For My Secret Santa

For My Secret Santa​

It was a few days after Christmas and Molly still needed to get to her Aunt and Uncles for the holidays. Though that seemed to be the last thing on her list that she wanted to do. In fact she was still in bed with the sheets pulled up to her chin. Not only was she not awake she still had yet to pack her bags. Her mother who had been up for quite awhile was running around doing her morning duties as she does every morning. She noticed that Molly’s door was still closed as she pushed it open and was shocked to see her daughter still in bed.

“Molly! What are you doing still in bed we are going to be late for the train.”

Molly couldn't help but to groan as she pulled the sheets up over her head trying to hide only to feel the sheets being ripped from her grasp. Her mother stood there with her hands on her hips and an unhappy look on her face.

“Mooooom. I don’t want to go. What’s wrong with staying here in Vermillion?”

“Your Aunt and Uncle want to see you and spend time with you.”

“But it’s so cold in Snowbelle and there’s dare I say….snow.”

“You’ll be fine. Now hurry up and get ready and pack your bags. I mean it.”

Molly rolled to her back and let a frustrating grunt before getting out of bed and grabbed a bag from the closet and started throwing just about anything and everything into her bag not really caring if anything matched.

“Come on now make sure up fold them nicely and put them into this bag.”

Her mother walked back into the bedroom and over to the closet and pulled the duffle bag from the top rack and placed it on the bed and zipped it open. She then started to pack the bag with clothes and shoes as Molly tried to get her to stop.

“Mooooooooom.”

“That’s enough now go get cleaned up and dressed.”

“Fine!”

Molly stormed out of the bedroom and into the bathroom to get ready. She came back a few minutes later as she got dressed and grabbed a few things and stuffed them in the backpack. He mother grabbed the duffle bag and took it down to the kitchen and sat it next to the door. Molly looked around the room and grabbed a few more things before snatching a Pokeball off her nightstand and stuck it in her pocket.

“Let’s go Molly or we’ll be late.”

Molly rolled her eyes and trudged down the stairs. She knew this was going to be a long journey and one she was going to hate. Why she couldn't just stay home with her own family is something she couldn't even begin to figure out. There was no way out of this no matter how much she tried. She climbed into the car and sunk into the seat a bit and crossed her arms over her chest.

"Do you have everything?"

"Yeah I guess."

She sighed and looked out the window as her mother pulled out of the driveway. This was going to suck and she knew it. She hated the snow and being cold and staying with her Aunt Mary and Uncle Jack would just be Hell on Earth. She leaned against the door with her head resting in her hand. It wasn't until 15 minutes later that the two arrived at the train station.

"Alright grab your things and let's go."

Molly sighed and grabbed her things and managed to drag herself out of the car. She slung her backpack over her one shoulder and took the handle of her other bag. Her mother dug through her purse before pulling out the ticket and handing it to Molly. The pair walked into the station and made their way through the crowd.

“Tell your Aunt and Uncle we all said Hi and Merry Christmas. Don’t give them a hard time and we’ll see you in two weeks.”

“I’ll miss you and Dad.”

“Well miss you too. We love you.”

“Love you too Mom.”

They exchanged hugs and kisses before Molly grabbed her bag and walked over to the train and showed her ticket before climbing onto the train and finding a spot to sit. She put her bag up above in the overhead compartment before plopping down in one of the seats. The horn sounded as they waved good-bye to each other as the train started to pull out of the station.

“This is going to take forever.”

She sighed to herself as she stared out the window. Once they left the city there wasn’t much to look at other than the the trees that you could see for miles. You could only stare at those for so long because let’s face if you’ve seen one or hundreds you’ve seen them all. She thought for a moment before digging into her pocket and pulling out the Pokeball she stuck in there just before she left the house and pushed the button in the middle as the ball grew. She held it out as the ball split in half and opened up. A light flashed out as a Jolteon appeared in the seat next to her. She placed the ball back into her pocket and then reached out to pet the smiling, spiky, electric Pokemon.

“Looks like we are on our way to see Aunt Mary and Uncle Jack. They only problem is, is it’s in Snowbelle where it’s cold and snowing.”

It would seem as if the electric Pokemon understood what she was saying by the face it made to it’s owner. Neither of them seemed at all excited for this trip because neither was use to the cold or the snow. Jolteon kneaded the seat before curling up and laying down.

“Maybe if we take a nap we’ll get there sooner. Unless you want to stare out the window at the trees.”

Without even lifting his head Jolteon looked up at her and gave her that look as if she was crazy for even thinking about that. She couldn’t help but to giggle before petting his head and curling up in the seat next to him and falling back asleep. While it wasn’t her bed it would have to do for the time being.

*** 6 Hours Later ***

Molly yawned and stretched before looking at her watch. Well she didn’t sleep very well the night before not to mention she was dragged out of bed so early this morning. She looked over to see that Jolteon had rolled over to his back and was stretched out in the seat still asleep. She giggled as a voice came over the PA system. She looked out the window to see Snowbelle in the distance and how it was covered in a blanket of that white, powdery crap she just dread to have to go out into.

“Hey Stormy...wake up.”

She nudged the sleeping Pokemon only to have him flop over onto his side and keep sleeping. You would think he was just as bad with sleeping as her. She reached over and ran her hand up and down his tummy until he woke up.

“Hey sleepy head. We’re almost there. Look…”

She pointed out the window as the Jolteon stood up and arched his back trying his best to stretch out after being asleep in the chair. He looked out the window only to have that look over horror on his face. What the hell was that white crap outside? It was something he had never seen before. He had that look like a cat would when you would give it a bath and she couldn’t help but to laugh.

“It’s just snow Storm it’s not going to hurt you. Might be cold but that’s about it.”

About 20 minutes later the train finally pulled into the station as she got up from her seat and pulled her bag down from the overhead compartment. She tossed her bag over her shoulder as they made their way off of the train. She looked around the station before waving as she spotted her Aunt and Uncle. She ran over and hugged them. Okay so maybe she could get use to this.

“So how was the train ride dear?”

“I don’t know Storm and I slept most of the time.”

Her Aunt couldn’t help but to shake her head because she knew how much sleeping her Niece liked to do. The Jolteon walked over and nudged into her side before doing a little more stretching.

“Well, well this must be the very handsome Storm you’re talking about.”

The Jolteon’s ears perked up as her Uncle took a few steps towards them and knelt down. Storm sat down next to Molly and did his best grin once he was called handsome. He was handsome and he knew it. Uncle Jack stuck his hand out to Storm as the Jolteon looked at it for a moment before lifting his paw and shaking hands err...paws with her Uncle.

“Good looking and smart. You taught him well.”

Molly couldn't help but to giggle as she reached over and ruffled the top of Storm’s head.

“He’s won a few ribbons in the talent shows.”

“Alright you two can talk more when we get back.”

They nodded and made their way through the train station as her Aunt opened the door and they stepped outside. Storm stopped in the doorway once seeing that white stuff on the ground. Molly looked back before calling to him.

“Come on Storm it’s okay.”

The Jolteon leaned down to sniff the white stuff the humans called snow before reaching a paw out to stick in the snow. It was cold and he quickly pulled his paw back to shake off any snow he might have gotten on it. Molly shook her head and pulled the Pokeball from her pocket.

“Fine I’ll carry you back to the house but you’ll have to get use to this snow.”

She pushed the button on the ball as Storm went back into his ball so he wouldn’t have to walk through the snow. She stuck the Pokeball back into her pocket as they walked to the car and put everything in it and then made their way back to the house.

*** A Few Days Passed ***

Once Storm had sorta gotten use to the snow….sorta they began to go for walks to explore the city and see what trouble they could get into. They had been exploring the Winding Woods to see what they could find. It was a lot different than back home where you had the ocean view and could listen to the boats pull into the docks.

They had ventured into the Winding Woods the past few days and each day they seemed to get deeper and deeper into the woods. Molly reached down and picked up a handful of snow and formed it into a ball before looking over at her Jolteon who had his nose to the snow sniffing as she threw it hitting him in the side. He quickly threw his head up and looked around to see where it came from as Molly stood there with the most innocent look on her face.

“Wha? I didn’t do it.”

She shrugged as if to pretend that she had no idea where the snowball came from. She picked up yet another handful of snow and formed it into a snowball before throwing it at Storm once again. Storm looked over at her as she slowly walked up to him as if she had done nothing once again.

“Someone must be throwing snowballs at you Storm.”

The Jolteon couldn’t help but to roll his eyes and putting his nose back down to the ground. They kept walking until Storm shot his head up after hearing something. Molly looked around but couldn’t see or hear anything. She stood there and watched Storm as his ears moved ever so slightly. He then took off like a bolt of lightning. As Molly did her best to keep up running through the snow.

“Storm what’s going on? Hey...wait up.”

She kept running before she started to slow down a bit and drag her feet through the snow a bit. She couldn’t understand why Storm would take off like that. She followed his tracks until she found him and they suddenly weren’t alone anymore.

“Storm come here.”

Molly whispered trying to get her Pokemon’s attention but he acted as if he never even heard her. She stood behind a tree before peaking around from the other side to see what was going on.

“Let’s go you stupid Pokemon get back into the ball. NOW!”

The sounds of whimpering could be heard but not seen. Molly looked back at Storm who looked none too happy right now. She thought for a moment before before calling for Storm once more.

“Storm….come here for a moment.”

She nodded her head at him as he slowly walked over to her. She leaned closer to him and whispered a few things to him as if to tell him the plan. Storm looked at her as they nodded to each other. She slowly made her way around to where she could see better. She stayed down low but still be able to see everything going on. Storm started prancing around as if he had just wandered into the woods. This caught the attention of the male trainer who stepped away from the Pokemon he was just scolding.

“Well lookie what we got here. A Jolteon just wandering through the woods. You’re a rare breed around here you know.”

Storm looked over and tilted his head to the side as if he didn’t understand what was being said. He just kept prancing around and playing in the snow. Molly moved closer to where the trainer had been as she found a Growlithe curled into a ball and shaking from fright. She slowly moved closer as the Growlithe spotted her. She quickly put a finger up as if to tell it to keep quiet. She talked in a calming matter and slowly reached out to pet the Growlithe.

“It will be okay I promise.”

She kept petting the Growlithe before slowly picking it up and hugging it close. She slowly slinked back behind the bushes doing her best to keep quiet. She could hear the male trainer talking to Storm as if to butter him up. There was a flash of light as she looked up to see a lion looking Pokemon with a huge mane now facing off with her Storm.

“What in the Hell is that?”

The Growlithe whimpered slightly and looked over. It knew this wasn’t going to be good as the Pyroar was the boss in charge when it came to the male trainers Pokemon. Molly made her way back to where she first was and pulled the small blanket from her backpack and wrapped the Growlithe in it before tucking it into one of the bushes.

“I’ll be right back for you okay.”

She got up and snuck far enough away before getting up and walking into the area where the male trainer was along with Storm and the lion looking Pokemon. Her presence got the attention of the male trainer as she looked over at Storm.

“There you are Storm. You always got to be the sneaky one don’t cha.”

She walked over to him and ruffled his head as he hopped around happy to see her. She did all the cute kissy face things until they were interrupted.

“So this must be your Jolteon.”

“Oh yes he just likes to be sneaky and run off on me sometimes. Isn’t that right you silly thing you.”

She spoke to Storm in almost a baby sounding voice.

“Well it was your Jolteon now it’s going to be mine.”

The Pyroar stood next to it’s trainer as it and Storm stared each other down before they exchanged Roars trying to intimidate the other. Storm stood his ground as he wasn’t one to back down from a fight. Molly stood back a few steps as Storm lowered it’s body slightly.

“Let’s take that Jolteon down. Take Down!”

“Storm go with it and then Double Kick.”

The fire lion charged at the orders of his trainer as he took the Jolteon down with what seemed like ease. Jolteon on the other hand made sure to land on his back absorbing some of the attack before kicking the lion Pokemon off of him with a Double Kick. The Pyroar slid through the snow leaving a melted trail behind it. Molly looked over and grinned at herself.

“Burn them to the ground.”

The Pyroar let loose a stream of fire straight at Jolteon as he could hear Molly yelling at him as he leaped at the last possible moment. Though he was still hit along his front paws. When he landed Storm quickly sunk his paws into the snow feeling instant relief from the fire attack.

“Finish it off now while he’s down.”

The male trainer shouted more orders as Pyroar charged at the Jolteon. Storm still had his paws buried in the snow as he took a direct hit to the side from another Take Down. He went sliding through the snow.

“Come on Storm I know we can do this.”

Molly yelled for Storm to fight back. The Growlithe had managed to get free of it’s warm blanket as it slowly and cautiously made its way into the area. It could see what was going on and the Jolteon laying on it’s side. Jolteon slowly made it’s way back to it’s feet.

“There’s no sand or dirt so….Snow Attack”

Jolteon quickly turned it’s back on Pyroar and started kicking snow at it. While it seemed like it did little to nothing it was actually the worse thing possible. The snow melted on contact with the lion Pokemon as its trainer couldn’t help but to laugh.

“You think a little snow is going to do much damage to us.”

He couldn’t help but to laugh even more. Growlithe charged it’s trainer with fangs at the ready and clamped down on his back side with a Fire Fang. The trainer yelped in pain from the attack and jumped about ten feet in the air.

“Storm THUNDER!”

Storm had a devious smile form on his face before letting out a powerful Thunder attack on the Pyroar. The melted snow made the electric attack much more powerful as it drew the attack to the lion Pokemon even more. There was a blast as the Pyroar was sent flying behind its trainer in a daze. The trainer recalled his Pyroar and scurried off.

“Nice job Storm.”

She ran over throwing her arms around him and giving him a big hug. The Growlithe slowly walked over to the two as Molly held an arm out to it.

“Come on you can join the fun.”

The Growlithe leaped into her arms and snuggled into her. Storm looked over and gave the Growlithe a nuzzle. After a few minutes she stood up and held the Growlithe in her arms before looking back at Storm.

“I think we have the perfect Trainer for this little one.”

Storm barked in approval as the Growlithe wagged its tail in approval. The trio made their way out of the woods and back into the city.​

Author's Note: Here's the do over after my laptop wanted to eat the first version. Mind you this is only my second Pokemon story.....EVER! xD It came out a lot better than I thought it would. Total Character Count is: 16,857

 

claiming in the name of secret santa! <3

 

Hi hi! Merry Christmas (or whatever holiday of your choice)!

THE INTRODUCTION AND PLOTTY STUFF

The first parts of a story play a unique and interesting role. First, you want to make sure that you catch the reader’s attention so that they keep reading (this part is called a hook). Second, you want to start, well, introducing stuff, such as plot, themes, characters, and setting. If this sounds like a lot of stuff, don’t be stressed: you don’t really have to do all of these things fully; that’s what the rest of your story is for!

With that being said, let’s take a look:

(I’m also going to pull from the rest of the first paragraph, but I didn’t want to quote it here because of special stuff)
So we do a pretty good job of introducing the time (a few days after Christmas), the characters (Molly), and a sort of thing that needs to be done (getting to Aunt and Uncle’s House). This is good! You’re introducing the most important things that need to be introduced, and you aren’t bogging down the reader with a bunch of unnecessary details that’ll bore them. Good!

I would focus on what they call your hook, however. You want to make sure that you can catch your reader’s attention somehow to compel them to continue reading your story. Like, I get that Molly needs to get somewhere for the holidays, but there’s nothing terribly compelling here. You have a little bit of urgency conveyed with the fact that Molly isn’t packed and she has to catch her train, but that’s not really something that’s got me on the edge of my seat, ready for more.

There are a lot of ways you could look at re-imagining this into a more interesting hook. Some writers like to begin with funny bits of dialogue, or some sort of profound statement, or a big piece of action. What I would suggest is that you think about your story as a whole and distill some really important part out of it. The wishy-washy thing about this, of course, is that you can’t really quantitatively nail down “this is the most important part of my story that I want to convey to the readers right now!” in any single sentence: really, there are a bunch of different moments/ways you can use to catch your reader’s attention.

I’d kind of like to bring this to my next point: I think it might be difficult to find your most important aspect because your story is a little unfocused. There are two really different halves of your story that kind of have equal-ish focus, except they don’t really relate: the first half, where Molly’s on a train and driving to Aunt/Uncle’s, and the second half, with Storm and Growlithe and the poacher.

I’d also like to point out that this is something that applies to higher-level story writing: your plot, as it stands, is really solid for a second story/Medium-ranked capture, so don’t get freaked out! This is more of just tips for how to improve in the future, should you choose to keep writing (which you totally should!).

Anyway. There’s kind of an odd shift in focus from “hurray, to grandmother’s house we go!” to “oh gosh there’s a poacher!” I think the hardest part here was the sudden escalation of tension: for the first half of the story, where the driving force is getting Molly to visit her relatives and have a relaxing vacation, there’s nothing terribly nerve-racking or scary. There’s even a cute scene where Storm is playing in the snow! However, all of a sudden, there’s a Pokémon poacher and there’s some serious life-or-death vibes going around, which is kind of a mood whiplash from the whole “wow let’s use Snow Attack! ^^” from the scene before.

This isn’t to say that you should pick one side or the other to favor: I think that both halves of your story had really good parts! I would suggest building a bit of a bridge between them: maybe a bit more build-up and time to adjust from “yay, Christmas” to “OH GEEZ THIS GUY IS GOING TO HURT MY POKÉMON.”

Anyway, fantastic job so far! There’s some fine-tuning to do, but you’ve definitely got a great start!

THE MECHANICAL STUFF

Mmm, so you have a good start here too, but there’s always a little room for improvement. I don’t want to overwhelm you with pages and pages of diatribes about grammar jargon, so we’re going to keep it to two topics: dialogue tags and a quick overview of commas.

First, dialogue tags. I noticed that when you do dialogue, it looks a lot like this:

See how it’s a little hard to follow who’s saying what, especially when it’s taken out of context like that? Sure, we can probably figure out that Molly is the one saying, “Mooooooom,” but why have your readers spend time on that when they can spend time enjoying your story instead? You might consider using dialogue tags, which help elaborate quotes by showing who’s saying what. For instance, when you add on things like “he said” or “she asked” or “Molly exclaimed,” these are all dialogue tags. There’s some special punctuation rules to learn, but once you get them down, they’ll come pretty naturally.

So, to go into detail about dialogue tags, you need to go into detail about dialogue. There are basically two types of dialogue: exclamations/questions (more emotive things, which are said with emphasis and have question marks/exclamation marks, such as “Oh no!” and “What?”), and general statements (basically everything else, and end with periods).

With the exclamations/questions, dialogue tags are really easy! All you have to do is tack on the dialogue tag, really. For example, using the above paragraph:

Or, if you want to put the dialogue tag in front, you could try:

With general statements, it’s a little less obvious, but not that much harder. Remember that a general statement ends in periods, like this one:

Basically, you can change that period into a comma, and then you can tack on the dialogue tag, like so.

And that’s basically it! There are some more detailed nuances, but we don’t need to go into those right now (although if you’ve got some burning questions or anything, feel free to ask me and I’ll be happy to help! There are also some pretty good online resources if you just google “dialogue tags”).

Commas are a little trickier. There are a bunch of complicated rules, and we can spend literally all day talking about them, but I think we should use a foundation first. Basically, imagine reading your sentence out loud. Wherever you would pause naturally, you should put a comma. So, for example:

Again, there’s a bunch of different rules we can go into here, but the “put a comma in whenever you’d pause in speech” rule basically covers all of them at a basic level.

Otherwise, your mechanics are pretty good. There were some typos here and there, so don’t be afraid to read through a few times and make some proofreading runs, but otherwise, good work here!

THE PRETTY STUFF

I was going to go a bit into description, but I think we’ve covered enough here for now so this is going to be short.

Good things! I liked your descriptions during the battles. They were really colorful, and you did a great job of showing what was going on in a fun and dynamic manner. You did some pretty cool and creative move choices, and I think you incorporated Pokémon pretty well.

I think you can afford to spend a little more time on your descriptions in the rest of your story, though. What does Molly look like? What does Storm look like? Hell, there are more than seven hundred Pokémon now; you mention a Growlithe, but which one is that? This is where descriptions are vital. Paint a picture for your reader with your words. Describe, at the very least, what you think is the most important part of any scene: visuals are usually pretty useful, but sometimes sounds, smells, and feels are really good as well. If you have vivid descriptions, you’ll help immerse the reader more into the story, which is always a good thing!

THE FINAL STUFF

Anyway. Overall stuff. You’ve got a great start here, and a lot of it is just polishing stuff! I had this whole thing typed up for sentence structure, but this grade was going a little long. There’s plenty of time to keep learning, so we’ll save it for next time, okay? (Although, again, if you want to talk more in detail, don’t be afraid to contact me! I’ll be happy to help!)

So, the tl;dr stuff for suggestions for future stories: work on building your hook, which will make your introduction stronger. Work on keeping the drive of your story cohesive, which will make your plot stronger. Work on cleaning up your grammar stuff, which will make your story a little easier to read. Work on your description, because that’ll make your story more vivid!

Also, another consideration: Growlithe doesn’t really play too major of a role in this story. A lot of the focus is on Molly and Storm, which isn’t good at higher-ranks. A good rule of thumb that I use to see how important a Pokémon is in a story is I see what would happen if I replaced the Pokémon in question with something else or removed it entirely, would the story be terribly different? If the story isn’t that much different, you may consider involving your target Pokémon a bit more: otherwise, it feels a little shoehorned in, which isn’t all that great.

Anyway, this is probably the part you’ve been waiting for, so we’ll just skip to that. You have a really good foundation, and I think this was a solid effort for a Medium-ranked capture. As such, Growlithe captured! Congratulations! Try to keep the things I told you in mind, but great job, and I hope you keep writing!