The Little Weedle Who Could

In the region of Kanto, the Viridian Forest is synonymous with wild Pokemon. Many varying species of Pokemon lived within the collection of lush green trees and open fields, with the majority of them being bug, grass, or flying types. One such species is Weedle, a small worm-like Pokemon who has rounded, light-brown segments for its body, a bright red sphere for a nose and matching red feet. Most Pokemon trainers regard Weedle as a relatively weak Pokemon, as its only offensive weapons are the stingers on its head and at the tip of its tail.

On this particular day in the Viridian Forest, a particularly young Weedle by the name of Zassz was wiggling around amongst the dense brush of the environment. Zassz was quite small compared to the rest of his family, as his fraternal twin brother Raj was almost one and a half times Zassz's length, and Raj's frontal horn several times larger as well. Raj had always teased Zassz on the smaller sibling's size from the day they learned to speak to one another, and their parents always seemed to let Raj's insults go uninterrupted; either not hearing them or wishing for the boys to settle the dispute themselves. Zassz desperately wanted to step out of his brother's shadow, so that their parents could finally see that size was not all that it was cracked up to be.

Zassz found himself at the base a tree so large it seemed to touch the sky. "Ooh," the small Weedle uttered as he looked up towards the towering object in front of him. Zassz had never been this far from his home tree, as his parents strictly forbade him to travel more than several trees away due to his small size. 'I want to be able to go wherever I want like Raj does,' the young Pokemon pined, 'I need to prove to them that I'm strong just like him!' As the Pokemon continued to gaze at the tree, a thought crept into his head. 'If I can show my parents that I'm strong with my horn, then they'll believe in my potential! I just have to make a large dent in the tree and then bring them back here so they don't treat me like a baby anymore!'

Zassz quickly looked around the tree for any signs of other Pokemon and saw no signs of life. 'Hmm,' he thought to himself, 'I guess whoever lives around here must be off collecting food or something. No matter, that just means I don't have to worry about anyone else getting in my way.' The small Pokemon lined himself up with the base of the tree and used the end of his body to propell himself towards the tree. As Zassz's horn connected with the tree he could feel his horn glance off the bark and his body falling towards the ground, his red feet unable to latch onto the bark. Although he only hit the tree five feet off the ground, the several seconds of falling from the tree scared Zassz greatly. As his body his the ground with a thud, the small Pokemon looked up at where he had aimed, hoping to see some sort of mark left by his horn.

Unfortunately for Zassz, there was no mark on the tree at all, and the Pokemon sighed and felt disheartened. A small breeze crept across the tree, causing a waning sound emanate from the rustling of the leaves. Dejected, Rassz looked up at the tree as it seemed to mock him. 'You think you're funny, huh? If you keep laughing at me like that you stupid tree I'll show you how strong I am and I'll knock you over!" Zassz of course knew he had no chance of knocking the tree down, but the threat at least steeled his resolve. He repositioned himself and once again aimed towards the tree's trunk.

'I just need to put all of my body's strength into this next jump,' he thought. 'If I do that I'm gonna leave a dent in that thing guaranteed!' He wiggles every inch of his body, making sure that his muscles were in top-form for the attempt. 'I have a good feeling about this time, I know I can do it,' he kept repeating internally over and over until he sprang his muscles into action and launched himself towards the tree.

This time, Zassz could feel his horn hit directly at the bark, and even felt his horn pierce the trunk slightly. Feeling triumphant, the young Pokemon sought to examine the mark he had made. He pulled back from the tree, sticking his feet against the wood and using his body to try to wiggle his frontal horn loose. However, Zassz's horn did not dislodge itself from the tree. The small Pokemon struggled off and on for several more minutes, trying to use every method he could think of to free himself from the tree. 'If I can't get out of this tree and get back home, I don't know what I'll do,' the Pokemon wailed to himself. 'I never told Raj or Mama or Papa where I was heading as I'm not supposed to be here. If I'm not back by dinner-time they'll go out looking for me, but will have no idea where to look.' After several more minutes of failed attempts, Zassz began to weep openly as he struggled against the tree.

"Help me!" he yelled, hoping to attract the attention of a passing Pokemon. "Please, anyone, help me I'm stuck!" Zassz's pleas for help seemingly went unanswered, as only the sound of the forest breeze responded to his cries. After several hours of being stuck, and numerous attempts to free himself, the Viridian Forest grew dark and Zassz longed to be home.

'I can't believe I was so stupid to come out this far. I may be stuck here for days or even weeks, and I don't know how long I can survive without food. I just have to keep trying to get free and keep yelling as loud as I can. I'm sure someone will hear me, or maybe even my family will find me and have some food with them.' Zassz quickly imagined his mother nudging a small leaf towards him, and his stomach rumbled at the thought. 'I should have had a bigger lunch today, I should have had dinner early before I came out here,' he sighed to himself and tried to conserve energy.

Hours crept by and Zassz eventually passed out from exhaustion. When he awoke the next morning, he tried frantically to free himself from the tree, but was once again unsuccessful. Hours turned to days and days eventually turned into weeks as the young Pokemon was eventually driven to the brink of insanity by the lack of food and proper nourishment. After four weeks of being stuck in the tree, Zassz's body began to fail and the little Weedle thought the last thought that would ever cross his mind. 'Raj, Mama, Papa...I'll miss you.' Zassz then lost consciousness for the last time, and died as his body succumbed to starvation. The next day, a flock of Pidgeotto flew by the tree. As one did, its flapping wings caused a small object to dislodge from the tree and fall to the ground. The Flying-type Pokemon swooped down, picked up the body of a dead Weedle, and flew off to eat its next meal.

Trying to Capture: Weedle 3-5k CC
CC: 6715 CC

Written partly for PWN Bash.

Holiday Bash Writing Event

 

Claiming, I suppose.

 

Introduction: You start by giving some background on Viridian forest, and tell us what Weedle looks like – which is a nice detail, as you should always have a minimum of description on your stories – and then you introduce the main character – Zassz and give him some background.


Now, this, by itself is fine, but one thing bothers me a lot, is the name. Raj and Zassz don’t sound like they could coexist within one same language, specially within the language of bugs that don’t really have a complicated way to articulate “speech” like humans or birds, I don’t have a clue on how to pronounce Zassz and the extra ‘s’ is useless since it’s fair to assume that Weedles don’t have writing utensils do there’s no difference between Zasz and Zassz or even Zaz. It sounds like you’re trying to be exotic for the sake of being exotic and it’s a bit off putting and immersion breaking in my opinion .


After that you list some differences between Zassz and Raj, and say that his parents obviously show more affection toward Raj, but you could have reached the same effect by showing us – via flashback, or maybe having Zassz come out for a walk because of this, which would, in turn create a bigger emotional impact on the following scene.


Climax: Zassz, then feeling the need to prove himself tries to prove his strength by making a dent on a tree, it’s fine and all until he gets stuck, but that doesn’t quite make sense. If he wanted to prove himself to his parents he should have called them first and then done it, otherwise people could claim it was already there or would look another way. Maybe, that’s the internal critic in me not believing anybody will do something this dumb without any fallbacks or way to recover from a potentially bad situation but that can be reasoned with as the main characters is young and/or in emotional distress.
To continue with that Weedle cries and shouts but nobody comes to help and he starts to starve to death passing through insanity – but here’s the thing, I sincerely don’t believe there’s anywhere in any forest that’ll be perfectly isolated from any lifeform for 4 weeks, I also don’t believe 3 people – born in the forest – can’t find that particular place of the forest in 4 weeks. If there were people or Pokemon that just ignore Weedles that’d be believable, if there were Pidgeys that just stuck around, waiting for it to die, that’d be something but just being alone until he dies is a bit too unbelievable in my opinion.

At the very end, he dies and is eaten by birds which is okay and shows that the nice guy sometimes really does finish last, etc. Which is fine, a bit depressing but that’s the genre for you.

Length & Grammar & Description: Nice and ready, there were some things that shouldn’t be here and some others that should but it’s fine, I suppose.


Final Considerations: You could use some more description, and definitely show more than tell – especially since you were writing this story under a prompt and showing more details would fit in better with the prompt than the current setting – and the plot by itself was a bit cliché but it’s more than OK for an easiest so Weedle is captured.

(Non-URPG Considerations: The actual plot wasn't very "Thinker"ey, mostly because there isn't much to think deeply or analyze on the story, that the "X who could" stories wouldn't really work on reality is common knowledge by now. And the timeline was loose at best, it's like saying a story that happened in 2 hours is a timeline story when it's like that. You're not giving off that lecture or listing feel a timeline story should have. So you get +4 for your efforts.)