The World of a Hybrid (WaR)

Pokémon wanted: Ralts
Required CC: 20k-30k (Hard)
Actual CC: 16920
Roll: Psychology / Alternate Universe / Human-Pokémon Hybrid / PokéSoul

Text:


Sabrina Winter was a little Ralts living in London, United Kingdom. As the daughter of a Gallade named John, and a witch human named Hilda, she shares traits linked to both humans and Pokémon. As a Pokémon, Sabrina is more resistant to physical injury than humans and doesn’t hesitate to battle if she needs too. As a half-human hybrid, she can speak human languages and well as Pokémon. In addition to that, she’s impossible to get caught by a Trainer.

The life of a hybrid is not easy, as they must deal with the rules of two worlds; the human world and the Pokémon world. Sabrina is no exception to this; as a human, she must attend school with human children and learn about different subjects like English, mathematics, and science. As a Pokémon, she needs to practice her moves to get stronger.

On the Summer following her eleventh birthday, she was surprised to receive a letter inviting her to the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, a school for magical humans (wizards) located in the Scottish Highlands. Her mother explained to her that when they are 11, all wizard children receive such an invitation, and that as a half-human with magical powers, Sabrina is considered a witch. She informed her of the different rules surrounding the magical world; the separation between wizards and Muggles (a term used to denote humans devoid of magical powers), the Ministry of Magic, graduation from Hogwarts, etc.

The fateful day came on Friday, September 1th, 1995. As she arrived at the King Cross Station and got inside Platform 9 ¾, the hybrid was met with the usual stare of other children. They were all wondering what was a Pokémon doing there.

“Are you sure you’re at the right place?”, asked a boy.

“Yes”, responded Sabrina. “Why?”

“But…but you’re a Pokémon.”

“And?”

“Hogwarts is a school for humans.”

“But I am human too.”

“That’s impossible!”, said a girl.

“I am a hybrid.”, responded the Ralts.

“A hybrid?”, asked another girl.

“Yes, my dad is a Gallade and my mother is a witch.”

Everyone was confused. Most people are used to Pokémon as dangerous creatures that some people, called Trainers, raise and confine to Poké Balls.


It wasn’t long before the Hogwarts Express came. In the train, the Ralts noticed several people taking off their Poké Balls to release their Pokémon. Out came Igglybuff, Eevee, Cleffa, Meowth, Azurill, Togepi, Lillipup, and Skitty, among other Pokémon. After lunch, all Pokémon were returned to their Poké Balls, except for some, like Sabrina’s Eevee, Zelda.

“Why you don’t return Eevee to its Poké Ball?”, came a question.

“Because she has none.”

“Huh?”

“Why would I put her in a small prison?”

“Huh?”

“I repeat; why would I put it in a prison?”

“It’s not a prison!”

“What do you call a small device used to store living creatures?”

“If your Pokémon is not in a Poké Ball, then I will catch it.”, said another voice.

“Don’t even think of it!”, responded the Ralts, angry.

“What will you do?”, said the boy, who goes by the name of Crabbe.

“Don’t make me angry! I won’t allow you to reduce my Zelda into a slave.”

“Slavery? You’re talking like Hermione Granger. She says the same about house-elves.”

“And she’s not wrong. What do you call beating some creature into submission and confining it to a small device?”, added the girl named Hermione, who just showed up with Harry Potter and Ron Weasley.

“Creatures like you don’t belong in a school for wizards.”, said another guy named Goyle.

“It’s not up to you to decide.”, retorted Hermione.


“Sabrina Winter is in … Ravenclaw!”, expressed the Sorting Hat. The happy Ralts was welcomed by a girl named Luna Lovegood. It wasn’t surprising considering she was a smart kid.

“Welcome to Ravenclaw! I am a Fourth-Year student here.”

“Thanks!”

“Don’t listen to what some are saying, you belong perfectly in this school.”

“Are you sure Luna? It’s full of humans here.”

“Absolutely! You’re considered as one too by the Ministry of Magic. I also like Pokémon.”

The Ralts heard Luna’s Espeon making a sound.

“People call me too a weirdo, but I don’t care.”

“But I am a Pokémon.”

“But Ralts are humanoid. One of our teachers is half-giant.”

“Really?”

“Yes. He’s name is Rubeus Hagrid. He teaches Care of Magical Creatures, but you won’t have him until the third year.”

“Welcome Zelda!”, the Espeon telepathically said to the Eevee, so that Luna can understand.

“Welcome Espeon!”, replied the Eevee, in the Pokémon language.

“Your Espeon is cute! Do you keep it in a Poké ball?”

“Thanks! Your Eevee too is. No, I don’t like Poké Balls.”, said the blonde girl.

“What is your Espeon named?”

“Chloe.”

“It’s a nice name!”

“Thanks! Zelda too is a nice name.”


Time passed, and new challenges came. Some of the students at Hogwarts believed in wizard supremacy and agreed with the Death Eaters. They believed that wizards should be at the highest place in society, and that Muggles and Pokémon should serve them. They also believed that pure-blood wizards were the best due to their blood, and that half-bloods, hybrids and Muggle-borns were inferior. In addition to that, many were jealous that Sabrina was very good at school. Her natural gifts allowed her to progress a lot in a short time. However, that wasn’t the only problem, as the Forbidden Forest had some dangerous magical creatures and Pokémon, same of who were adopted. Sabrina had to confront both due to her dual nature.


“Oh look! Here comes a Pokémon”, once said Crabbe, as he saw Sabrina approaching.

“I bet we can catch her and her Eevee”, said a laughing Goyle. “Go Rattata”.

A dark rat Pokémon appeared.

Sabrina responded by using Disarming Voice on the rat, which was super effective on the Normal/Dark Hawaiian Rattata. She opened her mouth and released a beam of purple hearts in a loud shrieking voice.

“Oh damn!”, said Crabbe, before Sabrina put him and his friend Goyle to sleep using her Hypnosis.


It was DADA (Defense Against the Dark Arts) class, and Sabrina couldn’t stand the new professor Dolores Umbridge who was appointed by the Minister of Magic, Cornelius Fudge. How the Hell could they defend themselves against evil wizards by negotiating with them? Also, her being a Pokémon means that she’s less hesitant for battles than humans usually are. If some evil human or Pokémon threatens her, she wouldn’t like that slide.

“Excuse me!”, said the Ralts

“Yes?”, said the adult witch.

“How can we negotiate with people willing to harm us? That doesn’t make sense!”

“It’s because of your violent nature that you say that.”

“What?”

“You Pokémon believe everything must be solved by battles. I don’t even know what you’re doing at that school.”

“Huh?”

“Listen! First, Pokémon are inferior to humans. Second, your kind always causes trouble. The Ministry of Magic, headed by His Excellency Cornelius Fudge believes that negotiations are the best way to solve disputes, and not fights. Anyone who resorts to a Pokémon or wizard fight with an enemy will be punished.”


“Sabrina?”

“Yes, Luna?”

“Why are you crying?”

The Ralts tells the blonde witch about what happened in the Defense Against the Dark Arts class.

“This woman. She IS evil!”

“Why was she appointed as professor?”

“Cornelius Fudge thinks Dumbledore wants to assemble an army to take over the Ministry of Magic.”

“WHAT? That’s dumb!”

“I know. He doesn’t want to admit the He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Name is back.”

“Why?”

“Because that would expose his incompetence. He even has the Daily prophet spread rumours about Harry Potter. Saying that he’s insane.”

“THE HELL? My psychic senses tell me that Harry Potter is completely sane.”

“I know. This is just a smear campaign.”

“Luna. I don’t feel very comfortable here. I am both a human and a Pokémon, I have two natures.”

“I accept you as you are. I know it’s not easy coping with these stuffs.”

“I have to deal with two worlds. As a human, I must do what other kids do, go to school and stuff. As I Pokémon, I sometimes feel he need to battle. I am trying to reconcile the two, but it’s not easy.”

“I understand. Do you have an identity crisis?”

“Yes. I am not sure how I feel at Hogwarts. Is this please for me? Being a hybrid is not easy.”

“Yes, you belong in Hogwarts. I know that as a Pokémon, you possess some powers we humans don’t have and you need to practice your movies, but as a wizard, you also need to practice magic that Pokémon don’t have access to.”

“So, what do you suggest I do to help with my identity crisis? Can you help me with coping? I am new here.”

“Of course! The easiest way to cop to your nature is to act both as a wizard and as a Pokémon. Try to gain experience by battling, that would make you stronger and help you evolve. Also, try to perfect your magical skills. You would benefit greatly by doing both.”

“Thanks!”

“You’re welcome. By the way, I wanted to invite you to join the Dumbledore Army?”

“Dumbledore Army?”

“We are a group of wizards who want to really learn how to defend ourselves against the Death Eaters. Since how Cornelius Fudge doesn’t want us to learn defensive magic, we will have Harry Potter teach us how to defend ourselves.”

“Why Harry?”

“Because he’s the best suited to help us deal with the Dark Lord and his Death Eaters. He encountered He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-named last June and managed to escape alive. I will tell you how that happened.”


It was the first Dumbledore Army meeting.

“Hello all! I am bringing my friend Sabrina if you don’t mind.”

“But she’s a First Year.”, said a voice.

“But she’s a Psychic-type Pokémon, she has access to powers we don’t have.”

“Luna is right Harry.”, said Hermione.

“Interesting! Can you show us some of your powers?”

“Of course!”

“So, you’re accepted in the D.A.”, said Harry, after seeing some of the powers of the Ralts.

“Thanks!”

“Sabrina, while we are practicing our spells, try to practice your Pokémon moves. Also, do you want to evolve your Eevee?”, said Hermione.

“Of course! An Espeon would be a good addition, right?”

“Yes, as these are Psychic-types. So, I recommend you evolving your Eevee.”

“Thanks!”


With the D.A. sessions, the Ralts gained enough experience to evolve into a Kirlia, Zelda gained enough experience to evolve into an Espeon. Sabrina learned how to block Curses with Protect and the spell “protego”, she would use Psychic to telekinetically control an opponent, how to stun an opponent, etc. Luna was happy to see how her friend is advancing, and she too would have her Espeon practice Pokémon moves. All these sessions, however, had to end once Dolores Umbridge found out about the D.A. After Dumbledore Disapparated in front of Fudge, who thought he could send the Hogwarts Headmaster to Azkaban, Umbridge was appointed as Headmistress, and things got worse. Many children of Death Eaters were given extensive powers by the evil Headmistress, and they started to abuse them. They would also smear Kirlia and call her a dangerous beast. They would refer to Muggle-borns as “Mud-Bloods”. However, they were still meant with resistance. Most professors were fed off the evil witch with pink dresses, and weren’t going to make her life easy.


After Cornelius Fudge saw Voldemort himself at the Ministry of Magic during the Battle of the Department of Mysteries, he realized that Dumbledore was right after all. The Dark Lord, as unlikely as it sounded, did in fact return. The Minister was sacked and a new one was elected. Following this, Dumbledore returned as Headmaster. He appointed professor Severus Snape as teacher for Defense Against the Dark Arts. As a former Death Eater, he was eager to show his students how to face Voldemort’s army. The came as a relief to Sabrina, who now can practice more defense spells. Dumbledore took interest in her, and agreed with Luna Lovegood and Hermione Granger that she needs to practice her Pokémon moves. Hagrid would take her to the Forbidden Forest, where she could practice battling some troublesome Pokémon under supervision, together with her Espeon. Thanks to the comforting words of Luna Lovegood, Albus Dumbledore, Rubeus Hagrid, and Hermione Granger over the time, she was now feeling at home in Hogwarts. They were all ready to help her use all her powers for the defense of Good. She stopped paying attention to the teases of the bullies. She knew were she belonged, and children of Death Eaters wouldn’t be able to convince her otherwise. By the year’s end, her intense training enabled her to evolve into Gardevoir.


On August 1st, 1997, the Ministry of Magic fell to the Death Eaters under the leadership of Voldemort. Severus Snape was appointed as Headmaster of Hogwarts, and the Death Eaters took over the school. Students would be taught the Dark Arts, something Sabrina wasn’t interested it. She had to fight back. She wouldn’t let these evil people have it their way. Ginny, Neville, and Luna re-formed the Dumbledore Army, where they would form the resistance. Sabrina didn’t hesitate to use powerful Pokémon attacks against the enemy, regardless of the consequences. She wouldn’t even mind corporal punishment. She’s not the one to give up. She re-joined the D.A. and lent her support, together with Zelda. Luna too had no problem using her Espeon. The good professors too encouraged resistance and insisted on standing up to the villains. May 2nd came, and with it, the Battle of Hogwarts. All the heroes engaged in fighting the Death Eaters, not willing to surrender harry Potter, and willing to protect the school from the Dark Lord. Sabrina would switch between defensive moves like Protect and offensive moves like Moonblast. She would use Psychic to hurl opponents away, and Hypnosis to put others to sleep. The battle was intense, but she and her friends had to fight. Voldemort wouldn’t win.

Once Harry Potter killed Voldemort, all hopes were restored to the Wizard World. Hogwarts was now free, and Sabrina could continue her studies as usual. She continued getting good grades in her classes, especially now that her psychic powers were very powerful. Due to her innate gifts, she could graduate four years after starting her magical education. Something that made her parents very proud of her. At 15, she became training as an Auror, and managed to finish faster than the others. However, as she was still underage, she had to wait till she was 17 to start working in this profession. That happened on February 28th, 2001. She also attracted the interest of many wizards. Many asked her about her views on human-Pokémon relations.


“What do you think of Trainers?”, asked her a Daily Prophet interviewer.

“I don’t like how Pokémon are beaten into submission to do the bidding of a human.”

“But Pokémon like battling, no?”

“Of course!”

“Don’t some Pokémon accept to join Trainers?”

“Yes, but usually, these Pokémon see that these Trainers are good people. Unfortunately, many Trainers abuse their Pokémon.”

“I see. What do you think of Poké Balls?”

“I despise them. They look like some prison.”

“Do you think so?”

“Yes.”

“But Poké Balls are a convenient way to transport Pokémon.”

“I realized that, but I wish we didn’t need them.”

“Do you believe that some Trainers see their Pokémon as their friends?”

“Yes, I have seen some. But I don’t know if they form the majority. Many others see Pokémon as nothing but collections.”

“I see you have an Espeon. How do you see her?”

“I see Zelda as my friend. I can’t consider her as my pet as I am a Pokémon too. This is also why I can’t see myself as her Trainer.”

“This is an interesting perspective.”

“I agree that it’s unique. As both a human and a Pokémon, I have my unique outlook on the world.”

“Did you suffer from an identity crisis?”

“Yes, in the past. See, being a hybrid is not easy. For a long time, I asked myself where I belonged. Do I belong to the human world, where I must attend school and earn a profession, or do I belong to the Pokémon world, where battles are an important part of one’s life? At Muggle school and Hogwarts, many students made me feel I didn’t belong there. Most were used to see Pokémon as wild creatures that constantly battle, or as creatures confined to Poké Balls where they constantly battle opponents for their Trainers.”

“How did this identity crisis get resolved?”

“At Hogwarts, some nice people, like Luna Lovegood, Hermione Granger, Headmaster Albus Dumbledore, and Rubeus Hagrid, who all accepted me for what I am, encouraged me to do both. I would study while improving my battle skills. This made me realize that I belong to both worlds.”

“Sabrina Winter, thanks for the interview!”

“Thanks to you too!”


Sabrina married an Alakazam named Alexandre Red. Together, they have little Ralts. Alakazam are very intelligent creatures and very some very strong psychic powers. It is said that these Pokémon have an IQ of 5000. Her children weren’t considered hybrids like her, as the were one-quarter-human and three-quarters-Pokémon. They would live their lives as other Pokémon do, without worrying about having to reconcile two different worlds. They were named Hermione, Luna, Rubeus, and Albus, in honour of those who supported her the most when she was struggling to feel at home in Hogwarts.

 

hi there gonna snag this

 

HI THERE. First off, I’m really, really impressed by how much you’ve improved in your writing since the last story! There’s so many things that went right here and tons of growth in such a short time period, and I think that’s a feat in itself. Let’s jump into the grade.

PLOT STUFF

So we have the outline of what’s a really promising plot: Sabrina, outcast both emotionally and physically from the wizarding world and the human one, learns what it means to reconcile two different worlds. There’s plenty of room for complex yet universal themes here—on some level, everyone understands and sympathizes with an outcast, so you can tell a really powerful story.

However, there are some issues in the execution: the last third or so of your story feels really rushed, like you tried to shove a bunch of events into a really compressed space. You’ve effectively tried to summarize the plots of books 5-7 of Harry Potter, which is effectively 640,000 words, into the span of roughly 1,000 words. Being concise with your language is definitely a skill, but there’s a fine line between cutting out too much. For example, we get this line at the end of the story:

Which is really cute and reminiscent of how Harry named his kids after the people who were important to him as well! But it feels a little less impactful when we realize that we haven’t even seen Hagrid and Dumbledore in the story, and they’re just mentioned offhand as being nice to Luna. In Harry Potter, the emotional weight from hearing the names of Harry’s kids comes from spending so much time getting to know James, Sirius, Albus, Severus, Lily, and Luna—and most importantly, what those people meant to Harry.

You had some good instances of character interaction, too! The conversations between Luna and Sabrina were very useful in seeing how Luna helped Sabrina become comfortable with herself, and that both contributed to your overarching plot as well as cementing the meaningful relationship between the two characters. I would love to see more of that from your other interactions, especially if you want to make them impactful to the reader by the end of the story.

In a similar way, a lot of your plot elements feel a little rushed as well. Voldemort is basically the villain of Harry Potter’s world, but he doesn’t feel like the villain of Sabrina Winter’s world because of how little screentime he gets. While readers of the HP books would understand that he’s a super dangerous, super evil guy, it’s hard to get that vibe from your story alone. The above sentence is the first time that he’s directly mentioned in the story, and while we can get some guess that his reappearance is sensational (“Voldemort himself”), it doesn’t convey the dread, fear, or evil I think you were trying to establish. This leaves lots of things open to interpretation: maybe Voldemort is just a really famous celebrity, and Fudge is super happy to see him at the MoM.

You don’t need to outright sit down and say “Voldemort is an evil bald guy with no nose,” because that’ll end up being just as hollow. Instead, I encourage you to think back to how the HP source material introduces characters: what scenes and actions stick out in your mind as the moments that made Voldemort a huge antagonist to the plot? Which lines made you feel like Dumbledore was a good person? At what point did you realize that you wanted to read the story to the end?

This might feel super hard to pin down, and don’t stress, because it is—that’s why writing a good story takes a ton of time. Take a deep breath, look over the events you’ve written so far, and then expand them: I’d love to see some of those summary paragraphs expanded into full scenes.


SETTING STUFF

You mentioned in Discord being very excited to tell a story set in Hogwarts, and I think a lot of that enthusiasm is visible here. There’s a lot of elements that are downright magical, and combining two huge and immersive worlds and creating a third one in which to tell your story is a daunting task!

On the surface, your setting has all the right ingredients that you’d need to make a good backdrop for your story: there’s lots of Hogwarts, wizards, magic, Pokémon, and so forth – these things don’t directly tell your story for you, but they’re good for your readers to get a feel for what’s going on in the background of your plot. And when you’re adapting a world such as Harry Potter/Pokémon, you can actually get away with a lot more assumptions than you might if you were building a world from scratch: you don’t need to explain to the reader what a Ralts is for us to understand why it could be a psychic, for example.

But on the flip side, because they’re so rich on their own, sometimes it’s hard for those worlds to mix smoothly. Similarly to how you might need to flesh out certain scenes in your plot, you would also need to flesh out certain parts of the world: is Sabrina the only hybrid? Are Pokémon seen as creatures with human intelligence, given the existence of many non-human species in the Harry Potter world (merfolk, goblins, centaurs, giants, etc)? If so, why is the idea of keeping Pokémon as pets even remotely acceptable?

A good setting can lend so, so much to a story: just think about how much more shallow Harry Potter would’ve been if there were no Hogwarts. Think of your setting as another character in your story: like Sabrina, it has a rich and varied history, and it also has some rules/limitations that it needs to follow. I would suggest starting at one statement about your world and working backwards by asking why. You do explain some things well in a lot of places, so let’s take a look at one of those:

Sabrina gets a letter from Hogwarts. Why?

Ah, because all witches and wizards get letters from Hogwarts at age 11. Why is Sabrina a witch?

I would encourage you to go back and use this method to flesh out some of the other elements in your story: the interaction between humans and Pokémon, the existence of hybrids, and so forth.


GRAMMAR STUFF

So let’s do a quick jump into the nuances of dialogue punctuation. It’s tricky stuff and you honestly can’t go astray checking out some online guides such as this one or this one.

One rule of thumb in the English language is that you typically won’t have three punctuation marks in a row.

So you’ve already got the intuition to put a comma there, which is really great. However, the comma replaces the period rather than supplementing it, so you should just have the comma where the period would normally go:

And in cases where there’s a non-period punctuation mark ending off your dialogue, you don’t need a period or comma.

Should actually be:

Otherwise, your grammar was pretty solid throughout! I would just suggest focusing on dialogue rules right now, as they’re quite tricky, and if you have any questions, feel free to ask me or look at those guides linked above.


OVERALL STUFF

You mentioned being concerned about the length of the story, and I would agree: the story feels a bit short. You could definitely have more stuff here, not just to reach Ralts’s target character count, but because there’s so much more beneath the surface that you could bring to life!

However, I’m so, so impressed by the improvement you’ve shown since your last story, and I think that the effort that you’ve put into this story is amazing for a new author. As such, I’ll say that Ralts is captured! There was lots of growth in this piece, and I think there’s a lot more just beneath the surface!


WAR STUFF

Psychological – this one is tricky, and I think that it ties in to a lot of the areas you could improve in your story: while the thrust of your story is Sabrina working to fit in to society, there’s not much focus on how that actually happens. Initially, she doesn’t fit in, later she makes friends, and then the story ends. I would like to see the events of the plot and Sabrina’s inner monologue fleshed out more for this story to fit that genre.

AU – I think there was a bit of a misunderstanding here. An AU is an exploration of an alternate universe/different chain of events—in other words, “what would happen if ____ changed?” A story about Ash Ketchum starting with a Shroomish (instead of a Pikachu), for example, or Harry Potter being raised by good foster parents (instead of the Dursleys). The AU then explores how the plot/characters of the original material would change if that one detail were different. What you’ve written here is more akin to a crossover: it answers the question “What would happen if Pokemon and Harry Potter existed side-by-side?” It’s your call if you want to change this, given how integrated it is to your story, but I can’t give this an AU pass as it stands.

Pokemon/Human, Hybrid – yeah! Got this one in spades.

With your current story, you can claim a Simple-rank Pokémon for your WaR prize, or you can edit it to attempt to get a higher-rank capture.

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me!