A Cave Walk

Author: Pman
Pokemon: After a Machop
Status: Re-submitted below
Length: 5,475

Authors Note:

This isn't actually part of the story, just something I'm hoping will become a regular part of my stories. A place to say where i got my inspiration from and why I've written what i have. I started out with the aim of a typical walk out and find the pokemon you want to catch but half way through the writing process, i solved the final ruins of alph puzzle, that lead the story off in an entirely new direction but did reduce the amount of time Machop could actually be in the story.

Story:

Sitting resolutely by the side of the road, looking at the hole in the rock wall with my Pokemon by my side, I was waiting for my best friend George. He was late as usual; it was one of his greater faults. I’d never met anyone else capable of being over an hour late to their own birthday party because they’d slept in.

I was starting to consider entering the cave alone when George finally did turn up, his red hair flapping in the breeze. My Abra was staring at him impatiently; it had always been one to act quickly and it especially hated waiting around. Together we set off through the cave mouth, both with different aims, George wanted to catch a Geodude, as for myself, a Machop seemed like a nice Pokemon to have.

It was pitch black in the cave so Georges’ Butterfree, named Buttercup, used Flash. This allowed us to see where we where going and navigate the cave with no serious risk of injury. It also revealed that the cave walls were damp, covered in a thin layer of moss and that there was a surprising amount of Zubat faeces on the ground.

It wasn’t long before George came across his desired Geodude, Looking so very like a boulder, Geodude are renowned for their slow speed and ability to camouflage, this one was no different although it was a bit more yellow than normal, like it was made of sandstone.

George started by getting Buttercup to use Flash, the Geodude responded with Mud Sport. To me, the use of Mud Sport made no sense, why would a ground type Pokemon need to reduce the power of electric type moves? Why could Geodude even learn Mud Sport?

The second turn of the battle went in much the same way, although Geodude used Rock Polish to boost its speed instead of Mud Sport. Turn three is where things got interesting, Buttercup used Sleep Powder and Geodude just slept through its chance a moving.

George quickly switched Buttercup for His Umbreon, easily the best of the evolutions of Eevee in his mind, I personally disagreed. The Geodude continued to sleep as Umbreon used Faint Attack twice leaving the Geodude in a critical condition. This was looking good for George as he pulled out a Pokeball.

George threw the Pokeball and the Geodude was enclosed, the ball rocked once, twice, three times and the Geodude came bursting back out, “unlucky”, said I as the Geodude woke up and used magnitude managing to score a measly four. Umbreon survived the attack almost effortlessly but had to be restrained by George, “Don’t knock it out Umbreon, I need to catch this thing”, he exclaimed pulling out a second Pokeball, this time he was successful.

We wandered around the cave for another hour or so picking up various items, some useful, some not so useful. I noticed a faint glow coming from our right and went to investigate, forgetting to tell George what I was doing.

I found myself in a strange room with bright halogen lights and a puzzle on the wall, I looked closely at the puzzle but wasn’t sure what it could be of so I started to solve it. Each piece was arduous and there were hundreds of them. Solving the puzzle took several hours and when I finally had, the end result looked like nothing I’d ever seen.
I fell through the floor and landed in a large hall full of statues of Pokemon, there was a high vaulted ceiling with a single small hole which I’d fallen through and a man down the other end having some Machop help him place the statues.

I limped down the hall, injured from my fall toward the man; maybe he could tell me where I was and how to get back to George who must surely have been worried about me by then. The man was a tanned individual with long black hair which made him look rather dishevelled; his weathered skin didn’t help either. He had an air of mystery about him but his Pokemon seemed to love him.

The man explained to me that if I followed the hall round the corner and travelled north, I’d find another entrance to the cave I’d originally come through then he sent me on my way. His instructions were accurate and I soon found myself back in the cave, unfortunately with no way of lighting it up however. As I stumbled around in the dark, I tripped over a Machop. Here was my chance to catch the Machop I’d been aiming for all day.

I sent out my Abra to start proceedings, “Abra, use Thunder Punch”, I screamed. The attack hit square on the jaw of the Machop, the Machop replied with Seismic Toss. Abra was way underpowered for this battle, despite the type advantage it held.


I had no choice but to send in my Beldum and order it to use Take Down. A critical hit and the Machop was starting look in a bad way. Another Seismic Toss and things where looking good for me, I just had to get that thing into a ball. Naturally that was what I attempted, two wobbles and the Pokemon escaped. Machop used Seismic Toss.

Beldum was starting to look a little worse for wear; I probably had one shot left at catching the Machop before it fainted. I threw my ball, I crossed my fingers, I would have turned my head away but I could barely see what was happening anyway, the catch was successful.

I still had to find either George or the exit though; this was a challenge greater than that of catching a simple Machop. I wandered through the dark, bumping into the slimy wall and receiving many bruises as I went. I did this for over and hour, battling Zubat as I went. When I finally heard a familiar voice calling my name, I almost had a Metang. There was George waiting for me and very worried about where I’d gotten to.

 

Claimed

 

Intro: Your intro is a pretty generic one: friends go into a cave/forest/e.t.c. to go find Pokemon. Even though it's not very original, Machop is onlay a simple Pokemon, so it's not a big deal. You established your characters' personalities pretty well, and you described George, but you forgot one big thing: you didn't describe the main character. It becomes easier to remember with practice, but it's something that every grader will notice. When you don't describe your main character, it makes graders wince in pain. Description is good.

Plot: Your plot is pretty simple, but I did like the twist where you solved the puzzle in the Ruins of Alph and fell through the floor. Remember, there's nothing wrong with a simple plot, but graders absolutely love it when you write something unique. In any case, your plot is fine for a simple, or even a medium Pokemon. The only odd thing I noticed, was in the first paragraph, it mentions that George is late for his own birthday party. They're not at a party. They're in a creepy cave. Is that somehow George's party? Does he like to explore caves? Or was that just left over from a different plot that you decided not to use? It was kind of confusing to me.

Dialogue: Your dialogue is pretty choppy, and there are a lot of grammatical errors (but I'll talk about those later). I do find it kind of strange that your character and his friend George don't talk to each other the whole story. They only speak to call ouot attacks to their Pokemon. Is there a reason for this? Is your character mad at George for being late? Are they just naturally quiet people? I'm guessing you wrote this story in a hurry and didn't think about this, but it seems really strange....

Grammar:Annnnnnndddd, here's where the big problems start. You have A LOT of grammatical errors, and places where the words you use don't flow together well. Here's the first offender:

That should be separated into two sentences, and you should add an 'and' before 'as for myself'. It should probably look like this:

You also need to add commas in some places, like here:

You also put an apostrophe in the wrong place, and it might just be a typo, but you spelled feces and were wrong. Here's the entire thing corrected:

Occasionally, you used incorrect punctuation:

Also in that paragraph, you incorrectly used the word renowned. Renowned usually describes a good thing, but you're using it to describe how slow Geodudes are. Here's that paragraph corrected:

I made some of the bigger errors bold so you could see them. There were a few other places you forgot to end a sentence, or left out a word like here:

Here it is corrected:

George started by getting Buttercup to use Flash, and the Geodude responded with Mud Sport. To me, the use of Mud Sport made no sense. Why would a ground type Pokemon need to reduce the power of electric type moves? Why could Geodude even learn Mud Sport?[/quote]

Here's a sentence that confused me:

The problem, was that you never mentioned why he disagreed. You never said what evolution of Eevee he preferred, or why he didn't think Umbreon was the best one. You just went straight back to the battle. When you mention things like that, make sure there's a reason.

You also had some problems with dialogue:

You have to start a new paragraph when you have a new speaker. There are a few other errors in there, so I'll correct all of them.

Over all, your story has a huge amount of grammatical errors in it, and it's hurting your chances of getting your Machop.

Detail: After all that negativity, I'm glad to tell you that you do a good job of describing everything. The only thing you forgot to describe was your MAIN CHARACTER. This is a big deal. Everyone makes this mistake at some point, (including me), but you'll have to learn to do it. If you don't want to describe what he looks like all at once, don't. Make it happen over several paragraphs. Maybe:

"As I was walking, I pushed a piece of (blank) colored hair out of my face."

I left that blank, since I have no idea what color your character's hair is. You did a good job describing everything else though, so good job. Just remember to describe your main character in the future.

Length: Machop is a simple Pokemon, requiring a minimum of 5k. You have 5,475k, so you made it. Good job.

Reality: Your story doesn't have anything happening in it that's unrealistic, so you pass here with flying colors. Good job not having a Clefairy come riding through the cave in a Ferrari.

Personal Feelings: I liked the twist your story had where you entered the Ruins of Alph, but the whole thing felt...rushed. Honestly, I'm going to have to say:

Outcome: Capture...Failed.

Go back and at least fix the grammatical errors I pointed out. There were just to many for me to justify letting you have the Machop right away. You did a pretty good job with the plot and most of the details, so just fix your grammar, and then PM for a regrade. I can't wait to give you your brand new Machop.

 

Author: Pman
Pokemon: After a Machop
Status: needs grading
Length: 5,889


Sitting resolutely by the side of the road, looking at the hole in the rock wall with my Pokemon by my side, I was waiting for my best friend George. He was late as usual; it was one of his greater faults. I’d never met anyone else capable of being over an hour late to their own birthday party because they’d slept in.

I was starting to consider entering the cave alone when George finally did turn up, his red hair flapping in the breeze. My Abra was staring at him impatiently; it had always been one to act quickly and it especially hated waiting around. Together we set off through the cave mouth, both with different aims. George wanted to catch a Geodude, and as for myself, a Machop seemed like a nice Pokemon to have.

It was pitch black in the cave so George’s Butterfree, named Buttercup, used Flash. This allowed us to see where we were going and navigate the cave with no serious risk of injury. It also revealed that the cave walls were damp, covered in a thin layer of moss, and that there was a surprising amount of Zubat faeces* on the ground. The defacatory material was getting all over my bright red shoes.

It wasn’t long before George came across his desired Geodude, Looking so very like a boulder, Geodude are well known for their slow speed and ability to camouflage, this one was no different although it was a bit more yellow than normal, as if it was made of sandstone.

George started by getting Buttercup to use Flash, and the Geodude responded with Mud Sport. To me, the use of Mud Sport made no sense, why would a ground type Pokemon need to reduce the power of electric type moves? Why could Geodude even learn Mud Sport?

The second turn of the battle went in much the same way, although Geodude used Rock Polish to boost its speed instead of Mud Sport. Turn three is where things got interesting, Buttercup used Sleep Powder and Geodude just slept through its chance a moving.

George quickly switched Buttercup for His Umbreon, easily the best of the evolutions of Eevee in his mind, I personally disagreed. Umbreon were known for their ability as a wall, a great defensive Pokémon but useless in attack, that is why Espeon were so much better.
The Geodude continued to sleep as Umbreon used Faint Attack twice leaving the Geodude in a critical condition. This was looking good for George as he pulled out a Pokeball.

George threw the Pokeball and the Geodude was enclosed, the ball rocked once, twice, three times and the Geodude came bursting back out.
“Unlucky”, I said, as the Geodude woke up and used magnitude managing to score a measly four. Umbreon survived the attack almost effortlessly but had to be restrained by George.
“Don’t knock it out Umbreon, I need to catch this thing”, he exclaimed pulling out a second Pokeball, this time he was successful.

We wandered around the cave for another hour or so picking up various items, some useful, some not so useful. I noticed a faint glow coming from our right and went to investigate, forgetting to tell George what I was doing.

I found myself in a strange room with bright halogen lights and a puzzle on the wall, I looked closely at the puzzle but wasn’t sure what it could be of so I started to solve it. Each piece was arduous and there were hundreds of them. Solving the puzzle took several hours and when I finally had, the end result looked like nothing I’d ever seen.
I fell through the floor and landed in a large hall full of statues of Pokemon, there was a high vaulted ceiling with a single small hole which I’d fallen through and a man down the other end having some Machop help him place the statues.

I limped down the hall, injured from my fall toward the man, the odd light playing on my blond hair; maybe he could tell me where I was and how to get back to George who must surely have been worried about me by then. The man was a tanned individual with long black hair which made him look rather dishevelled; his weathered skin didn’t help either. He had an air of mystery about him but his Pokemon seemed to love him.

The man explained to me that if I followed the hall round the corner and travelled north, I’d find another entrance to the cave I’d originally come through then he sent me on my way. His instructions were accurate and I soon found myself back in the cave, unfortunately with no way of lighting it up however. As I stumbled around in the dark, I tripped over a Machop, one of the problems with having large feet. Here was my chance to catch the Machop I’d been aiming for all day.

I sent out my Abra to start proceedings, “Abra, use Thunder Punch”, I screamed. The attack hit square on the jaw of the Machop, the Machop replied with Seismic Toss. Abra was way underpowered for this battle, despite the type advantage it held.


I had no choice but to send in my Beldum and order it to use Take Down. A critical hit and the Machop was starting look in a bad way. Another Seismic Toss and things where looking good for me, I just had to get that thing into a ball. Naturally that was what I attempted, two wobbles and the Pokemon escaped. Machop used Seismic Toss.

Beldum was starting to look a little worse for wear; I probably had one shot left at catching the Machop before it fainted. I threw my ball, I crossed my tanned fingers, I would have turned my head away but I could barely see what was happening anyway, the catch was successful.

I still had to find either George or the exit though, my white shirt wouldn’t hurt his ability to see me. Finding him was still going to be a challenge greater than that of catching a simple Machop. I wandered through the dark, bumping into the slimy wall and receiving many bruises as I went. I did this for over and hour, battling Zubat as I went. When I finally heard a familiar voice calling my name, I almost had a Metang. There was George waiting for me and very worried about where I’d gotten to.

*Note-You said that faeces in my piece of work is spelt incorrectly. This would indeed be the case if I were American. however the Pocket Oxford Dictionary (1978 Edition) spells it “Faeces,” as have I in my story. This is the correct English (and more importanty, Australian) spelling. I refuse to “Americanise” my work.

 

Good job! I now present you with your hard earned Machop! You still had a couple errors, but I'll let them slide. Also, sorry about feces. Or faeces. I didn't know there was a different spelling of it.

*bows*

 

Thank you.