Just Like Oil and Water {PG-13} (Ready for Grade)

Vocabulary: Damanjua - (Da-main-jew-ah)
Chetan – (Chey-tahn)
Damn BP this is 'cause of you!
Tribute to all of the Animals that have died in the Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill​

Feet dangling of the edge of the splintery dock, Halas brushed the dirt off of his black jeans and the Rolling Stones sweatshirt. He looked down at the water and saw a school of Goldeen swim away from him. One in particular caught his eye; instead of being red this one was orange. He shrugged; abnormalities in this town were everywhere.

Halas was a fourteen-year-old boy with dark brown hair and as other girls would say, beautiful brown eyes. His hair went past his eyes and he constantly had to move out of his always-tan face. He stood 5’6” and was always on his phone, either texting or IMing his friends. Almost getting in trouble in school because of his phone he didn’t care. He was also quite muscular for his age, because worked out after school each day.

Standing up from the wood platform, Halas took apart his fishing pole and began folding it so that it would fit in his backpack. He took out and looked at the time on his cell phone. 8:30 PM.

Phone half put into his pocket, the blue and silver phone started ringing and vibrating.

♪I remembered black skies, the lightning all around me, I remembered each flash as time began to blur♪

Fumbling to hold his phone steady, Halas dropped it and it just missed a crack that would have made it go into the icy water. He bent over and pressed the circular button just below the screen. The message he received read, ‘Turn around and look up’

He turned around and saw Katie, his girlfriend peeping over the cliff-like hill that had few ledges to climb over. He stared at her; she gave him a quick wink that made him crave for something more.

Katie was gorgeous, long flowing black hair that went down past her shoulders, her magnificent black eyes sparkled in the faint sunset light. She had freckles across her nose; she also had very full lips that always ended up on Halas’. She was wearing Halas’ track sweatshirt and skinny jeans, her regular outfit. She was one of the people that would fool you with her looks, but could betray you at any moment. From the first time Halas saw her he knew they would be together somehow. He had started dating her a few months earlier; maybe four or five, Halas couldn’t remember things easily because of distractions, like Katie.

“Hey, what are you doing out here?” Halas said beginning his trek up the steep cliff. “I thought you went to Ecruteak City with your parents for vacation,” Halas said smiling at Katie.

“Pssh! That place is a bore,” Katie said laying upside down looking at Halas who was climbing the cliff. “I’d rather spend the time here with you.” After saying that Halas reached the top and helped Katie up from the ground.

“And who are you staying with?” Halas said quizzically, “I mean you never stay with your grandparents. And I doubt you would stay at a hotel for that long.” Halas looked her straight in the eyes.

“I’m staying home alone,” she said black eyes glimmering, “My parents finally let me stay.” A strand of her hair fell in her face and she instantly brushed it out of her face with her hand.

“Uh huh,” Halas said with a smirk, “and what are you going to do the entire time your parents are away?” More than halfway up the cliff he was starting to become tired and was soon sweating.

“Oh I don’t know, hang out with you or someone else,” Katie said when smiling and showing her perfect white teeth. “So, want to go catch a movie? I saw a commercial for some movie, I forgot the name but it was a scary movie.”

“You remember the name then we can go to it,” Halas said, “But first I need to do something before we can even think about going.” He had reached the top of the cliff and managed to pull himself over the ridge and stood up.

“Oh, and what’s that?” Katie said turning and walking away from Halas, putting a lot of sway in her behind.

Halas stared for a moment then responded slowly, “I need to go to the oil spill remember? I had volunteered to help out.” Halas stood up and grabbed Katie by the waist and rested his chin on her shoulder. “Want to come with and help me?”

“Ugh okay, so what will we be doing?” Katie asked resting her head on Halas’. She yawned obviously tired and wanting to leave.

“Well I think we’ll be washing off the Pokémon and animals with oil on them. Last time I did that job I was washing off a Horsea and it had so much oil on and in it. It took three hours just to clear out some of it. The poor thing was helpless.” Halas spoke softly to Katie.

“Oh, I see well hopefully that won’t happen again to one of us.” She said sympathetically to Halas, “So where are we headed to?”

“We are going to Lake Damanjua the one where the rig exploded offshore.” He spoke in a serious voice. “I offered to start in a half an hour so we need to go now.”

-----------

Arriving at the red tinted lake, a man walked up to Halas and spoke in a raspy voice, “Halas?” He was huge; at least 6’7” and ripped. The man was bald and had a brown handlebar mustache and wore pitch-black sunglasses. He had many scars on his face that led Halas to believe there was some sort of dark background behind this guy. The man was clearly Native American and had darker skin than Halas’. He was wearing a black Harley t-shirt and ripped old jeans.

“Yeah, what’s it to you?” Halas said one eyebrow raised staring at the huge man in front of him.

“I need to sign you in,” Chetan said writing down on his clipboard. “So how many other times have you volunteered?”

“A couple,” Halas said watching him, “What’s your name and why did you ask me? They never asked that before.” Halas crossed his arms and waited for a response.

“Ugh, my name is Chetan and we need to know this now. I don’t know why, but we do.” He glared at Halas then looked at Katie, “Who the hell are you?”

“Err, my name is Katie.” Katie said staring at the monstrous man. “So we’ll just be going now.” The couple started walking toward the black beach when Chetan stopped them.

“You might want these,” He said handing each a pair of latex gloves, “Thanks for volunteering.” He grunted and then walked away.

“Damn,” Halas said as they walked to their bin of water and soap, “What was that guy’s problem?” They each slipped on the gloves they were given and were each handed a Pokémon, Katie a Wingull and Halas a Mantyke. They began scrubbing the Pokémon with soap and water with hopes of getting the oil off of them.

“I have no idea,” Katie said washing the gull’s right wing, “He walked like he had a stick up his ass too.” Katie shrugged, and then inspected the Wingull’s wing.

A couple of minutes later he took the baby stingray to a built aquarium and put it in the water patting its head. He then received a Pokémon that he cherished, a tadpole looking creature with a white belly and a black hypnotic swirl on it. A Poliwag. He stared at it in amazement, it was covered in oil head to toe, but was still smiling.

“Katie check this out!” He said to Katie slightly louder than needed, “Its still happy somehow.” As Katie looked at the Poliwag it began to blow bubbles in the air being completely playful.

“It is so cute! Man, I wish I had one of those.” Katie spoke while still scrubbing the gull’s head. “To bad I don’t.”

“I might just try to sneak it away,” Halas said to Katie, “I mean if it wants to be happy I could help it.” Scrubbing every part of its body, Halas just watched it have a great time and every once in awhile it would rub up against his arm. He had to have it.

With the tadpole completely clean, Halas sprinted away from the lake with the Poliwag in hand. He slowed only once to take a breath and then kept running. Once he reached the woods he stopped and set down the Poliwag.

“Sorry about this but I need to have you.” He reached for his belt and pulled out his Pachirisu’s ball and threw it near the tadpole. On contact with the ground the ball opened and a crimson light shot out and took the shape of a mouse with a large tail.

“Pach-Pach-Pachirisu!” the mouse screamed. Looking at the Poliwag the Pachirisu looked back at Halas and laughed. It was laughing so hard it didn’t notice the water the Poliwag was building in its mouth.

When the mouse had stopped laughing and looked back at the Poliwag it got crushed by the strongest move it knew, Hydro Pump. The power of the attack was intense, strong enough to shoot the Pachirisu at a tree.

After recovering from the blast, the blue and white mouse shot a powerful bolt of electricity at the Poliwag with an equal power to the Hydro Pump. The lightning cracked and popped as it engulfed to Pokémon. Surprisingly the Poliwag had enough strength to counter-attack by shooting a generous amount of mud at the mouse. Covered with mud it couldn’t make electricity with the mud on it.

“Great job Zapper!” Halas said cheering on the Pachirisu, “C’mon back.” He held the same ball the Pachirisu came out of at the mouse. A crimson light engulfed the muddy mouse in the light. “Okay now Poliwag time to be captured,” Halas picked up an empty ball from his belt and threw it at the tadpole. The ball opened and released the normal crimson light and engulfed the Poliwag. The ball hit the ground and began to wobble.

It wobbled once…
Twice…
Thrice… ​

 

Re: Just Like Oil and Water

Ready for Grade
Pogeyman Attempted: Poliwag
Char. Needed: 5-10k
Char. Have w/ spaces: 9.121
Char. Have w/o spaces: 7.413​

 

Claimed for grading.

EDIT: Unfortunately, real life has conspired against me getting this graded; I'm gonna have to pull my claim, but I've got another grader to take my spot.

Sorry for the delay, boss.

 

Introduction, Characters, Backstory: I like how your story begins with a broad description of your main character: Not only what he looks like, but also what his tendencies are (texting!) and what kind of place he's currently in. Basically, in the first few paragraphs alone, you successfully fill in enough information that the reader can build a mental picture of what all this looks like.

A bit more information is always a good idea, though; for instance, it's 8:30pm, but is it dark out? And how big is the lake/pond/?? that Halas is dangling his feet in at the beginning? Stuff like that. Still, your introduction is a strong point in your story. Kudos.


Plot Content, Plot Flow: A young Trainer, Halas, is fishing and more or less goofing off when he's interrupted by his girlfriend, Katie. He tells her about his scheduled volunteer work at a lake where there's been an oil spill, and they set off there. When they arrive, they encounter a decidedly unlikeable official of some sort, then get to work. Halas is given a Poliwag, and decides he wants to keep it. His Pachirisu battles it, and he attempts to capture it.

While the plotline isn't exactly complex or subtle, it mostly flows well, with a good use of a timeskip to get from the 'starting location' to the lake. The plot itself, though, isn't really the point of your story, I think... More important is the story's status as a tribute to those harmed by a tragic disaster. So it's not what happens in the story that matters so much as why it all happens. Nice. ^_^


Grammar, Sentence Flow: This is a bit of a rocky area for you. While the story is completely legible, it's a bit of a jarring read... Jarring in the sense that every time I was trying to get into the story, I would come across an oddly structured sentence or a missing word and would have to back up and figure out what you meant to say. I won't quote every example at you, but look out for missed articles or pronouns, and be sure to check your sentence structure and tenses. xD

The examples I will quote are those which contained the most errors.
1:

First of all, the word 'other' can't go here, since you haven't mentioned any girl or girls in the story yet. 'Other' is used as a contrast between one specimen and another.
Secondly, I think you just missed the word 'it' in the second sentence.
Thirdly, there's something off about the tense there. You're using the past tense for 'Halas was a fourteen-year-old boy,' but 'would say' is in the present tense (conditional mood.) It'd be more correct to write:
Halas was a fourteen-year-old boy with dark brown hair and, as any girl would have said, beautiful brown eyes.
I, personally, would take it one step further and change both the sentence structure and the verb:
Halas was a fourteen-year-old boy with dark brown hair, with brown eyes that any girl would have described as 'beautiful.'
...But that's just a style thing; the order of your original sentence is correct as far as I can tell.

2.

This is where the sentence structure really does seem off. First, 'Phone half put into his pocket' is a little awkward on its own, but with 'the blue and silver phone' coming immediately afterwards it's redundant, since it amounts to identifying the sentence's subject twice in a row.
In the interest of fluidity, you could easily change this to:
When the blue and silver phone was halfway into his pocket, it started ringing and vibrating.

3. The only other error I saw more than once or twice was that you're missing some commas. Examples:

As a final nitpick, 'after saying that, Halas reached the top and helped Katie up from the ground.' This doesn't work, because the subject so far is Katie, who just finished speaking, and the subject can't suddenly change to Halas mid-sentence. The way you wrote it implies that it's Halas who says the second quote, in which case you would need a new paragraph; to make it fit as is, simply write something like,
"I'd rather spend the time here with you." As Katie finished speaking, Halas reached the top and helped her up from the ground."
This avoids making Katie the subject of the sentence, instead she's part of a temporal clause ('as ___ finished (action verb).'

Another instance of commalessness:

This should be, 'A couple of minutes later, he took the baby stingray to a built aquarium and put it in the water, patting its head.'

Sorry if all this is wordy and technical. I feel like an english teacher now... ^_^;


Detail, Description: Not only was your introduction nicely descriptive character- and backstory-wise, as I commented above, but you more or less kept up the detail throughout the story. Very good-- Again, I would recommend adding a bit more information about the scenery (is it dark out by the time Katie and Halas get to Lake Damanjua? The lake is red-tinted, but is there anything else interesting about it? What's the surrounding area like-- forest? Mountains?)
Still, this is another strong point of your story. I am most pleased.


Dialogue: Your dialogue was pleasing to me: realistic and expressive. I quickly got a good sense of all your characters' most obvious personality traits, though obviously deeper characterization would need a longer story and more speaking-- what you wrote is already more than I would demand from a story aimed at a Simple-rated Pokémon. xD


Battle: The battle is... pretty short and not all that descriptive. I was a bit disappointed, given the detail with which you described characters and situations in the rest of your story. Also, one sentence that definitely rubbed my feathers the wrong way:

The two instances of 'it' are right after one another, and each one refers to a different combatant. This is definitely something to avoid, since technically, what you just said is that the strongest move Pachirisu knows is Hydro Pump. ^_^;

To be blunt, I think you could have done much better on the battle. The relative strength of the other areas of your story makes the 'action' a major letdown in comparison. My suggestion is that in future, you should try to make your battles longer, throw in an unexpected twist or two instead of just having the Pokémon hurl standard moves at each other, and describe the attacks with more detail.


Overall: A strongly descriptive introduction, and well-defined details throughout, are what carry this story. Your delivery is sometimes less than easy to read, and the plotline itself is denied the spotlight, but each new character is introduced with a more or less complete description and conveys his/her personality well through dialogue. The battle, however, was a disappointment.

Since the only aspect of your story that I would count as sub-par for a Simple capture is the battle, while characterization and detail are far beyond what I would require for a Simple story...

Result:
Poliwag: Caught.
Keep in mind, please, that your battle could benefit from some work, if you can find the time to go back and improve on it despite this being a successful catch.

On the other hand, good job-- the rest of the story was very well done, and I look forward to seeing more of your work in future. ^_^
~Magikchicken~

 

Thank you for the feedback, I'll keep that in mind when writing my next story. Thanks for the Poliwag!