Malevolent Magnemite!

Johto Saga, Pt. 2

-Malevolent Magnemite!-

Having faced defeat at the dance hall in Ecruteak, Derian decided he needed to really train his Pokémon. He still didn't know what he would do with his new team, but he wanted to at least leave options open. The plains west of Ecruteak were famed for their Miltank and Tauros that roamed freely, and both were notoriously strong. This would be a wonderful place to train he thought, so he immediately headed straight there.

Several hours went by, with still no sign of the bovine Pokémon. He was getting frustrated, and was beginning to think this wasn't the great training spot that it had been made out to be.

So far he had only seen the Ratata family, and Farfetch'd! Although rare; he quickly learned Farfetch'd was nearly useless in combat, as the first one went down to a single harsh blow from his Growlithe. They were good for training however, and though he was unable to find the Pokémon he was looking for, his Pokémon were clearly getting stronger. He had heard there was a Miltank farm even further east, and perhaps if he headed there he'd be more likely to see some of the famed Miltank? After all, where there's a farm there are bound to be Pokémon that escape. And perhaps he could pick up some of the popular Moomoo Milk that was produced there! He was tired today though, so he decided to head back to Ecruteak and rest for the night at the Pokécenter.

He set off early this morning, as he knew it would be a long walk to the Miltank farm. Several hours of walking went by, where he faced four Farfetch'd, five Raticates, and a very top-tier Ratata! Growlithe and Poliwag demolished them, and he was clearly getting closer to the farm judging by all the signs he saw on the way.

“MOOMOO FARM 4 MILES” “MOOMOO FARM – GET YOUR MOOMOO MILK DIRECT!”

It was quickly heading into noon, and he was getting very hungry. He spotted a Farfetch'd ahead, but quickly discarded this idea and kept walking. He was never much of a fan of duck anyway. After all, the farm was sure to have plenty of food! The thought of barbeque lingered in his head, but it just didn't feel right.

He spotted a young kid trying to knock a Caterpie out of a tree using his Nidorino, but this clearly wasn't going well. No matter how hard it charged the tree, the Caterpie held on! He appeared to be no older then twelve, and he wore a blue tee-shirt and a red baseball cap backwards. He wore large cargo shorts, that appeared to contain all of his possessions as they looked about to burst from strain of whatever might be held inside.

“Come on, Ringo! You can do it! Dang Caterpie, fall already!” He shouted, clearly frustrated.

This could be a good opportunity to practice fighting actual trainers, Derian thought!

“Whatcha lookin' at, haven't you ever seen a Pokémon headbutt a tree before?!” He yelled at the newly arrived trainer.

The Caterpie looked terrified, as though it were clinging on for dear life.

“I have, I just haven't seen one fail so badly at it before!” Derian retorted.

“Oh that is IT! Ringo, hit his Growlithe with a Horn Attack!”

The Nidorino charged at Heron, but he swiftly dodged.

“Heron, hit it with a Flamethrower!”

Fierce flames emerged from the little dog's mouth, enveloping the venomous rabbit. The flames cleared, but the toxic quadruped only appeared more angry!

“Ringo, no playing around this time! Kick him as hard as you can!”

The Nidorino slammed into Growlithe with his foot, knocking him back.

“Come on, you've taken harder hits then that! Show it your fangs!”

Heron tore into the bubonic bunny with it's sharp teeth.
Ringo collapsed, but did not look done.

“You're just going to take that?! Hit it hard with your head!”

The rabbit smashed it's head into Heron, clearly hurting him greatly.

“Come on Heron... you can do it... finish him off with a fiery cyclone!”

A roar of flames erupted around the dog, and he charged into Ringo in a blaze of fury! The Flame Wheel was clearly too much for it. Ringo fell to the ground, and didn't look like he felt like getting back up this time.

“No.... Ringo...”

Heron didn't appear to come out of this unharmed however, and it looked as though one of the Nidorino's pins had stuck into him and he was feeling the negative effects of the poison.

“You've done great, Heron. But it's time for you to rest!”

Derian took out his Pokéball, and with a flash Heron was gone. Likewise, the young kid retrieved a Pokéball from one of his overstuffed pockets, and Ringo was gone in a flash as well.

“That's it... it's time to bring out the big guns! Go, Paul!”

He took out a second Pokéball, and chucked it at the ground. A Poliwhirl emerged!

“Well, this should be interesting. Go, Fuchsia!”

Derian threw a Pokéball as well, and his Poliwag emerged!

“Don't be intimidated by his size, Fuchsia.. you're the stongest Poliwag I've ever seen!”

The young kid barked back. “Hah! Strongest Poliwag... the strongest Poliwag is still only a Poliwag! You need to evolve your Pokémon for them to be strong! Paul, start it off with a Belly Drum!”

The beat of the drum invigorated the oversized tadpole, but it also looked greatly injured by this assault on it's own body.

“Come on Fuchsia, stun it while it's weak! Hit it with a Hypnosis!”

An odd pulse emanated from the body of the Poliwag, and the swirl on it's belly appeared to rotate in a hypnotic manner. Paul, tired from it's drumming routine, was easy prey to the trippy display. It wobbled to the side, and then to the other side, before falling flat on the ground.

“NO! PAUL! Wake up I say, wake up!” But it was no use, the anthropomorphic tadpole was out.

“Now Fuchsia, wake it up with a slap!”

The little tadpole ran over and hit it with as much strength as it could muster, with the side of it's tail. The strong blow instantly woke the Poliwhirl, but the sheer force of it knocked it out cold a second later. It was defeated!

“No, Paul! Get up! Beat that little squirt!”

It was no use, the Poliwhirl was out. The young kid picked up his Pokéball, and with a flash of light the Poliwhirl was gone.

“Argghh... and I didn't even get the Caterpie!”

He pouted, and stuffed the Pokéball back into his taxed cargo pants. And, with a loud RIIIIIP sound, the pocket burst open! Money, Potions, and various other adventuring supplies spilled out all over the ground.

“CRAP!”

He rushed to action, and grabbed up all of the spilled items.

“This is all your fault!! Arghhhhh!!!!”

The young boy fell to his knees, and started to cry.

“I woulda... woulda beaten you if I hadn't wasted all my energy on that darn Caterpie.....”

He reached for the pile of things on the ground in front of him, and picked up a potion, and chucked it at the Caterpie. It missed, shattering on the tree, spilling the contents.

“Arghh!!!”

He picked up a Pokéball, and threw it at the Caterpie. This also missed, splitting in half against the solid oak. Not wanting to wait for the boy to take out his rage on Derian, he slipped away as subtly as he could.


Luckily Poliwag had not been injured, as Heron was clearly not in the shape to fight. He had to get to the farm quickly, or his precious Growlithe would succumb to the poison completely. He rushed as fast as he could, and the farm was almost in sight! He was so excited, he didn't even notice the lump of metal sticking out of the ground. He tripped right over it, falling flat on his face. He shrugged off the injury, and began to walk further. He heard a curious sound behind him however, and he turned around to investigate. It was a sort of screeching mechanical sound, certainly not pleasant. Beyond that it was difficult to describe, the closest thing likely being when a fax machine accidentally dials a regular phone number. He had never seen anything like it before, and he only recognized it because he had heard of it.

It was a Magnemite. He'd heard they were sometimes found in this area, though he wasn't sure exactly why. It resembled two magnets, joined together at opposite ends by an eyeball with three screws at various places on the orb. It certainly looked more man-made then any Pokémon he had ever seen before. In any case, it didn't look like it was about to let him go without a fight. He had heard that fire melted steel particularly well, but he was definitely not going to let Heron fight in it's current condition. That left him with Fuchsia, so he had to hope it would be enough. His Poliwag had already been following him around, so he didn't need to hassle with a Pokéball.

“Fuchsia, put it to sleep! Hypnosis!”

The familiar hypnotic pattern emerged from the water Pokémons belly, but the Magnemite didn't appear to notice, or at the least care. The steel eyeball levitated there, appearing to do nothing. It's eye however, was moving, perhaps planning it's attack.

“Well that didn't work... no matter, hit it with a Mud Shot!”

Fuchsia fired a jet of mud at the steel-type, but it was unable to reach the Magnemite. No sooner had the attack failed, both magnets met to face each other, and a ball of electricity began to form. It got larger and larger, until it shot straight at Poliwag! The blast decimated the poor little tadpole, knocking it out on impact. “No!! Fuchsia!” Derian ran over to see to Poliwag, but now the Magnemite appeared to be targeting him! It seemed he was out of options.
“No, I can't do it... I can't put Heron through that.” The magnets again joined at the center, and an electrical current began to build up. There was a flash of light, and the fiery dog was on the field! At the appearance of a new opponent, the Magnemite changed targets, now locking onto the Growlithe. “Quick, before he has a chance, hit it with a Flamethrower!” Searing flames erupted from Growlithe, engulfing the mechanical monster. It began to target again, however! But the heat appeared to be too much for it, and it fell to the ground. “Now, I've got you!” Derian threw a fancy-looking Pokéball at the fallen opponent. It shook once, twice, three times, then stopped. Magnemite appeared to be caught.

Derian ran over to Growlithe, who was nearly unconscious, and scooped him up in his arms.

“Come on, lets get you to the farm.”

Pocketing the Greatball, he ran off towards Moomoo farm, holding the gravely injured puppy like a baby.

“It's going to be ok, we're almost there!”


...


The farm was huge. The field of grazing Miltanks stretched on out of sight, and there was a large barn at the entrance. Expansive fields in nearly every direction were visible, and herds of Miltank could be seen grazing on them. Quickly heading inside, Derian observed his surroundings. It was a quaint building, seeming almost like something out of a time that was no more. There was an old woman churning butter sitting in a rocking chair, and loads of souvenirs and Moomoo food everywhere, and this section of the barn appeared to be little more then a gift shop. There were stairs off to the far right of the room, and a door to the left.

“Gidday traveler! Would you like to buy some Moomoo milk or Moomoo licensed products?”

Derian looked at the old woman. She was clearly in her sixties at least, and it was surprising to see her doing such a grueling task as churning butter. Her clothing was very old as well, probably even older then her. It looked like something he had seen out of a civil war documentary he had once caught on TV, that farmers would have worn.

“Not right now, thank you... my Growlithe is very hurt, he needs help!”

“Oh dear.. how could you let such a cute little thing come to so much harm? You don't know how to respect Pokémon!”

“I didn't have a choice, I wouldn't let such a thing happen if there was...”

The old woman made a “Tsk Tsk” sound, though she was visibly concerned about the little dog.

He hadn't noticed, but a girl had walked into the room from the left doorway.

“Oh my! Your Growlithe!”

He looked towards where the voice came from. She couldn't have been much older then sixteen or seventeen, and her clothes were at least somewhat more current, and more typical of what you'd except a more modern farmer to wear. She had long brown hair, and it was braided. She walked briskly over to where he stood.

“Oh my, what happened to him?? No, it doesn't matter now. He needs help, and fast!”

Easily picking up on the urgency of the situation, she rushed off through the doorway that she had come from, returning only a few seconds later carrying a glass jug that contained a white liquid.

“Here, this is fresh Moomoo milk... Miltanks milk has healing properties as well as being delicious, that's why it's so popular!”

She poured the milk down the throat of the half-alive Growlithe, and it almost immediately appeared more revitalized.

“Oh but he's been poisoned... this won't be enough. Just one more second!”

She ran off a second time, this time returning with a small berry.

“Here, this will cure his poison.”

She fed the berry to him, and he barked out of joy!

“Now, he just needs rest...”

“Thank you so much, I was so worried about him. Is there someplace around here we could stay, like a hotel?”

“I wouldn't dream of it! We have a few spare rooms here, travelers come through a lot. There's no inn or hotel till you get to Olivine, and that's miles away.”

Derian was very surprised at the level of hospitality extended by this self-sustaining business.

“You've done so much already, but I wouldn't want to impose...”

“No, it's no problem! Your Growlithe needs his rest, I wouldn't want you to be attacked by Pokémon while he's in that state. Here, come with me.”

She led him to a different part of the barn house, to a small but cozy room. It had a nice warm bed, and a bookshelf with various books on raising cattle and managing a farm. He offered to pay for the healing and room, but she refused, stating that a young boy had come through earlier that day and helped nurse one of their most beloved miltank back to health. She had been unable to properly repay the boy, and she felt obligated to help others from his example.

The girls name was Sarah, and she'd lived her entire life on the farm, her parents being the owners. He hadn't seen much of her parents, they appeared to be very busy. Tending to the farm had many responsibilities, and these carried over late into the evening. The old woman he had seen was clearly not the girl's mother, and the best he could figure was that she was her grandmother or else a great aunt.
The farm employed a number of others to help, a farm of it's size could not be managed with just the four of them.

“Your Growlithe is so cute.. what's his name?”

“Heron.” He said, simply.

“Heron? Like the bird? That's an odd name for a dog!”

He admitted it was, but he had always liked it. When he had found the little Growlithe, it just seemed right.

“Herons are known for their courage and tenacity, so I thought it seemed appropriate.”

“Well, I like it! It's very... dignified.”

She smiled.

“And your Poliwag, Fuchsia? How did you come up with that?”

“I used to have a good friend, and she moved to Fuchsia city, in Kanto. I guess it reminds me of her.”

Derian had moved around a lot himself, growing up. So much so that he wasn't even sure where he was born anymore.

“That's sweet! Young love?”

“Nah.. we just grew up together, but her father got a job at the safari zone there, so they had to move.”

“Oh I'm sorry... I thought I heard that closed down?”

It was true, the safari zone had been closed recently. It had been on the news a lot in the past couple of weeks, so it was a very well-known fact.

“It has, last I heard he got a new job. At the pokémart I think?”

Oh! Well that's good for them then. Well I have to go, I have work to do. If my parents find out I'm letting someone stay and skipping out on my chores, I'll be in loads of trouble! Rest up well!”

“Bye! Thanks again so much for your help.”

“Of course, it's my pleasure.” She smiled, before heading out.

He rested well, and by morning Heron and Fuchsia were back to their full strength. He said his thanks and farewells, and headed off. Not before stocking up on Moomoo milk and berries of course!
Hopefully his newly caught Magnemite would be a worthy addition to his team, and he would be able to come up with a name for it!

 

I'd like to wait until Scourge of Nemo Grades your other story before this one is Graded, just in case, so bother him for a Grade on that one. Once it's Graded, let one of us Graders know, and we'll handle this story.

 

Sorry, changed my mind.

Claimed for Grading.

 

Introduction:

Considering the fact that this is a continuation from another story, I thought that this introduction was pretty good. It gave a recap of last time for readers that may not have read the last part, and set up the primary focus of this part early for all of the readers to see. However, I felt that it really didn't draw me into the story as well as some other stories. This is primarily because it lacks a strong hook that would draw the readers in and keep them interested.

Since you haven't had the run-down about hooks yet, I'll describe them now. Basically, a hook is an introduction that draws a reader into your story. This hook more often than not leaves the reader questioning why something happened in the story that you showed in the introduction, so they continue to read in order to find the answer. To get the reader to question why, a primary method of introducing the story is to put a character in the story into an action-oriented or suspenseful situation right in the beginning, even if that action is set to occur mid-story. Just as the moment reaches its climax, flash to the beginning of the events in the story, and work your way back to that event, revealing details along the way as to how the event shown in your introduction came to pass.

This sort of introduction would have definitely helped your story out, as it would have gotten me interested in it early. This is something that Graders look for in a story, and it's worth your time to practice with these hooks, because they help to earn higher marks on your Grades. So practice up!

Plot:
Having lost to the Kimono Girls, Derian decides to do some training on Route 38. After some training, he returns to Ecruteak for some rest. The next day, he runs into a Youngster, who challenges him to a battle to relieve his frustration at a particularly clingy Caterpie. The Youngster loses the fight, and isn't too happy about it, especially when the contents of his pockets explode all over the ground on him. Not wanting to be caught up in the kid's fury, Derian leaves en route for the Miltank Farm not far away. Along the way, he runs into a Magnemite, who causes some trouble for his team. He eventually ends up capturing it, and continues to the Farm. There, his Growlithe (who had been poisoned and severely injured) is restored to health, and he is offered a place to stay by the residents of the farm.

This plot is okay; it's a little simple for a Medium Pokemon, though. Since you really didn't have anything to measure against, it's understandable why you didn't know about this being a little too simple. So, I'll tell you about plots a little bit: as you get into the higher difficulties, you'll definitely want to come up with something more complex than just "trainer walks on route, trainer finds Pokemon, trainer attempts to capture Pokemon" to maximize your chances of getting the Pokemon you want.

While the plot is on the simple side, I can probably let it slide this time, since this is your first Graded story. Just make sure to step up the originality next time, all right?

Dialogue:
I thought that the dialogue was pretty good here. A major component of using dialogue in your stories is to convey personalities to the readers and give depth to the characters in the story. I could get a feel for the Youngster's frustration at the Caterpie from his lines, and the farm girl's compassion for Derian was also prominent. Derian's was a little less so, but I could see that he had a strong sense of trust in his Pokemon, and didn't want them to suffer, so that was pretty good.

In the future, you'll want to expand upon the depth that you give your characters, especially Derian, since he's your main character, and he'll be with us for the entire saga. Unless there's a particularly extravagant character introduced, you probably don't want the characters-of-the-day overshadowing your main character in terms of personality.

Grammar:
There were a couple of things that I'd definitely recommend you do in the future after seeing this story.

First off, your post is what we Graders like to call a "wall of text". To remedy this off-putting look, double-space when you want to go to a new paragraph, like so:

When a significant amount of time has passed in your story, or there's a scene or character change, you'll want to put in some sort of text break to identify it, like this:

Lastly, make sure that you separate new lines of dialogue by double-spacing them. I noticed that you didn't do this as much near the end, though you did it towards the beginning. So just to make sure, here's a corrected version of an excerpt towards the end:

There were a few more grammatical issues, but these were the most important ones that really required fixing. If you handle these, the other mistakes will probably be more obvious to you; if not, feel free to PM me about them after you've used the suggestions I make in this Grade.

Detail and Description:
You did a good job describing the people around Derian (once again, not so much for Derian himself), and could easily visualize the Magnemite if I didn't know what it was from your details there. I felt that the environments could have been better described, though; while I know what Route 38 and the Farm look like from the Generation II games, you can't necessarily assume that everyone does. So you'll want to describe what the areas looked like in order to give the readers a better idea of the setting.

Towards the end of the story, I felt like the quality dropped off; there weren't as many details, and it all felt kind of rushed. You'll want to avoid this in the future; try to make it so that the entire story has a constant level of effort put into it, because dropping the quality towards the end hurts your Grade overall.

Battle:
The battles were done well. You described the attacks pretty well (though they could have been done better in some cases, I felt they were adequate), and your Pokemon didn't seem all that overpowered in comparison to the other ones in the story.

One thing I must stress to you, though, is that you are never allowed to state that you physically captured the Pokemon in the story. That is the job of the Grader as he or she judges how well you did in your story. In the future, you'll want to avoid stating outright that the capture was successful; end the story in a cliffhanger that says that the Ball shook three times, or something like that, but don't go so far as to say that the capture was successful.

Length:
Magnemite is in the Medium category; the suggested length for Pokemon in this category is 10,000 to 20,000 characters. Your story is 14,194 characters, so it makes the cut.

Outcome:
Drum roll, please...

...

...Ker-poof!

Oh, no! The Pokemon broke free!

You'll want to edit your story with my suggestions in mind, and then get my attention via PM, VM, or AIM when it's finished. Since you have another story waiting on a Grade, you may want to edit that one, as well, with these suggestions while you're waiting on Scourge of Nemo's Grade there.

Good luck!

 

A couple of points that I wanted to bring up where my opinion differs from NG; in regards to stating a Pokemon was caught, it’s not always as dire as he made it sound. Though it’s much preferred to have it end with a wiggling Pokeball, I’m personally fine with any sort of uncertainty; say you were to state it was captured, but the story ended with you asking the Pokemon Professor if you could keep it, would leave some uncertainty as to whether or not you got it.

There really wasn’t much uncertainty with yours, although there wouldn’t have been a good way to work it in without requiring a full rewrite; for future stories, I’d recommend having the climactic battle between your target and your avatar occur near the end. Though it is nice to have some wrapup, you sort of made the Pokemon capture a waypoint in the story. I would have liked to see it take more of the spotlight than a major battle, with the hardest part being a decision about whether to get fried or use an injured Pokemon to battle.

There were also a couple parts of the story that really weren’t critical to the plot, though they were well written; for example, the trainer battle near the beginning didn’t have a whole lot to do with the overall story. A way to connect the two would be to have a second psuedo-narrative going on in the person of the Magnemite; say that’s what had caught his original attention, and have breaks in the story where it describes events from the Magnemite’s point of view. If you remember the Magnemite episode of the original Pokemon story, when they were in the polluted city, we saw flashes of the Magnemite that helped play up the drama of the story unfolding.

Secondly, while I agree that hooks are important to a story, they aren’t as critical as some things; I’d rather read a story that starts off mediocre and gets good, than one that has explosions, loud music, and fast cars but then turns out to be a flash in the pan. Especially if this is a continuation of your first story, reminding the readers of what happened last episode, and giving a good summation to those just tuning in to the program, is usually sufficient.

Now, a few specific pointers about bits from your story:

What do modern farmers wear? Faded denim blue jeans and a worn, but durable, flannel button-up shirt? A pale, tan sundress with the occasional stain where the girl had been feeding a young Spoink? Sometimes it is best to leave details up to the reader’s imagination, but I’d make sure that they at least have a frame of reference. For all we know, modern farmers could have stained overalls or a tweed Oxford shirt.

This should really have been several lines. When you start a new line with a new speaker, that also applies to starting a new line with a new actor; in this case, after Derian’s first statement, when Magnemite started charging, it would have been a new line. Dialogue is more than just words, after all. Also, near the middle, the “It began to target again, however!” is a bit out of place. If Heron’s fiery blast was enough to cook it senseless, or nearly so, then it probably should have dropped fairly immediately; however, if the attack inflicted a burn, and that’s what brought it down, I would phrase it to make that more obvious.

As someone who routinely wears cargo shorts and pants, this is exactly why it’s important to get a good brand, that is reliable and sturdy. I’ve had similar things happen, and it definitely does suck.

I would separate this into two paragraphs; between stronger and the next sentence. The first paragraph could then be expanded, possibly turning it into something more like a montage, and the second is a different topic than the first; rather than describing his actions in general, it speaks of what he’s thinking.

As for the ending, you just sort of trailed the story off; all the important action happened in the middle, and at the end, we see him get healed and then have a (seemingly) slightly awkward conversation with the farmer’s daughter. If you are going to have the major conflict be in the middle, I’d still at least put some sort of minor climax at the end, to reward people for finishing the story.

Outcome: Magnemite Captured!

I’d say, overall, that it was fairly close; I agree with NG that the plot was a bit simple for a Pokemon who was above that level, but it’s only one tier up, and the story helps bring it up to par. In the future, though, as far as general recommendations, I’d say make the target Pokemon feature a bit more heavily in the story, and have the final battle and last few paragraphs be a nice, action-oriented part to reward diligent readers. I look forward to reading more from you!