The Beast in the Forest

This is my first story, so if I’m doing anything incorrectly, please just tell me! I spent a decent amount of time on this, but it probably wasn’t that good.


Target Pokemon: Sunkern

Rank: Easiest

CC Target: 3k - 5k characters

CC: 5460


After all that had happened, I was here, walking along a dirt path that should lead into the forest. The forest, whose name no one could pronounce, was a scary place. Someone might be wondering: “Why would you go in there?” I have been asking myself the same question. I mean, I wanted to go the forest. I had a goal I wanted to achieve. After all the harassment I had received for telling others my goal, I had decided I would have to go. My goal, is to find the legendary beast that is hidden in the forest.

This beast has been terrorizing the town for years. Townsfolk had created legends about this creature that go back centuries. Those are obviously false. The creature only came about recently. I continued along the path, butterflies beginning to form in my stomach. Yes, I was a tad nervous. All of the people that have seen the monster claim that it’s face was terrifying and plant-like. It had a horn that seemed to grow off its head. These features that creature was said to have were pretty scary, to be honest. I should focus on the path, I thought to myself, trying to rid myself of the nervousness I was feeling. It didn’t work. From where I was, I could see the start of the forest, the trees getting closer and closer with every step I took. My partner Pokémon, Kazé, stumbling behind me. I had forgotten that I let him out of his Pokéball, so he startled me a little bit. I hoped they wasn’t an Ursaring roaming around the entrance, or any other potentially dangerous Pokémon roaming around. I entered the forest. Luckily, no Ursaring or anything of the sort. A smile creeped along my face. I was in the forest.

The path began to trail off after about 5 minutes of walking, leaving me and Kazé without anything to follow. I should have panicked, but I saw no need to. The beast would roam around the forest, not a path, I thought to myself. Plus, Kazé would sort of feel at home. Kazé is a Cacnea, which is a Grass type Pokémon. I thought he might be able to find the beast, as the beast was reported as being a Grass type. I’m hoping it's not a Sudowoodo situation, and it’s really a Steel/Fire type somehow. Kazé should have an easy time making his way through the grass and bushes, and maybe even stumble upon the lair of the creature. Which would be really cool, and a bit terrifying. We turned over every rock and branch, hoping to find some sort of underground burrow, but it proved fruitless. We looked up every tree, through every log, and beneath every bush. However, there was still nothing. Nothing at all. I started losing hope, maybe the creature didn’t exist. Maybe it was made up to keep kids out of the forest. It could be a lot of things, but nothing that is actually real. That was until I walked into a grotto. The grotto felt different than the rest of the forest. The plant life grew bigger and was more spread out here, than the rest of the forest. There was more moss, more grass, more mushrooms. Something was different here. This must be the creature’s home, I thought to myself. Kazé let out a quiet “Cack,” and I knew we weren’t alone here. I heard a Pokémon cry, and then the beast came down through the canopy. I froze from fear. I would have ran away and sobbed, if it wasn’t for my body being frozen in fear. Kazé had covered his eyes, and I shut mine.

“Suuun?” I opened my eyes. The creature, I recognized it. I remember seeing it in an old book that my teacher had read to us back in Trainer school. It was a Sunkern. I’d always admired Sunkern, but I knew the danger one could create. Sunkern were an extremely provocable species of Pokémon, and I didn’t want to make it angry. “Sunkern!” The wild Pokémon let out. It was in that moment, that I decided that I should catch this Sunkern. It was a stupid idea, but I felt like I had to catch it. My goal was to find it, so why not one-up myself? I motioned to Kazé, and I commanded him to use Pin Missile. He complied and sent 5 tiny spikes flying towards the mythical creature. The missiles bounced right off it’s skin. This Pokémon was tough, that’s for sure. Reflecting Kazé’s Pin Missile? That would take a massive amount of power to do. The Sunkern sat there, taking in the sunlight that was now shining down through the trees. It was charging a Solar Beam. I motioned to Kazé, and he knew what to do. The needles on his arm started to grow larger, and his arm turned a darker shade of green. He rushed towards the god-like creature, and hit it with the most powerful Needle Arm Kazé had ever given in his life.

The Sunkern was on the ground… but so was Kazé. I rushed to his side. The force of the attack had also hurt Kazé in the process. I returned Kazé to his ball, and sent out Harrison, my Heracross, just in case the Sunkern got up. Which it did. I was about to give Harrison the command of “Megahorn,” but I stopped myself. The Sunkern was smiling at me. It bounced toward to me, and Harrison moved to guard me. The Sunkern tried to motion to the Pokéball I had in my hand. It wanted to be caught. I instantly reached for my extra ball, and tossed it towards to Sunkern. It shook three times, and I had captured the legendary beast that terrorized the town. The Sunkern didn’t mean to cause any harm or fright, it was just really lonely in the forest. I’m guessing it saw the promise I had as a trainer, and wanted to join me. And I was really happy too. I had given this beautiful Pokémon some new friends, and they were glad to see theirs. (RIP Indents)

That's it! I'm nervous to see what people would think of it...

 

GEEZEY PETES! I apologize for this atrocious wait on this story! I'll have a grade for you coming right up!

 

@PurpleDimetrodon

Story

WOO what a riveting story we have here! I liked that in media res introduction you decided to take on. You did a splendid job crafting something both mysterious and somehow dubiously diabolical! Using phrases like "after all that happened," and "should lead into the forest," really drew my attention until the end of that first paragraph, where the anticipation culminates: we know what the narrator is out to do and it's certainly a journey from here on out! All in all, you had a lovely hook to this story and a fine premise! I urge you to either continue developing this style by tweaking how the build up happens or by trying new introduction styles, such as dialogue, too!

The legendary beast part of this story was certainly a creative aspect! For future stories, I encourage you to think even deeper and get more creative: what else could have happened to the narrator in the forest? How could we maybe have experienced the terror of this legendary beast for ourselves, and how does the narrator have such confidence in what he or she knows? Asking questions like this are a fine way to parse out more creative plotlines that you can plant in a story for blooming and unexpected plotlines. We typically want to avoid a story wherein a trainer stumbles into a forest / cave and finds a Pokemon for higher ranks, but here it worked just fine! You did a wonderful job writing this, and I'm excited to see what you'll bring forth in future stories!

Description

You had a fine selection of details that contributed to the anticipatory tone of this work! I especially liked the tidbit about the Ursaring and phrases like the smile that "creeped" along the narrator's face. You did a fine job of building the mystery hype, and I'm excited to see you do this for different genres or even to continue it with this current genre!

If anything, I think it would be helpful for you to consider how you can develop a character's inner sense of description. Our narrator here often says, "I should have done this" or "I would have done / felt this" but often times, we don't know why s/he fails to feel or react in a certain way. Shedding more light on how those feelings or default of feelings occurs would be an interesting, insightful way to make a more dynamic narrator or reinforce the importance of this goal to him or her.

Besides inner description, another place of work here is character and Pokemon descriptions. You did a WONDROUS job describing the battle between Kaze and the Sunkern, and I would to see that same type of description for how characters actually look! As a rule of thumb, every Pokemon or person entering the store should receive some type of description, typically in proportion with how important that character is to the story. I found it helpful starting off writing in the URPG to write a sentence or two of description for each new character or Pokemon. As you develop your unique writing style, you'll discover how you best write descriptions for characters and where to best slip in that description. ^^ so I encourage you to write lots and to write often!

Grammar

Ah, just two minor points of improvement!

*it's face = its face
*it's skin = its skin

So "its" is a possessive pronoun whereas "it's" is a contraction standing in for 'it is'. If you ever are confused by which one to use, I like to imagine that "it's" are two cars of the words "it" and "is" and the apostrophe attaches the two cars together! "Its" doesn't stand for two words, and that's why there's no apostrophe.

"My goal, is to find the legendary beast."

So, you don't nee the comma after goal there. There are an extensive set of comma rules that we don't need to go into here, but an easy fix for this is to simply slow down and read your story out loud. You will naturally catch where you breath pauses and where you'll need commas. It's a quick and helpful trick I've learned to love!

Otherwise, I always recommend that authors proofread their stories as often as they can to catch mistakes! You had less than a handful here, which I appreciated!

Length

Yup, you're at 5.4k, which is perfect for this story!

Outcome

SUNKERN CAPTURED! WOOHOO! Wonderful job on your first story! From here on out, keep writing, enjoying yourself, developing characters, and having fun! I hope to see you in this section a lot more often!