Hog Wild for a Wild Hog (Grade?)

Well, I tried. It's not the best story I could do, but I feel it's the best I can get without dipping into Big Lipped Alligator territory.


"...But mom, I don't want to go," whined the sixteen-year old, black-haired boy. "I like it here."

"Nonsense, Wolfgang" explained his mother, "It's about time you got out of the house started your journey as a Pokemon trainer. Most people start at the age of ten."

"But I don't want to train Pokemon, I just want to live a nice life."

"Look," said his father, "we've already purchased a ticket for you to go to the National Park, and you've had that Togepi for years."

Wolfgang sighed, knowing he would lose the argument. "Aright, fine, I'll go. But just so it won't be a waste of money."

As Wolfgang left in his black suit and matching pants, his mother murmured, "I hope he doesn't try anything foolish. He needs his time out of the house, but..."

"He won't," said his father, lying to his wife and himself. "He won't."

Wolfgang headed up to his room where his Togepi was playing and opened the door. The Togepi, whom Wolfgang affectionately called Nova, saw his owner and chirped cheerfully. "C'mon," Wolfgang said, " it's time to go."

_________________​

As Wolfgang began his trek from his home, located north of Fortree City, to Lilycove Harbor, he took some time to think. The young man felt that Nova was too weak a creature to help him make the journey, so he decided to try his luck at capturing a Pokemon. He looked around, ignoring the bug Pokemon that crawled up in the surrounding trees, and spotted a large white and brown bird sitting on a branch.

"Nova," commanded the naive trainer, "AncientPower on that Staraptor." Upon hearing Wolfgang's voice, the Staraptor shot a vengeful glare at him and his Togepi. Nova shivered and looked up to his master. "Do it," Wolfgang sternly said.

A ball a white light appeared in front of Nova, and it was launched towards the Staraptor. It was knocked out of the tree, but not done yet, as evidenced by its approach towards the duo.

Wolfgang failed to realize this, and launched a PokeBall at the creature. The Staraptor was converted in a red ball of energy and sucked into the ball. A single shake, and the ball burst back open. The Staraptor appeared once more, shot one more glare at Wolfgang and Nova, and flew off out of the woods.

Wolfgang turned to Nova, scowling, and murmured, "You have failed me, my friend." Nova stared at his feet, feeling a mixture of shame and annoyance.

He motioned at his companion to follow him. "Let's see if we can find something else," he said, and continued on his way.

Nova reluctantly looked up to follow him, but noticed something out of the corner of his eye. He chirped at his master, who called, "Not now, Nova." Nova cried louder, prompting Wolfgang to turn around. "What, what is it?" he complained, before seeing what it was.

Nova pointed at small brown creature grazing on some weeds nearby. It had black stripes, a pig nose, and eyes that appeared to be closed. No feet could be seen, but Wolfgang knew they were hidden by its thick fur.

"A Swinub," Wolfgang murmured. "Now here's something that could help us." He called his Togepi. "Nova, use Double Edge. Full power." Nova rushed forward and hit the Swinub with one of its spikes. The Swinub, realizing that he had company, squealed at his opponent and threw mud at him. Nova was blinded by the mud and attempted to wipe his face with his small arms in vain.

The Swinub stomped its foot on the ground. For a few seconds, nothing happened. All of a sudden, the trainer felt a small tremor, which knocked Nova down. Wolfgang considered making a crack about how his Pokemon had fallen and couldn't get up, but he felt that it wasn't the right time.

The Swinub rushed forward and used Take Down on Nova, throwing him into the air. Nova luckily managed to land on his feet, although he nearly stumbled.

Wolfgang seized the opportunity to attack and commanded Nova to use Metronome. A smirk developed on his face, knowing that Nova would likely be using a strong attack. His smirk vanished when Nova spat a stream of fire from his mouth.

"Nova, what do you think you're doing?!" Wolfgang yelled. The Togepi was helpless to respond, and continued spitting fire.

Eventually, the flames disappeared. Wolfgang was shocked to see that the Swinub had endured the hit and was still standing.

"This is pretty strong Swinub," noted Wolfgang as he reached for a PokeBall. "He'll make a fine addition to my team." The Swinub identified it, and, knowing that it was weak enough for capture, fled deeper into the forest.

Unfortunately for the Swinub, Wolfgang was extremely persistent. Not wanting to let it get away, he scooped Nova up in his arms and ran after the wild Pokemon...

_________________​

After a long chase through the woods, the Swinub found a way out to a clearing. Wolfgang, now out-of-breath, followed him out, expecting to see the Swinub out-of-breathe as well. Instead, he found himself facing a large herd of Swinub grazing in a pasture. Wolfgang estimated that there were about twenty or thirty of them.

The Swinub Wolfgang had been chasing ran up to the herd and squealed, seemingly trying to tell its story. Its fellow Swinub looked up, acknowledged the trainer and his Togepi, and, much to Wolfgang's surprise, continued their grazing. Apparently, the Swinub didn't see this coming either, as it attempted to squeal at its herd for help.

Wolfgang, not wanting to get into any trouble, turned to leave until he spotted a green Swinub among them. Thrilled at the opportunity to capture a Shiny Pokemon and not wanting to hesitate, he placed Nova down.

"Nova, use your AncientPower on the green one!" he commanded. Nova chirped and created a ball of white light, which he launched it at the Shiny. It flew out of the herd, and was nearly knocked out. The Swinub whom Wolfgang had chased was stunned by his mate being attacked. As Wolfgang prepared to throw his PokeBall, the Swinub ran to help the Shiny.

Before Wolfgang could throw the ball, however, he found himself being glared at by every Swinub in the herd. Even the Shiny Swinub had gotten herself up. Wolfgang chuckled nervously and took a step back. The herd took a step forward. The pursued Swinub came to the front

"Heh, heh, I-I think I might have be going now..." he said before sprinting away with Nova. After a squeal from the pursued Swinub, the herd followed in hot pursuit...

_________________​

After another long chase through the woods and several attempts to throw the herd off, Wolfgang found himself face-to-face with a group of Swinub. When turned the other way, he found more Swinub. He was cornered.

Wolfgang was frozen in fear, as anyone surrounded by a large group of dangerous animals, or in this case, Pokemon, wanting revenge would. Not to mention that the sun had come down and it now was dark.

He stammered, "N-N-Nova, d-d-do something!" Nova shivered, scared, then performed a Metronome.

Suddenly, a gust of wind flew through the woods. It gradually got stronger, until it started blowing Swinub off the ground and out of the woods. Within a few minutes, just about every member of the herd was gone. Just about.

Wolfgang stood for a minutes in shock. Eventually, he regained his senses and spoke to Nova: "You know I'm not sure why that attack is called Metronome. It's more of a Deus Ex Machina."

He turned to see the Swinub he had pursued a few feet away, panting heavily. He took out a PokeBall, grinned, and said, "This one's for you." The Swinub grunted in response, but was too weak to do anything else. Wolfgang launched the PokeBall, and the Swinub disappeared into a ball of red energy. The PokeBall shook once, twice, three times...

 

Re: Hog Wild for a Wild Hog

NOTE: I am not a grader, I just wanted to point out what you should fix.

Since you said it yourself that the character count is short of 3000 char., that automatically makes the story ineligible to catch your swinub. Also, you cannot write what happens after you 'supposedly' caught it and make it count towards your character count.

 

Re: Hog Wild for a Wild Hog

Alright, now I know. I more looking for some help on how to help me reach the character count than actually aactually getting the Swinub on this attempt. I couldn't find anything on those parts, and I don't know of anywhere I could ask for help.

 

Re: Hog Wild for a Wild Hog

No.

Yes, unless more pokemon are caught in the story.

 

Re: Hog Wild for a Wild Hog

Well, could I change it so some of the stuff after the capture happens before I throw the ball? Because I can totally do that.

Not sure what else I could do, though.

 

Re: Hog Wild for a Wild Hog

Whatever, I suppose it's a little better now. Sorry for the double post.

 

you should be sorry for the double post... on your own thread... lol jk

I'm going to go ahead and claim this story since i'm just finishing up my last claim. Expect a grade in 48 hours from this post

 

Intro:

Your intro is a bit simple. A boy is forced to go on his journey by his parents. And intro should have a strong hook, and the hook should be one of the first things the reader should see.

For a stronger hook, I suggest you start with the battle with the Staraptor; it would have gotten me more interested, since you only have a Togepi. It would also introduce us to your character's attitude towards his Togepi sooner.

Also this confused me:

This tells the readers that Wolfgang likes his Togepi, yet later on, you say that he doesn't throughout the rest of the story. He gets annoyed by Togepi. Just watch out for little things like this.

Plot:

Past the intro, I quite enjoyed the plotline. Though a kid wanting to catch his own Pokemon isn't exactly new, the way Wolfgang dropped trying to catch the already damaged Swinub and concentrates on the shiny one was funny. It showed a more of his character. And I liked how the herd didn't care if you caught a regular one, but go after the shiny one then all bets are off.

Though, using Metronome to get "random" attacks gives me mixed feelings. For one, it shows me more of Wolfgang's character of being a sort of gambler, yet, it is a copout. You use it twice, one was not useful, but the other was exactly what you needed. Maybe if it did more useless moves for awhile as your running away from the herd and a last moment useful attack, while predictable, it still would have built the tension better.

Length:
6,991 w/ Spaces.
Swinub: Medium (10K-20K)

Your story is too short for this Pokemon. Here are some suggestions of how to put some more meat on this story:

Make Battles Longer:
By including more battles with the Swinub
By including your character getting beat up by the heard before the Whirlwind

Include Staraptor Battle:
This will more the battle ability of Wolfgang and his Togepi, and help with the hook.

Explain more about his family and why they are sending him to the National Park

Battle:
It was interesting how you seperate the battle and the actual capture. The battle was good, I liked how you didn't actually name the wild Pokemon's atttacks. However, logically, a flamethrower (is what I'm assuming from your description of the attack) would do a lot of damage since Swinub is weak against it.

The only thing I hoped for is that there would be sort of a rematch between Swinub and Togepi, since Swinub would be a little healed up by the end, and since you attacked its mate as you said, it would have more determination to fight you.


Grammar:
Not too much problem here. There were just a few paragraphing problems. Just remember:

Here are some other grammar mistakes:

The first example are two seperate sentenses so they should either be just that or you should use a ";".

The second example translates to: you have that Togepi for years. This should be: you have had that Togepi for years. "You have" implies present, but the father mentions something of the past.

The third might have been done just for effect but properly it would have been: I might be going now...

The last is improper use of commas. You should use a colon because the phrase that follows "you know" is directly related to it as the explaination of "you know."

Also the only spelling error:

You had it right at first, its "breath." "Breathe" is the verb form.

Details:
Decent amount in moves, yet not enough about the character's outfit. He is pale and has black hair, but he could be wearing a dress. Maybe his parent's forced it on him lol. But yeah just a bit more detail will help beef this story up as well.

Personal Thoughts:
I liked the story, yet it was just too short, besides the character count. I felt like there should have been more with the herd attack and more backstory to let us know more about Wolfgang.

Verdict:

Spoiler

Wiggle:
Wiggle: The mad Swinub is mad. No Capture

Add more to the story like what I suggested and PM and I'll happily look at it again.