A Pine Full of Pineco

The day was grey and followed from a cold winter. Several scattered stones marked as a path led the way for a struggling teen making his way through Ilex Forest. Even many fun-loving Pokemon could be found timidly hid under the branches of tall, looming trees. The lone teen ran, looking for refuge suitable of himself.

The scuffle of Spinarak filled the air as the forest had a life, a quite life albiet, hid within the deepest corners of the wilderness. Everything could be found around giving the forest an erie atmosphere. Although the day was a particularly cold one, some things seemed quite out place. Some trees were counted with snow despite it not having snowed in days. The ground was glazed with a pure white frost, crunching beneath the weight of forest activity.

Although he might have felt it, the teen was far from alone, just a few metres away lurked another. A silent man in dirty green clothes sat with his back to the main track through the forest, hidden by a leafy plant sheltering him from the cold. An unshaven face with charcoal hair, his features etched as if scarred by flint. He wore blackglasses upon his beady eyes, witnessing the forest life go past.

As the teen passed through the flora a glint caught his eye, a speck of gold existed amongst the treetops. Atop a glorious pine were a pack of Pineco. This was an unusual occurence as Pineco usually only appeared during the Autumn. This however was not the end of the oddity. Each of the Pineco had golden bands atop their stems. This discovery made the traveller even more curious. Pineco had been a Pokemon he had wanted since his childhood.

The boy had grew up in Fuschia City, a city with the spirit of the ninja. His father had trained under the ninja master Koga and had always wanted his son to take after him. His father obsessed over the bug-types that he had found in the nearby Safari Zone and had taken him many times in attempt for his son to catch his first Pokemon.

Alas his wishes were futile. The young boy had never been fond of the slash of a Scyther or the grapple of a Pinsir. Only one of his father's Pokemon had ever been appealling to the future ninja and that was noe other than his little Pineco. His father had travelled to Johto during his training with Master Koga. Father like son had been attracted to the mysterious qualities of Pineco and went bounds out of his way to catch one. His loyal Pineco had saved him from deft danger in many a situation. If it weren't for Pineco, such a teen would not be in the forest on this day.

Fond of capturing a Pineco he jumped at the oportunity to do so and grabbed a Pokeball from his belt and produced his first ever Pokemon, a sparkling Elekid. "Elekid, shock those Pineco down from the treetops" commanded the teen. Only one Pineco fell, the others jumped into the air in perfect synchronisation, returning the favour by in turn, rocketing towards Elekid with a charged Rapid Spin. There was no way nature could have trained these Pineco.

"You got a fued wit' my Pineco" droaned a voice from behind him. The man stood revealing himself for all to see. He towered above the shrubbery at over 6'06" and walked across the solid ground barefoot.

"I'm, I'm sorry sir. I didn't realise" stuttered the young man as he was stunned by the sudden presence of the giant. "I thought that, well. Er...."

"I know what you thought," interupted the weary man, "Don't think, just walk on, you woulda thought the bands'd be a clue, unlike you some people have an objec'." The man turned away and walked through the undergrowth. The teen was puzzled by the curious gentleman and decided to follow in his tracks, his Elekid tailing along beside him.

They were stumbling through the branches of the forest for several furlongs. They had to step over several of the forest's delicate creatures and beautiful wildlife. As they followed for longer the surroundings changed dramatically. The trees became paler with both frost and lichen. They were shaking with fright and frost and were left helpless by the cold.

The couple had lost sight of the strange man so they decided to turn back and give up on thier search. "Never mind Elekid, at least now we can get out of this hellhole." They grappled there way back through the near impassible passages of the winding forest. After walking for a while they found themselves blocked by an impassibly tall tree. This led to much confusion as they had just cleared the path it had took to get here.

It was once they turned rouund to look for solutions that the problem struck. The tree behind them started to shake while nothing was touching or could be seen around it. The formidable plant turned slowly to face the travellers revealling that it as none other than the cause of the unnatural weather, a terrifying Abomasnow stood alert before them.

Elekid had not yet faced a foe so large but using his philosiphy of "a first time for everything", the adolesence jumped into action combat the tree-like enemy. "Elekid, knock it down with a Low Kick" commanded the child. Abomasnow's reactions were lightning fast as he proceeded with an Ice Shard attack. The sharp, physical attacck knocked Elekid out of the playing field and practically unable to battle. "Keep in there," his trainer said frantically in a blind panic. The merciless monster stood far above the trainer, waiting to claim his next victim.

"Now!" boomed a voice from behind the huge roadblock. All of a sudden six Pineco jumped from all around and Self-Destructed before the eyes of the helpless mess that led on the ground. The hiker he saw previously had saved him from an otherwise unescapeable fate as the Abomasnow plummetted to the floor. All that he could do is express his gratitude. Before he could speak a word the giant butted ahead of him.

"I wasn't savin' you," exclaimed the man. "I was merely doing my job as a Pokemon bounty hunter. No need to express your grat'tude." The bearded bounty hunter threw a Pokeball towards the fallen tree and caught it without haste. "Sein' as I now have seven Pokemon, you may as well have this one. It has never been able to synchronise like the other Pineco and I know how you want'd one."

Then that was that. The gruff hunter threw the sealed Pokeball on the floor and walked away, never to be seen again by the teen. It was quite clear who had gotten the best out of this. He walked away with not only a story to tell to everyone he meets far and wide, but also a brand new companion on his journey through Johto.

Story Completed and ready to be graded

 

Well, I basically came to help grade from PE2K, so yeah.

Story

It started out full of potential, and continued to make me feel that way, which was good. I have to admit I was hooked up till the end. The premise was simple and sufficiently well-done. However, the ending was kinda weird in that the guy just gave him the Pineco for kicks. It just didn't match up.

Characterisation

Decent for such a short story. The man comes across as a gruff, battle-hardened veteran, but the boy is a bit lacking. The fact that he doesn't like to get hurt might suggest that he's slightly pacifistic in nature, or has a weaker mind, so on and so forth. Put those in too. It's still sufficient for a story of this level though.

Grammar/Spelling

It seems that you're not well-versed in slang. I can tell that you tried to include a bit of slang, but it came out a bit off-colour and downright awkward in some parts. The best advice I can give to you here is to read more casual books.

Also, I assume you didn't use a spellchecker, since you made a lot of typos, but the story was still readable. Really, you've done a lot better than a lot of other people I've seen, so don't be discouraged. Just remember to use Microsoft Word and hit F7. If you don't have a spellchecker, you can easily find one off Google. Browsers like Firefox, Opera, and Google Chrome also have inbuilt spellchecking, so you can use those, though Microsoft Word is extremely comprehensive and also checks your phrases.

Length

Make my job easier by stating (either at the beginning or the end) the Pokemon you're catching, how many characters your story is, and what is the expected length, kinda like this:

Code:

Select All

Pokemon targetted: Pineco
Difficulty: Simple
Expected Length: 5k-10k
Length of story: [B]6557[/B] <-- I calculated this for you

Otherwise fine. :x Though it honestly could be longer.

Description

This was quite well-done. Remarkably, you kept up the quality of description throughout the story, and kept a cold atmosphere. Some descriptions were awkward however like here:

I wouldn't say out of the playing field since that's a figure of speech and also they weren't exactly in a field. The word clearing would be better to describe the area at least.

Also some food for thought:

You don't have to give measurements. You could just say the guy was huge, like a giant rock or something, something to get a feel for it. You can even use this to demonstrate what the main character thinks of the guy. Also, don't use numbers in stories; write them all out. Instead of 6'06", put "six foot six" or something. "Taller than six feet" is fine here.

Battle

Really too short for me. It was basically a two-turn affair, which didn't really impress since the battle was over before it even started. You could easily have had Elekid struggle a bit more, and also have the Pineco display their special properties (as you mentioned in your story) before finally exploding to bring it down in the nick of time. Give the Abomasnow more of a chance to display its power.

Overall

It started fine, but it seems you got too impatient towards the end and just shoehorned in a short battle and made a random reason for the guy to give the Pineco to your main character. Don't do this. Work hard on your later stories and see them to completion. There's really a lot of small things taking away from your story such as the grammar, spelling, and expressions that can easily be fixed and get you a pass. I'll pass you this time simply because it's your first story, but do take note that you have to put in more effort on your subsequent stories. You really are almost there, you just need to work on your use of words and you're done.

Conclusion

Pineco CAPTURED

I hope to see another story from you.

 

I'm just going to jump in and comment on something Starki mentioned:

Not all numbers need to be written out. It depends on the situation the number is used. Link.

When dealing with describing someones height in terms of action, you don't need to be too specific about it. Just use terms like 'over', 'under', or 'about'.
"His six foot body towered above the shrubbery..."

Using 6'6" when it's a physical description of the person is perfectly fine. Most people will read it as six six, not six foot six inches like it stands for, therefore writing it all out makes it too wordy.
"Bob was a very tall man, standing at 6'6"."

~Jack~