Superstition

To grader:
Required length: 10k
Actual length: 10,218k
Pokemon aimed for: Houndour
Warning: This story has lots of violence and gore. Don't like it? Don't read it.

“When you believe in things,
That you don't understand,
Then you suffer,
Superstition ain't the way."​

“Stop it! It wasn't my fault. I didn't know it was there,” the girl was screaming, “I haven't done anything wrong! You're mad! He's just a Pokemon.”

One of the men who was carrying her back handed her across the face, causing her head to snap and her blue eyes to become unfocused. A tear rolled down her cheek.

“Shut your mouth, witch,” the man who had slapped her said, “We don't wish to hear your lies.”

The woman began to moan quietly and the muzzled Houndour being led behind her whimpered. A thick fog began to cover the moor as the men walked, supporting the board of wood that the girl was tied to between them. Every now and then, one of them would slap her to quiet her sobbing, or kick the Houndour when it didn't walk fast enough.

“I don't like this weather, m'lord,” one of the men said, “It's not a good omen. Perhaps we should let her go.”

The man at the head of the procession turned around, his eyes blazing with fury and said, “Maybe your daughters will be convicted of being witches next.”

The man fell to his knees and said, “No, please. I didn't mean anything by what I said, m'lord.”

“Get up off your knees, then,” the other man said with disdain and turned back around.

Finally, after walking for what seemed like hours across the boggy, mist covered plain, the men reached the small town in the middle of the moor. To call it at town was being generous, really. It was nothing more than a collection of rotting shacks. The town seemed to be deserted, unless you looked carefully. Occasionally, you could see movement in the shadows or a face peering out of a dirty window.

The men untied the girl from her piece of wood, but kept her hands tied behind her back. They led her to the middle of town, where a large cross stood. As she looked up at the cross, tears in her eyes, the woman began to pray silently. Without a word, people began to leave their houses. Men, women, and children gathered around to see what spectacle the men had brought before them. When everyone from the town was present, the man that had slapped the girl stepped forward. He was wearing a black, formal suit, which contrasted heavily with the girl's tattered dress made of rags.

“We have gathered here today, to put to trial a woman accused of being a witch. First, I will list the proof against her.” The man looked up at the girl, and tried to keep his face emotionless, but his green eyes sparkled with laughter. “Our first piece of evidence, was this,” he said, and gestured for one of the other men to bring the Houndour forward. The crowd gasped in shock, and people began muttering.

“Such a strange girl, always living alone out there,” a mother said and clutched her baby close to her.

“She's never been quite the same since her mother died,” whispered a young girl.

“I never liked her. She's a snooty, pretentious thing,” an old woman said maliciously.

Rather than ask for quiet, the man stood in silence, a grim smile tugging at the corner of his lips, and he tugged at a piece of his greasy black hair. This was clearly, some sort of signal, as one of the men stepped forward and crushed the Houndour's front paw beneath his foot, causing the little black dog to howl in pain. The crowd went silent and looked back towards the man.

“Our second piece of evidence, is this,” he said, and reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a gleaming red stone, “This is a fire stone. It is commonly used in witch craft, to turn human beings into filthy Pokemon.”

The crowd gasped again, but this time, did not descend into conversation. Instead, each one of them looked at the fire stone as if it were a guillotine hung above their heads.

The man turned to the girl and asked, “Do you have any evidence to prove that you are not a witch?”

The girl silently nodded, a waterfall of blonde hair falling over her face. Without speaking, she reached down the top of her dress, and pulled out a tiny wooden cross, only a few inches across. A small set of initials were carved in it, M.P. The man snatched it from her hand and expected it. He was quiet for a minute, then laughed, “This is obviously a fake. A real cross would burn a witch.” He threw the cross to the ground and stepped on it, crushing it under his boot. He turned to the crowd and said, “If you believe that the girl is a witch, stand on the left side of the cross. If you believe she is innocent, stand to the right.”

The crowd began to move, and when all was still, not a single person was left on the right. The girl hung her head in defeat, using her hair to shield her face so that the man could not see the tears that now fell freely.

“The people have chosen, death by fire for the girl, and death by water for the beast.”

Without another word, the man tied the girl to the cross, pulled a match out of his pocket, and lit it. He held it up to the girl's sooty dress, and it immediately burst into flames. The girl's screams drowned out the man's cruel laughter, and the gleam of the fire disguised the gleam of lust in his eyes. The smell of burning flesh rose in the air, and several of the townspeople became sick. At last, the girls screams became softer, and softer, until she made no noise at all. The men put out the fire with a bucket of water. The man turned to the Houndour, “And now, death by water.”

He snapped his fingers and the men who had helped carry the girl jumped forward, and held the Houndour down. Fire shown in it's eyes, but it's muzzle was tied shut with thick rope, and it could not release it's flames. The men picked the Dark Pokemon up, and the crowd followed them past the charred body of the girl, to the cow pond on the outskirts of town. There would be no trial for the Houndour. A whimper escaped it's fiery red mouth.

The dark suited man picked the Houndour up by the nape of it's neck, and was about to drop it in the water, when a voice called, “Stop!”

The entire crowd turned around to see who had dared to interrupt the dark-suited man, and saw a woman, dressed in rugged pants and a black blouse. Her eyes were a deep red, and they were full of anger and hatred. The people in the crowd looked terrified, but the dark-suited man smirked condescendingly.

“What business do you have here, vile woman?”

The woman smirked, and muttered something under her breath.

“What did you say?” the dark-suited man demanded.

“I said,” she began sweetly, but her voice grew deeper with each word, “I want you to die!”

She hissed, and the dark-suited man was immediately consumed in flames. The crowd began to panic, and the townspeople ran fearfully in different directions. One of the men that had carried the girl to her doom tried to sneak up behind the woman and hit her over the head, but without turning around, she snapped her fingers and the man dropped the heavy rock he was carrying and fell. He was dead before he hit the ground. The town was now empty of people. The woman took her time in untying the Houndour, who whined in happiness and licked her face as if she were an old friend. The woman smiled, and walked slowly to the charred remains of the girl. It was a gruesome sight, but the woman didn't flinch away. Instead, she ran a hand over what was left of the girl's remains. The Houndour laid down and covered it's eyes with it's paws, crying.

The woman turned around and whispered to the Houndour comfortingly, “Was she your friend?”

The Houndour barked in agreement. It inched forward and sniffed the carcass before backing away again. The woman petted the Houndour and sang to it softly under her breath, until the its suppressed cries became loud snores. The woman smiled and looked again at the body. With a kind smile on her face, she laid her hand over the girl's skull and began to whisper. The bones on the ground began to move. At first, they simply changed places, but then they began changing shape. Her hands and feet shrunk, and two of her fingers disappeared completely. Her spine became shorter, and her skull became elongated. What was left of her ears crept up the side of her head and grew pointy. The remaining pieces of burnt skin began to fuse together and grow, until they covered the canine like skeleton. Black and red fur sprouted up from the skin, like a forest growing over a desert. The skin began to bulge as fats, muscles, and tissues rose up like mountains, and filled out the dog-like form. Finally, eyelids grew over the gaping holes where her eyes used to be. There was a loud crack, and the eyelids snapped open, revealing brand new eyes. The girl was reborn, as a Houndour.

As if awakening from a long nap, the new Houndour stretched, and it's maw opened in a long yawn. Suddenly, it's mouth snapped closed, and it looked around in surprise. It saw the woman and began backing away. In response, the male Houndour quickly ran up to her, it's tail wagging and it's tongue hanging out of it's mouth. It began to whimper and bark, as if telling a story. The female Houndour's eyes widened in surprise, and she stretched her head around to look at herself all over, barking in surprise when she noticed her tail. She looked up at the woman, and tried to bark, “Thank you.”

The woman smiled and said simply, “Welcome back, Melanie,” before snapping her fingers and disappearing into thin air.

The two Houndours glanced at each other, as if looking in a mirror, then shrugged and trotted off across the moor. On the way out of town, they spotted the dark-suited man's body. They walked over to it, sniffed it, and began to gorge themselves. Their glistening, white fangs robbed the dark-suited man of his flesh. They cracked open his bones with their sharp, black claws, and stole his marrow. Last but not least, they broke open his skull, and began feasting on his brain. The very brain that had held the whisper of an idea. An idea to frame an innocent girl who had never done him any harm.

When they were done eating, they stretched leisurely, looked back at the town that had been their prison, and left it forever. The flesh of a killer would soon provide nutrients for the children of his victims. Looking back at the memory, the woman smiled and said to herself, “Everything works out in the end.”

 

claimed

 

Superstition Grade

There was a descent amount of violence and gore, me like.

Intro:
Your quote reminded me of that blog of Ash in a coma. At the very end he quoted the theme song, and by the end of the post, you get a new sense of what the song might say. It was a nice way to introduce the dark story.

Plot/Reality
While it was a very interesting plot, there were a couple of holes in your plot, at least in my read of it:

Wouldn't she have fallen as well? It was something minor that came to my mind when I read it.

It seems that people think that "Pokemon" are demons or something like that. Why then, are they refered to as "Pokemon"? Humans called them Pokemon because they were able to store them in capsules that fit in their pocket. Before that, they were just magical beasts. So it doesn't seem likely that the men would refer to them as Pokemon in this world.

But besides this minor hiccups the story was nicely paced.

Details
You switch between "woman" and "girl" a lot. These two words instill a different picture into readers head: woman = older, past 20ish; girl = kid.

Now, it took me awhile to understand that you meant that only one of them would slap her, but reading it the first couple times, it read as both of them would sleap er to quiet. The problem you had is that "one of them" isn't enough for a reader to distinguish the two, like "the one with the limp."


Grammar
You confuse "it's" with "its" a lot. Remember: "it is" and "its" possesive.

Possesive, not plural: "girl's"

The verb is "was" so you shouldn't have commas. If the diologue tag was "the girl screams/ed" then the sentence would be good.

If a dialogue tag is in the middle of a character’s statement, the first word after the tag is not capitalized unless the proper noun or personal pronoun requires it. Si, "It's" should be "it's."

You seem to throw commas in a lot, and they're not grammatically correct in many place. Here's a prime example:

First: there should be a comma before the preposition.
Second: "the man looked" and "the man tried," so no comma before the "and"
Third: "Our first piece of evidence" is a subject; "was" is the verb. A comma isn't right here, since if we took phrase before the comma off, it would read: "was this," which would make sense. The comma is used for pauses of long sentence, but this one isn't nearly long enough.
Fourth: see "Second" as it has the same reasoning.

First: see last quote
Second: it should be a period; the diologue tag is only a part of the first "" since you switch to a different verb, and therefore a new sentence. The second sentence in the compound sentence isn't an acceptable diologue tag verb, and in fact has its own object (i.e. red stone),

The people have chosen what? They have chosen death by... and death by... They are both objects of the sentence, so there shouldn't be a comma at either places (since there are two objects, not two sentences). However, if the first comma was changed into a colon, then the second comman could stay.

You've established that the new Houndour is a girl, so why are you still using genderless pronouns for her? Also, while it was acceptable that the male was refered to as an it beofre, once you confirm the gender, you should change his pronouns to male. Anyways, theses "it's" are wrong.

One Houndour, Two Houndour, Three Houndour... Pokemon are refered to by their species name for singluar and plural.

Length
While, it is hovering close to the minimum suggestion, the pacing was good, and did not feel rushed.

Personal Feelings
I like it when writers explore different ways Pokemon could have been interpreted by humans, though it would have been better if you didn't refer to them as Pokemon.

The story was overall...

Conclusion
Intro: "Very superstitious, Nothin' more to say"
Plot/Reality: Small things and one medium problem, though overall, this section did well in creativity
Details: could use a bit more when describing the Pokemon, theres only one spieces, so don't dismiss the details
Grammer: There was a lot of a little mistake, but it wasn't enough to give this section a disapproval.
Length: Good Pacing

Verdict

Spoiler

Spoiler

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