Bon Ape-sweet

Target Pokemon: Bounsweet

Target CC: Simple (5k-10k)

CC: 5063

Ryori stepped into the kitchen. Today was his first day at his new job as a chef. He wore an apron, a chef toque, and the rest of the restaurant’s standard uniform. The kitchen had cabinets stuffed with ingredients, refrigerators and freezers for fresh ingredients, and various stoves and ovens to prepare the meals for multiple customers at once. Ryori was ready to prepare his first meal as a professional chef when he saw something move in the corner of his eye. Another chef was reaching for a fresh, purple melon when the “melon” unexpectedly leapt straight out of the refrigerator it was in!


“Some idiot let a Bounsweet in here! Catch it before it reaches the dining hall, the customers can’t find out about this!” demanded yet another chef.


Ryori ran back to his locker, quickly entered his combination, and unlocked his compartment. He grabbed a pair of Pokeballs, one containing a Pokemon he kept with himself in case of emergencies and one empty Pokeball. As he walked back to the kitchen, he heard loud clangs and crashes of dishes and cooking equipment being knocked about. The Bounsweet was clearly not taken care of while he was gone.


Ryori saw the Bounsweet leaping from counter to counter as the other chefs chaotically tried to grab her. She left behind a trail of knocked over tools and machines the chefs used, squished and scattered ingredients, and footprints on what used to be perfectly clean counters and floors. The Bounsweet appeared almost identical to a regular purple Alolan melon, but had small yellow eyes and a mouth hidden below one of her leaves. She smelled of various fruits, eggs, and meats, likely from the various food she ran through on her rampage. Ryori sent out his Claydol, a black, flying eight eyed doll Pokemon, to stop the Bounsweet’s chaos. His Claydol teleported right in front of the Bounsweet, and the Bounsweet leapt straight into it. The impact knocked both of them off of the counter and onto the floor.


The Bounsweet became enraged, and began to attack the Claydol. Bounsweet threw magical razor-sharp leaves at Ryori’s Claydol. The Claydol considered dodging the attack, but took it head on to prevent the wild Pokemon from further destroying the kitchen. Claydol retaliated by closing its eight eyes, raising its arms, and using its psychic powers to create a small, invisible box around the Bounsweet. The Bounsweet pounded itself against its prison several times before realizing that it couldn’t break out with brute force. She shifted her leaves and emitted a sweet scent, distracting the Claydol. Bounsweet ran forward, escaping where its psychic container formerly was. The other chefs had their backs against the walls, terrified of the Pokemon battle going on in their very own kitchen.


Claydol snapped out of it and realized that it had let its guard down long enough for the Bounsweet to escape. It thought for a second to come up with another plan to stop Bounsweet without damaging the kitchen in the process. Claydol teleported to the Bounsweet and lightly touched it. Within an instant, a Ryori heard a sharp popping sound and both Pokemon vanished. Ryori was confused for a second, then heard a crash coming from outside the building. Ryori ran to the kitchen’s window and gazed outside.


Claydol and Bounsweet were continuing their battle outside behind the restaurant. Now that Claydol had teleported the two of them outdoors, Claydol no longer had to hold back. Claydol charged at Bounsweet, knocking the fruit-like Pokemon back. Bounsweet stumbled for a second, carefully watching its footing as she skidded backwards across the grassy hill it was fighting on. Ryori watched the two fight against the backdrop of the forest at the bottom of the hill.


Claydol wobbled from side to side while levitating, slowly levitating chunks of ground in front of it, forming a disjointed wall of dirt. Bounsweet began to focus her natural energy into an amorphous, rapidly spinning energy ball in front of her, then shot the ball through a gap in Claydol’s wall. Claydol teleported between the energy ball and Bounsweet as the ball whizzed past beyond it, flying off into the sky. Claydol spun in a half circle, and the dirt it was telepathically holding up orbited around it to hit the Bounsweet right in her cheek. She toppled to the ground and fell unconscious. Just in case, Claydol flew to the Bounsweet and pinned her to the ground.


Ryori opened the window, smelling the sweet summer air. He his hand that was hot and sweaty with anticipation down to his empty Pokeball, grabbed it, and tossed it out the window at the Bounsweet. The Bounsweet was sent inside it, and the Pokeball fell to the ground. It wobbled once. Ryori was nervous. Should he have brought more Pokeballs? It wobbled a second time. Ryori held his breath. The Bounsweet could still break out, and the Pokeball would be rendered useless. It wobbled a third time. Close, close, close, he begged over and over in his head. The Pokeball closed shut. The Bounsweet was caught.


What a bizarre first day of work.

 

Backstory and Character Development:
In a short story like this, the explanation that this is Ryori's first day as a chef, and the description of the restaurant, are good enough as far as backstory goes!

Grammar, Sentence Flow:
Typos are always a thing, so this section won't focus on them. One suggestion I might have for you is to change up your sentence lengths a little more! I noticed that in several paragraphs of your story, sentences tended to be about the same length, without too much variation. This was especially noticeable during some of the battle.

Similar sentence length tends to make writing harder to process. That's because language doesn't really work that way. When we talk we don't usually speak in sentences like this. It'll tend to quickly feel unnatural to read.

When we speak, some sentences are short. Kind of like this. Others are of medium length, including some extra phrases as qualifying details. They break themselves into clauses, each of which say something different, like this. And, once in a while, it's appropriate to conclude with a long, run-on sentence: one that has a certain music to it, lilting and descriptive and evocative in equal measure, awakening the imagination and painting a picture with the broad strokes of words and thought.

That's the only real criticism I have for your story as far as grammar and sentence flow goes! There are no glaring flaws, which renders this story's grammar more than sufficient for a Simple catch. =)

Detail, Description:
This is a section that trips up a lot of writers, experienced and new alike. You automatically succeeded at the Simple difficulty as far as descriptions go, just by describing the ingredients, refrigerators, and oven in the kitchen, setting the stage so the reader has some idea of what there is. So you're fine for this story; the following constructive criticism is meant to help with any future stories wherein you go for something more difficult!

When one 'sets the stage' for a scene by describing the surroundings, it helps to mention any detail that could come up later (or go back after writing the scene, and add details that came up.) As a general guideline, if the first time an object or character is mentioned in a scene is when a character interacts with it, it might be a good idea to add a mention of it somewhere earlier in the same scene. An example in your story is the tools and machinery that the chefs use, which are knocked over by the Bounsweet and the bumbling cooks/chefs. Your readers don't have the same clear vision of the kitchen as you did when you were writing it, so we didn't know the tools and machines were there; as a result, they might feel to a reader as if they "suddenly appeared" there, which can be jarring.

Dialogue:
There was one line of dialogue, which was used well as an alternative way of explaining something to the reader (instead of just writing, "the melon was actually a Bounsweet.")

I might have hoped for a few actual words as shouts of surprise from the other chefs, or to at least have one as a side character who talks (briefly) with Ryori at some point in the story, but it's clear they were all intended as background characters and that's fine in a story of this length. =)

Conflict/Battles:
As I mentioned above, sentence length was particularly noticeable during the battle, when it started to make the battle feel a little jerky instead of flowing. "The Bounsweet became enraged, and began to attack the Claydol. Bounsweet threw magical razor-sharp leaves at Ryori's Claydol."

On the other hand, the battle took centre stage, as it should in a short story, and went above and beyond the requirements of a Simple story in that you gave more than just brief descriptions of each move. A little more description is never a bad thing— I liked how you described Claydol closing its eyes and raising its arms as part of the entrapment of the Bounsweet! I encourage you to include such descriptions in other situations (such as describing what Bounsweet did with its body when it threw magical leaves at Claydol.)

Character Count:
I counted 5,062 characters, which is perfectly acceptable for a Simple catch!

Overall:
Every one of the above categories matched or exceeded the quality requirements for a Simple catch, so I have no qualms about saying...

Result:
Bounsweet: Caught!