All Washed Up

All Washed Up​

　　

Six in the morning, an early start for me today. Life as a talentless Pokemon Trainer is difficult. While the good ones win multiple battles and quickly earn funds, the losers are left too poor to buy supplies. You have probably seen the losers before, left with no way to earn money except by cannibalizing the other losers, they hover around the same routes and forests praying that the next trainer to walk by is another loser. Even after winning, a loser will always be a loser, they merely move on to the next route and become a loser there. Either quit being a Pokemon Trainer, or wander the routes for eternity.
　　
　　“How do you know the loser culture?”, you might ask.
　　
　　The simple truth is that I have been a loser for 15 long years. My shorts had long since become uncomfortable to wear, and my precious Pokemon have either evolved or been released. Life wasn’t always this bad, before I had come to accept my status as a loser, I had managed to collect eight badges and earned my right to challenge the Elite Four. It was in Victory Road, the final stretch of a trainer’s journey, that I discovered my fate. Halfway through the cave I would be defeated, and with no Pokemon to protect me, I would be forced to use an Escape Rope to return to the Pokemon Center. This brutal cycle continued until I ran out of rope. Of course, that might be good luck for me, since I’m sure if that Escape Rope was still around, I would have escaped this cruel life long ago.
　　
　　My current residence is Route 1, the place where new trainers first step out into the wild. At first I had returned in order to bully these young trainers with my superior Pokemon, but after being warned by the police, I was forced to downgrade to weaker Pokemon. Now that the level advantage was pulled away, my failure as a trainer was brought front and center. Since switching to newer Pokemon, my record sits at a traumatic two wins, 65 losses. Money is so tight that the league has to chip in to pay the reward money in my stead. All I have left was a single empty Pokeball, which I desperately cling to in hopes of finding a Pokemon capable of compensating for my failures.
　　
　　Several uneventful hours passed before I was finally approached by a fellow loser. Aroma Lady Lily was a dear friend of mine, only four years younger than me, she was the closest thing I had to a peer. Her light brown hair was held together in a neat ponytail, and her white dress poked out from her pink sweater. We were both Route 1 regulars, and had formed a friendship over our lacking abilities as Pokemon Trainers.
　　
　　“Good morning,” I said before offering her one of my apples.

　　“Morning...” she replied.
　　
　　“Is something wrong Lily? Did you catch a cold?” I pressed the back of my hand on her forehead, catching the scent of the flower she wore in her hair.
　　
　　Lily sat on the grass and played with her ponytail for several minutes. A light breeze carried her scent to me, but her distraught expression left a bitter taste in my mouth. Normally Lily was the one who would raise my spirits, but today she seemed uncharacteristically sullen.
　　
　　“Ninja Boy Chitose finally left,” she finally said, “he said his ninja days were over.”
　　
　　“Good, for him” I replied, returning to my apple, “Chitose isn’t even his real name, it’s Kyle.”
　　
　　“No... He didn’t move on, he quit,” she continued, “he said 17 was too old to be standing around some dirt road.”
　　
　　We shared a brief moment of silence for our dear friend. “Chitose” would spend weeks on end hiding in trees, using piles of berries as bait to lure unsuspecting newcomers into his preferred terrain. Of course, crowded terrain was difficult to battle in when your only Pokemon is a Flying-type. Lily threw herself into the grass and sighed deeply to break the silence. She pulled out a Pokeball and held it up to the Sun, the light glared off the polished red surface of the device.
　　
　　She turned to me with a worried expression, “We should give up.”
　　
　　“Why?” I asked, already knowing I wouldn’t like the answer.
　　
　　“You and I will never be successful trainers again. We’ll likely rot. If not in this route, then in some other route elsewhere. Don’t try and deny it either, Luke. Being 25 and still calling yourself a Rising Star trainer is just sad.”
　　
　　“I know, but what would we do?”
　　
　　“Well I get a lot of compliments on my perfumes. I already make enough money to buy food and clothes with them, I’m sure if I did it full time I could make a decent living. As for you Luke, you’ve managed to survive for ten years in the wild with less than 1000 poke to your name, I’m sure there’s something you could do as a career.”
　　
　　“But what about our dreams? We were going to become champions a-and catch rare Pokemon.” By this point my face was glowing red in exasperation.
　　
　　“No, we’re finished Luke. We can’t win in high level battles or low level battles. Losers don’t get to just wake up one day and decide to win.”
　　
　　While we argued, a small blue creature ran through my field of vision. It was then, in my desperation to convince Lily to stay by my side, that I made the rash decision to use my final Pokeball. I grabbed her hand and pulled her along to chase the small creature into a clearing, where we were able to identify its species. There it stood, balanced on its large tail, a blue creature with cute round ears. Azurill, a baby Fairy-type Pokemon, was rare in the region, and its fully evolved form was popular in Victory Road. Without hesitation, I pulled out the Pokeball containing the strongest Pokemon I had on-hand. The ball popped open to reveal my male Nidoran, a purple creature with large ears and many poisonous barbs on his back.
　　
　　“Don’t do it,” Lily protested, “if that Pokeball breaks, you won’t have enough money to replace it.”
　　
　　“It won’t fail Lily, I’ll show you that we can change,” I hastily replied, “we just haven’t had a real reason to fight!”
　　
　　While I was distracted, Azurill took the opportunity to launch a surprise attack. It leaned forward, using its tail as a balance, and sprayed a stream of water from its mouth. His concentration elsewhere, Nidoran took the full force of the Water Gun. The pressure pushed him into the ground, but he quickly recovered from the weak attack. Now I was finally focused on the battle and ready to give orders.
　　
　　“Nidoran, use Double Kick!” I commanded, calling for the best attack we knew.
　　
　　Nidoran bounced forward, spinning in midair to adjust himself. The Poison Point Pokemon landed on his front legs, using his rear legs to kick the poor Azurill in the face. Azurill rolled backwards, bouncing off its tail. It released another Water Gun as it bounced, making an erratic pattern that Nidoran had trouble dodging. The attack hit him several times, leaving visible markings on his body where the water had struck him. I was beginning to worry for my future. Lily wasn’t impressed with my performance, and unless I came up with something impressive, Azurill would escape and she would quit being a Pokemon Trainer forever.
　　
　　“Nidoran, catch up to Azurill and use Peck,” I called out, yelling loud enough to strain my voice.
　　
　　Nidoran heard my cry and sprang into action. His legs kicked into the grass with great force as he weaved between streams of water. The horn on his forehead started glowing white as he jumped forward, desperately lunging at Azurill. My heart broke at the sight of Azurill’s tail striking a rock and shooting the wild Pokemon airborne. Just when it seemed like nothing could catch it, Nidoran cried and jerked his head forward. Instead of using Peck like I had called, he had prepared a new move that we had never practiced before! White spikes sprayed from the Poison-type’s horn, piercing Azurill dozens of times as it floated defenseless in the air. Sensing the urgency in my actions, Nidoran had answered the call and leveled up, learning Poison Sting as a result. Azurill let out a shrill cry, taking super effective damage from a Poison-type attack. I quickly pulled my last Pokeball from my pocket and threw it at Azurill. The red and white ball drew in the defenseless Pokemon and began rolling on the ground.
　　
“See Lily? All it takes is a little hot blood, and you can accomplish anything,” I said confidently, waiting for the outcome of my capture attempt.

Target: Azurill(Simple)
Character Count: 8186

 

Claiming I supose

 

Introduction: You begin introducing the concept of a “loser culture”, in a neat attempt to explain and humanize the trainers we’ve always seen on the routes and how they never move.

Having it be a league mandated job or a way to attempt to pursue their dreams is nice, but I personally think that people tend to learn from experience. Nobody does 67 battles and not learn anything, unless they have Pokemon with a serious problem like Sunkern or Magikarp. There’s only so much talent can take you, and hardwork and experience take you where talent can’t, the same applies to the Pokemon, they’ll learn; specially in what we can assume is more anime-ish in handling experience.

This is just something I feel is a bit implausible – specially if the trainer had gone all the way to Victory Road before.

Build-up: Lily shows up and they start discussing the finer points of clinging onto your dream versus acknowledging reality. The minor debate they have is neat, and shows us some kind of insight as to how the characters are on an emotional level.

Luke was quick to get red-faced and start stuttering, he’s an emotional person (and a bit melodramatic although that’s his narrative as a whole speaking) while Lily is more pragmatic – I’m not sure if this was intended or not – showing more stable emotional footing, saying things more calmly and matter-of-factly than Luke.

Then suddenly, a wild Azurill appears! It’s a bit of a Deus Ex Machina – having the Pokemon just show up at the right time to pepper his speech with a “See, we can!” happy note – but considering the overall tone of the story this may very well be needed.

Battle: Simple, short and to the point – which fits the story. Battling wasn’t the focus here, neither was the Azurill, it was showing that if you work hard enough you can do things others consider impossible … which is kinda what I said on the first paragraph.

Length and Grammar and Description: A++

Verdict: The only thing that bugs me about this is the experience thing, nobody takes that long without picking up some tricks or some skillsets, but all in all this is marvelous story and doubly so since it’s your first!

Stories do not need to end in a capture attempt, nor do they even have to a battle or a capture attempt on them; they only need to have the Pokemon you’re writing for (although, let’s make some pressure so the writing staff will let us use the evolved form as well for stories because that’d be totally cool /shamelessplug ) doing whatever you want them to do.

So moving on, here’s your water rat bunny thingy, go out and have fun.