A Bit Of Trouble [Poochyena]

Pokemon attempting to catch: Poochyena
Character Count: 6,744
Word Count: 1,287

It was a few weeks after I got my Growlithe that I encountered the Pokemon who would become the next member of my team.

It happened quite on accident. Enya, my new Growlithe, Lyra, my Sylveon, were walking down Scissor Street. I had just taken them all to get groomed, other than Chance, my Charizard, for obvious reasons. Aaliyah, my Pikachu, had gotten groomed as well, but she preferred to stay in her Pokeball while we traveled. In all honesty, Enya probably wasn’t ready to be groomed yet, as I had only gotten her a few weeks before. Even so, she did surprisingly well, not showing much discomfort while it happened.

In fact, we were just about to head to a local diner to get everyone a treat for being so good. I didn’t have much money — I never did — but I did have enough to at least get treats this time around. We had been doing well with battles, and therefore had been getting more money from winning them. So I could afford a night out.
Just as we were rounding a corner to get to the local diner, I saw something in an alleyway that made me stop.

A skinny dog-like creature was digging through the trash, snapping up half of a sandwich in its mouth and gobbling it down without stopping. I recognized it as a Poochyena, and from my side Enya started growling.

“Quiet,” I ordered her. By now, the Poochyena had stopped digging through the trash and was now looking at us intently, ears pricked and nose twitching. It didn’t seem to show much fear as it looked at us, tilting its head and then twitching its ears.

“Hey there little guy… or girl, whatever it is you are,” I said, starting to crouch down and put out my hand. The Poochyena wagged its tail slowly, approaching me with its head down. It got closer and closer, until its nose was nearly touching my outstretched hand.

It was then that Enya pounced forward, getting between me and the Poochyena and snarling. Before I could stop her, she had lunged forward and grabbed the Poochyena by the leg, shaking her head back and forth while she snarled.

I managed to yell out “Enya, stop!” and the Growlithe paused for a moment, which gave the Poochyena time to wriggle free and take off down the alley.

I shot a dirty look at Enya, who put her tail between her legs and looked down as if she was ashamed. She should be, I thought bitterly. She had probably just ruined my chance at adding another member to our team. But why had she done it? Enya was relatively shy and reserved. I had never seen her act out like that before.

“Come on, let’s go get dinner,” I sighed, pushing myself up off of the ground and motioning for my two Pokemon to follow me. I cast one last forlorn look in the direction of where the Poochyena had run off in, before starting back down the street.

—

We ate dinner in the diner, and I made sure to put extra food in a bag for Chance and Aaliyah once we got to a place where I could let them out. We all managed to eat well that night, except for Enya. She seemed to sense that I was mad at her — Pokemon are incredibly intuitive creatures, after all — and didn’t want to eat much. Lyra ended up getting a good bit of her food.

Afterward, I put Enya back in her ball. I decided that would be the best course of action for now, but I kept Lyra out. Lyra was registered as an Emotional Support Pokemon, so she was allowed to go wherever I went, and I rarely felt comfortable with putting her in her Pokeball. I always felt safer with her beside me.

We walked by the alley where I first saw the Poochyena, and I paused. I hesitated for only a moment, and then dug into the bag of food I had brought with me from the diner. I pulled out the half of my hamburger I hadn’t eaten, and I walked over to the trash cans where the Poochyena had been digging around. I set it down on the ground and then backed off, hoping that maybe it would come back to eat.

“I’m sorry,” I murmured quietly, even though I knew the Pokemon couldn’t hear me.

Then I got back up, called Lyra to my side, and started the walk back to the Pokemon Center where we were staying for the night.

—

The next morning, I took all of the Pokemon to a field nearby the center where we were staying. I thought it would be good to let them all get out and stretch their legs, including Enya, though I was still mad at her. So I let them all out of their Pokeballs and let them run around as they pleased.

Aaliyah, being the quiet and reserved creature she was, preferred to stay close to me and Lyra, who was sunning herself next to me. We were both sitting on the ground, watching as Chance curiously chased Enya around, trying to get to know the much smaller creature.

Just as the two of them were starting to playfully tussle, I was suddenly alerted by Lyra, who stood up and let a few of her light calls drift through the air. I looked over in the direction she was looking in, and my eyes widened when I saw what she was looking at.

It was the Poochyena, standing there on three of its legs. The fourth leg — the one Enya had bitten — was held off of the ground as it limped towards me, whining softly. It looked like it was in pain, and just as I was getting up, so too did Enya notice the Poochyena.

Fearing she would attack, I reached for the Pokeball on my belt, not wanting either of them to get hurt. But this time, Enya didn’t approach the Poochyena with hostility. Instead, her head and tail were down low, and her tail was wagging slowly. She whined softly as she approached, and the Poochyena stared at her, tilting its head again.

As she approached, she dropped down to her belly, sliding forward on the grass towards the Poochyena. Once she got within a few inches of the other Pokemon, she rolled over onto her back and showed her belly in a clear sign of submission.

The Poochyena sniffed her over critically, and then sneezed, backing away from her. Enya whined again as she got up, but this time it sounded more like a thank you whine than an upset whine. I couldn’t help but smile — was she trying to make up for injuring the Poochyena before? It certainly seemed like it to me.

As Enya turned to walk away, apparently satisfied with what she’d done, the Poochyena turned to hobble closer to me. It was still whining with pain, and staying off of the injured leg, hobbling on three legs over to me.

“It’s alright, I’ll take care of you,” I soothed the injured Pokemon as I reached for one of the small balls on my belt. I tapped it to enlarge it as I carefully made my way over to the Poochyena. Once I was within reach, I tapped it on the forehead of the Pokemon, and it was sucked into the ball in a beam of warm red light.

“Now to get you to a Pokemon Center,” I mumbled, looking down at the ball in my hands.

It was then that we had found the fifth member of our team.

 

Claiming this one before someone [read: Magikchicken] snipes it.

 

@Luck Gandor : Done!

I’m going to focus on two aspects of your story today. I thought that your conversational voice and your character development were both strong, and I’d like to give you some tips to help develop them as you dip into more stories.

Your narration style was smooth and made this story easy to read. It felt like I was listening to you telling me a story, rather than reading one. You used the same style, subtly, throughout the story, which makes it hard to point to specific places where it was successful. I can, however, offer one example of an area where you could have used different word choices to fit the conversational style, to show you what I liked by juxtaposition.

This is the first sentence of the story, and I’d like to bring up a few points. At first I was confused, because I thought there must be a Part 1 where you caught Growlithe. I wasn’t able to find one, however (and I assume it doesn’t exist). After thinking about it for a little while, though, I realized I like the way you started the story with that detail. It sounds like you’ve just jumped into a conversation with me. It’s almost as though I had just asked, “So when did you catch Poochyena?”

That being said, I want to talk about the way you structured these two sentences. Imagine that we really were having a conversation, and I asked you that question. In fact, I’d like you to read it out loud:

I asked you to read these sentences aloud because I think it will help you get a feel for the way they flow together. I think that if I had asked you to tell me about the time you caught Poochyena, you probably would have worded your answer a little differently. In particular, I bet you would have used Poochyena’s name right away: “It was a few weeks after I got my Growlithe that I encountered Poochyena.” By contrast, your original version of the sentence sounds kind of stiff.

I think there are two reasons why you worded this first sentence the way you did. First, it’s more formal—or at least, seems like it would be more formal. Secondly, it maintains a little mystery about what’s going to happen in the story and who you’re going to meet. In this case, however, revealing the new Pokémon at the beginning wouldn’t detract from the story at all. Your story’s strengths come from the interactions between the characters and your generally smooth writing style. In fact, putting Poochyena right in the first sentence would contribute to those qualities. It would have made that first sentence sound a little smoother, and it would have been an even clearer sign of who’s important in the story.

Overall

Whew, I said a whole lot about a single sentence, huh? I think that's more than enough for now. Overall, I think you did a really nice job with this story, and I don't want to overwhelm you on your first grade. The main takeaway here is that I would encourage you to read your stories out loud to yourself when you proofread. It should help you to identify places where you've worded things a little awkwardly, so that you can make the whole story read well. Since you did such a great job creating a narrative where it actually feels like you're telling me a story, finding those kinks and ironing them out is really important.

I look forward to reading your next URPG story. For now, however, Poochyena captured!

 

Thank you so very much for the in-depth grade! I'll try to remember that next time I write ^^ thank you again!