The Unsung Hero

[walkthru]

The Unsung Hero

Clint Stuart, a teenager from Verdanturf, got up from his warm and comforting bed. His emo black hair was a mess, and he had been tossing and turning all night. His hazel brown eyes were dazed, and he was not used to getting up this early in the morning. More murmurs from the tunnel?

He threw his ‘Proud to be Verdanturfi’ t-shirt on and darted outside his small home to see what the fuss was. What he saw was many people in pyjamas staring out at the entrance of Verdanturf Tunnel.

He saw twenty houses, each one with a family standing and shivering on their porch. Clint’s best friend, Wally, lived across the road. They stared at each other, but everyone seemed to be staring at Clint. Then, Wally cautiously walked towards him.

“Why’s everyone staring at me?” Clint asked as Wally approached. Wally looked around and clenched his teeth.

“Um, I don’t know how to tell you this,” Wally answered, “but the people here in Verdanturf want you to go into the tunnel and find out who’s making all these noises.”

“Why me?” Clint questioned bewilderedly.

“Because you’re the only pokemon trainer around here,” Wally replied.

Clint stared at the formidable entrance to Verdanturf Tunnel. Its jaw was small, but enough for someone of Clint’s size to crawl in. Then he stared at the eager faces of the villagers. They had done everything for him in his youth; maybe it was time to repay them.

“Okay, I’ll go,” Clint muttered reluctantly, and plodded back inside his house to retrieve his Great Ball, and the trusty Azumarill concealed inside it, caught two years ago.

After collecting everything he needed, Clint was stationary outside the tunnel. Wally and a number of other villagers patted him on the back and gave him helpful words of encouragement.

“Good luck,” they all said.

To render his nerves, Clint thought over and over the possibility of him becoming a local hero. Maybe his tale might spread over to Mauville, and their famous ancient gym leader, Wattson. That would really make Clint’s day.

Staring at the miniature arch in front of him, Clint crouched down and shuffled into the tunnel, aided by a lengthy applause by the Verdanturf residents.

Time seemed to pass as Clint crawled through the tunnel. His hands hurt because stones pressed into them, causing sears, and he was beginning to feel extremely claustrophobic.

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, he got to the other end of the narrow tunnel. Standing up. He took a deep breath, and marveled at the sight around him.

He was in a hollow, stone room with absolutely no features except four walls of rock. Clint’s breath echoed quietly. He jumped, just noticing what was in front of him.

Around thirty Whismur were stood in what seemed like an army regiment formation, all in front of Clint. Each of the Whismur were covered in dirt, and all had the expression of anguish on their faces, as if they had been going through obstacle courses.

Upon seeing Clint, they all began to roar, a dangerous roar. It was agonizing, and Clint’s instinct led him to cover his ears. He felt ashamed that what the whole of Verdandurf Town were afraid of were some measly Whismur.

Suddenly, a Whismur in the front-line raised its pink paw. All the noise came to a halt, and Clint put his hands back into his pocket.

This Whismur seemed to be the leader of the troop. It raised its forehead at Clint, before turning around and facing its friends.

“Whismur, Whismur. Murrrr!” It ordered, whatever that meant.

It turned around again, and walked arrogantly towards Clint. After a moment of silence, it spoke.

“Whissss?” It asked, as if expecting Clint to do something. He assumed this meant it wanted to battle. Reaching into his pocket, he felt the rubbery Great Ball and tossed it into the playing field. The thud of it landing echoed.

Out popped Clint’s trustworthy Azumarill, fresh from a relaxing evening in its ball, and a rich blue colour.

Whismur grinned. It seemed as though it liked a challenge. Its paw turned a sparkling white colour, and he charged it up glamorously before smashing it into Azumarill’s face. Clint’s pokemon flew into his arms.

“It’s okay, Azumarill,” Clint assured it. “The Whismur obviously knows Focus Punch like you do. Try and hit back with Hydro Pump.”

Azumarill bounced back into play. It was unlikely for a third-stage pokemon to be losing to a basic.

Out of Azumarill’s mouth came a surge of water aimed right at Whismur, but just as it seemed it was going to be a successful shot, Whismur leapt into the air, and dodged the attack completely.

Suddenly, Whismur’s paw began to spark up again, but this time with a bright yellow light. With even more power this time, he rammed it into Azumarill. It was a Thunderpunch, and it was super effective!

Azumarill whimpered on the ground, badly damage by the attack, and evidently paralyzed.

One more move from Whismur would almost definitely kill it. There was only one thing to do to save Azumarill…

Clint dove into his pocket, found what he was looking for, and launched it at Whismur. It was bound by the red light, and the pokeball landed on the floor. It rolled twice, but would it roll a third time?

[walkthru]

Details

Pokemon Aiming For: Whismur
Difficulty: Simple (5k-10k)
Characters: 5263

[Splishee]

GRADE

Plot

Vendanturf Town in Hoenn has been constantly disturbed by noises in Vendanturf Tunnel. A young teenager named Clint Stuart also is aggravated by the noises, until one day he wakes up and finds his neighbors pestering him to enter the cave and resolve the disturbance once and for all.

Clint is a little frightened, but the possibility of becoming a hero of the village is too much to refuse, and enters the cave upon the pressure of his village. Upon entering the stone cave, he finds a large army of Whismurs, screaming in agony at him. He is flabbergasted, before being challenged to a battle by the head Whismur and evidentally attempting to catch it.

Wonderful plot, it really is. I loved how you incorporated the in-game conflicts of the shrieking Whismur with your story’s plot, as well as making it original. Not your average ‘kid starts his journey, walks into a forest’ plot, and I commend you for that with such a simple Pokemon. I also liked how you made use of Whismur’s natural in-game habitat, although, that kind of also brought the story down a bit. You should try and venture out and find new, creative ways of finding Pokemon, not just in the place where it’s most common to find them. ^^

Introduction

It was fine, for the most part. Although, I’m a big fan of hooking the reader in with the very first sentence, and your story started off very.. Average. Introducing the main character in the very first sentence when waking up from a sleep? That’s kind of common, don’t you think? Introductions that catch people’s eyes are the best types of ones, and that’s pretty much the main aspect of your story I feel you should improve on.

However, I may be acting harsh - you described the character nicely, as well as introducing the basic location, reasoning and characters of the story. So, well done.

Length

You covered it yourself, pretty much. Whismur, being a Simple Pokemon to catch, requires 5 - 10 k of characters. Your story is roughly 5 k, only barely scraping the minimum quantity of characters. That’s fine, by my standards.

However, I believe that quality > quantity, and other graders may not see it like that. You should always try and make your story half way between the maximum and minimum amount, to really secure the capture. ^^

Grammar

Excellent. Your grasp on grammar is very good, and the grammar section is probably the strongest part of your entire story. Well done. There really isn’t anything major or heartbreaking that I need to point out, but, there are a few things you should keep in mind for future stories:

His emo black hair was a mess, and he had been tossing and turning all night.

Try to avoid using popular slang in literate stories, such as the word ‘emo’. It’s not actually in the dictionary, or is a terminology of any sorts apart from a popular stereotype, so it should be avoidable in stories. You could have used many other adjectives instead of ‘emo’ such as: ‘gothic’ or ‘depressing’. Show off your vocabulary. ^^

“Um, I don’t know how to tell you this,” Wally answered, “but the people here in Verdanturf want you to go into the tunnel ….. [blah blah blah]

The rule is that when you interrupt a speech to enter who is actually saying it, is that that is the end of the sentence. So, after ‘answered’ there should be a full stop, and ‘but’ should be the start of a new sentence (but I would avoid starting a sentence with a joining word like ‘but’ :P)

“Whismur, Whismur. Murrrr!” It ordered, whatever that meant.

You have a great grasp on the comma -> speech marks principal (there are so many people that don’t!), but here is one little error that you need to pick up. Even though there is an exclamation mark, not a comma, the same principal still applies that it is in the same sentence as the following. So, ‘It ordered’ should be without the capital ‘I’. ^^

Oh, and one last thing - ‘Pokemon’ has a capital ‘P’. Keep that in mind, and you’ll be all set! XD

Description

For a simple level Pokemon, your description was really great! Very much above average! You have a great vocabulary of describing words, which shines through in your descriptive story, so well done!

However, as much as your description is great in the sense of figurative description, a lot of the basic stuff is missing, or is below the standard you set for yourself. Descriptions of characters, for example. You had hardly any description for Azumarill except for the fact that it was blue coloured. And what about the Whismurs? You had great description for their hygiene state, but none for their actual Pokemon appearance. You should always describe Pokemon as though no one has seen one of them before - but not over-the-top, just slight references like the small description of Azumarill’s colour, but spread out throughout the story.

It’s as though your description is so advanced that you’re missing out on the most important chunks of description. :P So, keep that in mind.

Outcome

Overall, a great story to read. Nice plot, excellent grammar, very nice description - I say that it’s enough to catch the little pink, indignant Whismur! :P. So - Whismur caught!