The Wonderful Song of Sinnoh

A deep song rustled through the trees as the Pokemon of Route 202 in Sinnoh enjoyed a normally pleasant evening. Route 202 is known for being one of the places where beginning trainers take their first steps into the open World of Pokemon, just as Route 1 above Pallet down is known in Kanto. The route is home to a small handful of Pokemon, all low-level and pretty tame by comparison to other wild Pokemon. One such species of Pokemon found on Route 202 is a Kricketot; and one Kricketot will have to overcome great hardship in order to be successful in life.

Kricketot has a red body, with tan markings down the front of its body and a tan collar-like piece around its neck. The Pokemon has two small feet with no visible toes, and two small stubby arms with no discernable fingers. A large oval-shaped dark red/brown nose and two small black eyes with white irises. On its forehead there is a brown/dark red oval-shaped portion of its body. At opposite sicdes of the brown/red segment there are antennae that curl into a question mark-like design.

John, a small Kricketot that lived along Route 202, loved making noise with his antennae in order to communicate with other Kricketot and other Pokemon on the Route. However he often failed to create proper sounds, or at times even could not make any sounds with his antennae at all. The failure to perform often caused John much sadness, and he found himself crying himself to sleep many nights.

'Why can't I make proper music,' John thought as he lay in his bed made of leaves and tree bark, 'I just want to make everyone happy by making an amazing song, but I can't even say 'Hello' sometimes to my fellow Kricketot. Why do I have to have this problem, why can't I just be normal like everyone else?' He sobbed as he believed that his disability would be a permanent one, unaware that a sliver of hope lay just on the morning's horizon.

The next morning, John was awoken by a knock on the exterior of his home, a hollowed-out log. As he crawled out from inside the log, what he saw truly perplexed him, as he saw a strange Bidoof that he had never seen before. John knew all of the Bidoof, and other forms of Pokemon that lived in the nearby area, but he had never seen this particular Bidoof before. This new Pokemon also had certain characteristics that John would have remembered if the pair had ever met.

Normally Bidoof have bodies covered with dark-brown fur, with tan markings around its eyes and a red nose. However, his Bidoof instead had light-brown fur on its body, causing it to look almost cream-colored. The Pokemon's normally black area around its red nose was instead snow-white. Confused by the unexpected and strange-looking visitior, John began to speak to his caller. "Hello," he started hesitantly, "my name's John and as i hope you've figured out I live inside that tree stump. Is there something that you want of me?" John said all of the words slowly, trying to enunciate each syllable to assure that he would convey the proper message to his new visitor. 'I hope I said everything correctly,' he thought to himself, 'it would be an embarrassment if this new Pokemon can't understand a word I'm saying.'

The cream-colored Bidoof smiled with his big toothy mouth and started to reply. "Yes, John, I know who you are. I've heard that you have a problem sometimes with speaking clearly, and that you want to be able to speak clearly all of the time. I'm sure that you try to practice as much as you can, but that sometimes the music comes out incorrectly, or sometimes just doesn't happen at all. You must feel pretty sad about all of this, don't you?" The Plump Mouse Pokemon moved close to John and stood on his hind legs, wrapping his front arms around John's red body. "I'm Frank by the way," the Pokemon continued, "and I think I have a way for you to be able to speak clearly. I was sent from a place far from here, where a mystical spirit lives that can sense Pokemon's emotions. It sensed that you were crying out in pain, and it wants to help you if possible by fixing your ability to speak. All you would have to do is come with me, and it's only a few day's journey from here."

John looked at Frank stunned as his mind began to process this information. 'I..I actually have a chance to be normal, to be able to speak normally to everyone? This is beyond wonderful. I've always wanted to be normal, and this Bidoof here seems to have the means to make that happen. I wonder why this special spirit cares about me, though. After all I'm just a lowly Kricketot, nothing special at all.' He smiled widely and began to speak to Frank. "If what you say is true, I will gladly come with you to wherever this special spirit lives. It is true that I've always wanted to live a normal life, and it seems like you're offering me to have my wildest dreams fulfilled. I don't know anyone who could turn that down."

Frank continued to smile and hugged John again as he listened to the Kricketot's response. "Wonderful," he began, "we can leave right now if you want, assuming you have no other pressing engagements to get to." The Kricketot nodded and the pair slowly started off on their journey.

Several days into the trip, they ran across a large town with many humans and Pokemon that resided there. "Move quickly and follow me," Frank hissed quietly to his companion, "we don't want humans to see us and try to catch us. I'm not much of a battler and from the looks of you, you aren't either. We can't exactly get your voice fixed if we get captured by some passerby, right?"

John started to nod in agreement, and it was at that moment that a tall human wearing a white and orange t-shirt and black pants saw the duo walking along the streets. When he noticed the pair, the human quickly grabbed his brown bag from the chair he was sitting on, tightened his green scarf around his neck, and ran towards the group shouting, "ooh, wild Pokemon. If you don't get into my Pokeballs in the next two seconds, I'm fining you $1 million!"

"Does he think we have human money," John asked Frank, confused as to what the tall figure meant.

"I don't know John," Frank replied, "but it looks like he means to battle with us. I can try to distract him if you want to try to get to the spirit Pokemon. Just keep heading in this direction until you see a large body of water!" The cream-colored Bidoof turned and faced the tall human, who sent out a blue penguin-like Pokemon.

Soon, the trainer commanded his Pokemon to attack Frank with a barrage of bubbles, and John could only watch helplessly by looking behind him as he ran as fast as he could away from the battle. The last thing John saw before the battle site faded from view was Frank being sucked up into one of the trainer's Pokeballs and never emerging after the ball hummed.

'Oh no,' the scared Cricket Pokemon thought, 'that human has Frank under his control now. He has to spend the rest of his life doing whatever the trainer wants, how barbaric.' He started to cry as he kept running and running, managing to avoid numerous other trainers or Pokemon in the city. As soon as he saw the beginnings of a wilderness Route, he quickened his pace even further in an attempt to leave the town as quickly as possible.

Once he reached the dense grass of the route, he felt a small sense of security, as he was at least used to the familiar basic landscape of the plains. Small trees dotted the area here and there, and the tall grass ensured that he would be able to successfully hide from anyone who would seek to bother him. As he kept traveling through the grassland, he smelled a faint smell that reminded him of what ponds on Route 202 smelled like. 'I think this is the direction it's in,' he thought, as he quickened his pace to reach his destination.

Within several hours, John found himself at a large lake that seemed mostly abandoned, except for several Starly and Bidoof. In the middle of the lake, there was a large rock formation that looked as if it was not a natural occurrence. Something about the rock formation called to John, and he spent an hour swimming across the lake until he reached the rocks. Upon climbing the rocks, he found a small entrance to an interior rock section. 'I wonder where this leads,' the Pokemon thought, as he entered the structure. 'It feels like I've been called here, to this particular spot, by some force that I cannot comprehend. Is this the work of that spirit that Frank was talking about?' As he continued to ponder why he was compelled to the rocks, he heard a loud voice overhead.

"John, simple Kricketot from Route 202, you have been brought here by one of my followers so that I can help you solve the most difficult problem that you have ever faced." A small gray Pokemon descended from the top of the cavern, floating close to John so he could speak, although the Pokemon seemed to be speaking with its mind. The Pokemon had a pink face with two tentacle-like appendages on either side of its head, and a large red gem in its forehead. There was also two tails that had a smaller-sized gem in the middle of each tail. "I am Mesprit," it continued, "the legendary Pokemon of emotion. I sensed your sorrow and pain and decided to help you bring an end to your woes. All you need do is tell me that it is your desire to speak clearly and so it shall be, for it is within my Psychic-type powers to mend your antennae." The pink Pokemon hovered above John, awaiting a response.

"Of course," John eagerly replied, "I'd love to be able to be normal. All I want to do is make music for my friends and those who live on my Route. Sadly, as you know it's usually impossible for me to get even a single line of song out, let along a melody." He looked up hopefully at the Pokemon, wishing that it would fulfill his desire.

Mesprit smiled and its body began to glow with a Pink aura. "You have chosen wisely, young John. You see, I have friends that can see beyond the here and now, friends that can see into everyone's future, even your own. I was told that by next year's time you will be a great composer of your community, creating and performing songs the likes of which no Pokemon has heard before. However, the future can be uncertain, like a diverging stream across a river; had you declined my offer to heal you, that future would never have come to pass, and you would continue to wallow as you have been."

The aura that surrounded the Pokemon soon extended to John, and he could feel himself becoming stronger and better with each passing second. The bug-type Pokemon began to waver, however, as he considered what possible future lay ahead for him. 'Although being healed by Mesprit would allow me to carry out my dreams, I wouldn't really be the one responsible for any of those achievements; it would be that Pokemon's work at healing me that caused everything positive to happen in my life, as if I was just along for the ride. I'd rather find some way to fix my problems on my own, instead of relying on others to do my job for me.' "Stop," he yelled to the legendary Pokemon, "I want you to stop healing me right now!"

"Oh," the grey Pokemon asked. "why do you want me to stop? Aren't I giving you everything you've ever wanted, especially when I told you about the future that awaits you if you undergo my treatment?"

"Look," John replied solemnly, "if I get help from you to magically fix all of my problems, I won't be helping myself at all. All of those wonderful things you told me about would just be because of you and your friend, and not because of me at all. I'd rather wait another two, or even five years to learn how to communicate properly and then compose music than to owe all of my achievements to someone else."

The legendary Pokemon's aura slowly faded, and it smiled again at John and began to speak. "Once again, you chose wisely. I was testing you to see if you would be tempted to take my quicker and easier path. Your musical compositions still await you, and you'll start to see in the next month that you will be able to speak better of your own accord, not because of anything that happened today. If you had weakened and taken my offer, you would have found your voice failing within several weeks, and be unable to correct the error for many years. The true point I brought you here was to learn to look inside yourself for solutions to your problems. Good luck with your music, John." John then felt himself enveloped in a pink light and when he opened his eyes, he was back at home inside the hollowed-out tree.

From that day onward, John dedicated as much of his time as possible to honing his speech and music-making abilities, and he soon found that his efforts were paying off. He stopped feeling sorry for himself and began to look at his disability as a challenge that he could overcome. Just as Mesprit had told the young Kricketot, within a month he had made significant improvements, and within a year he had composed his first full song. Everyone on Route 202 came to hear his performance, and nearly all asked him how he was able to cure himself. To his questioners, he simply said that a chance encounter that changed his outlook on life helped him succeed.

Trying to get: Bidoof (5-10k) Kricketot (3-5k)
CC: 13,223

Note: When I started this, I planned the story to go in a different direction, to have it be about a Kricketot practicing for an opera-style event on Route 202, but then the story just went by itself and brought in Mesprit xD

 

Claiming this, I guess.

 

Intro:

It is nice that you'd set up the world in your intro so that the readers would know what world would they enter. But it is not to be forgotten that your intro needs to hook. To hook is to actually make your readers enter your world. In a similar sense: you open a door to the readers, but you are not going to make the readers just go inside that door. You have to make the world (or room) of that door look enticing, so that readers would not doubt whether to enter or not. That case usually applies to stories with such intros. Your world is easy enough, so readers may enter out of curiosity. But if you made a story of a very technical world, something very rare in this wonderful earth, then a carash course of the world as the intro may scare out the readers.

I'd say yours is fine, but a little action from the characters would be better.

Body:

I would like to point out one issue:

"...one Kricketot will have to overcome great hardship in order to be successful in life."
"...unaware that a sliver of hope lay just on the morning's horizon."

You already gave the conclusion in there! Even if the readers would not know how would it happen, but if they learn it is a happy ending, chances are they will stop reading. Stories will walk on one road and would eventually branch out on two (generally) possibilities: the happily-ever-after road, or the tearjerker onion plantation. You, as the author, are to decide where would you lay out the road (whether to happy or onion plantation). The readers would walk on the roads you bulit. But in the same way you did as I pointed above, that'd be like planting signs on the road saying "50 miles to happily-ever-after". Readers would know they will reach guaranteed happiness, rather than reaching the crossroads, but knowing that it is a fairy tale ending due to YOU laying out the road to there. And they would get surprised from there!

One of the problems Kricketot has is the inability to make music. What, exactly, is the problem? Broken antennae? Tone-deaf? Composer's block? When it comes to conflict, be specific with it. "Problem" would not be much, and would cause to readers to assume. It is your story, so you should make your readers see your world, rather than them making their own world. Another issue is that how late you revealed that conflict, just when Mesprit heals his broken antennae. The problem in there is that, what if the readers thought that Kricketot is tone-deaf? When they learn it is not so, they might drop the world because of the error and would lose interest. In short, make your conflicts concrete, known, and specific.

Also I would like to point out one thing. I often read that the Kricketot has problems in music. Then in communication. Then in both. While we know that the main conflict is that the Kricketot cannot compose music (yet), sometimes we are left confused with knowing which issue is the problem. The antennae, the voice, or something different? Based on the Kricketot's issues, his communication is also compromised. How is it compromised so that he has to carefully say words? Lisp, Freudian slips, epileptic-like ramblings? This also falls on the topic above, which also needs to be taken care of.

Detail:

I like how you presented the Bidoof. Comparison and contrast is a good way in description, as long as the scene asks for it, which fits the shiny Bidoof well. But why does it have to be shiny? Usually, in stories, quirks like that are meant to be portraying something special, which is actually so for the Doof. It is just quite the trope that anything special from someone means something special. Anyways, this is a simple story, so it doesn't tackle the trope too much, but in larger scopes of stories, expect the trope to be talked about more.

Anyways, while you described the characters well, please do not leave out the setting blank. While we know Sinnoh Route 202 is a simple path with trees on the side and Mesprit's cave is a cave, most readers would assume generic ideas about such places. Sinnoh Route 202 may show up as a simple path with side forests and Mesprit's cave is just a cave, nothing special. Try to describe the quirks and specialties of the setting that will help in deviating the readers from genericism. In the cave, it could be full of magic runes glowing in a radiant hot pink aura of psychic emotional energy. Readers would probably assume that it is a generic cave with magic runes glowing in a radiant hot pink aura of psychic emotional energy, but that's better than just a generic cave.

Anyways, if you forgot to place description on stuff, readers would imagine instead of a generic version of that said stuff. People can be lazy beings. XD

Grammar:

While your grade in this section is clean enough, I would like to point out a certain issue, which I had already dealt with a previous grade (conveniently your grade XD). It's with the apostrophes being quotation marks (or thought dialog marks as in the case).

One thing I'll point out is that "thought dialogs" are not placed inside: ' and '. Those are apostrophes, and they become quotation marks when they're inside a larger pair of quotation marks. Example:

"I said, 'OMG, she's a fan of EXO!", recalled Tim.
In analysis, Tim is saying that he said that she was a fan of this. In another sense: Tim recalled that he said that she was a fan of EXO. Mathematically of the previous sense: [Tim(she is a fan of EXO)].

Anyways, thought dialogs are commonly italicized. But it depends on your style. As long as you are consistent, it's actually fine. The problem is that stuff could be confusing, and ' and ' may disorient readers and cause confusion. But if you use them consistently, it could be fine. Or just use other punctuations such as [and] or <and>. Especially if you're using 'and' and "and" at the same time. Consistency, as always!

Inclusion:

Kricketot: Main protagonist. No existence issue. Good here.

Bidoof: Somewhat sidekick? Also the way you dealt with the way he is captured somewhat flopped. Kind of like ignorable, except for the sad detail that was not able to contribute much to the mod. It is in the haste of how it was dealt with (one short paragraph). You could have expanded it more, to have enough time to the onion juices to be released and reach the readers eyes.

Conclusion:

Kricketot and Bidoof captured!

It is actually a nice story, save for the issues and stuff. And I can't possibly reject you an Easiest XD