Brothers' Bond (PG-13)

[Janovy]

Review time!

Sam thought letting her out of her Friend Ball so that she could stretch her eager little legs would make her happy, but it quickly became obvious that all she wanted was to run about the deck of the cargo ship.

This sentence is quite flawed. First off, you miss either 'of' or 'about' (Sam thought of letting her our ... or Sam thought about letting her our) and the second part is just weird. Notice the bolded part? It makes no sense to me whatsoever.

How about: "Sam thought of letting her out of her Friend Ball thinking that stretching her eager, little legs would make her happy, but it quickly became obvious that all she wanted was to run about the deck of the cargo ship."

Just a suggestion, but that sentence definitely needs to be rewritten.

If Sam were to be honest with himself, he was thankful for Chispa’s misbehaving;

That sentence just doesn't click to me for some reason.

"If Sam were to be honest with himself; he'd realize he was thankful for Chispa's misbehaving;

Again, it's only a suggestion.

The cold wasthe reason why they’d released their pokemon to begin with a few hours ago;

Slight error, just separate 'was' and 'the'.

The man turned to Sam. He had a dark, ungroomed moustache, and it made Sam think of Sideburns. Did these guys all come from the Cult of the Thick Facial Hair or what?

I am honestly considering this as a possibility. xD

“What are you talking about? That’s basic problem-solving there.”

Haha, not sure if I agree with's Barry way of solving problems.

“No. You should worry about to save yourself.”

Hmm. "You should worry about saving yourself." ?

It was a blue penguin-like creature with four white dots on its stomach and two yellow crests lining its head from its beak upwards. Sam recognized it as a Prinplup, a rare aquatic pokemon from the Sinnoh region. It shuddered, happy to be free and ready to battle.

So Barry has all three starters? Kinda strange considering how rare they are.

If he exhaled now, he was finished. A thousand lights flickered against the backdrop of his eyelids, and consciousness was becoming just a memory as the the cargo box continued to ride him to the bottom of the sea.

Drop the double 'the'. ^^

Overall, I really, really liked this chapter. It was action-packed and I'm amazed by the fact how you could maneuver so many battles at the same time; I'd probably have hard time with a simple double battle. We also got more glimpse into Chispa's personality which, although eager and rash, got them into trouble (with Barry's rashness simply worsening the issues). But the cliffhanger was amazing and I could just imagine a giant, destructive sea wave approaching their ship. Though it was to be expected after Prinplup's Surf attack apparently didn't work ... ON THE SEA! XD

Great chapter, I'm really interested in where Sam and Barry will wind up.

[diamondpearl876]

As the hours passed, Sam couldn’t help but ponder how long they’d be at sea before he’d have a chance to eat something

Never been on a boat, but don’t they have food available to buy? Or have buffets? Or is that my wishful thinking?

They had been quite conversational, if quietly so, upon boarding the ship, but hunger and cold and annoyance were settling in to both of them, and they spoke less and less. Barry probably, like Sam, just wanted the ship to dock as soon as possible.

Wow, so even Barry has something that can keep him quiet sometimes. Nice.

Barry was rash--there’s a good chance he hadn’t thought about his actions when he ordered his friend to deal with the crew member.

Should be “there was” not “there’s”

Sam recalled the fissue it had used earlier and realized that was right out, but he was interrupted by a dozen voices he couldn’t understand before he could consider any others.

Should be “fissure” I believe

That’s really all I saw for mistakes. The chapter was good overall, it was an action-packed chapter and you described everything well and in a frantic way, as an action scene should be. My only suggestion is to perhaps add more emotion in action scenes. I say this because there was emotion before the fight started, but not during, and not after (maybe Sam is scared, but there’s very little about it, just a description of what he feels). Keep it up! Hope to see a chapter as soon as you can get to it.

[Sidewinder]

and the waters here on the ocean were much more vulgar than those the ferry had to contend with

Hmm, you might try switching the bolded word for something else. I can't think of anything to switch it with atm, but it read weird to me.

He thought that one day without food was probably not terrible; people had survived much worse than that under more dire circumstances. It did little to settle him. He was still hungry.

I liked that whole portion alot. It's odd, I read a few fics where real pangs like thagt never come to the surface. People eat several times a day, and while its okay to not comment on it with every chapter you write, I like the fact that you're calling this to the surface. I doubt I would have thought about that if I was writing the same scene. Hunger can influence mood and decisions in a big way; well, it does with me haha. Good job

they ran of being spotted due to the light of their friends’ flames was easily worth it.

Misplaced apostrophe

Sam still couldn’t believe the cargo was so brazenly labeled.

That made me laugh

that really might have been a misunderstanding on Sideburns’ part.

Misplaced apostrophe

“What are you talking about? That’s basic problem-solving there.”

Hah, I'm starting to like Barry

Sam nodded and recalled Chispa into her Friend Call.

Friend Ball

And the battle. You actually kinda surprised me. I didn't imagine that your first major battle would be on such a large scale. These group battles can be hard to write because they have so many moving parts, and so many things to keep track of, but I felt like you did an awesome job. One thing that really stood out to me was when the Lairon started attacking Sam. As you know from reading my Fic, I'm no stranger to having Pokemon attack humans, it adds such realisim, especially when you think about the fact that enemy Pokemon know that the Pokemon they're fighting are being commanded by Trainers. Quickest way to eliminate that threat is to get the humans out of the picture. So great job on realizing that and putting that into play.

Another portion I really liked was Bree's battle in the sky. Putting her up against a Swellow was a tricky challenge. I liked that you called Vlam in to help, which also went to show Bree's weakness against Swellow's typing. It also showed that you were keeping tabs on the characters placement and not forgetting about anyone. One thing that would make it a little more intense (at least for me), would be to add a few more sound effects. The sound Lairon's feet made when they smacked against the deck of the ship, the sound the water made when it sprayed across the ship when Prinlup used water gun. That in no way is saying that the battle wasn't good, because I loved it. Brilliant job, and I'm going to expect nothing less from you from now on when it comes to battles

Great ending too, BTW. It's a unique was to go when it comes to a life endangering situation. Under the ocean, freezing water, bounched around against the ship. I'm eager to see how Sam's going to get out of this situation

[Doryuzu]

Review Exchange

Prologue

Wow, what I say? Nice job, so it's a time skip fic in a way. I defiantly got to say I like both of your characters, Tommy and Sammy. You've done nicely with giving them some good background story and characterization. Your description is also exceptional, you did good on describing the Caterpie's feelings about battling, its area, and both of the boys. I totally called Caterpie pulling a String Shot out of its butt and immobilizing Vlam like that. I also like how you convey Sammy's feelings in regard to being made fun of and that was a great reference with him being picked on for being a "Bug Catcher". Overall a nice chapter and I look forward to how you develop the characters, a tad shorter then I thought so this review for this chapter isn't very long. But, your grammar is clean and nice as well. I wonder if we'll ever see this Miah character.

Chapter 1

Interesting, so Sam a.k.a Sammy is older and apparently in possession of his bro's Ninetales, Vlam and his Caterpie, a female one(nice job on describing the differences in genders about the species), Bree is now a Butterfree. So, if the time skip is correct that means Sam is now 25, you did good on describing why such things are done by with the whole diseased Delcatty infecting the Glameow population. Description was great, and I wonder why Vlam is now his? I'm speculating that Tommy ends up dying and leaves Vlam to his brother. Nice job showing off the annoyance regarding the woman and Sam.

Chapter 2

Wow, I was not expecting a death to occur so early. Samuel's death seemed pretty tragic and seems to be because of the lack of a stop light/sign where one is needed. This is interesting, and also after another time skip, this time by only a few years rather than 15 shows that the boys seemed to have aged and Tommy managed to get strong enough to make it far in the tournament and reveals he has new Pokemon. I liked his strategy with that sort of "double-confusion" thing regarding Vlam, interesting and unique indeed, haven't ever heard it. For a second I thought the police was just gonna take a seat to watch the battle, but this was an emotional ending indeed. We, the readers, never knew Samuel so we probably didn't really have too many strong feelings over his death as you wanted us to emotionally, but I wonder how it's gonna affect the brothers.

Chapter 3

So over the years, I'm assuming, Samuel's death pretty much made Sammy a bit more rougher around the edges. I mainly think this cause of that comment about him being Sam now, instead of Sammy. Interesting that Professor Rowan and Samuel worked together in those younger years. Characterization for Vlam and Bree was nice, with Bree appearing to be a tad eccentric and Vlam appearing to be annoyed at the younger Pokemon's behavior. So, Sammy came to Sinnoh for the Lake Trio. The only reason I think he would come for the Lake Trio is because he wants to use them to bring his father back to life, or something of that nature. I wouldn't be surprised if that is the case, or if it involved his brother too. Maybe he will use the Lake Trio to help him get a grip on his emotions? I don't know, but I all I know for sure is, the plot thickens and everything can possibly go terribly wrong since the Lake Trio can eliminate emotions from human beings if they want to. The chapter sizes seem to fluctuate quite a bit as well.

Chapter 4


The characterization in this chapter was great, we get some backstory on Sam and learn that he's managed to become quite the battler and he's caught many new Pokemon. Vlam's evolution was because of his victory prize Fire Stone gift to Tommy. Indeed, the death of their father has taken a toll on not just Sam, but Tommy as well basically a lack of attendance at school has caused him to sadly fail. He gave up his future for his brother's sake, that shows the bond and emotion between the two and it shows he really does care a lot for his bro. For a second, I thought you were referring to Sam's Tangrowth rather then it being Miah. Sam has a tourney coming up, that's something to look forward to. But, overall a nice chapter for some character interactions and such. Barnabus is a unique name.

Chapter 5

Nice in-depth description at the beginning of the chapter. I like how he's a tad sensitive about Vlam and Bree being Poke Ball'd and how the Lake Trio being caught is such a sensitive matter. My previous speculation regarding Tommy being dead turned up true, interesting to say the least. Well, not so dead more so, immobile I guess. Interesting, so these are Sam's goal, finding the Lake Trio to help heal his paralyzed brother. It's a shame he forgot his Pokemon and everything ever since the stroke, what an awful thing to happen. I wonder how Sam is going to even attempt to catch legendary Pokemon, they're elusive and extremely powerful. He'd have to put up a hell of a fight to even weaken one, so I'm looking forward to the next chapter for sure.

[Sid87]

...Cliff hanger lord! x3 I really enjoyed the battle scene, you handled the multiple points of focus very well with the pace of the story, once more you really felt yourself in Sammy's shoes. Nothing else that I noticed, really - too caught up - but I really enjoyed this. Well done~! x3

Thank you!

Review time!


This sentence is quite flawed. First off, you miss either 'of' or 'about' (Sam thought of letting her our ... or Sam thought about letting her our) and the second part is just weird. Notice the bolded part? It makes no sense to me whatsoever.

How about: "Sam thought of letting her out of her Friend Ball thinking that stretching her eager, little legs would make her happy, but it quickly became obvious that all she wanted was to run about the deck of the cargo ship."

Just a suggestion, but that sentence definitely needs to be rewritten.

I keep re-reading that sentence, and it makes perfect sense to me. Does anyone else have a thought on this?

Hmm. "You should worry about saving yourself." ?

Well, yeah, but that is intentional. As I wrote them before, Sinnoh-ese isn't these guys' first language. So their Sinnoh-ese is a bit broken. And conjugating verbs is usually the hardest thing to do in translation, so that's what I keep having them screw up.

So Barry has all three starters? Kinda strange considering how rare they are.

I figure it makes sense given that he works with Rowan.

Overall, I really, really liked this chapter. It was action-packed and I'm amazed by the fact how you could maneuver so many battles at the same time; I'd probably have hard time with a simple double battle. We also got more glimpse into Chispa's personality which, although eager and rash, got them into trouble (with Barry's rashness simply worsening the issues). But the cliffhanger was amazing and I could just imagine a giant, destructive sea wave approaching their ship. Though it was to be expected after Prinplup's Surf attack apparently didn't work ... ON THE SEA! XD

Great chapter, I'm really interested in where Sam and Barry will wind up.

I'm glad you enjoyed it! Thanks for your comments!

Never been on a boat, but don’t they have food available to buy? Or have buffets? Or is that my wishful thinking?

Well, you are generally right, but they aren't on a cruise or a luxury liner; they are onboard a cargo ship that is owned privately by the Phoenix Corp., and they are stowaways. They can't exactly just walk into the mess hall and order some food.

That’s really all I saw for mistakes. The chapter was good overall, it was an action-packed chapter and you described everything well and in a frantic way, as an action scene should be. My only suggestion is to perhaps add more emotion in action scenes. I say this because there was emotion before the fight started, but not during, and not after (maybe Sam is scared, but there’s very little about it, just a description of what he feels). Keep it up! Hope to see a chapter as soon as you can get to it.

Ah, I could see that. Good call, makes sense. I will keep that in mind for the future. I was getting a sense that the battlefield was harried and Sam wouldn't really have time to sort out his feelings much, but still...I could have done more. I will do so going forward!

I liked that whole portion alot. It's odd, I read a few fics where real pangs like thagt never come to the surface. People eat several times a day, and while its okay to not comment on it with every chapter you write, I like the fact that you're calling this to the surface. I doubt I would have thought about that if I was writing the same scene. Hunger can influence mood and decisions in a big way; well, it does with me haha. Good job

I know I'd be miserable if I went 24 hours without eating.

And the battle. You actually kinda surprised me. I didn't imagine that your first major battle would be on such a large scale. These group battles can be hard to write because they have so many moving parts, and so many things to keep track of, but I felt like you did an awesome job. One thing that really stood out to me was when the Lairon started attacking Sam. As you know from reading my Fic, I'm no stranger to having Pokemon attack humans, it adds such realisim, especially when you think about the fact that enemy Pokemon know that the Pokemon they're fighting are being commanded by Trainers. Quickest way to eliminate that threat is to get the humans out of the picture. So great job on realizing that and putting that into play.

Thanks! I'm glad you enjoyed the battle. On second reading, it's STILL a brief one (I tend to REALLY like interrupting battles, apparently), but it certainly was busy!

Another portion I really liked was Bree's battle in the sky. Putting her up against a Swellow was a tricky challenge. I liked that you called Vlam in to help, which also went to show Bree's weakness against Swellow's typing. It also showed that you were keeping tabs on the characters placement and not forgetting about anyone. One thing that would make it a little more intense (at least for me), would be to add a few more sound effects. The sound Lairon's feet made when they smacked against the deck of the ship, the sound the water made when it sprayed across the ship when Prinlup used water gun. That in no way is saying that the battle wasn't good, because I loved it. Brilliant job, and I'm going to expect nothing less from you from now on when it comes to battles

I'll keep the note on describing the sounds and sights of things in mind.

Wow, what I say? Nice job, so it's a time skip fic in a way. I defiantly got to say I like both of your characters, Tommy and Sammy. You've done nicely with giving them some good background story and characterization. Your description is also exceptional, you did good on describing the Caterpie's feelings about battling, its area, and both of the boys. I totally called Caterpie pulling a String Shot out of its butt and immobilizing Vlam like that. I also like how you convey Sammy's feelings in regard to being made fun of and that was a great reference with him being picked on for being a "Bug Catcher". Overall a nice chapter and I look forward to how you develop the characters, a tad shorter then I thought so this review for this chapter isn't very long. But, your grammar is clean and nice as well. I wonder if we'll ever see this Miah character.

You know...I, too, have wondered whether Miah will ever comke back or not. And even I haven't decided. So...maybe!

Chapter 1

Interesting, so Sam a.k.a Sammy is older and apparently in possession of his bro's Ninetales, Vlam and his Caterpie, a female one(nice job on describing the differences in genders about the species), Bree is now a Butterfree. So, if the time skip is correct that means Sam is now 25, you did good on describing why such things are done by with the whole diseased Delcatty infecting the Glameow population. Description was great, and I wonder why Vlam is now his? I'm speculating that Tommy ends up dying and leaves Vlam to his brother. Nice job showing off the annoyance regarding the woman and Sam.

You did the math, right (and are the first person, I think, to verbally say so, so good work!).

Chapter 2

Wow, I was not expecting a death to occur so early. Samuel's death seemed pretty tragic and seems to be because of the lack of a stop light/sign where one is needed. This is interesting, and also after another time skip, this time by only a few years rather than 15 shows that the boys seemed to have aged and Tommy managed to get strong enough to make it far in the tournament and reveals he has new Pokemon. I liked his strategy with that sort of "double-confusion" thing regarding Vlam, interesting and unique indeed, haven't ever heard it. For a second I thought the police was just gonna take a seat to watch the battle, but this was an emotional ending indeed. We, the readers, never knew Samuel so we probably didn't really have too many strong feelings over his death as you wanted us to emotionally, but I wonder how it's gonna affect the brothers.

I like that you named Sammy and Tommy's dad because I'm pretty sure I never did. But you REALLY have him set as "Samuel". If I did call him that, congratulations: you paid more attention to my story than I did!

Chapter 3

So over the years, I'm assuming, Samuel's death pretty much made Sammy a bit more rougher around the edges. I mainly think this cause of that comment about him being Sam now, instead of Sammy. Interesting that Professor Rowan and Samuel worked together in those younger years. Characterization for Vlam and Bree was nice, with Bree appearing to be a tad eccentric and Vlam appearing to be annoyed at the younger Pokemon's behavior. So, Sammy came to Sinnoh for the Lake Trio. The only reason I think he would come for the Lake Trio is because he wants to use them to bring his father back to life, or something of that nature. I wouldn't be surprised if that is the case, or if it involved his brother too. Maybe he will use the Lake Trio to help him get a grip on his emotions? I don't know, but I all I know for sure is, the plot thickens and everything can possibly go terribly wrong since the Lake Trio can eliminate emotions from human beings if they want to. The chapter sizes seem to fluctuate quite a bit as well.

The chapter sizes ARE a bit all over the place due to the early goings being a LOT of my feeling everything out and deciding where to go. They should be more consistent for the rest of the story.

Chapter 4


The characterization in this chapter was great, we get some backstory on Sam and learn that he's managed to become quite the battler and he's caught many new Pokemon. Vlam's evolution was because of his victory prize Fire Stone gift to Tommy. Indeed, the death of their father has taken a toll on not just Sam, but Tommy as well basically a lack of attendance at school has caused him to sadly fail. He gave up his future for his brother's sake, that shows the bond and emotion between the two and it shows he really does care a lot for his bro. For a second, I thought you were referring to Sam's Tangrowth rather then it being Miah. Sam has a tourney coming up, that's something to look forward to. But, overall a nice chapter for some character interactions and such. Barnabus is a unique name.

Chapter 5

Nice in-depth description at the beginning of the chapter. I like how he's a tad sensitive about Vlam and Bree being Poke Ball'd and how the Lake Trio being caught is such a sensitive matter. My previous speculation regarding Tommy being dead turned up true, interesting to say the least. Well, not so dead more so, immobile I guess. Interesting, so these are Sam's goal, finding the Lake Trio to help heal his paralyzed brother. It's a shame he forgot his Pokemon and everything ever since the stroke, what an awful thing to happen. I wonder how Sam is going to even attempt to catch legendary Pokemon, they're elusive and extremely powerful. He'd have to put up a hell of a fight to even weaken one, so I'm looking forward to the next chapter for sure.

Well, Nine chapters in, and the legends haven't even appeared yet. I like the Lake Guardians a lot, though, so I intend on treating them respectfully. Thank you so much for your comments!

[Chibi Pika]

Hello there, I have finally returned, and this time I am all caught up!

Tommy had given his brother a normal life despite their parents both being dead. Sam, in return, gave him a rock. He buried the letter back in the trash where he found it and headed to his room to study Geometry.

Oosh. Now there's a powerful line.


I'm actually quite liking how the story is told out of chronological order, because it makes the progression of events feel more interesting than just knowing everything right away.

The image of Vlam curling around Rowan’s feet and the hopefulness that her analysis of his character provided felt like they had happened to someone else he might have read about in a story. All he could think of was his rage at useless so-called medical experts. And his brother’s black, emotionless eyes.

This is a wonderfully well done passage that sums up a lot of things at once, from the main character's emotions, to hints at what happened in the past, to setting a strong mood.

And I've got to say, I was actually quite surprised to see that his brother's plight was so very...down-to-earth and realistic. It somehow strikes the reader differently than the typical larger-than-life events of the Pokemon fandom. But then also has a very logical connection to the Legendaries, which will likely cause some larger-than-life events as a result, so we've got a very interesting balance of story elements.

Where previously the professor had spoken to him respectfully, possibly even affectionately, his words were now sharpened with the points of lecture. Sam knew he was being scolded, an insolent child who thought himself too big for his britches.

This is a great way to use flavor for describing someone's style of speech, and several of them at that.

Sam hated wondering if he himself could ever be so selfless with his life because he feared he’d not like the truth of the answer.

I always like it when a character is forced to question whether or not they would be selfish in something, because it really is a serious, uncomfortable question.

“I would never make so little of your pain as to say that I know what you’re going through, Sam. My parents both lived full lives, and my sisters are both with me today and have given me beautiful nieces and nephews. What you’ve gone through is awful. But it doesn’t answer the question of why you think the legends can help you.”

I really like how this response of his was written. It has a very genuine feel, and also manages to slip the reader more information about Rowan. That's one thing I really like: your prose very frequently multitasks, and it does it well.


Olol, I love Chispa, and I think it's neat to give Sam another Pokemon.

“How did I know you were looking for the lake? Yeah, like I’d be such a good assistant to Professor Rowan if I wasn’t out here waiting for some dumb foreigner to miss his turn.”

“Assistant?”

“Yeah. You’re late, by the way. I’ve been here all day. Just for that, I’m fining you a million bucks!”

Oh lolz, it's Barry! Yessssss. I loved Barry in DPPt, he was a wonderful change of pace after the (imo) borring supporting characters in Gen 3, and he is likewise already amazing here.

“Anyway, the turn you missed is back here a ways. I uprooted some bushes and used them to cover it up. I thought it’d be funny to watch you wander on past it.”

Sam wanted to have Vlam set this kid on fire. It was suddenly the only thing he’d ever wanted in his life.

FFFFFFFF, Barry. Barry is amazing. And I just love the wording of "It was suddenly the only thing he’d ever wanted in his life." Lines like that are always great. x3

Sam’s eyes opened to find the beeping permeated his reality, as well. No, he thought, the beeping was real to begin with, and it had crawled into his nightmare. The next thought he had was that Barry was not only wide awake, but he was standing upright, staring across the water. As Sam regained more of his bearings in the awakened world, his ears let him know the sound seemed to be coming from the direction Barry was looking.

I can attest that this frequently happens to me, but while it is usually an alarm clock, here it was actually the next bit of plot. Interesting.

Sam tried to imagine whatever creature was making the mechanical beeping noise being intimidated by his flannel sweatpants and white tank top, but it seemed all-too-unlikely.

Ffffff...Sam's narration just gets more and more golden with each chapter.

Sideburns scowled in response and let out another roar that did not sound like the friendly invitation to drink coffee and sort this all out that Sam had hoped for.

Pfffft, this is hilariously similar to a line from Spencer waaay in the future of LC. (I'm sure this comes as no surprise.)

Sam sputtered a few words, but nothing pointed was coming to him as he tried to imagine his brother meeting women. It was a disturbing thought, broken up by Tommy’s laughter. “Oh man, you need to see your own face, Sammy. I think I just broke your brain.”

I loved Sam's reaction here. xD And Tommy's trollish intent behind the line to begin with.

Barry finally settled back down. “This plan is failsafe. We’re totally going to find out what the Phoenix Shipping Corporation is up to. You know, as long as they don’t do anything dastardly like bounce around.”

Stop murdering me with Barry's dialogue! xD

“Nope. Just gonna play this by ear.”

“Okay, yes. Tell me, what is your ear playing right now?”

Barry scratched his chin with his index finger. “Hm. Walk in. Find the receptionist or accountant or CEO or whoever’s at the front desk. Say ‘why were those guys performing illegal construction at Lake Verity?’ in a very menacing voice. Get answers.”

“Yep, that’s pretty good. But how about instead of that, we do anything else?”

Anything else. xD Damn, these two play off each other wonderfully. Really, adding another character to banter with Sam added tons of flavor to the story.

“It’s a cargo ship.” Suddenly, it was Barry who sounded exasperated at Sam, “And the cargo being loaded was labeled ‘Acuity Project’.”

The way that middle part is worded doesn't feel like a dialogue tag so I don't believe it should be followed by a comma.

A total of five more crates, labeled just as the ones Barry had seen had been, were loaded onto the deck.

The repetition here kind of throws off the flow. I'd ditch the "had been" as the sentence's meaning is still apparent without it.

Some of the crates were as small as compact cars, others were as large as an storage unit.

Wrong article there (probably a typo). Also this technically should have a semi colon to avoid being run-on. While I do advocate the use of strategic run-ons to influence the flow of narration, that doesn't appear to be the intent here.

Before the Corphish could right itself, Prinplup blasted it with a concetrated burst of water from it beak for good measure.

Typo here. I'm surprised spellcheck didn't catch it.


And dang, that last chapter certainly ended on an intense note. You've got me hooked, I can say that much! Looking forward to more!

~Chibi~

[Sid87]

Chapter 10

Sam had just finished putting away the dishes, and he looked around the kitchen. Spotless again. Ever since Tommy’s stroke, he had gotten pretty good at keeping the house in order. It wasn’t so hard, he thought, it was merely just about keeping your promises to yourself that you would do it. If Sam made sure to vacuum and dust and wash the dishes just a little each day, it only took a little bit of his time, and things never got out of control. Besides, it was his job to clean up now that he was the man of the house. He was the only one in the house, at that.

He set his dishtowel on the rack next to the sink and turned the knobs to the stop the water pressure, but the water didn’t let up; he tried again, but the knob just spun loosely in his hand. The water was unstoppably filling the sink, and he knew soon it would fill his home. The drain wouldn’t be able to handle the deluge, and it would overflow and fill the kitchen and then the living room and then whole house and then his lungs--

A noise from the living room distracted him. It was the sound of someone moving about. Sam poked his head around the corner of his cyan-colored divider wall and saw Tommy up and out of his hospital bed. He was disconnecting all the wires and machines that had been monitoring his health.

“Hey, Tommy. You can’t do that. You’re in a coma; you have to take it easy.”

“Am I?” Tommy asked, looking down at his hands and then up his forearms. “Am I in a coma?”

Sam nodded.

“I don’t feel like I’m in a coma. I think I’m dead. Is that why you can see me? Am I dead?”

“You might be.” It did make sense to Sam. If Tommy was dead, then that would explain why he could see and talk to his older brother.

Tommy pulled the last IV out of his arm and came forward to hug his brother. Sam felt the tears well up in his eyes as he burrowed his face into Tommy’s shoulder. For being dead, Tommy felt really soft. Sam wished his brother wasn’t so dead.

“I’m sorry I died, Sammy. I really didn’t want to leave you.”

Sam’s tears were an irresistible force, and they flowed into the sleeve of Tommy’s favorite sweater, the blue one with the grey, horizontal stripe he wore twice a year at Thanksgiving and Easter. Sometimes on Easter it would be too warm for a sweater, so Tommy would pull it out of his closet anyway put it on a third chair at their dinner table and tell Sam that the sweater wanted to celebrate anyway. They would always put a plate of food in front of it and joke that the reason it didn’t eat was because it didn’t want to burst at the seams. It was really funny.

“Sammy, you have to go to school soon, so I think you should go get a bath.”

Sam agreed. Now that his brother was dead and awake, Sam could start going to school again. He would tell Miah Vanderbelt that Tommy came back to him, and no one in Miah’s family would do that for Miah. That would really get him good.

He rushed up the stairs and turned the bathtub on; it seemed to take a long time to get the water temperature right. No matter how much he fidgeted with and manipulated the knobs, the water still came out extremely cold. Sam studied the water pouring out of the tub faucet. It reminded him of something from earlier, but he couldn’t remember what. He tried to think...after he came home from school, he did the vacuuming. What else?

“Is the water right?”

Sam was startled out of his thoughts by his brother’s words. He ran his hand under the spout one more time. The water was warm now. “Perfect,” Sam answered. He turned the water off and hopped over the wall of the tub into it. His hand scooped water up and run it over his other arm, rubbing it clean through his shirt sleeve.

“Is it making you clean?”

“It is. I feel a lot better, Tommy.”

“Is it washing away your sin?”

“What sin? What are you--”

Sam’s words were cut off by Tommy’s hands around his neck. His brother’s face was flush with red now, and his pupils were tiny. His blonde hair was completely disheveled. Arched eyebrows punctuated his rage. “You forgot about me!”

Sam tried to argue that he never did, but Tommy’s hands cut the words off at his throat and they died there, unspoken. His brother continued, “You were supposed to stop me from dying, but you didn’t! You went all the way to another country because you promised me you’d get the legends, but instead you went chasing after that bird.”

The bird. Sam remembered now. Tommy made him promise to catch the legendary pokemon, but he forgot about it and started trying to find it instead. The legendary pokemon would have woken Tommy up from his coma; what would that stupid phoenix have done for either of them?

Tommy’s hands forced Sam under the bath water, and the tub spout was running again. There was too much water above him and too much weight pushing him into it. All he could see as he looked up was Tommy’s malice weighing him down. Sam wondered if he’d still be able to see Tommy now that he was dead.



Sam sat up suddenly and gulped the air around him. He swallowed one sharp breath followed by another, followed by another. There wasn’t enough air in the white room to fill his lungs; he needed more! Something... there was something in his nostrils. He yanked the plastic tube out with force; it was coming between him and the air that he needed. He needed all of it. Sam heard words, but they were nonsense. To his left, he saw Barry. Barry’s mouth was moving and words were coming out, but none of it made any sense to Sam; the speech was garbled and hollow. Rowan’s assistant’s head turned and he began shouting his echoing gibberish to someone else. Several people in white uniforms flooded his vision and pushed Sam flat back onto the bed in which he lay. These were the same people that couldn’t help Tommy back home, and they were here now to not be able to help him, either. He just needed air; he just needed to breathe, so why were they resisting him? Something pricked Sam’s arm, and he felt his opposite hand slap one of these people. They were trying to put him back to sleep; they were trying to take his air away. Sam wanted to continue swatting at them, but there must have been weights attached to his hands now, they were so hard to move. The people positioned the object back into his nostrils while Sam begged them not to. He heard one of them start counting, and then Sam’s world faded to black.



When Sam’s eyes opened again, he immediately realized he had no idea how long it had been since he was awake the last time. The fluorescent bulbs gave no hint of the daylight (or lack thereof, Sam pondered) outside. Another hospital room full of artificial light and artificial life; Sam’s body shuddered.

“So are you going to spaz out again or what?”

Sam turned his head at the sound of Barry’s voice and was surprised at how sore his muscles were and how much effort he had to exert just to get his neck to cooperate. When he had woken up last time, he moved with much less discomfort. The joys of adrenaline, he thought. “No. No, I’m sorry about that. I was really out of it, I guess. Where are we?”

“Snowpoint Hospital.”

“How long have we been here?”

“Not that long, really. Maybe a day?”

Sam’s mind refused to stop sending in questions as he rubbed the IV in his right arm. The feeling of the catheter under his skin was unsettling, but it was hardly at the forefront of his mind. A lot of things must have happened since Barry’s surf attack. “Let’s just skip ahead and I’ll ask one question that is all the questions: What happened?”

Barry nodded. “I might have underestimated the potency of that wave attack back on the boat.” Barry let out a chuckle and rubbed the back of his head. “It knocked the whole thing over on its side. I had Prinplup--” Barry paused and looked upward for just a moment before meeting Sam’s eyes again. “I guess that’s ‘The Artist Formerly Known As Prinplup’ at this point, but I had him round you and those other guys up and take us all to shore. It took a few dives to get all of them, but it wasn’t tugging at my heart to make them wait a few minutes while I saved you and me, you know?”

“Did you get them all?” Sam knew firsthand what being in that water was like, and he wouldn’t have wished it on anyone.

“Dude, are you auditioning for sainthood or something? I did, but damn. Okay, the first guy that Monferno chucked I messed up on and felt bad about. But after that, they jumped us without any explanation. Screw’em.”

“Where are they now?”

Barry shrugged. “Don’t know. Don’t care. Not all of them were in shock and half-drowned like you were, so I just left them on the shore to fend for themselves. If I stayed there and played junior paramedic with them, I was running the risk of... well, something happening to you. I put as much distance between them and us as I could, and then I called the ambulance.”

Sam wanted to ask Barry how he could have left people who were soaking wet out in the freezing weather, but he found it extraordinarily hard to scold someone who’d just busted his hump to save Sam’s life. “Thanks,” was all that he could get out.

“Think nothing of it. Hey, did you catch that part where I oh-so-subtly hinted that my Prinplup evolved after all this? It was awesome! I mean, he did beat, like, fifteen pokemon at once. Oh, and you. He beat you, too, I guess.”

The thought of Barry’s pokemon shocked Sam to attention and reached down to where his pockets should have been. He found only the warm skin of his thigh, uncovered by his hospital gown under the bed sheets. “Where are my balls?”

Barry froze, his tongue caught beneath his teeth, staring at Sam reaching downwards under his sheets. A smile spread across his lips. “... Heh heh...”

“My friends!” Sam corrected, the thought of what he just said dawning on him. “The balls with Bree, Vlam, and Chispa. Where are those?”

Barry pointed to a tall, narrow closet next to the restroom door. “You had them secured. They’re with your clothes in there.”

Thank god, Sam thought. He clearly remembered recalling his friends into their transportable form, but he hadn’t any idea if he managed to hang onto their pokeballs during the wave. Relief settled the panic inside him as quickly as it had arisen just seconds ago.

“The good thing in all this is that those guys aren’t making it to Lake Acuity. So that part turned out well, right? I guess we can let Rowan know that we put a stop to them in that regard, (let’s not tell him how, though). I wonder if we should think about heading to Lake Valor next and see what the odds are that they’ve got guys working there by now...”

Barry trailed off, now pondering their next move to himself. Or maybe it only seemed like Barry got quieter as Sam went into his own mind. He had come all the way to the northern-most area of the continent, and now Barry wanted to leave without ever having visited the lake. Uxie, the second of the Sinnoh lake guardians and the being of knowledge, could be right under his nose, and already Barry was planning for moving on. Knowledge. Sam recalled Tommy in his hospital bed, unable to think or remember anything about his life.

“Barry, I--”

“No, I got this already. We’re not going to stress you out. I’m going to call and book us some bus tickets. Nice and leisurely this time. Getting on that boat was a stupid idea, and I coulda got you killed. We’re gonna do this next one the right way.”

Sam wanted to reply, but what could he say? This was important to Professor Rowan, and the professor had already done so much to help Sam. He set Sam up with Barry, he gave him the rental car and supplies, he treated Sam’s mad plan with respect after it was explained to him. And couldn’t these two plans come together? Sam could always come back to Lake Acuity later if he needed to. Until then, going with Barry could only ensure the safety of the third of the guardians, Azelf. Really, what was the downside of continuing on with Barry?

“You forgot about me!” The words from his dream earlier echoed in his mind. Sam rationalized to himself that it was not that he was forgetting about Tommy--he was doing this for Tommy, in fact. The goals were not mutually exclusive.

Barry was lost in his thoughts, probably preparing for the bus ride he’d mentioned, so Sam sat and fidgeted with the oxygen tube in his nostrils. Even now that he had his wits about him, it was annoying and uncomfortable. Sam felt embarrassed by his outburst earlier. What was he supposed to tell the nurses when they came back in? Sorry I tried to assault you; I thought my comatose brother was trying to murder me in a bathtub for breaking a promise to him. Yeah, that’d go over gangbusters. He’d probably get an all-expenses-paid trip to the psychiatric ward for forty-eight hours.

Sure enough, shortly after that thought, a pair of young nurses did enter the room to check Sam’s vitals. He was humbled yet again when he realized he was so caught up in himself earlier, he had no idea if these two were there when it happened. He elected to just say nothing and try not to dwell on it; it was surely not the first time hospital staff saw a patient erupt like that. The shorter brunette nurse said something about his blood pressure being a little high; Sam couldn’t help but laugh. After that, they asked him to fill out the paperwork he obviously was incapable of doing when the paramedics brought him in. As Sam filled in his insurance information, he wondered if any insurance company in the world would ever touch any children that he might ever have. He imagined his family’s last name would be on every insurance company’s blacklist for the next three generations. We’re sorry Mr. Stark, an insurance company would tell his hypothetical son, but apparently car accidents, strokes, and falling in the ocean are all pre-existing conditions in your family.

Sam was pleasantly surprised when the nurses informed him that he was healthy enough to leave whenever it suited him now that he was awake and aware. His body had recovered from the state of shock, and there was no frostbite damage. It had been far too long since any medical staff gave Sam good news, so he didn’t question it. Sam announced he was going to change into his clothes--which the hospital had so kindly laundered for him, he was told--and Barry couldn’t get out of the room fast enough.

“Did I tell you Prinplup evolved?” Barry called out from the other side of the door as Sam pulled his polo shirt over his head.

“You actually did.”

“It was pretty awesome. It beat, like, twenty pokemon at once.”

“And me.”

“Yeah, he beat you, too. Hospitalized you! So you better think twice before you mess with me, buddy. More where that came from.”

Sam heard the smile in Barry’s voice, and it lifted his spirits. Barry was happy that Sam wasn’t badly hurt. And not just in the sense that he was generically happy he didn’t accidentally kill a man; there was something more to it that Sam couldn’t put his finger on.

“All right, I’m done,” Sam called as he pulled up his zipper.

“Are you sure?”

Sam stared at the door between them, incredulous. “No, I forgot to put on my underwear and pants, oops. Yes, I’m sure. I know how to dress myself.”

“Can’t be too sure,” Barry said as he opened the door and walked back into the room. He plopped himself down in the chair that was next to Sam’s hospital bed and seemed engrossed in his phone. He must have felt Sam’s eyes on him, because he held up the device and just said “Ordering bus tickets.” Then he went back to work on the keypad.

Sam grabbed the three pokeballs in his pocket. He had no clue what he would have done if he hadn’t managed to fasten them before the wave hit. It’s possible that Prinplup would have been able to recover them just as it had rescued Sam, but if not... the thought was too awful to continue. Sam redirected his brain. Next time it came up in conversation, he needed to ask Barry the genders of his friends; Sam felt bad just calling Prinplup an ‘it’ in his head.

A knocking on the door to his room pulled him out of that thought.

“Come in; I’m dressed.” Sam winced at offering that. It made it sound like there was a perpetual valid concern that he might not be.

The man who walked through his door was not hospital staff. Immediately, Sam noticed he had the same skin tone as the men from the two crews he and Barry had encountered. He was clearly not any kind of laborer like they had been, however. He was flawlessly dressed in a pinstriped grey suit and solid red necktie. His thick black hair was meticulously styled to the right side, arching slightly upwards as it parted. No, this man certainly never worked a day of his life on a construction site. He was tall, too; at five-foot-eleven, no one had ever accused Sam of being short, but this man was a solid three or four inches larger than he. He had no facial hair, but he did have a glowing smile.

“Mr. Stark and Mr. West?” As Sam and Barry affirmed his inquiry, he continued. “It’s a pleasure to meet you boys. For transparency’s sake, I will let you know I am here in direct opposition to my lawyer’s advice. But I am certain we can discuss whatever it is we need to like the civil gentlemen I’m sure we all are. I told him I had every faith we could sort all this out.”

Lawyer’s advice? What was going on here? “I’m sorry, sir; I’m a little confused. I must have missed your name...”

The man blinked slowly and bobbed his head. “No, I’m afraid I forgot to give it. My apologies. I am Henrique Alonzo. I am the President of Phoenix Shipping Corporation.”

[diamondpearl876]

Sam had just finished putting away the dishes, and he looked around the kitchen. Spotless again. Ever since Tommy’s stroke, he had gotten pretty good at keeping the house in order. It wasn’t so hard, he thought, it was merely just about keeping your promises to yourself that you would do it. If Sam made sure to vacuum and dust and wash the dishes just a little each day, it only took a little bit of his time, and things never got out of control. Besides, it was his job to clean up now that he was the man of the house. He was the only one in the house, at that.

For some reason I find this beginning paragraph particularly heartbreaking. Probably because Sam goes from saying he's doing it for Tommy to realizing that he's alone and that Tommy isn't even there. Sam's growing up.

For being dead, Tommy felt really soft. Sam wished his brother wasn’t so dead.

Oh, geez. It goes from being vaguely heartbreaking to super heartbreaking. I like it, you're doing a good job portraying emotions and evoking them from readers.

They would always put a plate of food in front of it and joke that the reason it didn’t eat was because it didn’t want to burst at the seams. It was really funny.

"It was really funny" sounds pretty informal and outlandish here, I'd just remove it. Saying it was a joke means it's funny enough.

The people positioned the object back into his nostrils while Sam begged them not to. He heard one of them start counting, and then Sam’s world faded to black.

Not sure why this whole paragraph has 2 spaces separating it from the paragraph before and after it. It doesn't really add anything, in my opinion.

Hey, did you catch that part where I oh-so-subtly hinted that my Prinplup evolved after all this? It was awesome! I mean, he did beat, like, fifteen pokemon at once. Oh, and you. He beat you, too, I guess.”

LOL, poor Sam. Amusing dialogue here, I like it.

So that part turned out well, right? I guess we can let Rowan know that we put a stop to them in that regard, (let’s not tell him how, though).

Having parenthesis in dialogue is really... odd. O:

As Sam filled in his insurance information, he wondered if any insurance company in the world would ever touch any children that he might ever have.

This sentence seems worded a bit oddly, might just be me, though. Took me a few read-throughs to get it. Though the next few lines after this were amusing. Sam's musings never seem to amuse me.

He must have felt Sam’s eyes on him, because he held up the device and just said “Ordering bus tickets.” Then he went back to work on the keypad.

Still need a comma after "said"

Overall, a good chapter with a lot of development on Barry's part, I think. He went from being really reckless to really caring about others and trying to restrain himself from being stupid. Sam also is learning a lot about priorities. The cliffhanger was a nice touch and I'll be looking forward to next chapter. Congrats on your vacation/wedding, and hope to see you soon.

[Janovy]

Um, wow ... those dream/nightmare sequences were pretty damn scary especially with Tommy drowning Sam though I can't say I didn't expect. You know, due to the whole drowning thing in the previous chapter and then suddenly him making his bath, it was kinda obvious. Nevertheless, it was still frightening. We also learn that Sam made a promise to his brother to catch a legendary bird, Moltres? Ho-oh?

I feel like there was foreshadowing in this chapter, I'm not really sure.

And yes, Barry was amusing as always - I really liked him in this chapter. I especially liked his oh-so-subtle way. :P
I'm looking forward to seeing what happens next! Until then, keep writing! Also, congratulations on your wedding, haha

[Sidewinder]

It wasn’t so hard, he thought, it was merely just about keeping your promises to yourself that you would do it.

I really liked that line. Obviously it speaks volumes to Sammy's motivation and reveals alot about what he's doing and why he's doing it. It such a simple thing to think of, but it applies to both what he's doing in the dream sequence and his actual reality. Wonderfully done

“Is it making you clean?”

This line feels really odd to me for some reason, and I don't really think it's needed. I don't have anything you could replace it with, but it kinda broke the flow of the story for me.

I also liked the portion with Tommy forcing Sam under the water in refrence to him starting to drown in the previous chapter. These kind of dream sequences have always really appealed to me and I thought you did a good job on this one. I can say that I wouldn't have thought of something like this, and you transitioned to the next portion really well.

“Let’s just skip ahead and I’ll ask one question that is all the questions: What happened?”

This is another sentence that feels off to me for some reason. I think it would sound better like:

"Let's just skip ahead to the only question that matters: What happened?"

It took a few dives to get all of them, but it wasn’t tugging at my heart to make them wait a few minutes while I saved you and me, you know?”

Question. When Barry's Pokemon summoned the enormous wave, it flipped the ship, right? If that's the case and he had to dive down and get the sailors, did they really all last that long? Underwater is such a tricky enviroment to work with, especially since you can't breathe underneath, and the one thing that kept bothering me was if Barry was really able to save all of them. Being down there for several miutes would take their chances down alot, and if he had to dive to get them, I'm really surprised they all survived.

“Think nothing of it. Hey, did you catch that part where I oh-so-subtly hinted that my Prinplup evolved after all this? It was awesome! I mean, he did beat, like, fifteen pokemon at once. Oh, and you. He beat you, too, I guess.”

Hah! I really like Barry after this. To be honest, when he was first introduced I was hoping he wouldn't be a regular character because I didn't like the way he spoke or his attitude at all, but after a statement like that, I'm really starting to like him. I'm wondering, how old is he? I feel like you mentioned it earlier but I can't remember how old you said he was. That statement seemed so natural coming from him and if it didn't involve Pokemon I would have thought you had heard it or said it somewhere before. Nicely done

Barry pointed to a tall, narrow closet next to the restroom door. “You had them secured. They’re with your clothes in there.”

I'm glad you brought that up. However, the placement seems off to me. I felt like that should have been the first question he asked. Not only because of Chispa and Bree, but Vlam especially. Vlam is the one link Sammy has of Tommy while he's traveling, and it just seems a little odd that that's not the first place his mind raced to. I know that his thoughts would be frantic waking up in the hospital like this, but that's what would go through my head.

“It was pretty awesome. It beat, like, twenty pokemon at once.”

That part made me laugh as well. I love how proud he is and how the number that Prinplup defeated keeps jumping every time around.

I am Henrique Alonzo. I am the President of Phoenix Shipping Corporation.

Yikes. Nice cliffhanger. This part really has me curious. Obviously he's going to be pissed about what happened, and being the head of a corporation makes the lawyer angle seem organic, but at the same time he's obviously in the wrong with all the drilling and stuff. I found myself wondering though, does his company have permission to do what they've been doing? As far as I know, Barry and Sammy have no concrete evidence that the Phoenix Corporation doesn't have the permits/permission/whatever to do what it's been doing. Judging from the aggressive behavoir of its employees, they don't, but the lawyer's knowing of the situation makes me wonder if they do. Hmm

All in all, I really liked the chapter. I'm glad that everyone came out relatively unscathed, and you provided some more insight into Sammy with the dream sequence he went through. I'm looking forward to what Mr. Alonzo has to say, keep it up

[Doryuzu]

Chapter 6

My only real complaint about this paragraph is the large box of text at the beginning. I suggest splitting it into two(or three) so it's easier to read and navigator through without losing your place. Barry is a pretty good character at times for me, in PokeSpe, the Anime, and the games I've found times where I like his character, and times where I'm very annoyed by his character. I mainly like the PokeSpe version of him. In-regards to Barry being a lab assistant that's a bit hard to believe, don't get me wrong I don't dislike Barry. But, Rowan doesn't seem like the type of person who would have a high understanding and tolerance for someone like Barry, such a hyper attitude and he seems quite immature. His interactions were nice for the most part, and I liked them.

Chispa, the newly caught Shinx is pretty cute. I liked her interactions with Vlam and Bree, especially how she was protective of Vlam to an extent in warning her about Bree. Oh, and that reminds me that Sam has all female Pokemon now, that's usually unlikely but interesting. Nice cliffhanger ending btw, Sam's dream about Tommy blaming him for it all is something I can't wait to see more. This makes me think of Darkrai with the bad dream.

Chapter 7

So, there's a group of people doing illegal stuff at the Lakefront, interesting. For a sec I thought it might be Team Galactic, interesting that it isn't. I liked how cautious Barry was of them and how he immediately called Rowan, that shows he isn't immature 100 percent of the time. I was susprised how Bree easily dispatched Sideburn's Hariyama, it almost seemed to quick and easy. Nice description of the accents and accented characters. So, Barry and Sam are heading back to Rowan's lab. Putting Sam's goal on pause for a bit. Interesting that Sam was all "not fair" when Sideburns battled. I also really wonder why Barry and Sam expected grown adults to give them paperwork. Overall, a solid chapter.

[katiekitten]

<3! I loved the development in this chapter, the syncing together of his dream and his drugged-up state was lovely. :3 The disjointed nature of the dream, where he wasn't thinking, he was just acting and the dream scape was shifting around him without him registering it: awesome. xD And what a cliff hanger...!

Sam heard the smile in Barry’s voice, and it lifted his spirits. Barry was happy that Sam wasn’t badly hurt. And not just in the sense that he was generically happy he didn’t accidentally kill a man; there was something more to it that Sam couldn’t put his finger on.

Now that was a delightful little detail added in there, the comment about how happy he seemed- it just makes me wonder a little more about him and his past. :3 We don't know much about him, do we? His open personality leads you to feel like you've known him a while, and that he's just like any kid- but to get his pokemon so high levelled (although I guess that in itself isn't particularly unusual), his can-do relationship with Rowan all insinuates an interesting past, and this little tidbit just reminded me. x3

<3 Well done with slipping this in with everything, and I hope you have/had a lovely honeymoon! Sorry for the lateness of this review, too - been caught up. D: Told myself though that if I was going to procrastinate anyway, I might as well fulfil my obligations. xD

[Sid87]

For some reason I find this beginning paragraph particularly heartbreaking. Probably because Sam goes from saying he's doing it for Tommy to realizing that he's alone and that Tommy isn't even there. Sam's growing up.



Oh, geez. It goes from being vaguely heartbreaking to super heartbreaking. I like it, you're doing a good job portraying emotions and evoking them from readers.

Thanks. I'm glad you connected with those scenes.

"It was really funny" sounds pretty informal and outlandish here, I'd just remove it. Saying it was a joke means it's funny enough.

I was actually trying to convey the airy, ethereal, informal feeling of a dream; that's why I went with a few lines like that. If I wrote that chapter over again, I'd actually have not used anything other than short, declarative sentences to keep it like that. Ah well.

Not sure why this whole paragraph has 2 spaces separating it from the paragraph before and after it. It doesn't really add anything, in my opinion.

Yeah, I can see that. I was trying to keep the scene break from being too abrupt, but I didn't like the extra spacing, either.

Overall, a good chapter with a lot of development on Barry's part, I think. He went from being really reckless to really caring about others and trying to restrain himself from being stupid. Sam also is learning a lot about priorities. The cliffhanger was a nice touch and I'll be looking forward to next chapter. Congrats on your vacation/wedding, and hope to see you soon.

Thank you for the well-wishes. It was a nice vacation, and I'm unhappy to be back.

Um, wow ... those dream/nightmare sequences were pretty damn scary especially with Tommy drowning Sam though I can't say I didn't expect. You know, due to the whole drowning thing in the previous chapter and then suddenly him making his bath, it was kinda obvious. Nevertheless, it was still frightening. We also learn that Sam made a promise to his brother to catch a legendary bird, Moltres? Ho-oh?

No...the bird stuff was just Sam's brain thinking about the word "phoenix". Didn't mean to be confusing there; there is no legendary bird involved.

I feel like there was foreshadowing in this chapter, I'm not really sure.

And yes, Barry was amusing as always - I really liked him in this chapter. I especially liked his oh-so-subtle way. :P
I'm looking forward to seeing what happens next! Until then, keep writing! Also, congratulations on your wedding, haha

Thank you!

I really liked that line. Obviously it speaks volumes to Sammy's motivation and reveals alot about what he's doing and why he's doing it. It such a simple thing to think of, but it applies to both what he's doing in the dream sequence and his actual reality. Wonderfully done

Thanks!

Question. When Barry's Pokemon summoned the enormous wave, it flipped the ship, right? If that's the case and he had to dive down and get the sailors, did they really all last that long? Underwater is such a tricky enviroment to work with, especially since you can't breathe underneath, and the one thing that kept bothering me was if Barry was really able to save all of them. Being down there for several miutes would take their chances down alot, and if he had to dive to get them, I'm really surprised they all survived.

Well I tried to have Barry explained not everyone was in the same situation as Sam (pinned under a crate, plummeting). The others were [mostly] just washed up in the cold. And, I figure, some of them had water-types, too. But I see the point. But then, Barry didn't really care that much about them in that moment. Suffice to say, he did his best.

Hah! I really like Barry after this. To be honest, when he was first introduced I was hoping he wouldn't be a regular character because I didn't like the way he spoke or his attitude at all, but after a statement like that, I'm really starting to like him. I'm wondering, how old is he? I feel like you mentioned it earlier but I can't remember how old you said he was. That statement seemed so natural coming from him and if it didn't involve Pokemon I would have thought you had heard it or said it somewhere before. Nicely done

I'm glad you're getting into Barry; I've had fun working with him. I think I had off-handedly mentioned he was 17 once? But maybe I'm misremembering. I might not have remembered to say so.

I'm glad you brought that up. However, the placement seems off to me. I felt like that should have been the first question he asked. Not only because of Chispa and Bree, but Vlam especially. Vlam is the one link Sammy has of Tommy while he's traveling, and it just seems a little odd that that's not the first place his mind raced to. I know that his thoughts would be frantic waking up in the hospital like this, but that's what would go through my head.

Hm, good point.

Yikes. Nice cliffhanger. This part really has me curious. Obviously he's going to be pissed about what happened, and being the head of a corporation makes the lawyer angle seem organic, but at the same time he's obviously in the wrong with all the drilling and stuff. I found myself wondering though, does his company have permission to do what they've been doing? As far as I know, Barry and Sammy have no concrete evidence that the Phoenix Corporation doesn't have the permits/permission/whatever to do what it's been doing. Judging from the aggressive behavoir of its employees, they don't, but the lawyer's knowing of the situation makes me wonder if they do. Hmm

All in all, I really liked the chapter. I'm glad that everyone came out relatively unscathed, and you provided some more insight into Sammy with the dream sequence he went through. I'm looking forward to what Mr. Alonzo has to say, keep it up

I think people MIGHT be surprised by what Henrique is here for. Maybe. Hopefully. So stay tuned. Things will be shifting soon...

Chapter 6

My only real complaint about this paragraph is the large box of text at the beginning. I suggest splitting it into two(or three) so it's easier to read and navigator through without losing your place. Barry is a pretty good character at times for me, in PokeSpe, the Anime, and the games I've found times where I like his character, and times where I'm very annoyed by his character. I mainly like the PokeSpe version of him. In-regards to Barry being a lab assistant that's a bit hard to believe, don't get me wrong I don't dislike Barry. But, Rowan doesn't seem like the type of person who would have a high understanding and tolerance for someone like Barry, such a hyper attitude and he seems quite immature. His interactions were nice for the most part, and I liked them.

In a few chapters from now; we'll be getting the Barry/Rowan backstory. It's been in place for a while, and it will make their working relationship make a lot of sense (I hope!).

Chispa, the newly caught Shinx is pretty cute. I liked her interactions with Vlam and Bree, especially how she was protective of Vlam to an extent in warning her about Bree. Oh, and that reminds me that Sam has all female Pokemon now, that's usually unlikely but interesting. Nice cliffhanger ending btw, Sam's dream about Tommy blaming him for it all is something I can't wait to see more. This makes me think of Darkrai with the bad dream.

That WOULD be an interesting twist, wouldn't it...?

So, there's a group of people doing illegal stuff at the Lakefront, interesting. For a sec I thought it might be Team Galactic, interesting that it isn't. I liked how cautious Barry was of them and how he immediately called Rowan, that shows he isn't immature 100 percent of the time. I was susprised how Bree easily dispatched Sideburn's Hariyama, it almost seemed to quick and easy. Nice description of the accents and accented characters. So, Barry and Sam are heading back to Rowan's lab. Putting Sam's goal on pause for a bit. Interesting that Sam was all "not fair" when Sideburns battled. I also really wonder why Barry and Sam expected grown adults to give them paperwork. Overall, a solid chapter.

Thanks. And you mentioned something that will be brought up later, but I shan't be saying which part.

<3! I loved the development in this chapter, the syncing together of his dream and his drugged-up state was lovely. :3 The disjointed nature of the dream, where he wasn't thinking, he was just acting and the dream scape was shifting around him without him registering it: awesome. xD And what a cliff hanger...

Thanks!

Now that was a delightful little detail added in there, the comment about how happy he seemed- it just makes me wonder a little more about him and his past. :3 We don't know much about him, do we? His open personality leads you to feel like you've known him a while, and that he's just like any kid- but to get his pokemon so high levelled (although I guess that in itself isn't particularly unusual), his can-do relationship with Rowan all insinuates an interesting past, and this little tidbit just reminded me. x3

Like I just said...there is a definite backstory behind Rowan and Barry, and I'm really glad people are intrigued by it, because it is definitely part of the story. I agree they don't seem to blend together, but there is a reason...

<3 Well done with slipping this in with everything, and I hope you have/had a lovely honeymoon! Sorry for the lateness of this review, too - been caught up. D: Told myself though that if I was going to procrastinate anyway, I might as well fulfil my obligations. xD

LOL. Well I'm glad you liked it.

[Sid87]

Chapter 11

It was pretty basic as far as world history goes.

Sometime around three hundred years ago or so, the country of Kanto was the first civilization on the planet to learn that pokemon could be both efficiently captured and trained to work with humans. The Kantoans discovered the process by which they could transform pokemon into high-frequency, unstable energy that could be contained in a mechanical orb that would harmonize the energy signature and keep the creatures in stasis. It was all very technical and would require a science class to understand rather than a history lesson. As pokemon were brought from out of the wild and into households, it was found that the energy stasis aided in relaxing them and making them more peaceful and pliable to working with humans.

Well, humans being humans, Kanto barely had time to take a deep breath with their new friends before the Premier of Kanto decided that the best way to use this new technology was on a national defense level. Pokemon may have been living creatures, but they were creatures with tremendous offensive potential, as well as hides that were highly resistant to many of the weapons of the day. Within a few decades, Kanto had a huge militarized pokemon force. There was an Air Force of precision Charizards, flying through the skies with more maneuverability than the most advanced jets of the age and blasting pure flame at their enemies. Then there was a Navy of raging Gyarados, able to withstand and attack from the harshest depths of the ocean and swimming circles around helpless submarines. And this was to say nothing of an infantry of Machamps and Gravelers, shredding tanks into heaps of scrap as artillery bounced off their massively powerful bodies. The Kantoan armed forces became the world’s most dominant power overnight by ignoring mechanical weapons and using instead the ones with which nature had surrounded us.

Johto was quick to accept the offer of annex that Kanto had offered. Being close to Kanto in both proximity and relations, they knew what kind of military force the Kantoans had at their disposal, and they happily agreed to peaceful surrender into what would become Kanto’s burgeoning empire. After that, Kanto turned its eyes to the rest of the northern continents and launched an invasion next on Sinnoh. The history books would tell you that war lasted thirty-eight days and was more than a little one-sided. It was such an overwhelming and popular victory that General Rayner, who oversaw the action, was swept into office as the next Premier of Kanto after Premier Jordan retired.

It was apparently said back in those days that the Kantoan empire spread around the north more quickly than water from a spilled glass across a countertop. So many countries deferred without a struggle, it was debated throughout the history texts as to what even constituted an official war or battle. It was not until Kanto turned its gaze southwards that it encountered its first true resistance.

As tales of the limitless Kantoan military force circulated the globe, the southern continent of Hoenn began work on its own pokemon armed forces. They had struck an alliance with the resources-rich region of Unova, and were able to develop their own pokemon technology in a fraction of the time it had taken Kanto so many years before. When the Northern Empire began moving south, Hoenn was able to strike back at them with a ferocity they’d not yet encountered. Not only was Hoenn suddenly a near-equal military foe, but they had species of pokemon at their disposal that the North had only sparingly seen before.

The Century War was the name given to the hundred-plus years of relatively endless battles between Kanto and its Northern Empire and Hoenn and the United Southern Continents. It was said to have been the most brutal war in the history of the world, no doubt helped by the fact that quite a few unsavory characters came into power during that time. Premier Gardner was a brute who came into power midway through the century and was known to order the torture of southern prisoners in order to extract information. President Stewart of the south had a penchant for sending attacks to areas densely populated with non-military personnel in an attempt to terrorize the north into turning on their leaders out of fear. The casualities, of both human and pokemon, were innumerable.

Fortunately, most of these vicious ploys backfired. As Kanto and Hoenn continued a war in which neither side made much progress in expansion, new philosophies were quickly spreading throughout their citizens. The idea that pokemon were living, feeling creatures that should not be used as tools of war was taking hold in the hearts of the public. When the empire started, people had only known pokemon as wild animals, but when the technology to catch and train them became more widespread, humanity found these creatures to be powerful, yes, but also smart and empathetic. What started as a few sparsely-attended meetings would turn into government petitions and then into large-scale rallies. The populace decided they wanted the pointless war they grew up under to end, and they wanted pokemon free from their shackles as military weapons. On both sides of the equator, politics became inundated with people who shared these new progressive lines of thought, and the world started changing, even if slowly. The war between north and south lessened and finally came to a halt with the signing of the Scott Treaty--named for Premier Scott who proposed it--and Kanto granted independence to the regions under its empire that wanted it. Pokemon were taken off of the battle field and put back into the wild, as well as in households, sanctuaries, and stadiums where they could enjoy playful, sanctioned battles under the watchful eye of medical professionals and rights activists.

Still, even though the military actions had ended, there was still tension between the northern and southern continents. Hate and prejudice doesn’t tend to quite fade away, even after so many decades; it stays simmering, just beneath the surface. The two sides maintained strictly separate cultures and traditions. Tourism was low between the hemispheres due to the harassment foreigners faced in each region. The World Pokemon League only sparingly had special events between northern and southern regions since riots were so frequent. Society on a global scale may have shifted towards a peaceful and progressive attitude, but individuals were still very full of insecurities and distrust; despite the new age of enlightenment, the separate regions sometimes seemed like they were still worlds apart. That was why it was so odd to Sam.

“You speak really good Kantoan for someone from Hoenn, Mr. Alonzo.”

“Thank you, Mr. Stark. I’d be poorly equipped for the travels and meetings my position requires of me if I were anything less than fluent in the world’s most relevant languages, but I still appreciate your attention and compliment.”

“Yeah, we’re all--”

This time Sam cut Barry off. Barry’s voice had an edge to it, and Sam knew that this meeting had to be played a little more tactfully that what might have been in his partner’s repertoire, “How can we help you, Mr. Alonzo?” Obviously he was here because Sam and Barry had destroyed so much of the Phoenix Corporation’s property, and for that reason, it seemed best to just play dumb for as long as they could get away with it.

“Please, Mr. Stark. I’m not so uncouth as to walk into a man’s hospital room and expect a him to assist me in the midst of his recuperating . At the moment, I’m afraid I simply want to tell you that I am happy you and your associate are in good health, and I would very much like to meet with you when you are feeling well enough to leave here.”

“Yeah well, it’s your lucky--”

“I’m sure we can arrange that, yes,” Sam again cut Barry’s impetuousness off at the pass. “Hopefully I’ll be able to leave shortly here since I’m doing all right. How would we go about finding you when we do?”

“I’ve a room at Snowpoint Resort. It’s under my name. I’ll tell the front desk to be expecting you so that they can direct you to my suite.” Mr. Alonzo extended his right hand, and Sam took it. Mr. Alonzo’s handshake was sturdy, but not intimidatingly so. “Again, I’m very pleased that you seem to be recovered.”

Sam thanked the President of the Phoenix Corporation for the comment, and Mr. Alonzo turned out of the room. Barry began to speak, but Sam shushed him; it was ridiculous to think of a successful businessman leaning over to listen at doors, but Sam imagined this was the kind of man who would do anything it took to get what he wanted. A minute passed, and then two, before Sam finally broke the thickening silence.

“Well that was odd.”

“I was going to ask if you two wanted to be alone for a second there. What was with all the playing nice-nice?”

“It’s the old ‘honey versus vinegar’ concept.”

Barry stared at Sam and wore a vacant expression. “What?”

“You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. It pays off more to be nice than abrasive.”

“I am not familiar. Why are we catching flies?”

“It’s not... we’re... it’s just a saying--”

“You know what catches the most flies? A fly swatter.”

The fly swatter analogy was actually a pretty good metaphor for Barry, so Sam merely nodded in reply.

“So what’s the play here? Are we actually going to this jerk’s hotel room? Or are we getting the heck out of town?”

Sam looked back to the door through which Henrique Alonzo had just left. He hadn’t really had an answer to that yet.

---

“So, hey, if I invite you guys into this very obvious trap, do you think you could, you know, walk right into it?”

“Why yes, I do believe that is what we’ll do. We'd love to.”

As their banter suggested while they trudged through the streets of Snowpoint City—streets that were buried in over a foot of snow despite the calendar’s clear indication that it was the tail-end of spring--Sam and Barry were convinced that Henrique’s invitation was nothing short of sinister. It made perfect sense: why would he refuse to talk to them inside a crowded hospital and then invite them to a secluded suite? Given Sam and Barry’s short history with Mr. Alonzo’s employees and property, why was he even so gracious and personable to them? Unless, of course, he was guilty of something, Sam determined. And if he was guilty of something, what were the odds he’d continue to be so pleasant?

“So, seriously, why are we actually going to his place when we openly agree it’s a trap? This is a dude who’s catching flies. What’s he using?”

Sam rubbed his chin with his thumb. “Well, he was nice to us, so he’s using honey. According to the saying.”

Barry shook his head. “Are you sure you have that right? Like, shouldn’t it be bees? Bees want honey. Not flies.”

“No, bees make their own honey; they don’t want honey. It’s like...you don’t have to go out and get hair. You make your own.”

“Bees make honey like people make hair?”

“That analogy really got away from me. Look, I didn’t make the saying up. I can’t answer for it.”

“It’s a dumb saying.”

Sam shrugged and backpedaled to Barry’s original question. “The reason we’re going there is that it’s really the only lead we’ve got. We can keep bouncing from lake-to-lake trying to stay ahead of these guys, but that’s hardly ideal. For all we know, they've already been to Lake Valor, anyway. Besides, running makes us look like the bad guys here. We’ve got nothing to hide, so why take off like criminals?”

“Because the real criminals are luring us into a trap?”

“I can’t really refute that.” Sam was going to continue, but he felt a large chunk of snow slide down his boot and wet his socks. It eliminated everything else from the front of his mind. “Seriously? God. What is it with this town? We’re, like, three weeks away from the first day of summer.”

“Higher altitude and further from the equator. Good skiing, though.”

“You ski?”

“No.”

“Oh.” Sam went back to ruing the snow in his shoe. When he was young, around Barry’s age, he’d started keeping track of all the things he’d do if he ever got elected to power. The list was simply for fun, as Sam had never had any political aspirations, and its contents were haphazard. He’d periodically rule on matters like banning certain foods he didn’t like and making television programs he did (but felt were underrated) mandatory viewing. He hadn’t thought about that list in years, but his mind flashed to it here; he decided he would make snow illegal. He could already feel the dampness pooling at the bottom of his sock and wrinkling the flesh on his toes.

When this kind of weather hit Goldenrod City, the city shut down harder than if an army was invading. School was cancelled days in advance, stores would only open a few hours at a time--and even then only to sell necessities--and nobody left their house unless they had just about chopped an entire arm off. Snowpoint, conversely, was apparently oblivious to its conditions. The sidewalks were full of people going about their lives, and every building Sam and Barry passed was open for business. Even the roads had their fair share of traffic, most certainly helped by the plow trucks that came by each block every 25 minutes like clockwork. Sam tried to imagine what the carnage would be like on the streets of Goldenrod during this kind of weather, but his brain couldn’t do it; when it snowed at home, the vehicles vacated immediately.

Snowpoint Resort was a ski lodge in the most classic sense. It spread out over the course of several miles of property, and its claim to fame, besides the immaculate slopes, was the lodges themselves. They were fashioned from wood, but—according to the pamphlet Sam was given at the hospital when he informed the nurse he’d be heading there—contained all the amenities of home, such as a jacuzzi, individual heating controls for each room, king-sized beds, and theater screens. Whose home did they get these amenities from, Sam couldn’t help but wonder. The attendant at the front desk informed Sam that Mr. Alonzo was staying at the Coronet Suite; it was a large cabin on the fringe of the resort boundary. Doubt crept into Sam’s head and told him that perhaps Barry had the right idea of just ignoring Mr. Alonzo’s invitation and moving on with their lives. A private suite with no adjacent rooms or guests, at the edge of a posh resort? In Snowpoint, no one can hear you scream, Sam thought.

As they approached the cabin door, Barry announced that he did not want to be the one who knocked on Alonzo’s door. Whether this was because he wanted to absolve himself from blame if the meeting went sideways or because he thought the door itself might attack him, Sam didn’t care. At this point, it was just a matter of getting it done with. And getting his wet feet out of the snow.

“Mr. Stark and Mr. West!” Henrique Alonzo beamed as he opened the door and waved for them to enter. “Thank you so much for coming. I was looking forward to your visit.”

“Wouldn’t miss it.” There was still a crust to Barry’s voice, but at least his words were pleasant enough.

“I know it seemed so odd that I came to your room at the hospital only to stay so briefly. I was torn, you see, between wanting to meet with you in person rather than sending a proxy and not wanting to disrupt your rest. I just hope I didn’t come across as…well…”

Sam could tell Henrique was searching for the right word and decided to spare him the trouble. “Please, don’t worry about it. We thought no such thing.”

Mr. Alonzo smiled and nodded lightly. He then motioned towards the sofa in his suite and shut the door behind the three of them. Sam took one last look back to see the outside world disappear behind the wooden door.

“May I offer you both something to drink?”

“Vodka on the rocks.”

Sam soured his lips at Barry in disapproval, even though he was mostly sure his partner had been joking. “We’ll both take coffee; that’d be great. It's pretty cold out there.”

Henrique reached down to the intercom on the glass endtable next to the black leather couch. “May I have two coffees in the Coronet Suite? We have cream and sugar here in the room.”

Sam’s muscles relaxed, and he realized he didn’t even feel himself tense up when Mr. Alonzo reached for the phone as if it had been a pokeball or a gun. “Thank you.”

Mr. Alonzo settled into the extravagant-looking couch and crossed one leg over the other. “Gentlemen, I’m sure we could make meandering small talk and not really say anything for quite some time, but I respect you both, so I’m going to get to the heart of the matter. I am aware of the…,” he paused and seemed to yet again mull over a selection of what to say, “incidents you’ve had with my employees.”

In a way, Sam was relieved by Mr. Alonzo’s directness. At least it eliminated the stress of wondering what this meeting was about. “Yes, those incidents have been quite unfortunate…”

“I assure you both, I accept that my men were at least half to blame in those—“

“Yeah, at least,” Barry interjected, emphasizing the last word. Sam shook his head at him, but Mr. Alonzo just chuckled.

“My men are not quite as well-versed in your language and culture as I am. Not to mention that most of their interactions here in your country haven’t been ideal. They are threatened a lot. They get screamed at that they are stealing jobs from the people of Sinnoh. When they go shopping for supplies or groceries, store clerks follow them around as if they would steal anything they could fit under their shirt. They’ve gotten used to everyone’s default reaction to them being racism and jingoism.”

“I’m very sorry to hear that,” Sam said, and he was. His trip to Sinnoh hadn’t been marred by any of that, but then again, he didn’t know what it was like to look and speak differently than the citizens there. With Mr. Alonzo presenting these facts to him, Sam remembered he'd always heard others say that people from the Hoenn area were thugs and criminals…did he let that color his actions when he encountered them?

“Well, so am I, because I fear that when you both showed up, it lead to their attacking you because they felt as though you were the aggressors. Either there to attack them or sabotage the machinery.”

Sam’s sympathy turned to skepticism here; the entire crew of construction workers and heavy machinery handlers were intimidated by a high school student and a recent college grad? It seemed unlikely, but Sam said nothing. Mr. Alonzo was being very gracious, and there was no reason to start challenging him yet. Sam was thankful to find that even Barry was holding his tongue.

“Their actions cost me quite a substantial amount in equipment, to say nothing of the lost hours of labor or transportation costs. But sometimes that is just the price of business.” Mr. Alonzo leaned back into the couch. Sam nodded, but could think of nothing else to add. Mr. Alonzo switched gears. “You both have no doubt figured out that I’ve come here for the legends of Sinnoh, right?”

Sam nearly choked on his own tongue; He and Barry had certainly suspected that, but to have Mr. Alonzo so freely admit to it was beyond what he’d imagined. What a brazen thing to say, Sam thought. “We… well… yeah. We kind of figured that, of course, but—“

“You’re aware that poaching legendary pokemon is illegal, right?” Barry spat, “Why would anyone just come out and admit to that?”

"Poaching?" Mr. Alonzo, the pitch of his voice rising. "No, not even close, Mr. West. Let me ask you a question: When a farmer needs assistance raising his crops, is it poaching when he catches a Gloom to encourage their growth? When a demolition crew catches a Rhyhorn to help them tear down a building and remove rubble, is that poaching? Or is it poaching when a hospital uses an Audino to heal an injured person's minor bruises or superficial injuries?"

Barry raised an eyebrow. "That's three questions."

"Pokemon are a huge part of our daily lives. But we don't even know all about them. We have pokemon that transport us to our jobs. We have pokemon that work on construction sites to help us build. We have pokemon that battle in stadiums to entertain us. But these are just rudimentary day-to-day duties. They do these things because they are strong or because they can manipulate plants, sure. But what about the legendary pokemon?"

Sam's mouth was dry suddenly, and he wished the coffee had made its way to the cabin. What was Henrique Alonzo talking about, and why was it making Sam uncomfortable?

"People talk about legendary pokemon, and we're talking about abilities that range from controlling the weather to manipulating time and space and everything in between. Think about how that could benefit humanity, gentlemen. We could stop storms and natural disasters in their tracks before lives and property are lost. We could erase our greatest mistakes from history; no more Century War and the hate it spread between our regions." Mr. Alonzo opened his arms wide in front of him as if to emphasize the scope of his ideas. "We could have perfect knowledge and understanding of the world around us. I've not come here to capture Sinnoh's legends or put them on display. I've come here to find them and get them to use their powers to benefit mankind. All of us. "

"They don't belong to mankind, though; they belong to the world." Barry's words shocked Sam out of his laser focus on Henrique's words. Sam had been engrossed in the thoughts, but Barry had wasted no time in having a rebuttal. "Do you really think it's in anyone's best interest to corral pokemon that can control time? Or human emotion? Yeah, gee, what's the worst that could happen there, right?"

"And those abilities are safer unmonitored in the wild?"

"Considering that, historically, the legends basically just putz around on their own, hide, and not mess with us? Yeah, I'd think so. They don't go around using their powers on a whim, so they're probably a lot smarter than we are."

Sam watched as Barry and Mr. Alonzo went back-and-forth. What was Barry saying? Wasn't he with Sam to help him get the lake guardians so that Sam could heal his brother?

"Your view of what these pokemon could mean to the world is awfully short-sighted, Mr. West."

"And your view of how gracious and well-meaning humanity would be in the face of these possibilities is awfully wrong-sighted."

Mr. Alonzo tilted his head down and smiled. Slowly, he shook his head a few times as if he were pardoning himself from engaging in a verbal battle with Barry. "I see your point of view, Mr. West, don't get me wrong. And I also get that you must feel very confident in expressing it. After all, you and Professor Rowan have had the legendary pokemon of Sinnoh hidden away and protected for quite some time now, haven't you?"

[Sidewinder]

It was pretty basic as far as world history goes.

I found myself confused here. I liked the description of the past events, and I’ll touch on it in a moment, but the placement of the sentence and the description of the events before we get back to real time felt oddly placed to me. I remember leaving off with the head of Phoenix bombing in, and when I picked up on this chapter I almost forgot what was going on in the previous chapter. Is this portion dialogue?

the creatures in stasis. It was all very technical andwould require a science class to

Need a space between the bolded portion

Gravelers, shredding tanks into heaps of scrap as artillery bounced off their massively powerful bodies

I can see where you were coming from with Machamp, but I’m a little biased against Graveler…My friend Dorian could tell you more about why :P

“You speak really good Kantoan for someone from Hoenn, Mr. Alonzo.”

So it was Alonzo talking the whole time?

Anyway, I liked the backstory on the regions. It always seemed logical to me that there would be wars between the regions in the past as well as presently. Since all of them are bound by how much they can grow because of the size of their regions, it makes perfect sense to go to war over territory expansion. I felt like it was a tad bit too rushed in a few spots, but all in all I liked reading your version of the past, and I hope you expand more on this in the future.

“Thank you, Mr. Stark. I’d be poorly equipped for the travels and meetings my position requires of me if I were anything less than fluent in the world’s most relevant languages, but I still appreciate your attention and compliment.”

You did a good job putting him apart from other characters with his proper speech and general aura of importance. He seems like a snake to me. His words have a sharp edge to them that I like quite a bit

The fly swatter analogy was actually a pretty good metaphor for Barry, so Sam merely nodded in reply.

My thoughts exactly. I’m actually liking Barry more with each chapter

“No, bees make their own honey; they don’t want honey. It’s like...you don’t have to go out and get hair. You make your own.”

“Bees make honey like people make hair?”

“That analogy really got away from me. Look, I didn’t make the saying up. I can’t answer for it.”

“It’s a dumb saying.”

That made me laugh. You actually are getting more of a knack for comedic chapters as time goes on and I’m enjoying it quite a bit. Is this something you’ve been actively trying for, or do you have situations like this planned out in advance?

They’ve gotten used to everyone’s default reaction to them being racism and jingoism.”

When I saw the word ‘jingoism’, I actually had to look it up because I had never heard it before. Nicely done.

"Poaching?" Mr. Alonzo, the pitch of his voice rising. "No, not even close, Mr. West. Let me ask you a question: When a farmer needs assistance raising his crops, is it poaching when he catches a Gloom to encourage their growth? When a demolition crew catches a Rhyhorn to help them tear down a building and remove rubble, is that poaching? Or is it poaching when a hospital uses an Audino to heal an injured person's minor bruises or superficial injuries?"

That portion stood out to me as well. Nice iron slap to the face of Barry haha. This man’s way with words and the obvious power he has is starting to make me think he’s a lot more dangerous than Sammy and Barry believe. I’m starting to like this character quite a bit. Wonderfully done

"Considering that, historically, the legends basically just putz around on their own, hide, and not mess with us? Yeah, I'd think so. They don't go around using their powers on a whim, so they're probably a lot smarter than we are."

And Barry’s back!

Anyway, nicely done on this chapter. The only portion I didn’t really respond to was the beginning with the history of the Century war. The placement just seems so off to me that it wasn’t until closer to the middle of the chapter that I really got back into it. Don’t get me wrong I loved the history but I just felt like it could have been a bit better if it was a little more fleshed out instead of lumping it up at once.

Good job

[Sid87]

I found myself confused here. I liked the description of the past events, and I’ll touch on it in a moment, but the placement of the sentence and the description of the events before we get back to real time felt oddly placed to me. I remember leaving off with the head of Phoenix bombing in, and when I picked up on this chapter I almost forgot what was going on in the previous chapter. Is this portion dialogue?

It's not dialogue, no. It's just narration, as affixed to Sam. That's why it begins and ends with the two lines "It was basic..." and "And that's why Sam thought it was odd..." (whatever I actually had those lines say). To go deeper into it, Sam had heard Mr. Alonzo talk and realized he was with the foreigners when he said who he was. So he knew where Alonzo was from. We then get a quick narration into the history of the world that explains Sam's curiousity that Alonzo speaks so well (it also explains the discussion of racism and distrust between the regions that is brought up later). It was meant to be jarring and make the reader think "wait, what the...?", but I also didn't mean for it to be confusing as to who was saying/thinking it. I can say this, though: I'm a stickler for consistent narration, and this story is third-person permaffixed to Sam, so ANYTIME there is narration, it is, even if indirectly, Sam's voice and thoughts.

Need a space between the bolded portion

Boy, you'd think a half dozen proofreadings would have caught that. D'oh!

I can see where you were coming from with Machamp, but I’m a little biased against Graveler…My friend Dorian could tell you more about why :P

LOL...I was going to say "Golems", but it seemed a bit corny to use the fully evolved forms of both, so I just went with Graveler.

So it was Alonzo talking the whole time?

No, but I answered that prematurely.

Anyway, I liked the backstory on the regions. It always seemed logical to me that there would be wars between the regions in the past as well as presently. Since all of them are bound by how much they can grow because of the size of their regions, it makes perfect sense to go to war over territory expansion. I felt like it was a tad bit too rushed in a few spots, but all in all I liked reading your version of the past, and I hope you expand more on this in the future.

Actually, my full intention is, assuming enough people enjoy that segment and don't think it is out-of-place nonsense, to do a short-story or two that expands upon the Century War. As it was presented, it was just meant to explain a few things that would/will be important in the upcoming scenes/chapters.

You did a good job putting him apart from other characters with his proper speech and general aura of importance. He seems like a snake to me. His words have a sharp edge to them that I like quite a bit

He's not so bad!

My thoughts exactly. I’m actually liking Barry more with each chapter

Thanks. I really dig the little fella.

That made me laugh. You actually are getting more of a knack for comedic chapters as time goes on and I’m enjoying it quite a bit. Is this something you’ve been actively trying for, or do you have situations like this planned out in advance?

It just kind of comes to me as I plan out dialogue. I imagined Sam using the cliche to describe the interaction with Alonzo, and instantly something in my head shot back "Barry would not recognize that because it doesn't seem relevant to him". And then out spilled all the subsequent discussion of it. The little part of my brain that knows my characters better than my consciousness does often dictates to me what they should say in response to things.

When I saw the word ‘jingoism’, I actually had to look it up because I had never heard it before. Nicely done.

For SOME REASON. it felt to me like I was using a lot of SAT words this chapter. I have no idea why.

That portion stood out to me as well. Nice iron slap to the face of Barry haha. This man’s way with words and the obvious power he has is starting to make me think he’s a lot more dangerous than Sammy and Barry believe. I’m starting to like this character quite a bit. Wonderfully done



And Barry’s back!

I had more fun with their back-and-forth than I thought I would. It was initially written differently, but I hated it and replaced it all with better Alonzo/Barry debate. Glad you approved.

Anyway, nicely done on this chapter. The only portion I didn’t really respond to was the beginning with the history of the Century war. The placement just seems so off to me that it wasn’t until closer to the middle of the chapter that I really got back into it. Don’t get me wrong I loved the history but I just felt like it could have been a bit better if it was a little more fleshed out instead of lumping it up at once.

Good job

Like I said, I was going for the jarring effect in hopes of forcing the reader to start paying close attention right away. But, hm, I definitely should have hinted at more of the History Of The World before that part; that would have been better, yes.

I'm curious as to what everyone else's opinion of that segment is... if it was just a swing-and-a-miss on my part or what. I felt like I was taking a risk throwing it in when and where I did, but it might not have worked out.

[diamondpearl876]

As pokemon were brought from out of the wild and into households, it was found that the energy stasis aided in relaxing them and making them more peaceful and pliable to working with humans.

I like this idea. I think it's been said somewhere that catching a pokemon makes it more friendly but it's not a very implemented idea, and I'm glad you're expanding on that idea a bit.

Well, humans being humans, Kanto barely had time to take a deep breath with their new friends before the Premier of Kanto decided that the best way to use this new technology was on a national defense level. Pokemon may have been living creatures, but they were creatures with tremendous offensive potential, as well as hides that were highly resistant to many of the weapons of the day. Within a few decades, Kanto had a huge militarized pokemon force. There was an Air Force of precision Charizards, flying through the skies with more maneuverability than the most advanced jets of the age and blasting pure flame at their enemies. Then there was a Navy of raging Gyarados, able to withstand and attack from the harshest depths of the ocean and swimming circles around helpless submarines. And this was to say nothing of an infantry of Machamps and Gravelers, shredding tanks into heaps of scrap as artillery bounced off their massively powerful bodies. The Kantoan armed forces became the world’s most dominant power overnight by ignoring mechanical weapons and using instead the ones with which nature had surrounded us.

God I've been waiting for a fic that would say pokemon were used for something like this, LOL. It seems like plain guns and such seems useless with pokemon around.

It was apparently said back in those days that the Kantoan empire spread around the north more quickly than water from a spilled glass across a countertop.

Words like "Apparently" and "Well" that you use make the thing sound informal. I haven't gotten around to the next section yet

They had struck an alliance with the resources-rich region of Unova were able to develop their own pokemon technology in a fraction of the time it had taken Kanto so many years before.

This sentence is a little hard to read when you get to "Unova were able".

Hate and prejudice doesn’t tend to quite fade away, even after so many decades; it stays simmering, just beneath the surface.

I like this sentence. It's true and appropriately said, with little amount of words.

That was why it was so odd to Sam.

Might wanna specify what "it" is, as I was a bit confused at first.

“Please, Mr. Stark. I’m not so uncouth as to walk into a man’s hospital room and expect a him to assist me in the midst of his recuperating .

Misplaced period.

“I am not familiar. Why are we catching flies?”

“It’s not... we’re... it’s just a saying--”

“You know what catches the most flies? A fly swatter."

LOL, these 2 never cease to amaze me together.

He’d periodically rule on matters like banning certain foods he didn’t like and making television programs he did (but felt were underrated) mandatory viewing. He hadn’t thought about that list in years, but his mind flashed to it here; he decided he would make snow illegal.

Lol, I'd like to see him try.

“My men are not quite as well-versed in your language and culture as I am. Not to mention that most of their interactions here in your country haven’t been ideal. They are threatened a lot. They get screamed at that they are stealing jobs from the people of Sinnoh. When they go shopping for supplies or groceries, store clerks follow them around as if they would steal anything they could fit under their shirt. They’ve gotten used to everyone’s default reaction to them being racism and jingoism.”

I like how realistic you make their entrance into the country. I also liked how Sam was so stunned by Snowpoint City, since it was so different frm home. I think one of the themes for your fic involves different cultures and lifestyles, and you portray it wonderfully and intriguingly show how everyone/everything can be so different.

After all, you and Professor Rowan have had the legendary pokemon of Sinnoh hidden away and protected for quite some time now, haven't you?"

The last sentence is very haunting and was a very good place to stop. I look forward to more, as Mr. Alonzo and his troops seem like both good and bad guys here.

Also, I did like the beginning section, though it was a bit long and drawn out. That's all. You may want to explain that Mr. Alonzo is telling Sam/Barry about this at the very beginning, too, so people aren't confused.

[Rotomknight]

I am delighted that I caught up.
Would you please add me to the pm list.
This due is very fascinating....
What will sammy do. It is like roran is assiting them and wants Sammy to learn but at the same time he hides... Maybe roran wants this to end or maybe he tests the purity of them.
Personally I feel some are ok for humans to use. The emotions could be use in the medical proffesion yes but cyrus proves somethings must be out of bounds. Just keep things up.

PLEASE ADD ME TO THE PM LIST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Sid87]

I am delighted that I caught up.
Would you please add me to the pm list.
This due is very fascinating....
What will sammy do. It is like roran is assiting them and wants Sammy to learn but at the same time he hides... Maybe roran wants this to end or maybe he tests the purity of them.
Personally I feel some are ok for humans to use. The emotions could be use in the medical proffesion yes but cyrus proves somethings must be out of bounds. Just keep things up.

PLEASE ADD ME TO THE PM LIST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

You've been added. Thanks for enjoying it!

I like this idea. I think it's been said somewhere that catching a pokemon makes it more friendly but it's not a very implemented idea, and I'm glad you're expanding on that idea a bit.

That IS actually in the games or something, isn't it? I had forgotten about that. It just came to me as I was writing the chapter, but it's nice to know my subconscious is picking up on things to drop back on me later. Heh.

Words like "Apparently" and "Well" that you use make the thing sound informal. I haven't gotten around to the next section yet

Well, it is still attached to Sam, and I figured since both the opening and closing lines are more directly attached to him, it'd make sense for the segment to be. Because, since the narrator is not omniscient, these things still only "apparently" happened in the past; Sam was not there to definitely say what did or did not. ThoughI could just SWERVE! and make Sam some kind of ageless elder god

This sentence is a little hard to read when you get to "Unova were able".

Fixed!

Might wanna specify what "it" is, as I was a bit confused at first.

That's supposed to be slight forshadowing to the next line: the "it" is that Mr. Alonzo has spoken very eloquent English (Kantoan? Sinnohan? Hmmm...) despite being from the South where the cultures are so different.

I like how realistic you make their entrance into the country. I also liked how Sam was so stunned by Snowpoint City, since it was so different frm home. I think one of the themes for your fic involves different cultures and lifestyles, and you portray it wonderfully and intriguingly show how everyone/everything can be so different.

I'm a-tryin'. It's hard to travel and see how different a culture can be, even when it is one similar to yours (and that's usually under pleasant, vacationy circumstances). And, unfortunately, foreigners face a lot of prejudices. It seemed pretty necessary and "real" to incorporate that.

The last sentence is very haunting and was a very good place to stop. I look forward to more, as Mr. Alonzo and his troops seem like both good and bad guys here.

Also, I did like the beginning section, though it was a bit long and drawn out. That's all. You may want to explain that Mr. Alonzo is telling Sam/Barry about this at the very beginning, too, so people aren't confused.

So another not a fan of the beginning. Nerts. And another person who interpreted it as being said by Henrique. Double nerts. I really like that scene, too. At least the general consensus is that the details of the scene were good, but the juxtaposition of it was not ideal.

[Knightfall]

Well, here I am at last. I’ll split my review into a few separate parts, doing two or three chapters at a time until I’m caught up.

Prologue: 15 Years Ago

“You can stare at it all day, Sammy. It doesn’t do any tricks until you throw it.”

I laughed at this; it sounds exactly what I’d tell my little brother.

“All right, fine. I’m going back home and telling dad you went all catatonic. No friend for you.”

I’ve read ahead some, and now I realize that this foreshadowing is cruelly ironic.

“Noo!” His voice came out with much more whine than he wanted it to, so Sammy swallowed hard and regained himself. “I can do this, Tommy! Don’t tell dad I can’t!” He cursed himself mentally where he knew no one could hear and scold him; he still sounded more whiney than he wanted.

The bolded part doesn’t sound right. I think it should be whinier, though I’m not certain.

On the weekends when they were at home playing video games while dad was at work, Sammy would ask why he didn’t just go out on a date with one of those girls instead, but Tommy’s answer was always just to laugh and say the same thing. ‘Sammy, you’d burn the house down if I wasn’t here!’.

Nothing wrong here, it just sounds like another appropriate older sibling response.

The image of Miah shocked in silence turned to a image of him laughing like a hyena.

I believe that should be an “an”. Anyways, good imagery there.

Tommy’s outburst of laughter disrupted the thought. “Oh man, you caught a Caterpie. You’re going to be such a bug catcher!” Yes, Sammy thought, that’s apparently what I have to look forward to. “Listen,” Tommy continued, “it’s not so bad. I mean, that little guy wasn’t scared of us, so maybe he knows something we don’t know. But the only way for us to figure that out...”

Another great big brother moment, and with the description of the “Bug Catchers” in the last paragraph, I now feel bad for all of the ones I ruthlessly beat in my FireRed game.

Sammy snapped his attention back to Caterpie so quickly, he felt a nerve pinch in his neck, but shook it off. “No, that’s not...come on! What the heck? You just...run at it and throw your body at it, bug! It’s simplest attack in the world!” The Caterpie just continued staring back at him. “Run! You’ve got, like, a dozen little legs!” The creature went back to its leaf, seemingly bored with what the boy was telling it.

Now this passage was humorous. “You’ve got, like, a dozen little legs!” that was great, and it really shows Sammy’s frustration at his new Pokemon.

“So...that’s what it does? It stinks?” In his head, Miah’s friends were now beating him with plastic bug nets.

Another great line and Sammy’s fear of being beaten by bug nets. You’ve done a great job of making this prologue memorable.

Sammy finally felt an enormous smile paint his face. “So wait. I totally just beat you, right?”

And this is exactly what a typical little brother would say.

Anyways, this prologue was decent. You did an excellent job portraying Sammy’s first capture and battle, and you introduced the main character and his humorous elementary rivalry with Miah.
And though it’s the prologue, you also introduced Tommy pretty well. He seems like a caring big brother, and a good battler.
Not too many mistakes that I was able to find, and considering that you’ve had multiple people reviewing this story, I’m not surprised that I found so few.

Chapter 1: Present Day

He snatched the Dusk Ball off of the other side of his belt and squeezed it lightly. An Ninetales emerged from the flash of crimson energy.

I think the bolded should be an “a”, it doesn’t sound correct to me as it is. Though maybe that’s some sort of little known grammar rule I’m not familiar with yet. : )

“Does it feel good to be out of your ball, Vlam?”

And there’s the plot twist. When I first read this, it compelled me to read on, because I wanted to know why Tommy was without his prized Vlam. So good job on that.
Overall, this was another good chapter. Though a bit compressed for my tastes (you know how I write), but not lacking in detail or description at all. The only thing is was lacking in is mistakes, and that’s great.

Chapter 2: Twelve Years Ago

Sammy was so into the moment, he never paid any mind to the man who finally came down the aisle and took the seat next to him. Sammy’s senses were ensnared by the battle; Vlam was lining up her enemy for a flamethrower, and Machoke was certainly about to go down.

We see some more of Tommy, it looks like he is an exceptional battler, and gives us the impression that was his future.

“Samuel Stark?” the man next to Sammy said, oddly enough like it was a question.

“It’s about time you got here, dad. You’ve been missing Tommy’s first ever quarterfinals. You’re lucky he didn’t realize you were late. Even luckier that I’m not going to break his heart and tell him.”

The man’s arm reached out to Sammy’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, son. I’m not your father.”

This puzzles me, how would he not know his own father’s voice? Maybe it was because he was paying close attention to the battle that he didn’t notice?

Officer Trufant rubbed his mouth with his hand. “He was pulling out of the hospital and was involved in an automobile collision with a tractor trailer. He was thrown...,” the officer stopped there and seemed to reconsider what he was about to say. “It just doesn’t look very good. You and your brother need to come with me to see him. We’ve arranged for an escort for the both of you, and several of my fellow officers are outside waiting for us.”

I have a family member who was involved in a car crash (they’re fine), but when you first get the news it makes your heart stop wondering if they’re alright.

“He didn’t make it, I’m sorry. He passed just a few minutes ago.”

Sammy’s initial thought--a thought he would regret countless times over the next several months--was that he cost his brother the tournament for nothing. It was immediately replaced with the realization that he and his brother were alone now. Mom died of cancer when Sammy was three, and now dad was gone, too. Tommy was all he had left.

That’s horrible, though it makes for good plot development. Now that Tommy’s his only family left, it makes sense that he would go through such extreme measures to help him.

Another good chapter, you wrote the battle scene very well, even though it wasn’t the main focus of the chapter. I also liked the detail you put into Sammy’s mind while in the police cruiser. Denying that his dad was really in critical condition and that it was all some sort of prank, very well written.

Not much criticism from me, I’d surprised I found anything even remotely wrong with this.
I’m working on the review for the next few chapters, sorry this one took so long to actually post, life got in the way.

Knightfall signing off…

[Sid87]

Chapter 12

Sam had nothing. He had no words or thoughts or actions. His brain was preoccupied with processing what the President of the Phoenix Shipping Corporation had just said. Just when it seemed like he was on the verge of accepting it, something inside him replied “No. No, that can’t be right” and forced him to reconsider it. Barry having had the lake guardians all this time? It was inconceivable. Implausible, even.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Barry answered Mr. Alonzo’s claim. And he couldn’t have known. There was just no way he had the legends. None.

“He doesn’t know,” Sam agreed, but his voice was so tiny, he wasn’t sure if Barry or Mr. Alonzo even heard him.

“Mr. West,” Henrique smiled softly, “my company and my people and I have been here in Sinnoh for months. We’ve examined every inch of those lakes. We’re relatively sure the legends aren’t there. The only reason we’ve still been excavating the areas is to look for signs of their current whereabouts. But when we realized they were missing, we started digging in a different fashion: we asked around. Most people...well, most people still don’t even believe the legends are real. They think that they are just a nice fairytale to tell their children at bedtime; a simple tale of powerful, benevolent pokemon who’ve inspired the human race. But some people do believe in them. And some of those people started telling us rumors they’d heard.”

Barry was unflinching. “Well, rumors. I guess if you’ve heard some rumors then there’s no way you could be refuted--”

“We started hearing about the Church of Cyrus.”

Barry’s left eye twitched, and he suddenly lost the ability to response to what Mr. Alonzo had said. Sam thought he heard a grunt coming from Barry’s clenched mouth.

“Yes, that. We know about that. And, what’s more, Mr. West, we know that after that affair, you and Professor Rowan hid the legends to protect them. Now, I would never blame you for that, son.” Mr. Alonzo placed an arm around Barry’s shoulders; Barry’s face recoiled at the act, but he did not physically resist it. Sam wished he knew--he needed to know--what Barry was thinking. “You and Professor Rowan did an admirable thing then. But I’m not them. I’m not those men. I just told you why I want the legends. It’s not even that I ‘want’ them--I shouldn’t have said it like that--I think the world needs them. I think the world is owed them. There is so much good that they can do.”

“And I told you,” Barry finally replied, his voice throatier than Sam had heard it before, “that they don’t belong to humanity.”

Wait, what? That didn’t make any sense to Sam; why wasn’t Barry shooting down the rumors about this Cyrus church thing? Why had his argument regressed to being about who the legends do or do not belong to? This guy had just accused Barry and the professor of some massive conspiracy, and Barry was letting it go. Barry and Mr. Alonzo were still debating just feet from Sam, but his ears weren’t processing the sound of their words. There was no reason for Barry to ignore the more important accusation there. Unless...

“You son of a bitch.”

Henrique and Barry both froze mid-sentence and turned towards Sam. Their widened eyes showed that each man thought Sam’s quiet accusation was referring to him. Sam’s sense of reason fled him, and he charged Barry. As his shoulder drove into the young assistant’s stomach and crashed them both through the door to his cabin, Sam thought he heard Mr. Alonzo let out an exclamation of shock. It didn’t matter. All that mattered was what Barry knew. His legs continued driving himself and Barry several feet from the door before finally slamming Barry down to the snow-covered ground. He dug his fingers into Barry’s wild blonde hair to hold him in place.

“Son of a bitch!” Sam was much louder this time. “You knew the whole time!”

“Sam! My head! Stop--”

“Do you know? Tell me the truth!”

Barry cried out in pain again. “I know! I know, okay! Let me go, and we can talk--”

Sam’s rage deepened at Barry’s confession, and he moved his hands down to Barry’s face, grabbing at the skin around his eyes and nose and mouth. “You saved my life! You pulled me out of that lake! And for what? So you could lie to me some more? So you could keep me from them?” His fingernails dug into Barry’s skin.

Sam felt Barry’s hand moving around down by both of their legs and realized the young man was going for one of his pokemon to help remove him from the situation. Sam let Barry grab onto one of his pokeballs just so he could swat it out of Barry’s hand and helplessly into the snow.

“No!” Sam shouted. “This is about us, not them! You damn liar! You saved my life; for what? So I can go back to my brother and tell him I can’t help him? So I can tell him I let him down? So I can say those words and know he can’t even hear them? Is that why you saved me? You should have just let me die!”

Sam was shocked by the words that came out of his mouth. He had been yelling on instinct and adrenaline, and that’s what spilled forth. He felt the tears on his cheeks and couldn’t even remember when he’d started crying. “You should have just let me die,” he repeated as the strength left his body and he rolled off of Barry. As he lay face-up in the cushiony snow, all he could think about was Tommy. Lifeless Tommy was stuck in his hospital bed with no one there to be with him, and Sam had been continents away, running around and trying to solve other peoples’ problems. And those other people had no intention of helping Sam; they were using him and feeding off of his need to help his brother. Leeches, that was all they were. He put his hands over his face to wipe away the tears.

“Gentlemen! Mr. West! Mr. Stark! Are you both okay? This...this is not what I wanted. Do I need to call for help? Is anyone hurt?”

“I think...I think I fractured my spleen. But I should be okay. I think. It hurts clear through to my soul, though. Ow.” Barry’s voice seemed to be coming from above Sam, and Sam figured that must have meant Barry had pulled himself up to his feet. So Barry must not have sustained any serious injury when Sam tackled him. A voice in his brain asked why he cared about that, and Sam had no answer for it. He opened his eyes and saw Barry standing over him, extending an open hand. “Come on, I’ll help you up.”

No, Sam thought. He would not accept any more “help” from this kid. He reached up and slapped Barry’s hand away before regaining enough composure to put himself back upright.

“Mr. Stark? Are you all right?”

Sam ignored Mr. Alonzo; he had nothing to say to him at the moment. He instead walked a few feet away and plucked Barry’s pokeball out of the snow.

“Thanks, I guess. Sam, we can talk about this.”

Sam shoved the ball into Barry’s chest. “Let it out.”

“What? Why?”

“Let them all out.” Sam pulled his own Nest, Dusk, and Luxury balls from his pocket.

“What is this?”

Sam looked over to Mr. Alonzo and decided to answer his question this time. “This is my wanting to kick his teeth down his throat but knowing he’s not even a legal adult yet.” He squeezed Bree’s ball once with his right hand and did likewise to the balls of Vlam and Chispa in his left, bringing all three of them out into the snow. “Do it!” he shouted to Barry.

“Man, Sam...I didn’t mean to trick you.”

“Oh?” Sam laughed openly, “please, tell me how you tricked me by accident then, Barry.”

Barry winced at those words and must have realized that was a stupid thing to say. He shook his head and raised his arms to release Monferno, Torterra, and Empleon. The new Empleon was an impressive sight to Sam. It was at least three feet taller than Prinplup had been, and the yellow crests that had previously wrapped back across its head now extended up in the air from its forehead, forming a vicious trident. Its once blue body was now black, and it seemed to shine when it shifted its weight under the sun as if it was covered in a light metal. As a Prinplup, this pokemon had been powerful enough to flip a cargo ship, and Sam knew he would not wise to underestimate it now.

“Are you battling with Chispa?” Barry asked him as Sam studied Emploeon. “I thought you said you weren’t ever going to do that.”

The words reignited the rage he’d felt moments ago. “You’re going to talk to me about honesty and integrity? You? Now?” While Chispa bounced contentedly in the snow, Vlam and Bree turned to Sam, perhaps upset at the fire in his voice. Bree hummed softly, but Sam ignored it. He could tell them what Barry had done later.

“What’s the point of this, Sam? What we are even accomplishing here?”

“You’ll see when I’m done.”

“Yeah? Well, life is full of disappointments.”

The words stuck in Sam’s ear and reminded him of something someone told him fairly recently. “Your professor once told me that life is full of changes in plans. Right before he sent me out to look for something that he knew wasn’t even there. Like an idiot! While my brother,” Sam’s fists balled as the full meaning of what Rowan told him washed over him, “is drooling on himself and dying! So you tell me...the fact that you won’t help me save him, is that a bigger disappointment or change of plan?”

“Damn it, Sam.”

Sam looked over his friends. Vlam and Bree had turned their attention back to Barry’s team; he saw Vlam’s muscles tensing under her fur and recognized the purpose with which Bree beat her wings. Chispa was burying her head in the snow and shaking it roughly to move the snow about, clearly unconcerned with the goings-on around her. “Bree, up in the air! Vlam, quick attack Monferno!”

Vlam’s quick attack was usually just short of a blur to the eye, but for some reason--perhaps the thick snow up to her knees; perhaps concern for Sam’s attitude and temper--she was a beat slower than usual. As she came upon Monferno, this slowed reaction allowed the fire ape to catch her and flip into the snow with a judo throw. Vlam tried to get up, but Monferno was on quickly on top of her and holding her in place.

“Empoleon, hit the Ninetales with a hydro pump!”

“Bree, you have to come down and free Vlam! Use a psychic attack on Monerno!”

Bree began zipping out of the sky to help her sister, but she was interrupted by a flurry of leaves slicing through the air in front of her. Torterra had summoned a razor leaf attack to cut off her progress, and while she was able to avoid contact by flying up and away from the blade-like leaves, she was incapable of getting to Vlam’s aid. It was apparent to Sam that while the fight was essentially three-against-two, he was in trouble. Just feet from where Vlam was pinned, a geyser of water erupted, spraying water, snow, and mud all around. Just as it had previously done on the ship with the seawater, Empoleon was manipulating water pressure around it, this time from underground run-off. It was an extremely powerful burst of water, but seemingly hard to control. Still, Sam knew it was unlikely that Empoleon would miss a second time. He needed to get Chispa involved somehow.

“Chispa! Can you hit that Empoleon with a spark attack for me, girl?”

The Shinx lifted her head out of a snow pile she had built and rubbed the excess flakes off of her nose with a paw. She yipped in apparent delight at Sam’s decision to use her and charged through the snow towards her target with her tail shooting off tiny bursts of electricity. As she closed in on Barry’s water-type, she flipped sideways and smacked her tail into Empoleon’s leg; it let out a noise that seemed more annoyed than pained. Chispa darted to the space between Emploeon and Vlam and spread its feet wide as it yelped repeatedly at the large penguin, warning it away from her friend. Even Empoleon seemed shocked by the heart of the young pokemon. In an instant, however, Chispa’s yelping ended, and she began looking around as if something were wrong. Something had gotten her attention, but Sam couldn’t figure out what it could have been.

“Oh no, damn it. Monferno, save the Shinx, buddy!”

Sam had no idea what Barry was talking about, but Monferno bounced off of Vlam and pushed Chispa from the spot she had claimed. As Chispa rolled in the snow, another hydro pump erupted from underneath Monferno, knocking him several yards into the air. He crashed back to the ground with a thud.

“Monferno, sorry. Come on back.” Barry recalled the fire-type into his pokeball.

What was that supposed to be, Sam thought. Was Sam supposed to be thankful now because Barry had saved Chispa? Was that supposed to somehow make up for the fact that he had doomed Tommy? Not even close. The mere thought of it incensed Sam; did that kid really think that Sam would call the battle off if he saved Sam’s friend?

Chispa struggled to her feet--seemingly more confused than actually hurt--and Sam withdrew her as Barry had done to Monferno. The battle was even again at two each, and it just made sense; Chispa was clearly out of her weight class, anyway. Sam saw Bree still dodging razor leaves in the air and decided to go on the offensive.

“Bree, use your stun spores on Torterra!”

“Sam, are we really keeping this up? You beat one of mine already. Let’s just call it.”

Sam felt a twitching in the back of his neck. Was beating one of Barry’s friends in battle going to bring Tommy back? Of course not. “Ignore him and do it, Bree!”

In the air, Bree backflipped away from another flurry of leaves and began vibrating her wings at high speed. A fine layer of scales broke free from her wings as she did so and floated to the ground beneath her.

“Torterra, disrupt that spore with more razor leaves!” Barry ordered, sounding clearly frustrated. On command, Torterra unleashed another attack of precision leaves from the tree sprouting on its back right into the heart of the stun spore; the leaves knocked the shedded scales helplessly into the breeze. Fortunately, Torterra taking its eyes off of Bree was exactly what Sam had wanted all along.

“It lost you, Bree! Bug buzz!”

Bree, who used the momentary distraction of the stun spore to sneak in close to Torterra, zipped frantically around the large tortoise’s head. While flying in a crazed pattern, she shrieked a high-frequency pitch. Something about the sound did seem to be causing Torterra great agony; it lowered its head and tried in vain to cover its ears with its massive, yet unwieldy, legs. Frustrated and in agony from its failure to protect itself from the Butterfree’s assault, it let out a pitiful roar. Bree seemed to have the situation well in-hand until a fast-moving dart of water crashed into her wings, sending her crashing to the ground.

Sam glanced over; he had been so engaged in Bree and Torterra that he had temporarily forgotten Vlam and Empoleon. “Vlam!" he called out to his brother's closest friend, “tackle Empoleon!"

“Aqua jet!"

Vlam charged, but she was caught by a similar dart of water from Empoleon's beak and easily tossed back to the ground. Sam bit his lower lip and cursed; he knew Vlam was in trouble due to Empoleon's being water-based. Bree would have to help out against it. “Bree..."

Sam began issuing a command, but when he turned to see Bree, he saw that Torterra was pinning it to the ground with its powerful front leg. The same legs that had been so useless at blocking out Bree’s bug buzz were much more potent when it came to holding the significantly smaller butterfly pokemon in place.

Barry was saying something--probably offering Sam a chance to surrender or calm down--but Sam was already analyzing the situation and had his voice shut out almost entirely. With both Empoleon's pure power and type advantage over Vlam and Torterra's positioning over Bree, both battles seemed all-but over. Sam knew that there was always an opening if he just looked hard enough; Vlam and Bree were too good to be completely overpowered. What would he have done during his days in the WPL? What would Tommy do in this situation?

Two aspects of the situation jumped out to him so abruptly, he wanted to smack his head for not seeing them before. Torterra had Bree grounded and pinned, but in doing so, its head was perilously close to Bree's. And while Empoleon may have been water-based, but its body had that metallic shimmer to it now; it had evolved into a steel coating. In most situations, that would be beneficial and protective, but against Vlam, it was a huge chink in the literal armor.

“Bree, supersonic!”

Sam’s friend let out another strange shriek, this one even higher in pitch than the buzz attack had been. Torterra stumbled back from the noise and started shaking its head. With its third step backwards, it fell over onto its knees; Bree’s supersonic cry had been so loud at their closed-distance that it probably did some kind of inner-ear damage to the Torterra. It clearly could not regain its bearings as Bree lifted itself back off the ground.

“Empoleon, aqua jet the Butterfree again!”

Sam waited until Empoleon turned all the way around and positioned its weight to launch the water dart. He had it where Vlam wanted it.

“Vlam, fire blast!”

Vlam’s tilted her head back, then stretched it forward in a shot. An orb of fire flared from her mouth, gaining size and power as it combusted with the oxygen in the air. Despite the fireball’s intensity, it was possible that Empoleon would have been able to neutralize it with a water attack, but now that it was turned away from Vlam, it would have no chance to get the leverage it needed to launch an attack powerful enough to do so. The fire attack collided with Empoleon’s side, and the water bird squawked in pain. The flames were heating up its metal exterior, no doubt causing great agony. Barry recognized this immediately and summoned it back into its pokeball.

All that was left was the debilitated Torterra, and Sam felt a part of himself ache at the pain he just caused the Empoleon; it wasn’t these pokemons’ fault for what Barry had done, so it was not fair to take the rage Sam felt inside himself out on them. He held out an open hand, palm down, and waved twice in the air. Recognizing their symbol, Bree positioned herself over the grass-based turtle and let off another dusting of scales from its wings. The scales covered Torterra’s body and head, and within seconds, it was asleep from Bree’s sleep powder.

“All right, did you get that out of your system then?” Barry asked, withdrawing Torterra from the snow.

Sam, moving quickly towards Barry, had no intention of dignifying that question with answer. All he knew was that with every word Barry had said, the inside of his head felt hotter and hotter. He knocked the pokeballs out of Barry’s hands and picked them up from the snow while his former partner issued a cry in protest.

“How does it feel to have something you love taken from you?”

“You’re just--”

“Yeah. I am.” Sam pressed his chest against Barry‘s and glared into his eyes.

Barry was as unblinking as he was. “Sam, I know you’re pissed at me, but you gotta just talk this out with me. You’re really on the wrong side of this one.”

“Gentlemen, are you both done? I truly didn’t mean for anything like this to happen.”

Until Mr. Alonzo’s voice cut into Sam’s ears, Sam had completely forgotten he was even there. He had tunnel-visioned in on Barry and the deception of which he’d been a victim, and the rest of the world had vanished. Mr. Alonzo saw the whole thing; anybody else in eyeshot of the cabin did, too. Sam noticed a handful of skiers paused on the slope and looking down on the scene, and he gave Barry one more look of disgust before pocketing the taken pokeballs. “I’m done. I’m done. I’m....I guess I’m sorry about the door. I hope that it’s nothing too bad for you.”

Mr. Alonzo looked back to the cabin’s busted door. “I am sure I can cover that. But what happens now?”

Sam looked from Mr. Alonzo to Barry and then back to Mr. Alonzo. “Do you really think you can use the legends to help people?”

“Man, Sam, don’t...”

“I do, Mr. Stark. You heard what I said, and I meant that. There are pokemon in the world that can fix so much of what’s wrong with the human condition.”

Sam saw Barry shaking his head but no longer refuting anything Henrique Alonzo was saying. When Barry realized that Sam’s eyes were on him, he looked down at the snow. He never stopped shaking his head. Sam didn’t personally care about the “human condition”, as Mr. Alonzo called it. But Tommy? He cared very much for Tommy, and if this man from Hoenn could help him bring Tommy back, that was all that mattered.

“Get him home,” Sam said, pointing to Barry. “He lives in Twinleaf Town. Just see that he gets home from here.”

Mr. Alonzo looked over at Barry and scrunched his lips. “I suppose I can do that, yes.” Barry was still shaking his head, but he did not look up. “What are you going to do now?”

Sam sighed. “I’m not sure yet. But I know that for as mad as I am at him, Barry’s just a kid...just an assistant. So there’s somebody else who owes me some real answers before I make my next move.”

[diamondpearl876]

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Barry answered Mr. Alonzo’s claim. And he couldn’t have known. There was just no way he had the legends. None.

Well, Barry’s talking differently, so that can’t be good! Good job editing his dialogue based on the situation.

“No!” Sam shouted. “This is about us, not them! You damn liar! You saved my life; for what? So I can go back to my brother and tell him I can’t help him? So I can tell him I let him down? So I can say those words and know he can’t even hear them? Is that why you saved me? You should have just let me die!”

This line really shows how angry Sam is, and also how desperate he is to help Tommy. He’d rather die than not be able to help him? A distinguishing character trait for sure.

He opened his eyes and Saw Barry standing over him, extending an open hand. “Come on, I’ll help you up.”

“Saw” shouldn’t be capitalized.

Bree began zipping out of the sky to help her sister, but she was interrupted by a flurry of leaves slicing through the air in front of her.

I like the idea of them considering each other sisters. Nice touch.

Sam sighed. “I’m not sure yet. But I know that for as mad as I am at him, Barry’s just a kid...just an assistant. So there’s somebody else who owes me some real answers before I make my next move.”

Someone’s gonna have a lot of explaining to do.

Overall, a good chapter packed with a lot of emotion and action, action that even further emphasized the emotions you were trying to convey. My only complaint is that Barry and Sam didn’t seem to be too close to have as much as an impact as it could have. So if you had revealed this much later in the fic it might have been a bigger impact. That might just be me, though. Nevertheless this chapter was pertinent to the overall fic and gave development in all areas so I look forward to seeing more.

[Sid87]

Well, Barry’s talking differently, so that can’t be good! Good job editing his dialogue based on the situation.

This line really shows how angry Sam is, and also how desperate he is to help Tommy. He’d rather die than not be able to help him? A distinguishing character trait for sure.

“Saw” shouldn’t be capitalized.

I like the idea of them considering each other sisters. Nice touch.

Someone’s gonna have a lot of explaining to do.

Overall, a good chapter packed with a lot of emotion and action, action that even further emphasized the emotions you were trying to convey. My only complaint is that Barry and Sam didn’t seem to be too close to have as much as an impact as it could have. So if you had revealed this much later in the fic it might have been a bigger impact. That might just be me, though. Nevertheless this chapter was pertinent to the overall fic and gave development in all areas so I look forward to seeing more.

I was wondering if anyone was going to catch that. If you actually go back to chapter 5 (or wherever they met) and follow the time line to chapter 12...Barry and Sam have only known each other for about a week. It feels like longer, but it hasn't been. Heh. I do think they've been through a lot together, so their relationship should be somewhat seasoned past its duration, but still...it has been brief. I kinda put myself on the spot, though, by introducing Henrique Alonzo when I did, and it didn't feel right for the characters to leave town without talking to him. It will probably lead to my changing the second half of the story a bit, but I can live with that.

[diamondpearl876]

I was wondering if anyone was going to catch that. If you actually go back to chapter 5 (or wherever they met) and follow the time line to chapter 12...Barry and Sam have only known each other for about a week. It feels like longer, but it hasn't been. Heh. I do think they've been through a lot together, so their relationship should be somewhat seasoned past its duration, but still...it has been brief. I kinda put myself on the spot, though, by introducing Henrique Alonzo when I did, and it didn't feel right for the characters to leave town without talking to him. It will probably lead to my changing the second half of the story a bit, but I can live with that.

Whatever you have to do! It was still a powerful scene with your writing, it just wasn't the best timing, 'tis all. I'm sure you'll have more awesome twists like this in the future.

[katiekitten]

Mr. Alonzo tilted his head down and smiled. Slowly, he shook his head a few times as if he were pardoning himself from engaging in a verball battle with Barry. "I see your point of view, Mr. West, don't get me wrong. And I also get that you must feel very confident in expressing it. After all, you and Professor Rowan have had the legendary pokemon of Sinnoh hidden away and protected for quite some time now, haven't you?"

...What a twist! x33 I feel like I should've seen it coming, with Barry insisting they immediately move on to follow the corporation people rather than continuing the search, but it caught me completely by surprise! x3 Lovely to have you back, by the way - hope the wife-y is good! x3

The exposition was really interesting, as well! x3 I really enjoyed your interpretation of the history. :3

And the battle in the next chapter - very well written, the confrontation between Sam and Barry especially. Was almost poignant, for despite how little actual time they've spent together, it's been some jam packed days...! I quite like the ambiguity, as well, of exactly where Sam stands in the more typical 'good-evil' struggle between the corporation and Barry-Elm - the moral ambiguity of all sides, really. x3 He really isn't on any ones side except his own - and his brothers. It leads to an intriguing and unpredictable plot. :3

Lovely, generally, m'dear!