of electricity was pouring out from every inch of his skin with no way to hold it back. The Rocket’s Pokémon tried to counter it by letting loose a rush of fire, but it was just too much. All of their flames were swept aside by the massive wave of lightning, which struck our opponents’ lineup and completely enveloped them. One by one, all of the Rocket’s Pokémon collapsed to the ground to be recalled into their Poké Balls right afterward.

But there was no stopping the outpouring of electricity. At this point, I don’t think the Pikachu could have controlled it if he’d wanted to. Massive bolts started shooting out from the hybrid’s body at random, most of them flying into the air, but the others hurtling toward the Rockets. They didn’t even get a chance to move—all of them in or near the closest jeep were sent flying backwards, crying out in pain. I winced slightly—it was strange to see our attackers suddenly rendered so helpless.

And then, without warning, the flood of lightning lessened. The electrical waves started to thin out, giving way to erratic bursts of sparks before the Pikachu collapsed. The whole thing couldn’t have lasted more than thirty seconds, but it had felt like ages. I couldn’t help tensing up—it was time for us to act.

“Alright, and that’s our cue!” Ajia said. “Espeon, use Reflect!”

The psychic fox promptly put up a shimmering barrier of energy surrounding us. Upon seeing it, Spencer recalled Typhlosion and turned to his Electabuzz, “Just a little bit more, buddy—we’re gonna need another electrical barrier.” His Pokémon grunted a bit out of fatigue, but still managed to produce a shining yellow force field.

“Alright, you two hop on Aerodactyl, the rest of us will follow on foot,” Ajia said to me and Rudy, gesturing to the winged reptile. We didn’t need telling twice—both of us jumped up and got positioned on her Pokémon’s back, holding tight to the straps on its harness.

“Everyone ready? Let’s move out!”

Aerodactyl lifted off from the ground, and Spencer and Ajia raced forward beneath us, making their way down the rocky ledges as quickly as possible, the two barrier-producing Pokémon alongside them for protection. Most of the Rocket grunts in the far jeep had run forward to check on their superiors, who had been struck by the tail end of the Pikachu’s assault. Some of them were armed; I gripped Aerodactyl’s side instinctively when I saw them firing at the group on the ground. But Ajia’s plan had worked—the bullets pinged uselessly off the pair of barriers they had used. I let out the breath I had been holding, then immediately had to hold it again as Aerodactyl tucked its wings and swooped forward, soaring straight through the hole at the back of the jet before flaring its wings outward and slowing to a stop in the middle of the cargo bay.

Feeling shaky, I slid off the reptile’s back alongside Rudy, who looked a bit nauseous and muttered something like, “That would have been so cool if we weren’t running for our lives.”

Following not far behind us, Ajia and Spencer soon leaped through the hole and into the plane, almost weightlessly, like they’d been levitated up with Espeon’s telekinesis. Ajia paused just quickly enough to recall the psychic-type before racing forward to meet us. I noticed that she was holding the experimental Pikachu under one arm.

“I grabbed him from the battlefield,” she explained, handing the spiky-furred rodent to me. “I wasn’t sure if you had stolen him from the Rockets or what, but we couldn’t just leave him there.”

I blinked confusedly, my brain taking several seconds to register the weirdness in what she had just said. I attempted to say something to the degree of, “He’s not really mine,” but Ajia cut off my thoughts by asking, “So where are the healing supplies?”

“Oh, oh right! They were near the front of the plane last I saw them.”

She motioned to Spencer to follow her and the two of them dashed off through the maze of boxes and crates, most of them disheveled from the crash landing. I stood there with Rudy, unable to do anything but wait. It had seemed like the portable healer had taken a couple minutes to heal the Arcanine, so we had a least a small window of time on our side. But the Raichu had been knocked out first, so it had a head start on being treated.

“Found them!” Ajia exclaimed, and I heard Spencer open a Poké Ball to release his Pidgeot immediately. For the next minute or so, the two of them sprayed the massive bird with nearly every medicine they could get their hands on. Slowly, the blackened skin and feathers began to heal as the potions boosted the already astounding regenerative ability characteristic to Pokémon. Spencer poured something into the bird’s beak and it snapped awake in an instant, struggling to stand to its feet. The Pidgeot had a slight tremble to its movements—it was clearly still sore from the lightning bolt, but it was healed.

“Alright! Time to get out of here and never get captured by Rockets again! Sound good? I thought so—now get over here, Rudy!” Spencer exclaimed

Not wasting any time, Rudy sprinted over and jumped onto the bird behind Spencer while Ajia ran over to me and the two of us mounted her Aerodactyl. Both Pokémon outstretched their wings, and I barely had a few seconds to prepare myself mentally for the oncoming rush before we were off. Aerodactyl shot forward, soaring straight through the opening at the back of the jet, and nearly throwing me off with its incredible speed. I struggled to lean forward and keep my grip on the reptile’s harness straps while holding the Pikachu underneath my arm.

And then Aerodactyl suddenly barreled to the left to avoid a streak of lightning that tore past us out of nowhere, rending the air with an earsplitting crack. I barely managed to catch a glimpse of the Raichu beneath us, sparking wildly and looking enraged before we sped out of its range. So they had managed to heal it in time. But then, with a sickening realization, I remembered—Pidgeot hadn’t been fast enough to avoid the electric mouse’s Thunder last time.

I threw a look over my shoulder to see Spencer and Rudy trailing behind us on the eagle’s back. Time seemed to slow as the Raichu prepared for another attack. There was no way they’d make it.

And then, without warning, Pidgeot accelerated out of nowhere, speeding forward to catch up with us and narrowly avoiding the Thunderbolt that was sent hurtling straight for them.

“Hah, yeah! I knew it’d be good to give you a dose of that X Speed in there!” Spencer exclaimed wildly, patting his bird’s neck.

I couldn’t even see the Rockets anymore, that’s how fast we were zooming away from them. My eyes were wide and my breathing hurried and I could barely believe what had just happened, but none of that mattered because we had made it.





~End Chapter 4~
This chapter was originally much longer, but I decided to cut the second part of it into Ch5 (and then cut part of 5 into 6.) I think it works much better this way. Anyways…the plane arc is done! Yaaaaay. Time to get into the juicy stuff.

In other news, I recently discovered a script to forum tag all the italics for me, making me feel even sillier about how tedious posting a new chapter used to be for me.

If you feel like listening to me ramble, I wrote some worldbuilding stuff in the next post.

~Chibi~

[Chibi Pika]

Okay, you may be wondering what’s up with me double posting here. Truth is, there are a few things in this chapter I wanted to elaborate on (this is the sort of stuff I’d put on a website if I had one. Yes, several readers have at some point or another told me to make one, and I will get around to it eventually once I learn how. I’m incredibly picky and don’t want to half-ass it.)

WARNING: INCREDIBLY RAMBLY. It’s what I do.

TM mechanics
Jade doesn’t really know how TMs work, so it wouldn’t have made sense to go into further detail with just what happened when she taught Firestorm Fire Blast. You might be wondering why he couldn’t control it—was that just because it was so strong a move?

TMs work by giving off a very specifically designed wave that permanently modifies the cellular energy signature that all Pokémon have (but only if the wave was compatible with said energy signature to begin with.) I won’t go into excessive detail on my convoluted theories in Pokémon biology (the place for that is DeviantArt ) but a Pokémon’s energy signature is as important to their makeup as DNA, and determines how and in what form their energy can be manifested. Using a TM therefore gives them the ability to do the move, but they still will not really have any idea of how to do it.

There is one thing I really want to emphasize in this new version of LC: the importance of Pokémon training. Trainers don’t just stand there and give commands. I think one thing a lot of us forget, due to the simplified nature of game mechanics, is that Pokémon trainers need to actually train their Pokémon. They need to actually teach them how to perform techniques, how to execute battle strategies, how to go about fighting certain kinds of opponents, how to specialize to bring out their Pokémon’s fullest potential (believe me, EV training will come up.)

So, pulling off a newly acquired move (either through TM or level up) requires knowledge of how to execute the technique, and drilling the Pokémon on the difference nuances of it. (So yes, the trainer themselves needs to have a lot of knowledge on these things.) Some moves are harder to pull off just for sheer power—Fire Blast would fit into this. Others requires a very complicated series of movements or very acute control over the energies involved—the Pokémon might be able to pull off the move, but just not with the best technique in the world. Even weak moves might be really annoying to perfect, while a strong one might be unusually easy (how hard would it really be to use Thunderbolt? The only difficulty would just be building it up to its maximum potency/efficiency.) Whether or not the Pokémon has STAB on the move could also make it easier or harder.

Speaking of STAB, there is one thing I’d like to address. We all know that Pokémon naturally tend to be more powerful when using moves in their native element. Well, I see no reason why an exceptionally skilled trainer couldn’t train their Pokémon to use a non-STAB move to its fullest potential as well. It would just take ages of highly specialized training to do this even for one move, and you’d probably be better off spending your time on other things. But my point is, these things are not set in stone just because game mechanics have to be.

Pokémon are beings of potential. It takes an exceptional trainer to realize this potential, however. Even a Pokémon that has fought many battles in the wild and grown very strong will be nowhere near its true potential. Even a trainer who has skill in the battling arena might not be capable of training their Pokémon to its fullest potential.


What Chibi Did
I’m just going to say this now: the Pikachu’s name is Chibi and it feels really weird calling him “the Pikachu” so I’m going to call him Chibi here. His name is introduced in Chapter 6. Yes…he has the same name as me. No, this will never be anything other than completely stupid. (I named myself after a comic character and then I named him after the comic character too, if you’re wondering why this happened.)

Ajia asked if he had the Lightningrod ability, and in a way, that is sort of true. Notice that Pikachu and Zapdos both have Lightningrod as their hidden ability, so it’s clear that Team Rocket was going for that when they engineered him. It just didn’t totally work out.

Chibi’s ability works like this: he must actually be hit by an electrical move in order to absorb it—sort of like Volt Absorb. However, this is not subconscious—he has to exert a lot of effort to do so, and it does hurt him. But he uses the power to fill up his own power supply in addition to getting the power boost from Lightningrod, which makes the tradeoff in pain easily worth it.

I see Pokémon as having a pool of energy that their body has produced, which they can then use to fuel their attacks. Think of it like Power Points, only more global (after all, if you spend all your energy on ten Thunders, why would you have any electricity left in your body to do a Thunderbolt?) Chibi has an unnaturally small power supply, as a side effect of his mutations (his energy signature has the natural intensity of Zapdos, but his body is not sufficiently able to handle this.) So he has to be very careful to conserve his power supply in battle (as does Ajia’s Pichu.) Unfortunately, this is inherently difficult for him since, once he lets go even a little bit of electricity for an attack, his body naturally tries to expel all of it, and it takes a lot of effort to prevent this. What he did in this chapter was deliberately take advantage of this weakness.

What happened was: Chibi was out of power and absorbed Pichu’s electricity, putting him at a nearly full power capacity, as well as giving him a temporary energy spike (the 1.5x SpAtk boost). He then used all of his power to create basically the equivalent of ten Thunders in one move. And with the side effect of Struggle (so in game terms he lost 250% of his HP and yeah this move sucks.)

This technique is incredibly painful and will always knock him out, so do not fear that Jade now has an uber Pokémon that can merrily spam ten Thunders at once. In fact, the amount of situations in which this move would even be useful are very limited.

~Chibi~

PS: Oh yeah, and I should probably tell you: ‘Ajia’ is pronounced like a mix between ‘ay-shuh’ and ‘ay-zyuh’. Just think sort of like the continent Asia.

[Sid87]

I was going to save this for the end, but I don't know that I'll remember to, so I better do it now. Just LOOKING at this chapter makes me feel tired. I am--and this is not a joke--contemplating whether it's worth starting this before lunch because I'm not sure how hungry I'll be by the time it's over. I really just think this chapter is much too long. Will there be anything that could be cut or broken apart? Possibly not, and I accept that. Sometimes the flow just keeps coming, and it's hard to interrupt that. But I would try to avoid going this large in the future. It's quite imposing.

\Mightyena soot-colored fur was now charred black;

*Mightyena's.

I had almost forgotten that I’d brought him with us

This is getting almost overused (like the "lame" comments I noticed last time). Jade had almost the exact same moment with Charmander. I'd think after one time, she'd have learned to keep track of what she's holding onto (or, at least, what is holding onto her).

I let out a breath that I didn’t know I’d been holding.

I like that line. It had a physical effect on me, making me catch my own breath.

Of course—he’d been teaching his Squirtle all kinds of moves while we were on the plane. I immediately reached into my pocket and pulled out the Fire Blast TM that Rudy had given me, running a finger over the glossy case that enclosed the red disc inside. Any little bit could help turn the tide of the battle in our favor…I had to use it.

“Firestorm…could you come over here?” I said.

He turned toward me, looking a bit puzzled. I held out the TM, pausing so I could go over my words carefully.

“It’s a Technical Machine,” I explained. “Spencer’s Pokémon can’t handle this alone—if we’re gonna get out of this, we need to help too—” I stopped. We? What was I going to do? Nothing—that was just it…heck, I wasn’t even the Charmander’s trainer. I attempted to shake the thought out of my head and continued, “This thing can give you the ability to focus your power into a massive blast of fire. Would you be willing to learn it to help us fight them?” I was trying not to sound too forceful, even though—at this point—we couldn’t afford for him to say no.

Firestorm nodded almost immediately. I blinked, surprised at how willing he was to fight. Did he realize what kind of dangers this would involve?

Still confused, I held the device several inches from the lizard’s forehead, flipping a small switch on its side to unlock it and then pressing the largest button. The disc glowed for a few seconds and began spinning—giving off a sort of wave that would react with his energy signature, from what I had once read on TMs. Firestorm froze and looked as though he had been seized by some invisible force. Different parts of his body started to glow faintly at varying intervals. After nearly a minute, the disc slowed; I pulled it away, but he still had a sort of blank stare on his face.

I stepped back so that he could get into position with a good view of the battle that wouldn’t put him out in the open. The Charmander still looked a bit dazed, though, like he was locked into a trance that he couldn’t pull himself out of.

“…Firestorm?” I asked slowly, raising an eyebrow. I’d never actually seen a Pokémon’s reaction to a TM, so I had no idea if this was normal. I took one hesitant step towards him.

And then his gaze sharpened instantly. His eyes shot open with an unexpected ferocity and shimmering waves of heat began to leak from his mouth. At once, he spewed out a column of raging flames, which sent his small figure reeling backwards from the force. With a roar, the blazing stream of fire split off into five branches, twisting off wildly in different directions.

I stood there in shock, knowing well enough that this wasn’t what was supposed to happen. Firestorm’s eyes went wide, and he jerked his head, trying desperately to control the blaze, though nothing he did seemed to make any difference. Flames kept pouring from his mouth, even though he was clearly trying to force it shut.

“Did you teach the Charmander Fire Blast?!” Spencer exclaimed, running over to me.

Big quote there, yes. But I wanted to comment on this, and (from my skimming ahead) your apparent use X Speed. It's really original. From a realistic standpoint, it seems odd to me that such things would exist, and I imagine most fic writers kind of just circumvent them. But it's interesting to me that you found a way to stay true to the canon and included these well-established items in your story. It adds an original touch, I think.

What had seemed like the only thing I could do to help had turned out to be completely stupid.

In Jade's voice, I can see the use of "stupid" (poor, self-deprecating teenagers), but I still might have said "a mistake". But, yeah, either works. "stupid" just seems really harsh there.

A pair of leathery purple wings beat rapidly, pushing it towards us with incredible speed. Was…was it an Aerodactyl—one of the fastest Pokémon in existence?

Isn't Aerodactyl made of rock? Not a leathery hide?

As it neared, I was able to tell that someone was riding it.

“Hey, Jade!” the trainer yelled.

I jerked in surprise. I couldn’t see who it was clearly yet, but I could never, ever forget that voice.

“It can’t be…” I muttered. I couldn’t help staring upward, lost for words and unable to believe it. When the winged Pokémon got within view, I could finally see a petite teenaged girl riding on its back, light-skinned with a bright and confident face and short, dark brown hair blowing back with the wind.

It really was her.

“No way…Ajia?!” I yelled.

Oop....I really thought that was going to be Lance. (or the guy I think is Lance, anyway).

“What’s wrong Jade, I thought you’d be happier to see me,” she said, laughing and elbowing me lightly in the ribs.

I think this is a little excessively pleasant and jokey, given that a terrorist organization is trying to kill them right now.

My attention snapped back to the battle at once. Pichu darted past the Executive’s Flareon, easily evading the fire fox’s attempt to bite down with fangs that were glowing like hot iron. The Raichu kept trying to pause and charge up the power needed for one of its massive lightning assaults, but couldn’t seem to get a chance to concentrate with Pichu intermittently sending stars of white energy honing in on the larger rodent’s face. In the meantime, any of the opposing Pokémon trying to land a hit found themselves held in place by blue psychic energy from Espeon. Though it was easy for them to shake off the telekinetic control, the momentary pause in their movements made them easy targets for the blades of wind being thrown around by Aerodactyl, who had its tongue hanging out as it looped through the air, looking to be almost lazily enjoying its role.

This is a very well written chunk. It was a battle involving several different pokemon, but it flowed simply, and it was very easy to follow. Not simple to do, but excellent work on it!

I pointed it out to Ajia, who slapped her forehead upon seeing it. “A portable healer. They would have one of those, wouldn’t they? Those cheats.” She clenched her teeth, looking worried for the first time in the fight. “Alrighty then…so they’re going to play that game. My Pokémon haven’t had to expend too much energy so far, but they can’t keep this going forever. We’re not going to be able to overpower them—we need to figure out a way to retreat. My Aerodactyl should be able to fly while carrying two people, at least.” She motioned to get Spencer’s attention. “Er, sorry, I don’t know your name.”

I'm actually surprised they aren't having their pokemon target the healing device. Especially with as fast and sneaky as Pichu, Aerodactyl, and Typhlosion all seem to be.

“Spencer, at your service,” he replied with a mock bow.

No last name?

“And guns. Guns are pretty bad too,” Spencer piped up.

Spider-Spencer strikes again.

Sparks leapt off his fur erratically as the electricity surrounded him,

*leaped. You got it right earlier in the chapter, but you misspelled it here.

It wouldn’t have even been right to describe it as bolts of lightning; it was as if a flood of electricity was pouring out from every inch of his skin with no way to hold it back.

Good imagery; I really like the "wouldn't be right to describe it..." bit. Nice narration there, as it gave me a more vivid picture.

I couldn’t even see the Rockets anymore, that’s how fast we were zooming away from them. My eyes were wide and my breathing hurried and I could barely believe what had just happened, but none of that mattered because we had made it.

I actually think this would have made a good ending, but it didn't to you. I've got to go get some lunch in me, though, so I'll be back to this later this weekend.

[Chibi Pika]

I was going to save this for the end, but I don't know that I'll remember to, so I better do it now. Just LOOKING at this chapter makes me feel tired. I am--and this is not a joke--contemplating whether it's worth starting this before lunch because I'm not sure how hungry I'll be by the time it's over. I really just think this chapter is much too long. Will there be anything that could be cut or broken apart? Possibly not, and I accept that. Sometimes the flow just keeps coming, and it's hard to interrupt that. But I would try to avoid going this large in the future. It's quite imposing.

I'm sorry. Dx What happened was: I already have all of the chapters written in one way or another (some just need to be rewritten) and this one used to be MUCH shorter because 90% of the things that happen in it didn't happen last time. I VERY MUCH did consider splitting it, but doing so would disrupt the fact that the book would end on chapter 25 (and for some reason I am stubbornly opposed to not having the same number of chapters for each book.) I tend to think of my story more as a book than a fanfic (not being egotistical, it's just my mindset) and books tend to run much longer than fics. Several of my favorite fics have had chapters run in the 30-page-range. However, I still completely and 100% understand that it can be daunting and off-putting. The main reason I opted not to shuffle the second half of this chapter into the next one is because there is a necessary time split of a few days after these events until the next plot-relevant thing, and then I'd end up with TWO time splits in the next chapter.

However...I am now realizing that if I did split it, and then cut the second half of chapter 5 into chapter 6, I could have all the chapter splits in decent places for the flow of the story. This had not occurred to me. Do you think I should do this before anyone else reads it? I could just delete the second post. That would be all there is to it. Yeah, yeah, I'm now thoroughly convinced this is a much better way to do it...I'll run and do that now!

One more bit before I go:

I'm actually surprised they aren't having their pokemon target the healing device. Especially with as fast and sneaky as Pichu, Aerodactyl, and Typhlosion all seem to be.

There were about five different ways I considered having them end the conflict, all of them equally viable, and that was one of them. In the end, I decided to go with the one that was the least risky (therefore the one with less failure conditions) but the most rewarding (as in, the most exciting to write and entertaining to read.) Maybe I'll put a slight alteration that the Rocket with the healing device is in the jeep, and they are combat jeeps (so they'd have protective shields like the ones from the Entei conflict.)

~Chibi~

[Sid87]

I didn't mean to seem "complainy" about the length. I was just stating that at a point, reading and breaking apart to comment on a computer monitor kind of becomes an endurance test (for me, at least, anyway, but my attention span is balls). Although if someone expected to me to read a 30-page CHAPTER, I'd find out where they live so that I could drive to their home, sit them down for a nice dinner, and throw my drink in their face. That's just ungodly and irrational.

Hey it's your story. You do whatever you want and make it as many chapters as you want it to be. I was just stating my opinion, which probably wouldn't even be a majority opinion.

As for "thinking of it as a book", that's awesome and completely acceptable. It's great that you have that much respect in your story. But I know a lot of good and well-known authors who do chapters of published novels in the 3-8 page realm, so just making shorter chapters doesn't besmirch the credit of your work.

[Chibi Pika]

I didn't mean to seem "complainy" about the length. I was just stating that at a point, reading and breaking apart to comment on a computer monitor kind of becomes an endurance test (for me, at least, anyway, but my attention span is balls). Although if someone expected to me to read a 30-page CHAPTER, I'd find out where they live so that I could drive to their home, sit them down for a nice dinner, and throw my drink in their face. That's just ungodly and irrational.

Hey it's your story. You do whatever you want and make it as many chapters as you want it to be. I was just stating my opinion, which probably wouldn't even be a majority opinion.

As for "thinking of it as a book", that's awesome and completely acceptable. It's great that you have that much respect in your story. But I know a lot of good and well-known authors who do chapters of published novels in the 3-8 page realm, so just making shorter chapters doesn't besmirch the credit of your work.

Don't worry about it coming off as complaining--I had actually spent some time trying to shorten the chapter, but to no avail, until I came up with this new double-split idea. This results in Chapter 6 becoming quite long as a side effect, (though several pages less than this one was) however it is much better off for it. Long chapter 6 >>> long chapter 4.

And you're right that it is much easier to read from pages in a book than a computer screen. Each page makes the task more broken up in my mind, and it's easier to backtrack (good lord I backtrack all the time when I read. It's terrible.)

So yeah, all's well that ends well. At this point, I might as well comment on one more of your previous points:

This is getting almost overused (like the "lame" comments I noticed last time). Jade had almost the exact same moment with Charmander. I'd think after one time, she'd have learned to keep track of what she's holding onto (or, at least, what is holding onto her).

You do have a point there, but he's been laying on the ground off to the side in a little pile for the past ten minutes or so, during which Jade has been absolutely transfixed on the massive battle unfolding before her. So I don't think it's too unreasonable she forgot about him. But the wording is a bit repetitive.

Speaking of which, I finally went and did a search for the word "lame" in the previous chapter. It was used three times. One was Spencer failing to be funny, and admitting so out loud. The other two were Jade trying to say something normal but coming off awkward, and admitting it in her head. So the context is quite different, however, I can see how the word itself might be a bit repetitive after a while.

~Chibi~

[katiekitten]

Finally found time to fully catch up. :3 Very nice! The action is well paced, I find myself just falling into it, and the excitement is wonderful~! x3 Not much to add from last time, except that I'm looking forward to the next chapters and will have to force myself to resist reading some of the other meanings. x3

One simple thing I noticed (wasn't really looking though): too many 'waves' here - perhaps find a different word? But that always seems to slip through, no matter how you many times your proof read. x3

Even from where I was standing, the waves of heat radiating outward were causing waves of sweat to drip down my face.

I don't have anything to add on the length front - considering the time constraints I'm currently working under, length can be a bit of an issue, but that normally spans to chapter count rather than word count, I rarely want a story to end/catch up with it. Very nice <3