Diglett Team Alpha: The Discovery of El Dug-ado

Heya! It's my first story, so I hope you enjoy
Approximately rated G8+ in Australian terms for mild cartoon violence.
Ready for Grading




Josh wiped the sweat off of his brow. It was already an unusually hot day, but being ten feet underground in a dark cave didn’t help. He looked around him, and he tried to remind himself why he was here, on a hot day, in a dank cave. His thoughts were cut short, however, by a short squeak.

“Diglett!” Surely enough, from under the ground popped up the head of Josh’s first Pokemon, Damien the Diglett. “Diglett Dig,” he continued, before plopping back underground.

“Damo? Where’d you go little buddy,” inquired the brunette teenager. He squinted through his glasses in order to see where Damien had gone, only to notice that it did not, in fact, help. “Come on, I do want to get out of here sometime today. It’s a perfect day for swimming!” To this note, Diglett popped up angrily.

“Diglett,” the little Mole Pokemon yelled. “Diglett Dig!”

“Fine, sorry, sorry. I know you can’t swim. Regardless, there must be something nice to do on the surface for you,” Josh wiped his brow before continuing. “That doesn’t involve me boiling to a crisp, I mean.” Diglett seemed ready to respond, but the floor beneath the two cracked and fell through. Suddenly, things got a whole lot hotter.

***
“Holy Miltank!” As profane as such an expression was, Josh’s words were quite tame compared to what he was seeing: an entire city of Diglett and Dugtrio. “Damo… we’ve found the lost city of El Dug-ado!” To this, not many people could have formed a literate response, but a nearby Dugtrio seemed to do quite a good job.

“Oi! Brute! What are you doing here,” yelled the three heads of the unknown Dugtrio. “You humans aren’t allowed here!”

Damien and Josh simply stared at the oddity: a Pokemon that could speak English, and a Dugtrio no less! Josh scratched his head, still sore from the fall. “But… how do you know… uh… English?” asked Josh in a sort of daze.

“That’s not any of your business,” responded the Dugtrio curtly. “Guards, arrest the intruder!” With the order came action: instantly, a cage of rotten wood fell on top of Josh, trapping him. Josh looked up to see where it came from, and noticed that a few Diglett who had taken residence upside down in the roof dropped it. The Dugtrio now turned to Damien, still in English for some reason. “And you, brother, may escape your life of mistreatment and live with us for now on!”

Although Dugtrio saw this as a brilliant offer, Damien simply popped underground and reappeared under the cage, attempting to lift it up. “Dig….lett..,” he moaned, while trying to free his friend.

“You dare disobey me? The Chief of El Dug-ado? Guards! Arrest this traitor until he learns why he should not betray his species.” Suddenly, the two Diglett guards on the roof popped into the earth and reappeared behind Damien (on the ground).

“Damien! Watch out!” At that moment, the two guards sped through the ground towards Damien, but he quickly ducked under ground, letting go of the cage, which the two guards flew into. He then reappeared behind the two, and growled. The taller of the two guards quickly recovered, and burrowed underground before appearing before and scratching Damien with his… something. The scratch was deep and critical, and Damien didn’t think he could take too many more scratches, so he splashed sand into his opponents’ eyes.

The second Diglett guard was about recover from the nasty bump he received, but when his eyes were blasted with the sand he decided to run/dig for it. He was, after all, only new to his job, and didn’t deserve this treatment. Thus, he popped underground to flee. The first Diglett guard wasn’t as taken aback by the sand, however, and quickly shook his head to dispel it. Once his vision was clear, though, he still couldn’t see Damien.

Suddenly the guard heard a loud growl, and noticed that although Damien was gone, there was a peculiar hole in the ground where he once was. At that point, he began to receive multiple scratches to his body. The traitor was in the ground! At that point, the Guard disappeared underground and Josh and the Dugtrio were alone on the surface.

Underground, a flurry of activity was happening. Damien managed to strike the guard once more before the Guard responded by another critical scratch. Things weren’t going well for Damien; another hit and he would almost certainly be knocked out.

Meanwhile, on the pseudo-surface that was the cave, there was an enduring silence. Josh and the Dugtrio exchanged glares, neither speaking a word. Luckily for both of their sanity, the silence lasted only a minute. When the fight was over, only one Diglett returned. “Diglett DIG,” yelled Damien, and Josh jumped up and down at the revelation that Diglett managed to beat his opponents. Not everyone was pleased, however.

“So you managed to defeat my guards,” calmly spoke the Dugtrio with a menacing glare. “But do you honestly believe you can defeat me?” Both Josh and Damien just stared at Dugtrio. Both knew that Damien wouldn’t stand a chance against Dugtrio alone, especially so soon after the last fight. At that point, the Dugtrio’s faces all smiled. “I’m just kidding! I could never fight a fellow Diglett! Now, come on, if you care that much about your pet,” he glared at Josh before smiling at Diglett again, “he can come too!” At that point, the Dugtrio disappeared underground, reappearing beneath the cage, and managed to raise the cage high enough for Josh to squeeze out.

“Thanks Mr… Dugtrio,” Josh still wasn’t sure of the odd Dugtrio’s name, but he was fairly sure he was a he. After all, the Chief did speak in a rather low register, so it was probably true.

“My name is Chief Stevens,” the Dugtrio told Damien. It seemed that the Dugtrio may be letting Josh in, but wasn’t too happy about it. Regardless, Damien was happy, and as soon as Josh stood up outside of the cage, Diglett began to rub against Josh’s shoes. “Now come,” spoke the Chief, “we have much to discuss.”

“What about the Guard,” Josh inquired to both Damien and the Chief, “is he alright?” As if specifically to answer the question, the guard reappeared from the ground, now wearing an eyepatch.

“Diglett dig,” happily spoke the Guard.

“Dig Diglett,” replied the Chief.

“Diglett dig, dig dig,” joined Damien. The conversation continued in this manner for some time before the Chieftain left the conversation.

“What are they talking about?” asked Josh.

“Your owner is asking my Guard about whether or not he would like to join you,” replied the Chief curtly.

“So… will he?” Josh knew that a Pokemon squad of just him and a lone Diglett wouldn’t fare very well, and that they would need a new member if they ever planned on getting anywhere.

“He seems quite keen on it,” sullenly replied the Chief. “Even though I’ve tried to convince him otherwise.”

“He’ll join us?” beamed Josh. The two Digletts then turned to face Josh and nodded happily. The lone human then wiped more sweat off his brow and dove to hug the two Diglett. Sure, he got himself fairly dirty on the rocky ground, but he finally had a second Pokemon, and it was a nice time for a celebratory hug.

“Now come,” ordered the Chief with obviously fake joy, “it’s time to visit the city proper.” The Chief then began to move away, pushing away earth as he did, and the two Diglett’s followed.

Josh hesitated a few seconds to stand, dust himself off and look up before following, though. The fall was longer than he thought; there was no way he would be getting out of here anytime soon, or by the same way he got in.

‘This is going to be a long day,’ he thought, before taking off his glasses to clean them with his sleeves. And he was right: it was going to be a very long day indeed.

 

I'll claim this.

 

Hm, you could work on the intro a bit; otherwise, good way of putting in new ideas. Of course, I didn't get further than that when reading, so I don't know about the rest. Interesting, though...

 

Claim overridden at the request of the author in response to a question from me. Sorry about this, Seq.

Anyway, re-claimed for Grading.

 

Don't you hate it when 503 errors erase all of your hard work? x_x

Anyway...

Introduction:

This introduction was pretty good. Though it lacked a strong hook, I was curious as to why Josh was inside the cave, so that kept me reading. The only problem I found with it was that it was relatively short, and didn't really show the setting all that much. Besides drawing the reader into the story, introductions are also used to set up the story and show the reader where the characters are as the story begins. You said that Josh and Damien were in a cave; while I can think of what a generic cave would look like, it would be nice if you'd be more specific about your surroundings in the future.

For your target Pokemon, this is fine; just give more details about the setting and draw the readers in with a strong (perhaps action-oriented) hook in your future introductions.

Plot:
While exploring a cave, Josh and his Diglett Damien fall through the floor of the cave into what is apparently the lost city of El Dug-ado (you'd think they'd change the roofing every so often, but apparently not). When they wake up, they are given an abrupt welcoming committee, which quickly traps Josh. Damien wants to free him, which doesn't bode well with the Chief Dugtrio; however, after a fight with the guards, the Chief is impressed, and releases Josh from his cage. One of the guards then offers to join Josh's party.

This plot is definitely original, especially for what you're aiming for. I liked how you adapted the myth of El Dorado and used it in the Pokemon world, though I don't really know the prospect of all those Diglett. I mean, wouldn't explorers be looking for gold, or something? Nevertheless, it was interesting and original, and I enjoyed it.

Something I would highly recommend in the future, though, is fleshing out your plots a bit more. Though this sounds like a story that will have a continuation, each story you write has to be able to stand on its own. While you did give us something of an introduction to El Dug-ado, I would have felt much better about this story if you gave the readers a little more about it, such as the structure of the city and more of Josh's overall reaction (which was condensed into a single sentence this time). It's something to watch out for in the future, anyway.

Dialogue:
I thought that the dialogue was pretty good here; the interactions of the Diglett were a nice touch, since there weren't too many English-speaking characters here. I also liked the derogative tone that the Chief took for humans when talking to Josh:

This line and most of the others that the Chief spoke gave him some character, which added to the depth of the story.

I felt that Josh's character wasn't really explored throughout this story, though; for the most part, I got a lot of my thoughts on him from his one-on-one conversation with Damien before they fell into the hole. In the future, it would definitely be a good idea to explore Josh's character some more, or give more depth to other characters you use, especially if you're going for something more difficult.

Grammar:
I really didn't find anything that wouldn't be nitpicking in this section, so it looks like you've got your grammar down pretty well. There is a sentence that can help me voice a couple of my criticisms at once, though, so let's take a look at it:

First and foremost, the comma at the end of Josh's line should be a period. That's because the sentence after the line of dialogue isn't connected to the sentence by modifiers (like "said"), so you can end the sentence in the dialogue. Second, you don't leave a space after an ellipsis ("...") unless you're ending a sentence mid-paragraph with one; in that case, you'd add an extra period to the end of the ellipsis, and then put a space between the two sentences.

Other than that, I didn't really notice anything. Good job here.

Detail and Description:
As I said in the plot section, I really would have felt better about your story if you fleshed out El Dug-ado a little more; the best way to do this would have been to give details on the city when Josh woke up. Furthermore, explaining the appearance of the city would have made it easier to visualize the battle. I also had trouble visualizing Josh (though the poster at the beginning helped); in the future, you may want to draw attention to his appearance a little more so that the readers have an easier time visualizing him.

Something I noticed:

Typically, caves are quite good at sheltering people from the Sun; as you go deeper into one, it would actually get cooler in most cases. This case would be an example: since the cave seemed devoid of other people besides Josh at first, it would be cooler inside the cave than outside, unless he was right near the entrance. The lost city would probably be hotter than the cave above, since there are a lot of Pokemon giving off body heat therein.

I felt your details were adequate for your target Pokemon, but in the future, you'll definitely want to add some more to your stories, especially if you're going for something harder.

Battle:
I felt that the battle was done well; you gave a good description of the attacks and their effects on the other Pokemon in the fight, and it wasn't simply trading blows, as the Diglett used the ground for cover at times.

The only thing that I felt was missing here was Josh's presence in the battle; instead of shouting orders and helping his Pokemon, he sat on the sidelines, seemingly helpless from inside the cage. This was kind of debilitating for Josh's character, so you'll want to make him more of an influence next time.

Length:
Diglett is in the Simple category; the suggested length for Pokemon in this category is 5,000 to 10,000 characters. Your story is 7,664 characters, so it makes the cut.

Outcome:
Drum roll, please...

...

The Diglett guard followed the visitors along happily. Though it had been their enemy just moments ago, it felt a sort of respect for them for having bested him in battle. Of course, it wouldn't let that happen again if it could help it, but you can't win them all, right?

Gotcha! Diglett was caught!

Be sure to keep my suggestions in mind when you write in the future.

Enjoy your catch!