Chapter Two: Ain't Afraid Of No Ghosts

This is for Secret Santa.

Capture target: Sableye (Medium, 10k-20k)
Characters: 18,184

Note: In this story, my character also acquires a Charmander. This is the Charmander purchased from the Poke Mart. I thought I'd integrate this into the narrative.

Spoiler

Last time in Rush Wheeler’s Pokémon journey:

“Poké Ball, go!”
The ball hits Yanma, and in a flash of red light, the Bug disappears into the ball.
Will the capture succeed, or will Yanma escape?

And now, the continuation:

DING! After several seconds of shaking, the Poké Ball settles down. The capture is successful.

It takes a moment for it to truly sink in, but when it does, I don’t even try to contain myself. “All right!” I exclaim as I pick up the Poké Ball and hold it up high. “I just caught a Yanma!”

Blitzle whinnies his excitement as well. And why not? After all, this is his victory as well. I have a new Pokémon, and he has his first teammate.

Yes, life is good.

*****

After a day of traveling and battling, there’s one place where every trainer should be able to chill: the Pokémon Center. It’s kinda like a community center for Pokémon trainers, with facilities for healing injured Pokémon and places for hanging with other trainers. Each center is run by a nurse named Joy, who seems to personify the phrase “pretty in pink”: pink dress, pink hair. Not to mention a sweet and disarming personality, which is definitely a plus in her line of work. Which is why I have no trouble leaving Blitzle and Yanma in her care when I show up.

What I’m not prepared for is her reaction upon seeing me: “You’re Rush Wheeler, aren’t you?”

I can almost feel my lower jaw start to disengage from my skull. “How—how do you know me?”

She smiles in that way that, if I weren’t completely surprised, would probably trigger a more awkward and self-conscious reaction. “He said you’d show up sooner or later,” she replies, handing me a piece of paper that looks like a printed-out e-mail:

Nurse Joy:
My young student Rush Wheeler should be arriving at your Pokémon Center soon. When he does, please have him contact me ASAP.
Professor Willow

Well, that explains it.

*****

Professor Willow is the guy who sent me on my journey, accompanied only with my Blitzle. As he did, he encouraged me to call him if I ever need help or advice on anything. I, of course, would do so, but I never really expected him to be the one contacting me. Still, it’s nice to see his face on the video phone.

“Hello, Rush, my boy!” Just as cheerful as ever. “How are things going so far?”

“Well,” I respond, “pretty good. I’ve already caught a Yanma.”

He chuckles. “I wouldn’t have expected less of you. In fact, Pokémon catching is why I wanted to talk to you.”

“Oh?” I’ve just proven that I already know the basics, so what could he want to tell me?

“You see,” he explains, “A friend of mine spoke to me recently. It seems he’s very interested in having a Pokémon called Sableye. You know it, right?”

I nod. “Yeah, I know it.” If you don’t know, Sableye looks kinda like a purplish, slightly demented version of Stitch from Lilo and Stitch with diamonds for eyes.

“Well,” he continues, “it just so happens that you can catch Sableye in a place called Carbon Cave near the Pokémon Center where you are now. I like for you to go and catch a Sableye, okay?”

I have to admit, this really is unexpected. “Um. . .”

“Of course, I’m not asking you to do this for free. My friend has promised to compensate you with something you’ll appreciate.” I try to ask the professor what he means, but he keeps talking. “And, of course, I’ve got a few things that’ll help you.”

Before I can say anything, the transporter next to the phone lights up, and an unusual-looking Poké Ball appears.

“That’s a Dusk Ball,” he says. “It’s good for captures in dark places. Oh, and here’s something you’ll definitely like.”

Once again, the transporter lights up, and a standard Poké Ball appears. As I pick it up, it spontaneously opens, and in a flash of light, taking shape before me . . .

“Charmander!”

Okay, this is definitely a nice surprise. After all, the orange mini-dragon is one of the most popular Pokémon ever, and anyone who appreciates dragons at all will know why. Though I’m not quite sure why the professor would just send me one. Unless . . .

“Remember him from the Pokémon shelter where you helped out? He really wanted to see the world, and I figured sending him with you would be the best thing for you both.”

That definitely explains it. Yeah, I remember him now. And judging by the excited smile on his face, he definitely remembers me. “Yeah,” I say. I can’t quite keep a chuckle out of my voice. “Good to see you, buddy!”

“So,” the professor interrupts, “will you do it?”

At this point, I really can’t say “No,” now can I? “Yeah, I’ll do it.”

“Great!” he says. “Oh, and my friend is really anxious to get that Sableye, so when you catch it, could you send it by rush delivery?”

I feel a facepalm coming on. “Ha, ha, ha. Funny,” I groan. Actually, it is a good pun, but no way am I giving him the satisfaction.

“Call me when you have the Sableye,” he says before hanging up.

I look down at my newest Pokémon. “So, little buddy, ready to help me catch a Sableye?”

“Charmander!” Yeah, he’s definitely eager to do this.

CHARMANDER HAS JOINED YOUR PARTY.

*****

Professor Willow’s right—Carbon Cave is just a couple miles away from the Pokémon Center, making it a quick bike ride. Too bad bikes and rocky terrain rarely mix well, meaning that I have to leave my ride at the entrance. Fortunately, there’s a Sitrus tree near the entrance for me to secure my bike to. As I do, one of the berries falls off the tree.

Sitrus berries are good for restoring a Pokémon’s energy. And, from what I’m told, they taste pretty good. So, I figure, why not take it with me? Since I know I’m about to go into battle, it just might come in handy.

And now it’s time for me to go into the dark cave. Now, most people going into a dark place would use a flashlight, or infra-red goggles, or a good old-fashioned torch. And what do I use?

“Come out, Charmander!”

As the newest member of my team comes out, I can’t help thinking about how convenient it is that he’s joining me just in time for a mission where he’d certainly prove very useful. Kinda makes me wonder if it was his idea to leave the shelter, or the professor’s. Well, either way, he’s here, and he’s helping me.

*****

If you’ve ever gone spelunking (this, by the way, is my first time), then you know that there’s a very real danger of getting lost. A cave is like a natural labyrinth. And speaking of labyrinths, if you’ve read Greek mythology, then you know how Theseus dealt with that little issue when he went to slay the Minotaur. Leaving a string trail is, in fact, a common way to avoid getting lost. And it’s exactly what I’m doing, with one end secured to the same Sitrus tree as my bike. With Charmander’s tail flame ahead of me and a string trail behind me, I’d say I’m good.

Now all I need is to find a Sableye. The professor told me that there’d be one in here, and since he’s never given me bad info before, I trust that there is one. At least, I think there’s one. There’s definitely something in here. I just know it.

Ever have that feeling that you’re being watched? Ever think you’re hearing something moving around nearby?

I can feel myself start to move as slowly and quietly as possible. Which, for me, is practically an unnatural state of motion, but my instincts are telling me to do so, and so are Charmander’s. I can almost feel my ears straining to hear even the quietest sounds. Every part of my body is tensed and—

skitter skitter skitter

If I were a cartoon, I’d probably be jumping all the way to the ceiling. As it is, every cell in my body has just jumped to Red Alert. There’s definitely something else here. And if it’s a Pokémon—I quickly pull out my Pokédex, hoping it can identify whatever’s in here.

Sableye: the Darkness Pokémon. It hides in the darkness of caves. Its diet of gems has transformed its eyes into gemstones.

Bingo! There’s definitely a Sableye nearby. And if I look closely enough, I think I can see the shadow of something moving ahead of me where my Pokédex is pointing.

“There it is, Charmander!” No point in stealth now. Sableye knows I’m here, and it probably knows that I know that it’s here. “Let’s go!”

“Charmander!” The little guys’ clearly as primed for battle as I am.

We start to run forward, ready to rush into battle (wait, rush into battle? Now I’m the one making the bad puns. Dammit!), when—

Whoa! Where the hell did this purple fog come from? I instinctively grab onto Charmander, who’s just as confused as I am. “What the hell’s going on?” I can’t help asking, even though it doesn’t really help. All I know is that we have to get rid of this fog. And I have just the Pokémon to help. I pull out the appropriate Poké Ball and toss it into the air. “I choose you, Yanma! Use Air Slash!”

In a burst of light, Yanma appears. My recently-captured Pokémon immediately does as ordered, sending out a burst of wind that actually does its job, dispersing the fog and—

And before I know it, things have just gone from bad to worse. I don’t know how, but Charmander and I are standing on a very small mesa in a very large gorge. This is definitely not right. “What happened to the ground?”

Before I can even begin to make sense of this, the “Oh, crap!” meter jumps another notch—my Pokémon and I are surrounded by very scary-looking . . . somethings. I’m really not sure how to better describe them, especially since they’re swarming around us. And lunging at us.

Yes, this is as scary as it seems.

Right now, it’s all that Charmander and I can do to keep our balance on the small platform we’re standing on. At least Yanma can fly, but that’s not helping us get rid of whatever these things are. One of them reaches out with something to grab me, and purely out of instinct, I reach out to grab it first—

And my hand just passes through it.

“Wait,” I wonder, “what just—“

And then it hits me. None of this is real. It’s just some kind of illusion. All I have to do is get rid of it. And I know exactly how.

“Yanma, quick, use Foresight!”

Yanma, however, is surrounded by these not-real things, and is clearly scared out of his mind. I’m not sure he heard me. Okay, then. . .”Charmander, use your Flamethrower to get Yanma’s attention!”

Charmander, fortunately, isn’t so paralyzed with fear. His Flamethrower hits several of the illusions near Yanma, both driving them off and getting his attention.

“Yanma, listen to me,” I tell him. “None of these things are real. They’re all illusions, and you have the power to get rid of them. All you have to do is use Foresight.”

I can see that Yanma’s still scared. All I can do is hope that he can see that I believe he can do this. Come on, little buddy . . . I know you can do this . . .

After a moment, it looks like Yanma has finally gotten ahold of himself enough to do as I’ve told him. A second later, red lights shoot from his eyes all around us. The effects are almost immediate. The weird things that have been attacking us are gone, and so is the gorge. The cave floor is back, and right in front of us, looking surprised as hell, is Sableye.

But it’s not alone. Hovering between my team and the Sableye are five Gastly.

Well, that certainly complicates things.

*****

You may have heard at least one cautionary tale about Ghost Pokémon like Gastly and the illusions they’re capable of creating. In retrospect, I wish I’d paid a little better attention to those stories. Maybe I would’ve been better prepared for this little skirmish. Well, no sense wasting time on should’ves and what-ifs. At least the illusions are gone, and I now have something more concrete to battle. Except I’m kinda outnumbered. Five Gastly and a Sableye versus Charmander, Yanma, and . . .

“I choose you, Blitzle!” Now that he’s out, my entire team is in play. First, I need to take care of those Gastly, and I think I know how to do that. “Go, Blitzle! Get in there with those Gastly!”

Blitzle immediately obeys, and as he jumps in, the Gastly surround him. Which is exactly what I’m counting on. “Use Discharge!”

ZAP! All five Gastly are caught in the electrical attack. That should help matters. Now, a Pokémon like Gastly would be very useful on my team, and I’m certainly tempted to try catching one. But that’s not why I’m here. Eyes on the prize, I tell myself.

And the prize is getting away.

“Oh, no, you don’t!” I quickly start chasing it while giving orders to my team. “Charmander, you’re with me! Blitzle, keep those Gastly occupied! Yanma, make sure they don’t get past you!”

Fortunately, the chase is short, as the tunnel that Sableye runs down leads to a rocky chamber with no other exits. A dead end. Which is where Charmander and I catch up to Sableye.

“Okay, Sableye, it’s time to battle! Charmander, go!”

Sableye might’ve tried running away, but now that that’s no longer an option, it looks like it’s ready to fight. Good. This’ll help me test Charmander’s strength. “Attack with Flamethrower!”

Before Charmander can move, though, Sableye suddenly jumps at him, hitting him hard enough to knock him off balance and disrupt his attack. A Fake Out, I can tell. And now its claws are glowing, clearly to use Fury Swipes. “Use Scratch!” I order, and the two Pokémon are engaged in a scratch-fight. Kinda like a slap-fight, but less wimpy. Good thing Yanma’s Foresight is still in effect, allowing physical attacks to hit.

It quickly becomes clear that the two Pokémon are stalemating, so I decide to have Charmander change tactics. “Use Fire Fang!”

This time, instead of going claw-for-claw against Sableye, Charmander catches its next attack in a fiery mouth. It seems to be working, as Sableye can’t free itself. At least, until it pulls a dirty trick by using its free hand to poke Charmander in the eyes.

“Hey!” I protest, but I doubt that Sableye cares. Besides, now that Charmander’s reeling from that last move, Sableye’s free to launch another attack, some kind of glowing light that hits Charmander without seeming to do any damage.

“Okay, Charmander, fight back with Flamethrower!” I’m ready to see the attack put Sableye down ready to make the capture . . . except Charmander isn’t attacking. In fact, he doesn’t seem to have any idea of what to do.

Confuse Ray! That must’ve been what Sableye used. “C’mon, buddy, snap out of it!” Unfortunately, my encouragement doesn’t seem to be doing any good. And it gets worse: with Charmander not launching any attacks, Sableye’s free to make whatever move it wants to. And that move is a Shadow Ball that hits Charmander dead-on, sending him to the ground.

Now we’re in trouble. If I could, I’d call in either Yanma or Blitzle to take over, but from the sounds I can hear behind me, they’re still busy dealing with the Gastly. Yeah Sableye’s definitely got Charmander’s number. And it’s pressing the attack, hitting him with a flurry of Fury Swipes.

At this point, I’m wondering how much of a pounding the little guy can take, and whether or not I’ve bitten off more than I can chew. I can just imagine Charmander’s tail flame starting to grow weaker with the energy he’s losing and—

FWOOSH! Instead of weakening, Charmander’s tail flame looks like it’s just gotten twice as strong. And I realize why: Charmander’s Blaze ability boosts his firepower when he takes enough damage. And he shows it—he suddenly knocks Sableye back, poised for what should be a battle-winning attack.

“All right, Charmander! Use Flamethrower! Full blast!”

Charmander’s definitely taking the “full blast” part seriously—the fire he shoots at Sableye completely envelops the little demon. When the attack is over, Sableye is lying on the ground.

Time to make the capture. I pull out the Dusk Ball that Professor Willow sent me. “Go, Dusk Ball!”

The ball flies through the air, making contact with Sableye before the Pokémon disappears in a flash of red light into the ball. As it usually happens, the ball shakes as its contents struggle to break free. Once . . . twice . . . and . . .

DING!

“Yeah!” I can’t help making a victorious fist-pump before picking up the Dusk Ball. “I just caught Sableye!” Professor Willow should be pleased. And hopefully, his friend as well. I stow away the ball before turning back to the partner who helped make the capture possible. “Great work, Charmander!”

“Char . . . “ Now that the battle’s over, I can see that Charmander looks a lot weaker than he did a moment ago, and his tail-flame is going down. A second later, he collapses.

I’m at his side in an instant. “You okay, buddy?” I know it’s not uncommon for this to happen after an intense battle, and I also know that it’s SOP for trainers to recall their Pokémon to their balls to rest at this point, but I still need Charmander’s light to help me get out of this cave. If only I had something to help him regain his strength . . .

And then it comes back to me. The Sitrus berry. Fishing it out of my bag, I hold it up to Charmander’s mouth. “Here, buddy. Eat up.”

Charmander sniffs it before he starts chewing on it. As he swallows, I wonder just how quickly it’s gonna start working. Fortunately, it takes effect within seconds. Charmander suddenly looks a lot better as he jumps back to his feet. “Charmander!” he cries, his tail-flame back to normal.

Well, that’s more like it. “Better? Good. Now, let’s get outta here.”

As we leave the chamber, we once again hear the sounds of electricity. Yep, Blitzle’s still at it. We get back to my other two Pokémon just in time to see all five Gastly fleeing from the scene. I gotta say, that’s pretty good for two-on-five. “You guys ready to go?”

From the looks on Blitzle’s and Yanma’s faces, they are.

*****

Not long afterwards, we’re back at the Pokémon Center and I have Professor Willow on the video phone.

“Great job!” he says when I tell him that we’ve succeeded. “I knew you could do it, my boy!”

Of course, I can’t take all the credit when I have a kick-ass team with me. “We all did it, Professor.”

“Of course. Now, just put Sableye in the transporter and we can get this done.”

I do as he asks, putting the Dusk Ball in the transporter. A second later, it disappears into the transfer system, while the computer monitor shows that another Pokémon is on its way. Is that the compensation that he mentioned earlier? And exactly which Pokémon will it be?

TO BE CONTINUED . . .

 

claiming in the name of christmas!

 

Hi! As a heads up, I went ahead and read the first installment in this series as well, just so I could get some background and better understand your story/characters/flow as a whole. Let’s jump right in! ^^

THE BEGINNING STUFF

Introductions are really important things: you want to be sure that your readers see your story and get super-duper interested in continuing reading (this attention-grabby thing is called a “hook,” because you want to imagine that you’re hooking readers into reading your story). In addition, because your story comes in multiple parts, you want to make sure that you can quickly convey to your readers what happened in the previous parts, so they aren’t confused. That’s a lot to accomplish in a few sentences of story, so let’s take a look!

Your introduction is pretty cool. I like the anime-esque/‘previously, on Avatar’ feel that you bring across, and you do a really good job of summarizing the important takeaways from the first story. I really like how you don’t try to tell us absolutely everything that happened last time: rather, we just get the big picture, which is really all we need because our focus is on this story instead.

If I were to make any suggestions for improvement here, I would work on your hook: how are you going to use the first few sentences of your story to convince readers to keep reading? You do a little bit of this with the dramatic “WILL YANMA BE CAPTURED OR NOT?” thing, but there’s a couple of issues preventing this from being a super-duper-awesome hook. First, we unless we read the first installment (I read this one first, then the first one, and then this one again), we don’t really know who Rush is or why it’s so important that he catches this Yamna. In other words, he’s kind of just this random guy, and while it’s cool if he catches a Yamna, a casual reader isn’t going to be life-or-death invested in what happens.

More importantly, you answer the question you pose a few sentences later. For a more detailed explanation, the outline of your introduction looks a lot like:
1. Will Rush catch Yamna?
2. Pokéball wiggles! Will Rush catch Yamna!?
3. Rush catches Yamna
4. Life is good.
See how a lot of the first few paragraphs are spent playing up this question, and then a lot of the back paragraphs are spent completely answering it? This kind of creates a self-contained story here, meaning that while the hook of “HEY WHAT’S GOING TO HAPPEN NEXT” is a pretty effective one, you end up answering this question almost immediately, undercutting all of that lovely buildup you created.

So, takeaways here: great job on introducing the reader to what’s going on in your story! That’s the first role of an introduction; as you go deeper into the nuances of writing, try to use a more effective hook that convinces your reader to read the rest of the story (by this, I mean the bits about not answering the questions that you pose as hooks right away).

THE PLOTTY STUFF

First off, I really, really liked how you tied a bunch of things together in your story. The bit about the Sitrus Berry being useful at the end after being introduced near the beginning, and even some minor details like Rush using Charmander to light his way through a cave (although would Blitzle not work as well? He seems all sparky and glowy too) or using string to keep track of where he was going were really cool details that I’m glad you included. These made the plot of your story a lot more interesting and cohesive, and having foreshadowing/background details integrated into your plot is a really good technique to use for writing in general.

One thing I’d caution you against in this section is that your plot is a little straightforward, as in it’s something that we see a lot: a boy walks into a forest/cave, sees a Pokémon, battles it, and captures it. There were some tweaks along the way, such as Rush capturing the Pokémon not for himself but for someone else, and the Sableye having some assistance from a bunch of random Gastly, but the basic plotline of the story is something that crops up a lot.

And this isn’t wrong, of course! You’ll hear the phrase that there’s not really such thing as new ideas; no matter what you think of, someone else has probably already written something that’s at least somewhat similar to it. However, you do want to try to stray from the norm a little: otherwise, readers are going to feel like this is the same plot that they’ve seen over and over again, and they might just leave.

What I’m trying to say, I guess, is don’t feel constrained to do things exactly like how you’ve seen them before. The cool thing about fiction is that you can literally do whatever you want! You don’t have to write about crazy Sableye from the moon tap-dancing on barrels set in Soviet Russia during Space World War II with a hint of 17th century China influence, but don’t feel afraid to stretch the boundaries of what you’re comfortable plotwise a bit. Maybe next time try something a little more extended than just looking for a Pokémon and capturing it: fiction can be whatever you want it to be, so reach big!

THE PRETTY STUFF

Your grammar/mechanics are basically spot on, so I’m not going to address them terribly much here. Instead, we’re going to focus on stylistic elements, specifically description.

Sometimes, you have some really, really nice descriptions! I liked the details you added in the battle/describing how moves worked. Those were pretty well-executed, and I could pretty much follow the flow of the battle really nicely.

Sometimes, though, your descriptions left a little bit lacking. For instance:

What’s a mini-dragon? I appreciate dragons, but I’m not really sure why Charmander is so popular with everyone else, haha. There’s a lot left lacking in this description—for instance, if I’d never played Pokémon in my life, I wouldn’t even know that Charmander has a flaming tail, which is why it can help Rush get through dark caves!

Or, here:

A lot of the scare-factor in this section seems a little diluted, because I really can’t picture what’s attacking Rush. I’m sure you’ve meant for them to be, like, scary beings of darkness that are all gross and trying to eat him and his friends, but all we’ve really got is “scary-looking” and “somethings.” For all I know, there could be a bunch of clowns swarming, or spiders, or snakes, or basically anything that’s something that looks scary.

When I do descriptions, I take a deep breath. Typically, I can already picture how a scene plays out in my head: who’s standing where, doing what, looking like this, and so forth. The key, however, is relaying this information to your reader through text, which is a lot more difficult. Let’s use this second example as a starter. What is Rush seeing in this moment? It’s probably not the clearest field of vision in the world, given that he’s in a dark cave using a Charmander as a torch (although maybe not, because by this point the illusions were kicking in? I had a little bit of difficulty following), but maybe things come in flashes. Maybe he can see, like, outlines of black blobs with lots of pointy fangs before Charmander’s tail flickers and he can’t see anything. Maybe the ghosts have this really, really weird smell. Maybe there’s a breeze coming from somewhere, or the temperature in the room has dropped a lot for some reason, or Rush has this strange sensation that something is sneaking up right behind him.

See how all of that can convey a lot more than:

At this point, you’ve dropped the word ‘scary’ a lot, but there’s very little textual stuff to convey that. And we can fix that with some good description!

Basically, there’s a lot you can use to describe even a second of action in a story, and you can capitalize upon this to make a more effective scene. A rule of thumb that you might hear a lot is “Show, don’t tell.” You keep telling us that these ghosts are scary, but that’s a lot less effective than showing us a bunch of the scary things that the ghosts are doing, and how that’s affecting Rush and friends.

In essence: deep breaths. Pause and look over a scene, and think about how you envision what’s going on. Then, try to translate that into text. I find that incorporating more than one sense is pretty useful (typically, people go for sight, because that’s the most common sense that humans rely on, which is why occasionally throwing in a detail about sounds/smell/touch is pretty helpful). It’s a lot harder than it looks, so don’t get discouraged if you don’t paint the picture exactly right the first time.

THE NUMERICAL AND FINAL STUFF

I have you clocking in at around eighteen thousand-ish characters, which is near the upper limits of your suggested brackets. I’m also a fan of how your pacing unfolded—nothing really felt too fast or too slow here, although you could’ve definitely added in some more descriptions here and there.

Overall, I think you did a wonderful job for a capture of this rank. You definitely had the foundations for a good story, and the details are coming along nicely. As such, I can happily say Sableye captured! Great job!

In terms of improvement for the future, I’d take another stab at descriptions: don’t be afraid to describe things for one or two more sentences. Using more than one sense is still a really useful tip, and you’ll probably hear the “show, don’t tell” rule for the rest of your life, haha. In addition, don’t be afraid to break the mold a little when it comes to plotting! It’s fiction, so anything goes if you think it can!

This was a really solid story, though, so great work! Congratulations on your successful capture, Merry Christmas (or happy holiday of your choice if you don’t celebrate Christmas!), and good luck with Secret Santa! ^^

If you want to ask questions/get clarification/just chat, feel free to IM/VM/PM me at any time! I'll try to respond as quickly as possible!