Swablu Story

Note: This is a Cave Story crossover story. Hopefully it's readable even if you've never played or heard of Cave Story, but I'm not going to dwell on the "why" as long as the "what". How the Demon Crown set off the chain of events that led to this story exceeds the scope of this story. The reasons behind the catastrophes wouldn't be my own creative production; how the local wildlife reacts to it, which this story is about, would be.

Hanareru the Swablu sat with her sleeping mother in her nest on top of a human hut. She gazed out at the landscape in front of her. Green grass-like moss covered the rugged terrain for as far as her two black, beady eyes could see. If an outsider saw the ground for the first time, they might even think that they were outdoors. Here and there were other gray human-made buildings that had long since been abandoned, just like the one Hanareru's nest was built on. Hanareru looked up. Miles away she could see the dark blue rocks that made up the walls of the cave she resided in. A mile above her was the cave's roof, which was also covered in moss. Unlike the moss that perfectly lined the ground, the ceiling had some patches of moss that would hang down several feet like vines, some patches with strange, black moss, and some patches with no moss at all, only the same blue rocks that made up the walls of the gargantuan cave. Not a single hole pierced the top of the cave. Rather than sunlight, the cave was illuminated by an unknown source. Hanareru had heard tales when she was young of a legendary Pokemon that resided deep within the floating island she lived on that provided the island with light, kept it afloat, and defended the island from intruders that managed to fly up to it.

Gazing into the distance, Hanareru shivered with fear. She squinted to make sure she was seeing correctly. A Cryogonal was flying straight for the nest she was in with her mother. The Cryogonal had a translucent hexagon shaped body that had the same light blue color as Hanareru and was roughly twice as tall. On the front of the Cryogonal's body was a slightly darker blue face shaped like a snowflake. Two dark crevices weaved their way through the Cryogonal's face and body, one containing its two white eyes and dripping with strange, light blue beads for consuming its prey.

Hanareru's thin, blue antennae perked up out of fear as she nudged her mother with her white, fluffy wing. Her mother, a fully grown Altaria, immediately perked up her long, crane-like neck and immediately saw the incoming predator. The Altaria lifted up her long, flat antennae and similar looking tail, flapped her large, cloud-like wings, and pushed off with the claws on her tiny, blue feet as she flew into the air. Hanareru followed close behind, knowing that her mother would lead her to safety.

Hanareru noticed a herd of Bidoof, a group of Pineco, and several other Pokemon running on the ground in the same direction as she was flying. She wondered if they, too, were running from the Cryogonal. It struck her as odd that so many Pokemon would be afraid of a single Cryogonal, which primarily hunted Swablu such as herself, but had no time to question it. Her mother ducked into a nearby crack in the wall. Hanareru followed along and tucked herself into a nearby gap between two large stones that made up the side of the cave.

Much to Hanareru's surprise, the Cryogonal flew right past her hiding spot. It didn't seem to be hunting anything. If anything, the Cryogonal was soaring through the air as if it were being hunted. Hanareru felt the rock she had perched on loosen from the wall. Another rock came tumbling down from above her and landed mere inches in front of her face. She instantly understood what was really going on. The blues of the rocks turned darker, nearly to black. The moss became harder to distinguish from the rocks they grew on. The light in the cave was fading. Hanareru and her mother took off. The cave was collapsing.

The island was falling.

Hanareru's mother took flight once more, then hovered in the air as she waited for her daughter. Hanareru flew up. Hanareru followed her mother again and gazed at her homeland one last time. Lava was pouring through new cracks in the ceiling of the cave like waterfalls, strange angel-like Pokemon were flying through gaps in the now-broken walls, and the ground was folding in upon itself as if it were made of liquid. Hanareru heard the sound of rushing water. Soon, her mother had successfully led her to the opening of an adjacent cave. It was dark and foreboding, but Hanareru trusted that her mother knew where she was going.

The new cave was also in a state of panic. Ahead of Hanareru were Swarms of Zubat flying in the same direction. Hanareru hoped that wherever this cave led to was safe from the calamity that was going on. Beneath her was a rushing stream. The ground was now shaking so violently that Magikarp were being forcibly thrown out of the water and flopping helplessly on the shore. This cave had far darker green and blue rocks that made up the walls than Hanareru's home, and with the Zubat retreating, the only remaining life seemed to be in the dark, ominous lake beneath her.

More and more boulders were falling from the ceiling. One even flew right in front of Hanareru as she was flying. The sound crashing of the collapsing cave could be heard echoing throughout the chamber. As the frequency of the falling rocks rose, Hanareru grew more and more tense. She could feel her sweat flying off her forehead as she soared through the air. She worried about what would happen if one of the giant rocks landed on her.

Crash.

Something even worse happened. A giant, round boulder landed on her mother. Hanareru fluttered in place horrified. She flew down after the rock helplessly. She could do nothing but watch. The rock hit the water, and it sunk with her mother deep into the rushing river. Within moments, it had sunk so deep that Hanareru could no longer see it. Swablu were not accustomed to swimming, and Hanareru knew that if she pursued the rock she would meet the same fate as her mother.

Hanareru knew that she couldn't give up. She looked through the tears in her eyes and saw the Zubat still flying ahead of her. She took off once more into the unknown. The cave twisted and turned along with the river that likely carved it years ago. Eventually, Hanareru reached a fork in the road. The river turned to her left and seemingly went underground; it flowed directly into a wall, but didn't seem to rest at a lake, but rather continue flowing under it. To her right, the Zubat continued flying. Hanareru turned right and flew as fast as she could, praying that she wouldn't be squished by the collapsing cave in the process.

The blue rocks of Hanareru's home were nowhere to be seen. Instead, the walls of her destination were lined with nothing but the green rocks she saw here and there in the cave with the river. Unlike the huts of her home, the abandoned buildings in new cave in front of Hanareru stretched from the base of the cave to the ceiling. They seemed to keep this cave relatively stable; a few stalactites were dropping here and there, but for the most part they didn't seem like a major threat. Hanareru was focused on a new danger.

The massive beige buildings may have been keeping the cave intact, but in front of each one was a boxlike structure. Each corner was connected with a support as plain as the buildings themselves, and each wall was made of clear glass. Hanareru could clearly see inside each one. A massive egg was stored inside of each one. They were kept horizontally, and yet they were still taller than two Cryogonals. Each egg was cracked open, and each container they were in had at least one wall with its glass shattered, likely due to the island's descent. Dozens of buildings scattered the cave, and dozens of freshly hatched eggs accompanied them.

For each hatched egg, there was a young Druddigon flying around. Hanareru cowered in fear at the very sight of them. Despite hatching recently, each Druddigon seemed enormous. They flew around on flat, blue, spiky wings. Their orange eyes on either side of their bodies watched over the corridor they were in carefully. Their red, jagged heads had teeth that looked like they could tear Hanareru to shreds instantly. Their four lanky, blue legs ended in tiny hands with massive, white talons that would allow a Druddigon to grasp Hanareru's head from all sides with a single limb. Along each Druddigon chest ran hard, white scales to prevent oncoming attacks.

Hanareru knew that she wasn't safe yet. She gulped out of nervousness, then took continued her flight. She watched as Druddigon swooped in and ate Zubat ahead of her whole. She flew close to the ground to keep herself safe, praying none of the dragons would notice her. Suddenly, a Druddigon swooped down towards Hanareru. She stopped in her tracks. The Druddigon was too fast. What was she going to do?

Just as she was bracing herself for the worst, one of the falling stalactites fell down and pierced the Druddigon's skull. Hanareru let out a sigh of relief and continued onwards. She kept following the Zubat, and could almost see the light at the end of the tunnel. Hanareru looked up. There didn't seem to be any more Druddigon ahead of her. She turned around. There weren't any Druddigon following her from behind. This was it. She was safe.

Hanareru flew to the light piercing the cave from the open gap in the wall ahead of her. She perched herself on the opening and watched as the Zubat flew over her. Above them was a beautiful, purple, starry sky. The Zubat flew downwards through piles of clouds rolling on top of each other. As the floating island fell, Hanareru's resting spot was drawing closer and closer to the line of clouds. The ancient gray blocks that lined the outer wall of the island were crumbling. Hanareru knew she would have to admire the beauty of the sky after she was truly safe. Hanareru took flight once more, and flew away from her home once and for all.

Character count (with warning at the start): 10089
Character count (without warning): 9651
Target: Swablu (Hard(20k-30k) reduced to Medium(10k-20k) with story pass)

 

Claim

 

WORD COUNT

Thank you for putting the word count with the warning, but unfortunately only the story counts. You are about 400 characters below the MCR, but don’t fret, character count is one of the less important parts of writing.


GRAMMAR

I found no grammatical errors in your story. Expected giving how I constantly correct your spelling on discord.


CHARACTERS/DESCRIPTIONS



Your only real character is Hanareru. She is an average character. Her appearance is described well, her personality is described decently, but her actions don’t make sense. She’s a child in the story, so she would be immature/confused. She sees a Cryogonal flying by, looking like its gonna hunt her, and all she does is poke her mom. She then follows calmly and hides. Based on her nervous personality, I’d expect her to go into a panic and hide. Next is with her mother. She watches her mother get crushed and drowned, yet she stares at the water for a couple of seconds and flies off. A child watching their mother get brutally killed while her home is crumbling all around them, would be paralyzed from all the chaos. It would be too overwhelming. It could have really helped if you slowed down the story to allow Hanareru to grieve for a bit (this actually ties into something I’m gonna talk about in the plot section.)


Her mother was a faceless character. By faceless I don’t mean she wasn’t well described, I mean she was static. She was just there. I expected her to play a more major role in the story and cause some more impacting character development on Hanareru.


PLOT



The plot was great. It was something you don’t see everyday. The only problem I had was your pacing. The events of your plot sort of seemed to skip from one part to the next, when you want it to be flowing. Instead of skipping from her mother dying, to her flying away, you could have dove more deep into Hanareru’s thoughts and feelings, and described her actions in a more detailed manner. Another example is the Cryogonal scene, you kind of skip over Hanareru’s feelings again and go straight into how she pokes her mother and hides. Other than this, your plot was good and interesting.


RESULT



If this was a hard ranked Swablu, I wouldn’t pass it, but since you reduced the rank, I’m gonna say Swablu Captured.

 

Hello! Reviewing this as part of the crossover competition, and you seem like a fairly active author around these parts so thought I'd take a look at what you have to offer.

Overall, this was a nice, simple story. It is one we have seen a bit before in the likes of Disney movies (parent and child fleeing some event, child ends up alone somehow), but this was a nice version of it and you painted a fairly unique and vivid world in a short amount of space. You set up an interesting environment, with the nature of the island and how it exists through to how some Pokemon are hunted by other species, so kudos for those little details.

I think my biggest advice would be to work on the descriptions. While your descriptions were good, it can be a bit clunky to read big blocks of description like that, especially when they come one after the other. I think spreading the details throughout the story will help with flow a lot better. I also would look out for using the same words repeatedly in a short space of time. There were a few sentences where words such as 'immediately' and 'come together' appeared more than once. Switching the words out for something else can really enhance the reading experience. I always used to do the same thing, and since I've broadened my vocabulary I feel my work has really improved.

This was still a nice little story. I think it could have used some dialogue and perhaps been a bit longer to really capture the Swablu's emotions, particularly at losing their mother, but this also works as a potential prologue/first chapter to an exciting journey fic, and I will keep an eye out for your stuff in the future.