Thread: A Trip Down Memory Lane

Going for: Magikarp
Category: Easiest
Characters Needed: 3-5K
Total Characters: 7,799

~0~0~

A Trip Down Memory Lane

I never really liked getting caught in this situation, having to try and calm down a rampaging Gyarados. It was never fun, and other fishermen, trainers and people in general frowned upon having a giant blue sea-serpent thrashing around angrily in the lakes of Cerulean City.

I stood on the lakes shore, fists balled and sweat pouring down my face. The sun was beating down heavily on the battle that was ensuing between my Electivire, a tall humanoid creature covered in shaggy yellow fur with thick black markings. Bolts of electricity and blasts of high-pressure, ice-cold water was exchanged between the two powerful Pokémon, both skilfully dodging eachothers attacks. The battle was an even match. I knew there was one thing I could do to end it fast, but then I'd just have even more angry fishermen, trainers and families and that was something I not want. My reputation as a trainer wasn't exactly the best already.

With a mighty roar and a swing of its heavy tail, a wave of freezing cold water rose from the lake and splashed over me and my electric Pokémon. Electivire didn't look to fazed by it, but I was soaked to the bone. My thick brown hair stuck to my face, covering my hazel coloured eyes.

I pulled my hair off of my face, and to my surprise, Gyarados floated on top of the lake. Around me I could hear people cheering happily at the fact that Electivire had gotten one of my oldest Pokémon under control. I threw the Pokéball out to him and he was sucked into the red and white sphere with a flash of red light. The ball bounced back to my hand and I sat down on the wet grass. Electivire trudged over to me, looking worn out and tired.

“Well done pal, I hope that doesn't happen again eh?” I said to him chuckling. “Seven years and he's still crazy. Makes me think about that time...” I trailed off, not finishing my sentence as I thought back to the time I caught Gyarados when he was just a young Magikarp.

~0~0~


“Ready to go, son?” My old man asked me, looking down at me with brown eyes filled with knowledge. His thick brown hair was beginning to disappear, and my father always used to tell me stories about how one day I would start to go bald one day just like him.

I never liked those stories, I like my hair.

“Yeah, sure am dad!” I told him enthusiastically.

“Alright, let's get going then!” He said as he picked up the bag which held the two fishing rods, the bait, some Pokéballs and our lunch. I was expecting it to be a fun day, and a fun day it was.

With that, we left the two bed-room house and began the short walk to the lakes near by Cerulean City. It was a local place, and it was quite popular as well. There was always trainers battling, fishermen fishing or families with their children just having a fun day out and relaxing around the lake.

The walk through Cerulean City was short and uneventful, the occasional Rattatta scattering around here and there. There weren't many people around and the city streets were empty from where it was so early in the morning, but later in the afternoon the city would be a bustling hub of life and activity. We could hear Pidgey singing nearby, I always did like the sound of bird Pokémon singing.

After about twenty or thirty minutes of walking, we arrived at the lake. My dad checked us in at the main desk and rented us a boat to use for a couple of hours and we headed over to the docks. The lake looked no different than usual, a vast pool of blue that spread out for miles and miles surrounded by a forest of green. In the water you could see tons of different water Pokémon swimming at different depths. Other fishermen had taken up their space and sat with their rods hanging lazily in the icy blue water.

“C'mon dad! C'mon let's get out there!” I kept repeating to him quite loudly whilst bouncing up and down on the spot. I couldn't help it, I was excited.

“Quiet down, son! You don't want to scare away all the fish now do you?” He asked me, patting me on the head.

We both climbed into the wooden boat and pushed it out into the water. The boat was quite big, big enough so that if a Pokémon was caught it could be reeled on to the boat and then battled for a catch but small enough for two people to manoeuvre it. We unpacked our fishing rods and threw the line out to the water, waiting patiently till we got our first bite,

Around us, we could hear other fishers cheering happily each time they caught something decent or grumbling each time they caught a Magikarp.

Me and my father sat there on boat for a while, and we was beginning to lose our patience. It was nearing four o'clock and usually we never went this long without a catch. That was when the first tug on my line came, and me and my father jumped quickly into action.

“Quick son, quick! Reel it in!” He called out to me excitedly, grabbing my fishing rod and pulling as hard as he could. After a short struggle of family against fish, the line came soaring through the air with a large red fish attached to it, a golden crown sat atop its head. The Magikarp hit the boat hard and flopped around wildly on the deck of the small boat.

“Well, it's better than nothing Ian. If you wanna catch it you know the drill!” My father told me.

I unclipped my Elekid's Pokéball off of my belt and clicked the button to enlarge the ball, then a second time to release him from the inside. A red beam shot out from the Pokéball and in front of me materialised a small yellow pokemon that stood on two legs, black lightning bolt markings covered its body. Two bulky arms tipped with three claws swung wildly round around its rounded body. From the top of its head protruded two horns shaped like those of the prongs of a plug.

“Ele-kid!” It called out happily, sparks dancing around its body.

“Alright, Elekid! Let's get straight down to business buddy! Start off with a Quick Attack to get in close, then hit him with Thunder Punch!” I commanded my Pokémon with a firm voice. My father had always told me that if you wasn't firm with a Pokémon, it would disobey you. So I always tried my hardest to sound like I was the one in control.

At my command, Elekid rushed forward with lightning speed and slammed its shoulder into the Magikarp then swung its crackling fist full of electricity down hard into the flopping fish's body. The Magikarp did not appreciate being attacked like this and retaliated by slapping Elekid with its tail fin and the electric Pokémon looked stunned.

The fish began to flop around, attempting to get off the boat and achieve its freedom. It barged into Elekid, still stunned by the slap to the face, and flailed towards the edge of the boat.

“Elekid! Don't let him escape, use Shock Wave on him to stop him!”

The Electric Pokémon did as it was told, and swung its arms around rapidly in wide circles. Sparks of electricity began to dance from his arms and between the prongs on his head. With a mighty cry of its name, a flash of blue electricity was sent speeding towards the Magikarp.

The attack hit with a horrible sizzling sound, and the Magikarp let out a blood-curdling scream. It was obvious that The Fish Pokémon was in an extreme amount of pain from the attack. I felt sorry for the little guy, but I could always heal him up at the Pokémon Centre later on.

“Alright, Elekid, let's finish this off with a Quick Attack! But don't hurt him too much, he's almost ready to be caught,” I told him.

Instantly, Elekid zoomed forward and barged the flopping fish towards me with his right shoulder as I clipped a Pokéball off of my belt. Realisation soon hit the Magikarp as it knew it's freedom was lost.

I swung my arm forward and the Pokéball rolled off of my fingertips and went flying through the air towards the Magikarp and made contact with The Fish Pokémon. It sucked him into the ball with a flash of light and began to wiggle on the spot...

I'll claim this one too. Your results will be up as soon as possible.

Introduction: Your introduction was pretty interesting. I liked the fact that you gave us a view of present day, then sent us back in time to where your character was first encountering the Magikarp that had become a Gyarados. It was fun to read and I found myself imagining all that could have happened in between the two time periods. As usual, I’ll go into my four W’s (I don’t usually include the why) so I can further explain my viewpoint on the introduction.

What: We’re introduced to a boy who has a troublesome Gyarados, who then begins remeniscing about how he caught this Gyarados, or rather Magikarp. It sounds like it has great potential, which you definitely fulfilled, but I’ll get into that later. This isn’t very one-dimensional either, as it has something that it’s sticking to the entire time, which is somewhat rare in a story for a Magikarp. I like it!

Who: The story follows a boy named Ian who fishes with his dad. I guess Magikarp could be considered a main character as well, but it mainly follows Ian, as it is in his perspective. We got a little description, which is always a nice addition for a story of this rank. Of course, more description couldn’t have hurt it, but that’s mainly me wanting it so that I could enjoy this story even more. Not much to say here, but you did a good job nonetheless.

Where: The story takes place in a lake just outside of Cerulean City (sorry, I’m drawing a blank on the name of it). Just like you did for the characters, you gave some description for the setting, which, again, is nice for a story like this. I’m assuming the setting is the same all the way through, which gives us time to familiarize ourselves with it.

When: It starts in present day and eventually goes back to seven years ago. I liked that you made it plausible that it could have happened that long ago by making your Electivire an Elekid and the Gyarados a Magikarp instead. It makes sense since your character would have been much younger and probably wouldn’t have had an Electivire at such a young age, nor would he have the capabilities of taking on a Gyarados.

Plot: I liked the plot in this story, as it wasn’t necessarily expected. Sure, we were given a quick view of the future, which told us what the story was going to be about, but I still felt that we were given a nice, creative plot instead of the typical ‘kid wanders into the forest and spots random pokemon’, which is too common among stories of this calibur.

That being said, this was still a kid catching a pokemon to become stronger. Sure, you made it better by giving us the reason for it, but it was still somewhat one-dimensional. However, I can’t really complain. Like I’ve said above, this type of story is common for this kind of pokemon. The reason why it is so common is because it works. Your story worked.

Not quite sure where else to put this, but I just wanted to let you know that you did a marvelous job describing the pokemon in your story. Many people struggle with this aspect, but you made it very clear as to what each pokemon looked like, which makes it more fun to read. Plus, somebody who didn’t know the pokemon universe very well would have easily been able to tell what your pokemon looked like, which is always a sign of great description.

Climax: Like the rest of this story, you did a nice job with it. It had action, answers, and conclusive content that really made it feel like a climax. It didn’t feel too rushed, nor did it feel too forced, so you planned it at just the right time and length.

Your plausibility was also commendable. The battle seemed to make sense, which, again, is sometimes hard for people to do. Instead of the Magikarp uselessly flailing around, it tried to escape the boat and even hit the Elekid, causing some damage. On a sidenote, I actually preferred that you had Splash be able to do damage, while it can’t in the games. It shows customization in your story; that’s a nice addition and separation from the normal flow of both the games and URPG alike.

The Magikarp’s health would have been depleted enough for a pokeball capture to work, so, again, nice job on the plausibilty. Many people just attack once or twice and catch it without taking the health of the target pokemon into question. However, it didn’t seem to be the case in this. Despite the fact that I plugged this in the calc and your Magikarp ended at about -115% health XD

Grammar/Conventions: You obviously know what you’re doing here. You did a nice job with most of the grammar through out this story. However, one thing that frustrates me in this story is that you apparently didn’t proofread to catch your mistakes. Even a simple spell-check would have caught some of these errors. I’ll point out a few, just to prove my point.

My father had always told me that if you wasn't firm with a Pokémon, it would disobey you.

Most spell checks catch things like tense mistakes, but, if yours doesn’t, a simple re-read and this mistake would have caught your eye. I’m not going to point out more of these, as I’m sure you get the point.

Another thing that I spotted that should be corrected is the way you end your dialogue. If all of your dialogue ends, even anything that is a continuation of the dialogue, directly after the quotation mark, you end the dialogue with a period and a quoatation mark, then move on. However, if your dialogue ends but there is a continuation of your dialogue right after it, you’ll use a comma and a quotation mark. I know it sounds confusing, but I’ll point out some examples of what it should be.

“Alright, Elekid, let's finish this off with a Quick Attack! But don't hurt him too much, he's almost ready to be caught.” I told him.

Here you used a period, which would be incorrect. The reason behind this is because the ‘I told him’ is a continuation of the dialogue, even though it is outside of the quotation marks. It should be:

“Alright, Elekid, let's finish this off with a Quick Attack! But don't hurt him too much, he's almost ready to be caught,” I told him.

This allows for the reader to keep reading the rest of the sentence as a continuation of the dialogue. While it might not seem like a big difference, plenty of people will find it much easier to read if it is written like this.

I mentioned this a little in my first paragraph, but I highly advise you to always proofread your work before submitting it. Trust me, you’re not the only one to do this, but you catch countless amounts of simple mistakes if you do this. It makes your story flow smoothly, which is always better than a jagged and jarring story.

Length: The minimum for a Magikarp is 3,000 characters, and you are way above it at approximately 7,800 characters. For a pokemon of this ranking, you definitely went above and beyond. Nothing seemed too forced in this story either, so I would say that you covered this length section well. Your length also proved to me that you wrote to write a story instead of writing to merely get a pokemon, which I like much, much more. It shows dedication to your story, and it makes my grades feel like they actually matter.

Results: I’m going to say that Magikarp is captured! While you had some grammatical errors that were a little frustrating, the overall story had plenty of successes within it that definitely deserve a Magikarp. You obviously put a lot of time into this story, which many people think isn’t necessary for a pokemon of this ranking, but it is so much more interesting to read if you spend time on it. Take my advice, keep on writing, and enjoy your newest pokemon!