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unrepentantAuthor

A cat that writes stories.
Location
UK
Pronouns
they/she
Partners
  1. purrloin-salem
  2. sneasel-dusk
  3. luz-companion
  4. brisa-companion
  5. meowth-laura
  6. delphox-jesse
  7. mewtwo
  8. zeraora
Short, sharp reviews are the order of the day~!

Further notes on ch15:
Loved that Astrid called Jade a little shit lmfao
The way you described Mewtwo's Pressure and how overwhelming his presence was one of my fave things about this chapter.

Ch16
Loved the reunion of Chibi and Razors, it was very touching. And painful! The way Chibi is struggling to come to terms with the fact that he'd got to the point of trying to kill Razors when this outcome was still possible... I love it.
Love that Flygon/Aros is so oppositional that he considers sleeping outside just to be difficult.
"Yes yes and yes" got a snort.
Jade's emerging trauma about thunder shock is very good, the way her narration puts it makes the horror of it plain and sickening.
Making a deal with the experiments was a fun scene. Stalker really is quite a character. What's his fuckin deal?
Hooray, Chibi stays! I thought it might go that way, and I'm glad it did. Really pleased for them both.
Chibi's chronic pain is delicious. I don't have his pain, but the vibe is spot on.
Bless Jade! She is so sweet and humble. What the fuck. What a likeable girl.
Firestorm also has trauma from helplessness! Excellent. Poor lad.
Jade helping him to learn a way to use fire punch was such a great scene! I haven't had the pleasure of reading many scenes like this, and I'm glad we get some besides TMs and that TMs aren't perfect anyway. Great stuff. Really cute.
FIRESTORM PAWNCH!
Lastly, I am fuckin snorting at Firestorm's obvious crush and Jade's total smugness at spotting it. Wonderful.
 
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unrepentantAuthor

A cat that writes stories.
Location
UK
Pronouns
they/she
Partners
  1. purrloin-salem
  2. sneasel-dusk
  3. luz-companion
  4. brisa-companion
  5. meowth-laura
  6. delphox-jesse
  7. mewtwo
  8. zeraora
Time for a mega-review consisting mostly of cannibalised reactions and liveblogging. You know the drill~

Ch17
Sick chapter art as always!
Love a good threeway fight, this one was a lot of fun.
Go team Jade! I'll cheer for you guys!
Autumn! Love a good bit of Autumn, and a sense of time and place and sensory input.
I'm so touched and proud of them! I love them a lot, I'm gonna cry. It's really special to feel so fond of these guys.
Swift's interest in human affairs and contemplative temperament makes me suspect he'd take an offer from Perihelion.
INTERLOPERS! Very excited to know what that's about.
It's been 3000 years... since the last war. I'm guessing this element was introduced after Gen VI.
Desperate for the timeline where LC is an anime. I know it gets grimmer later, but ch17 is peak 'this should be an anime'.
The legend is so wordy! Very much a weird piece of writing. Intriguing.
Totally agree with Jade that Suicune and other Legends are pretty damn scary. Wonderful sense of presence.
Ah yes, this is a chosen one fic, oh my. I've not really read any chosen one fic, but this is still my favourite chosen one fiction I've ever read tbh. And that's this far in. I know there's so much wonderful content to come. I love your notes about avoiding pitfalls and will try to speculate as I read, even though speculation is hard for me!
Ah yes, explorers of pain and suffering. My heart is gonna break in the best way.
I'm so fuckin' hype!

Ch18
Viridian base is pretty huge! It has a real sense of scale and a military vibe. Team Rocket really does feel like a paramilitary organisation here, and not a glorified crime cabal. I like that take on them, you know.
Darren's banter with Jade is good and funny here.
Fuck yeah, this mission has that vibe like when you return to tutorial level where you had a scripted loss to a boss and now you get to fuck em up!
Lmfao I spotted a breath she didn't know she'd been holding. It's been memed on too much for me not to just grin at it.
FUCK they got accidentally captured I KNEW THIS WOULD HAPPEN.
Jade has opinions about high tech plausibility that surprise me. It feels weirdly intrusive and unimmersive that she should be commenting on whether electric type energy is easier to handle with tech, or how plausible these devices are.
The escape from the truck was tense as hell, very good, exciting.
Brainwashed legendaries are really fucking scary and really fucking sad. That's a good plot element right there.
Hi Chibi's bird parent! I like that he gets a little moment to touch his feathers. I like that the birbs each have their own takes on entei turning up and are distinct personalities.
The word 'wave' gets used 4x in a single paragraph and that's egregious Sorry!! It feels mean to point out but I still gotta arrest you for repetition crimes.
Aros and Stygian but no Razors... surely there's a reason? Poor Chibi wants his bro and I feel for him.
"Protect each other" is a lovely phrase. I hope this is a theme getting name-dropped. I'd use it in the trailer for LC anime. It gave me emotions.
The word 'crap' sure gets thrown around a lot and helps cement these kids as being kids. It's a little harder to remember that many Rockets are actually also super young.
Super battle! Very fun! The sheer tension! The close call! Mew! It Mew!!
My hype levels at the end of this chapter closely matched how tired I was at the time, sorry!

Ch19
Mew's characterisation as a sad god is good, I'm convinced they're complacent and gonna get completely curbstomped by TR.
The way Mewtwo doesn't even have the agency to take out Mew without orders is killing me. All his agency is gone in the worst way.
Jade is a more competent trainer! Ya love to see it! So proud of her.
Hooray for Stalker! I'm glad we don't spend too much time drooling over his awesomeness in the heat of battle, however.
Oh man the situation got so much worse so fast. I have a feeling that I'll be saying this a lot going forward.
Pretty hype about Chibi's power and its potential. I thought Jade might use him to drain the forcefield, actually.
Lmfao Aros only cares about Stygian. It's endearing even though it's kindof an asshole trait.
The return of jeep forcefields! Not a bad continuity moment there.
The return of fucking suicune! Oh man. Epic.
The ebb and flow of battle is wild, holy shit this is intense. Great stuff.
Dude so many guys are fuckin dead and I bet Team Rocket doesn't even have dental. How can you expect grunts to stay loyal when you don't even give them dental and they might get burned or electrocuted to death in the line of duty?
Mew's teleporting in the battle is a great way to use their signature trick in an effective way. Good stuff.
Jade is empathetic and I love her. She really cares. I love characters who care.
The return of Astrid!! Terrifying. Whenever she turns up, I can really feel Jade's fear.
Aros gets owned in this holy shit. I kindof expected him to be overconfident and get stomped, but it's really brutal and I love how it goes down.
Jade is bold, I love it.
Chibi is protective, I love it.
The wounds are brutal, I love it.
WHUMP YEEEAAAHHH!
Big fan of how Jade performs at her highest level ever at heroism only to get absolutely stomped at the last minute. Oof.
Wonderful finish to the chapter, absolutely losing my nut at this point to get to the next.

Ch20
Love this chapter art a lot. Goddamn. The anticipation is thick.
Oh, the fear Jade is going through is exquisite, oh my.
You mattered, Jade! You made a difference! I'm so proud! Sucks that you're gonna get FUCKING TORTURED FOR IT.
INJURIES YEAH! Big fan of some nasty descriptions of characters having been thumped badly.
Wind up watch sounds like a brilliant idea lmfao.
Planning for your inevitable next electrocution? Oh HONEY. oh nooooo. We're about to be well beyond planning for the next time you suffer a quick jolt.
I'm scared for her! Torture is scary!! Astrid's presence is deeply intimidating.
Love that Jade is nauseated looking at Raichu. Not panicky, but sick. It's an interesting little distinction.
Love that she takes the first hit on purpose, love that defiance. Big fan of that.
Love that she starts being incapable of answering and just mumbles nonsense. Oh, Astrid. Torture doesn't work. She's just a kid. You're going about this with such little thought. You must be really torn up about this to be so sloppy.
I didn't notice at first, but the implicit clothes-wetting is an excellent line. How dreadfully sad that is.
Oh no, I love her, she's trying so hard and so scared. I want her to succeed. I feel like I wouldn't do any better in this situation.
Love when Stracion turns up and the sound of footsteps is terrifying. I actually also expected it to be Astrid back for round two.
Very surprised at the rescue but very excited. It's good stuff.
Poor Jade. She did her best but she feels so humiliated.
Love the stuff about the shower and burning the clothes it happened in.
Love her cluster bomb of negative emotions and confusion at being exempted.
Love how awful everything is even after it went as well as could be expected.
The shock Jade's in is handled really well, and we truly are in The Good Shit now. Delighted to have finally reached this point.
...
So.
That was the electrocution.
I'd been wondering for a few chapters if Astrid would turn out to be Starr, given the stellar names, similar appearance, and the whole electrocution thing. I don't think I actually suspected anything until Astrid's second(?) appearance, in which she electrocutes Jade for the first time. The line about never forgetting a face helped, but I also overthought it a bit. I still felt there was a 20% chance that Astrid was Starr's colleague, and not her alias.
My expectation for the scene, albeit one based on nothing, was that Jade would finally realise this person was her former friend during the interrogation, and although I knew there was a possibility that she wouldn't realise until later, I wasn't sure why the deception was in play, or why Jade hadn't realised by now. As it turned out, I had misunderstood or misremembered the timeline, and thought it had only been three years for some reason. Five is a lot more, and that tracks.
I can also think of plenty of reasons why Starr wouldn't reveal her identity, but I was expecting it to be confirmed unambiguously to give me something concrete to react to. The way things went down, I was very sure that Astrid was actually Starr as early as chapter 15, and just waiting for hard evidence out of fear of being wrong. I read through the interrogation waiting for the realisation to hit, and when it didn't, I doubted myself even though it literally couldn't have had another reasonable explanation. I'm genuinely sorry that my reaction wasn't what you were hoping for! I wish I'd told you on the phone like a week ago what my theory was, damnit. I'd have felt so fucking clever!
Anyway. The torture was excellent, albeit not quite how I had expected. I didn't get a kinky vibe at all, you may be happy to hear. I love a good scene like this, and I'm desperate at this point to read on and get the rest of the Astrid-Starr content. Part of me wonders if there's more torture to come...

Ch21
It's the depression pit chapter! It's a good pit.
Lmao at the forcible reminder that pokémon speak anime-style. I tend not to think about it much.
Jade is very sad, Firestorm is trying so hard to help in his dumbass way, my heart hurts.
Looooove the depression. It's a leviathan mood. Really well-handled.
Swift can exchange money for goods and services. Swift is the MVP and I love him and his epic patience.
And I love Jade's 'depression brain', it's really well written and the bullshit logic is very familiar.
Lmao at how Chibi waits for days to talk to Jade and he's just venting about Razors. Get a load of this guy.
Hooray mantis ptsd is tasty. Really enjoy his very specific flavour of traumatisation.
Battle was good fun. Always enjoy an LC battle, and I love how Razors holds back in a sortof bullshit way bc of his fear.
Don't worry, Razors isn't suicidal, haha! He only doesn't care about living except to not further fuck up Chibi! Surely that'll pay off! Haha!
I've been waiting for a real discussion about the former commander before deciding, and I reckon Stalker isn't that person. I don't think this is the kind of fic that drops mention of a plot point like this three times only for it to be confirmed somehow later. I think it's a bigger twist.
I'm so hype for ch22 after that ominous ending A/N, wtf, WILL THERE BE AN WHUMP?

Ch22
Gorgeous terrifying chapter art on this one.
Omg it's an attack on the base?? I'm a fan of this sort of sequence, they're really terrifying.
How did they get the intel? Who squealed? I must know.
Holy shit kid death I have been waiting for this and it is DARK. It's not too much of a tonal drop off a cliff, but it's still a gutwrenching transition.
This is really nailing the terror oh wow. Everything is so terrible and confusing.
It's painful to hear dialogue from a kid not realising their friends are fuckin dead yet.
Moltres is epic and terrifying, Stalker is really cool.
Holy shit it's Astrid and she's scary. Her appearances are increasingly fearsome.
Massive copyka at Jade's freakout and Astrid's hesitation. How must she FEEL to hear that horrified "stay away from me" from her friend?
Man I know what this is all setting up for, oh my god.
The Tyson scene is fucked up. I'm a fan of horrifying use of mindcontrol to turn allies against each other.
OH MY GOD WHAT A BUTTON THAT JUST PUSHED. I don't even know if I knew I had that button, but the throat-slitting moment was incredibly intense. Goddamn.
Holy fuck? That murder sure just happened. It's... just barely within my schema for taking seriously, though. The leg crunch was fantastic, but something felt slightly off about the repeated iron tail and extended screaming. Not sure what, I'm afraid.
Trauma brain really well written here.
Everything is so awful and it's a lot and I love it.
Chibi you motherfucker. The long game you played with wartortle was perfect and I'm upset. I particularly love how Firestorm thinks it's a matter of strength, even though he knows that even Legendaries are vulnerable to Team Rocket. What a little idiot.
There is so much I love about Jade's state of shock. It's a perfect sequence. Horrifying things occurring to her, blank responses. Great stuff.
There is nothing Stalker could have said that would have been okay after all that. The message he left almost feels... shameless. But this was always a guy using kids for espionage against a ruthless paramilitary organisation, no matter how badass he is.
Wow Jade sure has noooooo choice now about continuing with the rebellion oh god. She's talking about it like she has a choice, but she's not safe any more.
Also, the "I'm sorry" extra comic is amazing. I love it so much, and my favourite thing about it is Chibi's expressions.

Ch23
Sucks that jade was only just getting progress on trauma and now everything is so much worse
Hooray for experiments officially joining her
"Razors wasn't my pokemon" BUT YOU CAAAAARRRRE! It's okay to grieve him!
"Meeting up with Starr" lmfao you don't KNOW. She's about to REALISE. AAAA.
Jade is almost as slow to internalise new things about herself as I am lmfao. You moron, you're a proficient trainer now!
Chibi's return is rough. What did this dude do, go beat up randoms until he was ready to drop dead?
Jade's grief brain is well-written. You've managed to pull off the most incredible shock brain, trauma brain, depression brain, and now grief brain. It's solid stuff. I'm especially a fan of how Jade keeps telling herself that her reactions aren't reasonable or fair or logical. Bless this poor girl.
The fact that Jade assumes if she's not about to die she's about to be tortured, and her reaction to this is worse, is agonising.
I really enjoy how Astrid-Starr is just at her wits' end in this. I think organically it would just come off as an executive under enormous pressure after her interrogation subject escaped, but knowing what I do, it comes off as absolutely heartbreaking.
Aaaaaaaaa I love that you put so many delicious parallels in BLC.
Aaaaaaaaa THE REVEAL THE REVEAL IT IS GOOD IT IS GOOD. What a great delivery. Perfect.
I can't believe Jade came this close to realising in Ch15. Omg.
I love that you were dropping little bits of info as early as Ch1, with that whole "17yo executive" thing.
Wow there's a lot in this that I love, especially with what I already know from elsewhere. I'm really enjoying these little notes about Starr's emotional state, what matters to her, the turmoil... it's all fantastic. It actually made me go back and read various scenes from both LC and BLC.
Big fan of Astrid-Starr's angry recriminations and defenciveness and it makes me excited to see more of her and how this subplot will go. I'ts my favourite thing.
I wonder if Jade could have thought of Starr a few more times over the course of the previous chapters. I recall she mentions Starr just a very little in the opening chapters, but that's all that comes to mind. I've been continually wondering if this would happen, actually.
Holy shit that extra was so fucking good. I love everything you write from Starr's POV. It's delicious. It's very Duskcore, but easily distinct enough that I don't feel I'm cribbing, which just means it's especially tasty.
I love Starr, I love this fic, aaaaaaa I am just full of feelings holy SHIT.

The Experience of Binging 19-23 In One Night:
As you know, because I liveblogged draft versions of most of the above to you last night, I stayed up until 4:40am reading LC. I've very rarely done that sort of thing, and though I was sleepless to begin with last night, it is the compelling nature of LC that made me stay up so late. It was a rough experience to be awake that long reading brutal stuff happening to Jade, but I loved it. No regrets whatsoever, and I can see myself doing it again.
I am very very much enjoying this story.
I love it, in fact.
The experience of loving this story is doing weird things to my head and heart, also.
It's a fun adventure fic which deconstructs a lot of established tropes, has dark content written well, fun battles, hits countless buttons to the point of qualifying as a sister fic to my own, is really long with sick art and characters I'm fond of, a redemption arc not based in romance but in being better for one of my favourite characters I've ever read, I'm close enough friends with the author to stay up all night babbling about my reactions, and there's still so much left to go
Not to mention I have a unique and exciting relationship to the story by way of BLC.
It's an incredible experience for me. I'm deeply emotional as I write this. My heart aches. I've wanted this experience of really, really, REALLY caring about a fic to the point of sacrificing sleep to it and exchanging feelings with the author, for years and years.
I feel very lucky, and very grateful.
And I can't wait to keep reading.
 
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kintsugi

golden scars | pfp by sun
Location
the warmth of summer in the songs you write
Pronouns
she/her
Partners
  1. silvally-grass
  2. lapras
  3. golurk
  4. booper-kintsugi
  5. meloetta-kint-muse
  6. meloetta-kint-dancer
  7. murkrow
  8. yveltal
hey hey, here from catnip. I'm not really sure where I last left off reading but from the looks of my review history I haven't actually left a review since ch13, so that's fun.

mostly keeping these big picture/high-level since they're older chapters and it looks like that what uA did so i'mma just steal that lol

ch14

The infiltration continues!

I like where Jade chooses to draw lines in this chapter--capturing god is weird flex but i mean you do you. Hybrids are weird! But clones?? Super clones?? It's a good way of showing how over her head she is with all this, when she's impressed/in awe of her enemy's plans instead of even beginning to work through the main ramifications there, haha. I also like that she ends up making some really terrible decisions that bite her very quickly--releasing the clones in the room to "rub it in their faces" or whatever immediately gets her caught lol. Actions and consqeuences!

Some fun vibes about how Stalker is definitely having really good plans here and is 100% not doing anything else strange by organizing a rebel group that's mostly just semi-trained children. I like how Jade's first instinct it to call him--is that what everyone does? Poor guy probably needs like six phones for all of the panicked calls he ends up getting from yeeting these kids into the middle of firefights over and over again.

The clones are really cute in this chapter too, and I like how you portray the history between them. Aros is basically a shonen protagonist "just because we're clones doesn't mean we're not as good as the originals", and Stygian is all "um akshually". It's a nice bit of levity!

It looks like you've already heard this a lot, but Stracion's appearance at the end of this chapter feels unnecessary. I like how you foreshadow that she's probably learned some stuff with Stalker, and there's a nice moment where Jade does some useful tactician support (noticing that Firestorm has better odds with close-range attacks), and I imagine she's going to be important at some point later on, but right now it just feels like a cameo for the sake of cameo? Reading the author's note, it's not even that I wanted a real/major/gonna fight you for srs antagonist or anything (I think there's plenty of tension leading in and out of this chapter already!). I mostly just wanted this fight to be leading to something, and by the end of it I was struggling to see what it was (and this gets exacerbated by Stracion undoing most of the damage she's caused in the fight)--beyond just meeting Stracion and knowing she's here to fuck with some plans, I don't really know if Jade or anyone else gained much that couldn't have been done in one of the many other fights in this arc.

I bristled. But at the same time, I didn’t feel like arguing. Not with experimental Pokémon whose good side I really wanted to stay on. My eyes couldn’t help tracing the obsidian blade running along the left side of her face… but no. It was no use thinking of all the things they could do to me, and besides—they needed me. I could walk around the base freely—they couldn’t.
I really liked the tension that develops between Jade and the experiments here; they can't trust each other but they also can't not. It's kinda grounding to watch Jade rationalize it so bluntly here--she's the only one here who can walk around freely, and she's more than happy to leverage this both against them and to reassure herself. Stalker's definitely been rubbing off on her lol.

I stared back at his deep blue eyes that betrayed no emotion whatsoever.
And Razors had known that. That final look he gave me… he knew our only chance was to split up. But how would I find them again?
I think this is a thing that becomes clear upon reading chapters back-to-back, but Jade has a tendency to say something along the lines of "I couldn't have known this"/"his face was unreadable" or something, and then shortly after being able to read/know the thing? There was another one I flagged in my multiquote:
I hadn’t noticed. I hadn’t exactly seen enough Grovyle to know what was different about hers. Unless it had something to do with magically poisoning my Pokémon without using any poison moves.
And this tends to undercut the narration--what does it mean to betray no emotion if the intent is made clear immediately after? The second example I think works a little better: it feels very sullen teenagery, which is a pretty Jade-ish vibe. I get the vibe of "how was I supposed to know??? uhhhhhh quickly, I'll spitball", which to me implies a lot more emotion and helps walk through the guesswork that's happening here, rather than two certain statements in the first example.

Teleportation mechanics in LC
“Because the people demanded it!”
oh hey i'm people!

I thought this was cool to explain--there are a lot of things to break worlds in canon, but teleportation is probably the most interesting one! Range-of-sight teleportation as a cantrip sounds broken as fuck and I really hope that gets a broken combat application soon 👀

Is there a functional difference between 10 x 10 km teleports and one beeeeeeg 100km teleport besides the pauses in between?

Also worth noting is the fact that psychics are notoriously proud, and unlikely to stay with a human that only uses them as glorified transportation. (All Pokémon have the legal right to leave their trainer for any reason.) It’s simply uncommon to see anyone with a teleporter other than a dedicated psychic trainer or a competitive battler. Well-trained psychics willing to lend their strength to human society are highly-valued, and most often employed by emergency response teams.
haha i'm really sorry that of all things in the teleport aside I zero in on this section, but I find this one line really fascinating: "All Pokemon have the legal right to leave their trainer for any reason."
There's a thing I made up which is just the Bechdel Test but for Civil Rights--are you able to directly influence the rules which govern you? If the answer is yes, that's clearing the bare minimum of having civil rights. If not, you aren't living under a just government, and you are bound by rules that don't represent you.

So then the question of Pokemon having legal rights becomes interesting, since it doesn't necessarily solve civil rights problems and it also opens up a lot of interesting questions--they're not treated as sovereign entities and they also aren't treated like animals. But do they get a say in making the laws that govern them? It seems like most of the movers in this society are human, with the legendaries sort of fucking off into their own corners to not be bothered and leaving the normal pokemon alone. The non-Rocket jobs we've seen have all been staffed by humans who are occasionally accompanied by pokemon--and that feels reinforced especially in this section, where it seems like Pokemon rarely (want to) take up professions outside of battling, even though they'd be extremely valued there as well. I feel like it'd be a stretch for there to be Pokemon politicians or whatever responsible for passing this legislation, given that being able to understand what they're saying is optional for human students (and trainers like Spencer can get really far without being able to understand their Pokemon at all)--but then are those rules really made for Pokemon if they aren't in part made by them?

Which is like! not the main focus of this fic, and I get it; we don't ask about Aragorn's tax policy and this isn't the time and place to question the ethical ramifications of legal representation; this is about beeg birds having a slapfight and Jade buying a nice lollipop for her goose friend. But this is a story about agency, and choice, and being cast to follow rules that someone else made a long time ago that say what your destiny is supposed to be, so I did find this tiny aside in this footnote/extra chapter particularly fascinating.

ch15

okay well that was a weird tangent

Mewtwo in this chapter! Beeg spook. Mewtwo asking "and what help is a human child" is such a mood for this fic haha.

Overall this one is a lot of fun. Mewtwo's such an interesting character when it comes to questions of personhood and free will, so I'm glad that there's an incarnation of him in this as well. The conversation with him was appropriately somber, and I liked that Chibi's really the driving factor in a lot of the information that gets disclosed here--clones gonna do #justclonethings! And it's kind of horrifying that they have to just run, knowing this is going to bite them in the ass a little later. Seems like sending kids to disrupt operations isn't a great idea, sad Stalker sounds.

And first Astrid sighting! I'm sure she's not going to be important later.

had a bit of fun trying to see if I'd shitposted anything worthy of going up on the Jade x Stracion wall and found this gem from 2019:
unknown.png

my brain is enormous apparently.

“*What is your plan for getting out of here?*” Absol asked, licking her mane and generally looking bored with the discussion.
I'm fresh off of bingeing Salvage but I love this image of an Absol character just giving zero shits while their child ward is freaking the fuck out. And there's Mewtwo this chapter! Destiny.

And man, was it bizarre. Tall, gangly, and humanoid, with thin, wiry arms and huge legs. But strangely… cat-like? The pointed ears, rounded paws, and short muzzle all reminded me of a cat… a creepy hairless humanoid cat. And yet, despite everything, there was something… powerful about it. I couldn’t explain why, it just was.
A bit more of that "I couldn't explain why" cropping up in narration. I wish there was a little bit more insight into how she gets to these conclusions. Later she provides some concrete descriptions about how talking to Mewtwo muddles her thoughts and makes it hard to think; it would've been helpful to have a bit of an anchor for what powerful actually means in this scenario.

“*I told him that I’m an experiment just like him. Hang on, I’ll ask him to include you.*”
this entire conversation

But then a wave of icy resentment washed over me. <I know that I was created to fight. Created to dominate others like myself.> God, Mewtwo’s presence was overwhelming. I couldn’t tell what I was feeling anymore. Too many things. Too hard to process them all. My thoughts dragged like mud. What was I doing here?
I kinda wanted more physicality to what it meant for thoughts to drag like mud though--the narration here still feels very clear and rational. There's one really cool bit later on where Mewtwo's despair at the thought of being brainwashed leaks in and she can't tell if it's hers at first, but other than that the thoughts here certainly feel like Jade's own. For a first person narrator I wanted a bit of a closer look into what it means not to think her own thoughts, you know?

As the Rocket neared, I was able to get a better look at her—a young woman with short, auburn hair, a tough build, and stern features. Not the sort of person I’d like to cross. High-ranking too, from the looks of her uniform. She wore a tight black tank top with a thick vest, loose capri pants and heavy black combat boots. Sure enough, both her vest and cap had the executive symbol emblazoned on them.

But then an eerie feeling washed over me. Why did I feel like I recognized her from somewhere?
ah yes, all my shitposts are finally coming together

It felt like the air had been sucked out of my lungs. What? How? How could she possibly know it was me? It took every ounce of concentration I had to keep my face neutral with the sudden wave of dread spreading through every inch of my body. Had to play dumb. She had no proof. Had to keep it that way.
I thought it was! really adorable! that she thought that Team Rocket, whose first scene is them just shooting up a god with helicopters and guns needs proof to do mean things to people.

I clenched my teeth
another thing I noticed reading this all at once--lots of teeth clenching in this section.

I sighed. “No.” Honestly, for all I knew, Mewtwo was probably already linked with a Pokéball. I guess there really wasn’t anything I could do. Not now, anyway.
Astrid rolled her eyes. “I’ll pretend that wasn’t the biggest fluke in existence. Anyway, who said I wanted to battle? I think it’d be faster for me to just knock you out right here, drag your stupid rebel ass to a detention cell, and force you to tell me everything I want to know.”

My eyes unconsciously slid to the gun holster hanging from her Pokéball belt, sending another jolt of ice coursing through my veins. No, what was I thinking—she had just said she planned to take me alive. But only because I had information. And after she’d gotten that information out of me…?
I feel like this chapter has a lot of ... well I could do this thing, but I'm not really going to. Astrid at least has some reservations and I get that, but I never really think that Jade or Astrid are really going to do these things--by spending more time talking about why they aren't doing it, it feels like they're just bluffing. As a result I don't really feel the tension as strongly, since it doesn't feel like a real possibility in the first place.

At least after all this, I had a pretty good idea of how to navigate B2f
B2F I think? I truly do not know capitalization schematics for basements but I've only ever seen the acronym capitalized fully.

In front of me, the two clones nodded to each other before melting into shadow and streaking across the floor.
Between chapter 14 and here, if I had a nickel every time Aros and Stygian nodded to each other before melting into shadow, I'd have ... two nickels, but it's kind of weird that it happened twice.

ch16

Awww! More #justclonethings; I really like the shared history between Chibi and Razors here. It's a lot of fun that these clones are really not having it with Jade, but they care deeply for each other--makes a lot of sense honestly! There's something powerful about their conversation about Chibi/Razors' free will when they're brainwashed, and how Chibi insists that what you do under brainwashing isn't your fault, but Razors is firm that intentional or not, the outcomes are still the same. Lotta good questions about choice, and a lot conveyed there in how both of them feel like they're able to exercise it. And this played in really well to Chibi's speech later about "I'm like this because they made me this way"--I never really get the sense that he thinks he's got a choice in a lot of this, but he’s convinced it's not his fault and there's nothing he can do, and that's really tragic.

As a breather chapter I think this is a nice chance to look back at all the things that just happened and process it. The reactions for all the experiments/clones was really nice, and having some closure for Firestorm and his frustration post-Stracion was nice--he sort of falls off the page a bit for ch15 and I was curious what him and Swift were going to think about all of this! Really cute bits where he and Jade are both super hyped about him learning new techniques; it's good to have a few wins like this here and there.

I shrugged and grabbed two Pokéballs from my pocket, one red and one black, opening them to reveal twin flashes of light that took the forms of a white beast and a tall green mantis. And then Chibi froze, staring wide-eyed at Razors in total disbelief. In all the time I’d known him, I’d never seen him look so stunned. But then, this was his first real reunion with Razors in… how long? Years? How many years had Razors been brainwashed? How many years had Chibi been forced to view his companion as the enemy?
The epithets really start picking up in this chapter. I know these have been brought up before and it's kind of a stylistic thing for you, but in this exact case they felt really weird--Jade knows who she's sending out, so it felt weird to see the epithets followed by the names rather than just the names. Maybe just "I shrugged and grabbed two Pokeballs from my pocket, one red and one black. There were twin flashes of light. Chibi emerged and then froze, staring wide-eyed [...]"?

I grit my teeth. No sense holding back any longer.
Jade's gonna need invisalign by the end of this arc for all the teeth clenching she's doing

“But I’m due for grunt work in Cerulean next week,” I protested. And my supervisor was… not exactly the kind of person I wanted to upset.

He gave me a pointed stare. “The last thing you want is to be captured inside a base.”
I wasn't sure what outcome she was expecting from this tbh.

I glanced at my watch for about the millionth time that day only to be met with the same blank face. I’d realized at some point that it was probably dead from Raichu’s lightning, though I didn’t seem capable of remembering that fact for more than five minutes.
This felt vaguely meta in light of all of the other things I've seen Jade forget lol. Wasn't sure how to parse this one.

“Her Raichu is infamous,” he went on, “but you don’t have to worry about the Mewtwo data. That script wasn’t just copying the data to the drive. It was uploading it to an online storage. I actually read some of it last night.”
This felt vaguely hollywood hacker to me--most computers that hold secret data like this aren't hooked into any sort of publicly accessible network, traffic is highly monitored, nothing just goes out on the wifi, etc.

“Do you still have their Pokéballs?” Stalker asked me. Right, there was no reason for me to hold onto them if they were going to be free now. I dug through my pockets and retrieved the minimized balls, handing them to him. He gave them a curious look before saying, “I’ll keep them in my office. Having the option to recall them in case of emergencies could be useful.”
a decision that has really interesting implications on how he views the members of the rebellion and that i'm sure will have no repercussions later

I nodded, taking a few steps back. “From what I remember, it’s basically just a long stream of fire. Like Fire Blast, but way thinner, and you don’t have to get it to split into five, so it should be easier to control.”

Firestorm planted both feet firmly on the ground, digging his claws into the dirt and taking a deep breath. He then exhaled a large burst of flame that billowed outward in the air before splitting off into wisps and then vanishing completely. The Charmeleon blinked a bit in surprise, then let out two or three more spurts of fire with similar results. The flame was impressive—it just wasn’t going anywhere.
I thought this scene was really interesting! There's definitely a central question of like, what to trainers add to these fights, especially since a large portion of the main good-guy Pokemon cast (basically everyone except Swift and Firestorm at this point) are both capable of and seemingly prefer fighting without a human trainer. So trainers contribute the strategy? Jade's instructions feel kind of vague here though--I couldn't really understand how this would be any more or less useful than watching someone else use Flamethrower and copying that, or why Firestorm hadn't come to this conclusion after enviously watching Stalker's Charizard or something.

ch 17

Houndoom that just act like larger, deadlier puppies is an excellent trope and I am here for it. And more victories for Firestorm! I get the sense that everyone is about to need some morale boosters for what's coming next.

Some much needed Swift aftermath here too--Jade mentions something along the lines of forgetting where he'd gone for an entire day, and that feels a lot like my mood regarding him sometimes tbh. There's a lot of moving parts in this story and it feels like Swift and Firestorm are usually the first parts that Jade immediately forgets about lol.

Stalker using phrases like "I need to figure out a way to keep using you" and Jade nodding along happily with it is a really good vibe for what is to come; I'm sure there's nothing wrong here. I really like how he's speculating about what the author of these tablets must've said; got major "asking for a friend" vibes here. History repeating itself is an interesting topic to bring up in a universe in which this could be forced to happen, quite literally.

This chapter feels like a lot of set-up for a lot of future plot, which makes sense given how far we are into the story fractionally--I kinda wish we'd gotten some of this earlier, but that's a useless comment until I see how this pays off. What I did want in this chapter for sure was more understanding of what Jade thinks about all of these things. There's this idea that like, oh, prophecies are stupid, but I feel like she's rapidly reaching saturation for how many legends she's seen in one room and that excuse is starting to wear thin on her. And Swift ends up feeling like a means to an end here, so someone can shepherd Jade to these ruins, and he conveniently disappears once that's been accomplished.

“You’ve got the type advantage, of course I’m not just gonna rush in blindly against—” My words were cut off by the whoosh of another Razor Leaf.
For the most part I think this battle is well-described, especially for what it is (light-hearted shitposting! no one is trying to die this time so we can all talk smack) but I got a bit lost here re: the whoosh of Razor Leaf being loud enough to cut someone off. That feels like it'd be very loud lol.

The Absol’s movements were sluggish, and her left foreleg bore a purplish tinge—poison, most likely. Still, the white-furred beast kept deftly dodging punches from Primeape like they were nothing, following up with slashes of pink energy from the blade on her head.
Likewise this description of a purple-tinged foreleg felt weird--is the whole leg poisoned, visible even through the fur? "sluggish movements" and "deftly dodging punches like they were nothing" also feel very incongruous.

“*Strength is nice, but it’s not everything,*” Swift said, with an airy, offhand tone like he was thinking aloud. “*Training here has let me learn so many things. I want to know how everything works.*” He paused, looking down. “*It’s not something Pokémon are supposed to think about, though.*”
didn't expect to see this here! what *are* Pokemon supposed to think about then/

Movement, out of the corner of my eye. I turned my head to the left and caught sight of a violet gas ball drifting lazily amongst the trees before crossing the clearing and vanishing through a pillar.

A Gastly.
I wasn't quite sure what the impact of having this on its own line was supposed to be--are the Gastly spooky? Is Jade afraid of the ghosts? Are they typically associated with places of spiritual importance? Jade mentions like, huh, that's weird that they're here, but having it on its own paragraph like this made it seem like this was an important statement, but Jade immediately forgets about it.

I blinked. On one of the slabs was some writing I could actually read. At first, I was sure my eyes were just playing tricks on me, but there it was—words written in the Tohjoan alphabet. But there was no way that I’d be able to understand it; it’d likely be some ancient language that just happened to use the same—
stalker is just sitting in the corner with a pair of binoculars and a cuneiform tablet trying to see who will read his cool poems tbh

even among the Order—the ones who dedicated both mind, body, and spirit toward ending the war
both -> three things here; felt kind of strange

A slender beast stood atop the stone archway at the entrance to the ruins. Diamond-spotted cobalt fur covered a lithe frame with muscles poised to strike at any moment. Twilight glinted through crystalline antlers, casting sea-green highlights across the stone floor and making the ruins feel even more unearthly. But the weirdest thing was how its violet mane and ribbon-like tails constantly billowed through the air… like it was surrounded by its own personal whirlwind.
I thought this was a nice bit of description! The personal whirlwind is a nice touch; I bet they're doing it to look extra dramatic.

I opened my mouth to speak… and found all memory of the legend completely gone.

“I… don’t remember.”
yeah this seems normal
(is this? the canon explanation for why she keeps forgetting about Swift and Firestorm????)

Ch18

I thought it was kind of silly that Jade ends up being sent to infiltrate Viridian base, which is so big and important, immediately after Stalker says that it'd be dangerous to send her on missions where she could be recognized? Unless he's like, really trying as hard as he can to throw the whole operation into chaos--given that this one ends up playing out exactly how one would expect, at the risk of information being leaked via interrogation, this seems like a monumentally self-destructive plan even for Stalker lol. And there's a later line that mentions he doesn't even give her a new account with admin rights, which seems really dangerous if she and Darren got separated. Bad planning part 18 for Stalker lol.

Bit of a two-fer; will put the overall thoughts in ch19.

Chibi's reaction to seeing Zapdos is cute haha. Big shoes to fill. And Razors didn't want to come! #justclonethings continues to be an excellent subplot.

“What kind of officer need a grunt’s help to get through a door?” Darren asked wryly.
need -> needs here

At once, I had to screw my eyes shut as I found myself staring directly at the piercing glow emanating from the electric-type’s body. I blinked a few times, willing my eyes to adjust until I could make out the silhouettes of Darren and Chibi, highlighted against the blackness.
The word "silhouette" confused me--Chibi's the source of light, so he wouldn't be a silhouette, and if he's just emitting light then I'm not sure if Darren would be a silhouetted either?

Stalker closed his eyes and exhaled slowly before shaking his head. “No. This is the easiest way of following them. Message me your coordinates every five minutes. I’ll track your trajectory from each one and figure out the most likely destination while I get everyone else ready to go.”
find my phone would be really helpful lol

The entire area fell deathly silent. All eyes were on Entei. The beast inhaled deeply, then unleashed a deep, reverberating roar that shook my entire body. It seemed to come from nowhere and everywhere at the same time. It… almost felt like Pokéspeech. But at the same time… not. It felt like a cry for help. A cry directed at someone in particular. But who?
I liked this bit of description a lot!

And the third, soaring high on short, broad wings, was a golden heron, its jagged plumage coursing with strings of lightning.
There's also a lot of "strings of lightning/electricity" in the section I've read here.

I think I mentioned the epithets stuff higher up but "golden heron" for Zapdos was a bit of a stretch for me--herons are wading birds, and also they have long necks (closer to Moltres tbh).

The birds were reluctant to harm Entei, but that just made it even harder for them to fight Mewtwo while having dodge the lion’s flames.
dropped a "to" here

Rudy spun around to face the ALR. “All right! Time to take down these machines!” he exclaimed with a huge grin. “Ebony, use Inferno! Nidorino, Sludge Bomb; Larvitar, Rock Slide; Wartortle, Water Pulse!!”

“Swift, use Air Cutter. And Firestorm…” I took a deep breath. “Well, we’ve got a giant target and nothing nearby to worry about… use Fire Blast.”
I really like the feeling of being able to cut loose and have your wizard Fireball the room; this is a nice payoff from the training chapter!

The long barrage of attacks felt unnecessary here since they don't really appear to have much of an impact on what Jade sees or does next besides a general sensation of elemental chaos. I think something like "Rudy commanded a string of attacks from his own Pokemon" would've had a similar affect?

Mew turned her head in the direction of the voice, observing the Rockets with a mixture of sadness and pity. <So humans have become our enemy once again. But I wonder… are you really prepared for that?>
Serious Mew! That's an interesting one.

The lack of differentiation between like, these exact humans and just humans is kind of terrifying and I'm sure will have no implications later down the line.

Ch19

Haha, it's about time people started losing again; things were going too well for Jade for at least two chapters.

The brawl, part 2! It's rightfully chaotic, and the scope of all the power at stake is laid out really nicely here. Really sucks that each of these encounters to rescue the legendaries only ends up with them being deeper and deeper in the hole numberswise; they really aren't doing themselves any favors by showing up at each fight. I was kind of confused about why Suicune enlists the birds to go in their stead and then shows up on their own anyway? Or why the Rockets didn't do barrages of Master Balls earlier--I didn't fully get the sense that Moltres and Articuno were worn down any more here than they were when they first called to Mew previously--it was hard to understand how weak/strong everyone was at a given point, especially since Jade is once again pretty removed from the action. But still a fun free-for-fall, and a good chance to see all the rebel kids getting to use the techniques they've been practicing.

The terror at the end works really well in the first-person narrator too--sometimes I get the sense that we're a bit disconnected from Jade's head, but this one was really close in there and the emotions were made really clear. Fun fun.

Mew had taken to blinking in and out of view around the battlefield, teleporting non-stop, pressing buttons on the fallen Master Balls and trying to open as many of them as possible. But then a blue aura appeared around all of them, and they flew out of her reach, pulled by Mewtwo’s telekinesis.
I have this image of interns having to comb through the field later and figure out which one of the Master Balls is the real one.

But then, without warning, Mew teleported to Entei’s side, grabbed hold of the beast, and then teleported again. An agonized howl rang out as the fire legend reappeared within one of the ALR beams that had been aiming at Zapdos. Its body spasmed wildly as the energy dug into it, then finally collapsed to the ground, motionless.
ah yes, good, line-of-sight Teleport as a cantrip being broken as fuck and having horrifying combat implications, excellent.

I gave her a defiant glare. “I think I can. I think these computers are the only thing keeping Mewtwo on your side. What happens if I destroy them?”

“You’ll be in for the worst pain of your life, that’s what,” she spat. But at the same time, there was actually the tiniest sliver of fear in her expression. Mewtwo might have been the Rockets’ greatest weapon, but they were also terrified of him, weren’t they?
There is a massive percentage of Jade/Astrid dialogue that's just them bluffing and immediately being called for bluffing.

I sank to my knees, letting out a huge sigh of relief. I didn’t have much chance to relax before Chibi rounded on me. “*What are you doing facing down the head of the combat unit alone?! I’d expect that kind of overconfidence from Aros, but not you, Jade.*”
this didn't feel like a realistic response from him? Jade's done stupid shit in front of Chibi all the time.

In general it looks like I'm about to start the electrocution arc, which I imagine is best tackled as one unit, so I think I'll taper off here.
 
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Pen

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Hi Chibi! Here for you Blacknight Review Prize. I read from the prologue through chapter 7.

I've heard you talk about scope creep before, but I thought the divided prologue did a nice job signalling to the reader the kind of story that's in store: ordinary kid plus legendaries. The first chapter introduces the antagonists (Team Rocket), the problem (they're catching legendaries to take over the world) and the potential resistance (Stalker et all.) I appreciated that the story got into its meat right away-started where the story started.

It's always interesting to see different takes on Team Rocket. I enjoyed all the internal bickering and power struggles we've seen from them so far. The dialogue from the Rockets so far suggests a whole backstory and world going on there that Jade's just at the tip of--they feel like an organization that exists even when they're not on the page.

Chibi is definitely the stand-out character so far. He's a twitchy, ironic pikachu rage-ball with a self-destructive streak a mile-wide but also a heart of gold. I like how he gives the appearance of inconsistency, without actually being that inconsistent. I also got a strong sense of Starr from the prologue--sullenness and guarded self-sufficiency. Spencer and Rudy left less of an impression--they spent most of their dialogue bantering, and so I didn't get much sense of them. One hurdle of ramping up the story so quickly is that an ensemble cast is thrown together very quickly and then dispersed just as quickly, without the ensemble characters getting much of an arc.

The tone gave me some mixed messages in these opening chapters. There are a lot of brutal moments that seem meant to be taken as such--the burned pokemon in the forest, Rockets shooting at Swift, Chibi torturing people with electricity, etc. But the early chapters, particularly the plane arc, have a bit of a jaunty, banter-filled tone, that felt hard to square with what's actually happening. Is Jade freaked out, or is she taking this in stride? Despite us being in first-person POV, I didn't really feel like I knew.

I didn't feel entirely grounded in Jade's first-person POV. It seemed like a lot of the time, she was acting as more of the means through which we were seeing the story, rather than experiencing the story herself. I didn't really get a sense of who Jade is and what she wants from the opening chapters. Her desire to be a pokemon trainer seems to come a bit out of nowhere. She's forced by necessity to be passive a fair bit, but when the time comes for her to make some major choices (becoming an illegal trainer, going to Stalker's ship party) they didn't feel quite justified to me from what we'd seen of her so far. The place I felt this most was in the time-skip. Three-weeks is a long time to keep a character in what felt to me like stasis, and still have them feel like an organic person, versus someone waiting for the plot to start up again.

I think you mentioned that you don't want Jade to have any special qualities, for her to be the most ordinary possible, but a completely ordinary person doesn't really exist outside of parody--we still need to have a sense of who this person is, what motivates them. Madoka Magica features a similar set-up to what you have here--an ordinary girl, whom circumstance is nudging into someting bigger and more terrible than herself. And Madoka's motives seem very similar to Jade's: "Well...there's nothing special about me...I've never been good at school and I've never had any talents...I'm scared that this is the way my life's gonna stay. Always asking for help and not being able to help when people need it...I can't stand thinking about it...I might not be good at anything, but if I could help out people like you, I could be proud of the way I live. That's the best thing I could wish for." But even though there's "nothing special" about her, Madoka is still an incredibly vivid character because of her kindness, which the viewer sees in everything she does. Her ordinary life serves an important function in the story, because it illustrates the world she wants to protect and shows how deeply she cares for it. With Jade, I have less of a sense of what she values. Plot points have less of an impact when I don't feel the impact they have on our narrator.

Regarding prose, I appreciate all the strong action verbs. I do think that sometimes the narrative leans too heavily on generalities and invocations of gut feeling. More concrete details would help ground us in the action and in Jade's reactions to it.

More detailed discussion in the chapter specific reviews!

Prologue

First of all, I don't mind the split prologue at all. In fact, I was a bit relieved that we were actually getting to the main character in the prologue. I'm not a huge fan of the portentious prologue that doesn't have any implications until chapter forty approach--let me meet the characters the story is actually about! So it was nice to meet Jade and get some insight into an early event in her life. I think you did a good job capturing something about that age, where moving manifests like a natural disaster. You show well that more is going on with Starr than she is saying, but that Jade doesn't really have the sophistication to know where to even start with that. I think I would have liked a little more in their interaction that felt personal--memories, things they've done together, or made for each other. Perhaps some of these times when you're describing a fairly generic expression like Starr looking deep in thought or like she wants to tell something you could have Jade relate that expression to a memory--deep in thought the way she looks in math class? or deep in thought they way she looks when planning pranks or when an adult has told her no? Something like that would characterize them both.

As for the first part of the prologue--so, Lugia is waking up! I have this super vague suspicion that this fic largely concerns legendaries (don't ask me why) so I was a little surprised to not get more of a sense of what Lugia is actually like. The stuff about Order and Balance is kind of presented by the narrator, not Lugia. I wanted a bit more of a sense of Lugia's emotions, personality, what's prompting its rise from the sea beyond this generalized sense of The Time Is Nigh. I've gotten the sense from the art and excerpts you shared in discord that your legendaries have some funky and larger-than-life personalities--would have been great to get a taste of that in the prologue, since it acts as a sampler for the fic.

A pair of eyes snapped open, radiating a cobalt aura and piercing the inky blackness within the depths of the sea.
This is a bit of an unecessarily wordy sentence, particularly for the first line of a fic. Maybe, "A pair of eyes snapped open, radiating a cobalt aura that pierced the black depths of the sea." Stuff like "cobalt aura" does tend to make me a bit leery as a reader--gets my purple prose hairs up.

The true blessing of light had never reached the ocean floor, and even the rare glow of life could not break its concealment. The creature to which the eyes belonged knew this better than any other.
The thought here is hard to parse and seems purposefully obscure--I feel like it's less an attempt to communicate meaning than impress a sense of solemnity. What is the "true blessing" of light? Why do we hop from blessing to concealment in the same sentence?

I find the 'he creature to which the eyes belonged' a very awkward construction. Not really sure why you don't want to say it's Lugia. From the cover art alone, it's never really in doubt. Even without the color art, anyone familiar with Lugia would know, and anyone not familiar with Lugia isn't going to say, 'omg that was Lugia' when it's revealed. The functional effect of not calling Lugia by name mostly seems to be to obfuscate the prose.

The deep was always dark and always would be. The deep was always calm—not like the surface. The deep could always hide those who wished to be hidden. But the time for hiding was at its end.
I liked the rhythm produced by these sentences. Gives me the sense of big thoughts, but simple ones.

At once, the creature shot up from the ocean trench like a silver torpedo.
The 'at once' transition struck me as off. We've had narration, so what does the at once peg onto?

Piercing eyes adjusted to the rapid increase of light just in time to be met with the inviting glimmer of the surface right above.
Don't follow the logic of this sentence--Lugia's eyes adjust to the light just in time to be met with the light?

Cool, salty air washed over its body, a sharp contrast to the water’s embrace.
Since you're drawing a contrast between air and water, maybe don't used "washed" to describe the air, since that implicitly analogizes the air to the water.

The sensation prickled like needles against its feathers, but still
Having a 'sensation' prick feels a little abstract. Think it would be more concrete if you specified what is pricking--the salt? There's salt in the ocean too.

there was something almost freeing about being able to beat its wings through the currents of wind and take gulps of sweet air that burned its unused lungs yet felt so good.
The sentence kind of tangles up in itself. The last bit has too many reversals--air is sweet but it burns but it's good.

Maybe, "It felt freeing to beat its wings against the currents of wind, to gulp down air that burned sweetly in its unused lungs."

With something like "burned sweetly" you capture the sense that it feels good without explicitly needing to say it, and also capture the paradox there.

It was so wildly different than the deep, but somehow felt just as right. Flying was, indeed, one of the simplest joys in this world.
The initial it here feels unmoored to me. If "it" = "flying" than the parallel between "flying" and "the deep" is also odd. Maybe "The sky was so different . . ."?

its wings stealing bits of silvery cloud from all around to shield it from the view of any onlookers
Enjoying the phrasing of Lugia's wings "stealing" the clouds. Not sure what this quite means--is it wrapping condensation around itself?

The ancient creature had spent much time within the realm of its dominion, reflecting upon the state of the world. The Order had been empowered to protect the balance, and protect it they had. For so long they had kept watch over its course. Caring for it. Guiding it. But there was a time when the balance had fallen, and the flames of war consumed the world. The creature had not witnessed that time itself, but the tale was well known amongst the Order. Even the humans had their stories from that era.
This is so vague and fantasy generic that I'm not sure I need it at all.

The time for careful observance was at its end. That cataclysmic era had left its mark on the world—one that had lain dormant for nearly 3000 years. Soon the conflict would resurface, and the Order would face its greatest challenge yet. The creature had not wanted to believe it, but the events of the past few years had confirmed those fears.
I feel like this would be stronger if we had a sense of a specific inciting event. When Lugia torpedoes up from the ocean "at once" what was that "at once" relevant too? It feels like this is saying "the signs have been growing etc" but what specifically is making Lugia choose now to surface? Even if that's spoilers, I feel like you could give us more concrete-ness here without revealing anything.

when would the conflict reach a point that the interlopers would be forged?
I'm not sure if there is a typo here or what but "the interlopers would be forged" is not parsing for me.

Lugia gazed down over the mainland, its mind swimming with conflicted feelings. The next seven years would be interesting, that much was certain.
Bit of a lacklustre ending here. I want more of a sense of what those conflicting feelings are. Dread? Excitement? Resignation?

A loud ringing filled the air, which meant the end of class for the day—and it was about time, too.
This feels phrased a bit redundantly to me--we all know what a school bell is and what its ringing signifies. Could say, "The schoolbell's loud ringing filled the air--and it was about time, too."

It would have been just as normal as any other afternoon, except my head was still filled with rumors from earlier that morning.
Like that we're jumping to the non-normal thing.

and then spotted a girl dressed in a purple shirt and jean skirt sitting by herself off to the side. My footsteps slowed. I paused, hesitating for a bit before walking up to her.

“Hey Jade,” Starr mumbled as I neared. She was leaning forward so that her short brown hair fell across her face—probably to keep from looking me in the eye.
It's a bit odd to me that in a first person narrator Starr isn't identified as Starr initially. I get that you want to describe, but you can easily work details in without being put in this off place where Jade is noticing Starr's full outfit before recognizing its her best friend. Ie " . . .then spotted Starr' sitting off to the side, head bent so that her short brown hair hid her face."

She obviously didn’t want to talk about it… and I almost didn’t want to know.

With a blank voice she replied, “Cianwood.” I had no idea where that was supposed to be.
Oof.

But my dad’s staying here in Viridian.”

I slowly uncovered my face, turning toward her. “You never really see your dad much anymore… do you?”

She shook her head.

“Still… it’s dumb that your mom won’t tell you why all of this is happening,” I added.

“Yeah… she keeps saying that she wants me and my brother to have a better life that we couldn’t have gotten here. Or something like that… she never really explains,” Starr mumbled.
Sketchy dad in Viridian city? I'm gonna assume it's Giovanni until proven otherwise.

Starr sighed. “I don’t know, Lexx has been acting weird and not talking to me much lately,” she said with a bit of a scowl.
The two speech actions here clutter things up a bit. Maybe just, "I don't know," Starr said with a scowl. "Lexx has been acting weird lately. He doesn't talk to me much anymore."

“I didn’t want you to make a big deal out of it, okay?”

“Who says I was gonna?”

Starr laughed. “What do you think you’re doing right now?”

I opened my mouth to say something, but realized she’d got me with that, so I glared and didn’t say anything.

“Pfft, see what I mean? You’re such a little kid,” Starr said, smirking.
Hah, got a good sense of their dynamic from this.

It just sucks that I won’t be able to start my journey for three more years.
Oh wow, three year age difference? I'm surprised they're friends, honestly--I remember three years being huge at that time of life. Wish I had a bit more of a sense of how they got to know each other.

Starr was just kind of… staring into the distance, like she was thinking about something. She looked like she wanted to tell me something else, but didn’t say anything.
These two sentences describe kind of contradictory images -- "looking like you're deep in thought" vs "looking like you want to tell someone something." I think if you want both you need a bridge: "Starr was just kind of… staring into the distance, deep in thought. Then her head swung towards me and her lips opened, like there was something else she wanted to tell me, but seconds passed and she didn’t say anything."

then stood to her feet
Either "stood up" or "got to her feet" works, but "stood to her feet" ain't a thing.

“Bye.”

Just hearing that one word made me feel weirdly numb. I forced a smile—it felt fake, and I could tell from her face that she wasn’t fooled.
Major Madoka vibes.
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__q9fsZa5vk


I didn’t watch as she got in the car.
Nice ending line.

This story began with the human who rejected infinity.
It will end with the human who accepted it.
Compelling pull quote. Interested to see what meaning infinity takes on in your story.

Chapter One

This chapter starts with history repeating--another of Jade's friends is going off on a pokemon journey and leaving her behind. I wanted a bit more on how Jade has ended up in this situation of really wanting to be a trainer but failing the exam so often. I'm curious like, did she feel like she studied her best? or does she feel like she could have tried harder and is pissed at herself? What is it about pokespeech that she finds so hard? Rudy doesn't seem like the most studious type, what distinguishes him? I didn't really get a sense from this that Jade really wants to be a pokemon trainer.

You've got a super intense premise in this chapter, with the burning forest and the capture of a legend, but I found it a bit hard to get swept up in it due to the sense that it didn't feel real. Jade's progression into the forest and into the valley was a bit hard to visualize. I didn't get much of a sense of place--it felt like we floated along. Also, the whole thing with the charmander bothered me. It kind of boggles my mind that she picks up this dying, clearly in great pain pokemon, and then procedes to forget about it in favor of exposition and then just sitting down to watch the Entei capture like she's in a movie theater, while, presumably, the charmander is breathing raggedly in her arms? Stuff like that makes it hard to feel like the story is actually real--different elements of the world seem to drop out when they aren't being mentioned.

Props for jumping straight to where the story starts, though. I just wish a bit more characterization for Jade had been worked int the opening segment--she feels a bit blank to me as a protagonist right now.

Summer days were made for this—made for the blast of wind in my face and the rush of exhilaration as my bike flew down the street.
'the blast of wind' and 'the rush of exhilaration' give this sentence a bit of a clunky feel that contrasts with the feeling of racing exhileration it's trying to evoke.

“Aw yeah!” I yelled, throwing a fist towards the sky as my bike flew through the air. No matter how many times I jumped that same ramp, those precious few seconds of being airborne were the greatest thing in the world. I landed several feet away with a thud and immediately veered my handlebars to double back in a wide arc, waving toward the top of the hill.
Nice characterization moment.

Which is why I never saw it coming.

Out of nowhere, a black blur shot into the street, skidding to a halt right in front of me. I swerved instantly to avoid hitting it,
Hm, so the drama of the clipped off fragment made me think this was something serious, and so I assumed the black blur was a car. Was very confused for the next few sentences.

then I found myself toppling over into a sprawled heap on the grass.

Well, that was random. But there was really only one thing that could have done that. Sure enough, only a few seconds passed before I felt heavy paws on my chest.
Feels like a bit of overcommentary here. Do we really need, "Well, that was random."? Could just be, "then I found myself toppling over into a sprawled heap on the grass. Only a few seconds later, heavy paws pressed down on my chest."

“Oh come on,” Rudy said, looking kind of bored with my complaints after having heard them a dozen times. “I still say you should just take Swift and leave, license or no license.”
The sentence breaking the dialogue here goes on long and is a bit over-expository. Maybe shift the sense that he's heard this all before mroe into the dialoge--"Not this again," Rudy said, looking bored by my complaining.

“I’m just saying if I failed the exam twice, that’s what I’d do—just take Ebony and leave. Though it would kinda suck not getting a starter.”

“Yeah, that’s definitely the worst part about training illegally,” I said.
I like the regulatory framework here and the sense that people are aware of it. Does this restriction just apply to training? Can people travel with pokemon, just not battle officially?

He gave a few chirps, not saying anything in particular but hoping to get my attention in the smallest way possible.

“You don’t have to be so shy, Swift—you know you can come with me whenever I go for a ride,” I said, smiling and holding out my arm as the tawny bird flew over to perch on my shoulder. With that, I walked outside and mounted my bike once again, and the Pidgey took flight overhead, chirping contentedly.
Nice that she knows Swift well enough to know he wants to come along.

There was no way, but I couldn’t see any sign of him in the entire… sky. I’d just realized. The sky was empty. No birds anywhere within sight, and these fields were usually full of Spearow.
Ooh, ominous.

My eyes traced the horizon, hunting for any possible clue, when I spotted a plume of smoke within the trees to the north. What was that?

Feeling almost compelled to head that way, I turned and rode along a trail leading north—towards the forest. I reached the treeline within minutes and kept going, unsure of whether I’d be any nearer to finding Swift when I could barely see the sky anymore. Still, I kept getting a vague feeling of significance, like this was important somehow. I couldn’t explain it, and the more time passed, the more stupid I felt.
This feels pretty unconvinving to me. "a vague feeling of significance" reads to me like the author saying, 'yeah I can't think of a reason why she'd do this, but the story demands it happens." Seems like you could justify this pretty easily too--Jade looks back at an open road, sees no Swift, looks ahead at a sky obscured by trees and decides if Swift is anywhere, it's probably there.

Also, is there any reason she doesn't assume it's fire? Where there's smoke . . .

He took flight again towards the ridge north of us, and I followed in silence for several minutes. In time, the air was filled with a thick haze, and a horrible stench burned my nose. And still we continued on until we reached the edge of the destruction. One moment we were within the thick of the forest, and the next, there was nothing but the charred remains of tree trunks and blackened bits of what had once been grass and leaves. Flurries of ash saturated the air, stinging my eyes. And that noxious odor just wouldn’t go away.
The sense of the fire is strong here, but I'm a bit lost as to the distances and progression of time. Earlier it felt like the forest was pretty far away, but this only says 'a few minutes.' I also don't get a sense of the change from the normal forest to the burning forest, because the normal forest isn't really described. Feels like we go from road to burning forest.

These woods had been filled with Pokémon, all of them now dead.
Oof.

The lizard jerked suddenly upon having its skin exposed to the air, and I snapped my hand back. Okay, so trying to clean its wounds was a bad idea; what was I thinking. It wasn’t like I had any water or bandages anyway. In fact, water probably would have made things worse.
Liked the precarity of this. I wonder, though--seems a fair amount of training is required to be a pokemon trainer in this world? Are they not given any classes in dealing with injrued pokemon?

I jolted at the sudden voice. Someone else was here? I threw a glance over my shoulder and sure enough, a figure was approaching me. The smoke obscured him at first, but eventually he came into view.
This sequence feels oddly prolonged. I feel like when you hear a sudden voice, you look, rather than thinking, 'oh is someone here, guess I'll look.' Like, "I jolted at the sudden voice and looked over my shoulder to see a figure outlined in the smoke."

Somehow, his overall air was that of someone much older.
How exactly? A description is more effective when its pegged to a specific detail. Is it his posture? His eyes? His expression?

“So recently that it’s still happening,” was the only response.
Nice rejoinder.

Its face was, in short, amazing—rimmed by brightly colored crests of red along the side, blue over the muzzle, and a crown of yellow over its eyes.
The "in short" here really takes me out of the flow.

Suddenly, I heard a roar of engines to the right. A huge group of jeeps and trucks burst into the clearing, filled with countless armed adults. Entei recoiled backward, pelted by bullets—they were shooting it? The auburn beast slammed its shackled paws to the ground and let loose a wave of fire, incinerating everything within the valley. But then the flames cleared, revealing the vehicles’ protective energy shields. Around two dozen Pokémon charged forward from behind the jeeps, unleashing torrents of water at their target. Entei stood its ground with a determined glare, but I could still see it wincing in pain as steam poured off its body. I could still hear the fury in its roar as it tried to flee, gripped by the glow of something preventing its escape.
Found this a bit hard to picture. When it says "incinerating everything in the valley" is this including all the trees, vegetation too? Which is presumably still burning even after the rockets drop their shields?

Confused by the last two lines. They make is sound like Entei is simultaneously standing its ground and trying to flee?

The notorious organization that had run this region’s criminal underworld for as long as anyone could remember. But knowing anything about them—that was a different story.
The first sentence feels a little artificial. Where's Jade's knowledge of them coming from? Does she hear about Rocket activity on the radio/news her parents watch? Do people at school play games involving Rockets or have jokes or threats regarding them? How is this knowledge integrated into her life?

the only thing I could manage was, “How did you find out about this?”
Interesting that she takes him at his word.

“Giovanni?” He couldn’t mean… the Giovanni? Leader of the Viridian Pokémon Gym?

“The current boss,” he clarified.

I shook my head. “Hang on, hang on. You’re telling me those crazy rumors that he’s involved with Rockets—they’re not just true, but he’s the boss?!

He nodded.

I couldn’t help staring. “You’re serious? That’s supposed to be, like… tabloid fodder for conspiracy nuts. If it’s actually true… shouldn’t more people know?”

“You underestimate the team’s influence,” he replied with a slight laugh. “They have agents working all over. Turning him in wouldn’t do anything.”
Yeah, this is more like it! Love the idea that 'Giovanni is the boss of Team Rocket' is an established kook theory.

“We?” he said, his voice tinged with amusement. “You have a pet bird and a half-dead lizard; I’d be the one doing everything. And I know my limits. I can’t stop them alone.”
Nicely phrased.

I glanced down at the dying Charmander in my arms, feeling rather miserable about all of this. Really, why did he even bother explaining anything only to flat-out tell me I was useless?
Um. So, she has a dying charmander in her arms. Should she not perhaps be doing something about that? This makes her seem like a massive asshole with no empathy.

“What would you say,” he began slowly, with an unusual tone, “if I told you that a large-scale takeover might soon be within their grasp?”
"unusual tone" doesn't really conjur anything in my mind.

“This is your formal invitation to join a team against the Rockets,” he said, handing it to me. “I’ve been handing these out to people just starting their journey. Once you become a trainer, I want you to meet me at the location specified on the card, and I’ll tell you more.”
This seems a little silly, but okay.

Shiny, flaming orange-colored scales covered most of its thickly muscled body, save for a massive pair of blue wings.
Huh, this threw me--not used to thinking of Charizard's wings as blue? I guess the undersides are.

If you are serious about joining a rebellion against the Rockets,
'Rebellion' is really odd wording--the Rockets aren't currently in charge, so how can they be rebelled against?

With a sigh, I sat down and continued to watch.
What about the, ya know, dying charmander??

Chapter Two

Zero to one hundred here! I really like the insights we're getting into Team Rocket's internal politics and dynamics. The experimental pokemon are interesting too--if the pikachu was mixed with Zapdos, does that mean they've captured Zapdos already? I wonder if powering up normal pokemon through mixing with legendaries is a key part of their plan or just something they do on the side, for fun. I liked the role Swift--never underestimate a determined pidgey!

I did find that the tonal dissonance in this chapter made it hard for me to be invested. Jade's reactions are really out-of-wack with what it seems like a person would feel in this situation--feels a bit like she's not a real person, but someone cosplaying a Plucky Kid. And then once Rudy and Spencer show up, I feel like we drift into cartoon world where fighting the baddies is a fun and risk-free activity. There's nothing wrong with that, but it clashes with other places in the story that have felt like they are aiming for a serious tone, and it makes it hard for those serious moments of danger to land.

I could feel my heart pounding and my lungs burning as I choked on ash, but the sudden burst of fear kept me running onward.
Maybe, "My heart pounded and my lungs burned as I ran, but fear pushed me forward."

probably more experienced too, judging by a number of badges pinned to his vest.
Is this a thing? Seems odd for a Team Rocket member to be endorsing the current system by wearing badges.

For some reason, my brain finally registered that my arms felt warm. Right, I was still holding the wounded Charmander. It was still unconscious, but also still alive.
um. She's been lugging this charmander around for how long now??

Swift was still flapping his wings quickly to follow the jeep, struggling to keep up—it was almost a painful sight. Upon seeing that I was watching him, he soared downward to fly alongside the window, his eyes meeting mine.
Swift!! Brave bird!

one of the Rockets pulled out a small handgun and began shooting at Swift. But then just as quickly, the driver held a hand up to stop him.

“Don’t waste your bullets on a Pidgey,” he said.
It's always tricky in pokemon how to balance power levels and relative threat when guns are involved. I like how you establish that guns are higher threat level than pidgey at least, here.

And then, amazingly, the ground starting to sink, revealing a wide ramp that descended into darkness.
latest


Well, not quite alone—the Charmander was still here, after all. I looked down at where I had set it. A tiny flare flickered at the end of its tail, so it was still alive, at least. It probably wouldn’t survive much longer though. That fact made the already bleak situation feel even more crushing.
Didn't seem to bother her earlier, when she could have tried to leave the forest and help it?

If they were arguing, then this would probably be a chance to find out more about my situation, at the very least. Acting more on impulse than anything, I threw myself over the back seats so I could open the back door a crack and hear them.
Hm, it's hard to buy her being freaked out when she does something like this. She seems pretty unfazed here.

“I heard he was a part of the revolt.”

Yet another pause. This time the other Rocket seemed at least slightly intrigued. “So he might know more about us than we figured. But how many others left us that day? Have any of them accomplished much? I don’t see how this is any—”
ooh, so we've got internal rebellion and ex-Rockets leading the movement. Interesting.

the Johto combat unit showed up,” Tyson reported while his superior made an exaggerated sound of disgust. “They took control of the situation, and of course one of their agents was the one who threw the ball that caught Entei. Only now he’s refusing to hand over; he’s waiting for orders from the Johto commander.”
And Rocket internal political conflicts!! Loving the Rocket worldbuilding via dialogue so far.

I racked my brain for something to do—some sort of resistance to show that I wasn’t just some helpless kid. I couldn’t think of anything.
This really gives me Plucky Kid TM vibes. Seems like one of those things people do all the time in anime, but not actually.

“That thing isn’t dead?” Tyson said, raising an eyebrow. “I don’t know… we’ve got tons of Pokéballs—I’ll have someone else put it with the stolen Pokémon.”
At this moment, I feel like Tyson had been more considerate towards the charmander than Jade has. Surprised he's not advocating just letting it die.

I felt like kicking myself when he pulled out the wad of cash I had stuffed in there. It was my birthday savings, which I’d intended to use on a training journey someday, though I had never quite figured out how exactly.
Really like this detail. Sometimes it's the small things that hit hardest.

I was alone. For how long, I had no idea. I couldn’t see my watch. I had no way of knowing how long I spent in that cell with the only sound being the occasional clunk of more cargo being loaded onto the plane.
This paragraph is a bit repetitive. Maybe, "I was alone. For how long, I had no idea. I couldn’t see my watch. The only sound was the occasional clunk of more cargo being loaded onto the plane."

“How did you get here?” I asked, completely floored.

He groaned slightly, putting a hand to his face. “Well, Spencer needed to find his Pokémon first, and luckily it was the same place they’d taken you, so we snuck on board and then we came here for you.”

I would have clapped a hand to my forehead if it hadn’t been chained up. “Okay, just… what? That doesn’t answer my—how about you actually start at the beginning? How did you know I was here?”

“Alright, alright,” Rudy said impatiently, as though details like that didn’t matter and he wanted to get them out of the way as quickly as possible. “It’s because of Swift. I’d walked to your house to show off my license, and I saw him pecking the windows in a fuss, and—what’s with that look?!” My jaw had dropped upon hearing the word “license.”

“You got a license. Already?!”

“Oh, come on. Enough questions already,” he said, waving a hand aside. He wasn’t totally paying attention, though, and was now preoccupied with staring at the ongoing blaze. The heat was getting a bit overwhelming.
Getting some tone dissonance here.

Also, the tyflosion is still heating the metal?? I don't know much about chains, but I do cook, and metal conducts heat super well. I feel like Jade would be screaming in pain here. If part of your world-building is humans being super resilient, some slightly more obvious hints would be helpful.

I didn’t really mind—just being free was enough. Really, just them being there was enough to make the entire situation feel better somehow. I wasn’t alone in this; with three of us there was no way we wouldn’t find some way out.

“So…” I said turning towards Rudy. “Am I even gonna get the full story as to how you got here? And how the heck do you already have a license for that matter?”
This feels kind of ridiculous. Even with renforcements, she's been kidnapped and is on a plane surrounded by rockets. Is it really the time for storytime?

“Oh, er… right. See, my dad got home right after you left. He would’ve been upset with me for not finishing my chores, except my test results had come in the mail and I passed everything,” Rudy said, beaming. “So, my dad took me to the place and he signed the form and I got my license and a Pokémon and everything.” He stopped there, but then realized that I was looking at him expectantly, wanting to hear the actually important part of the story. “But yeah, uh, I went over to your house, and no one was home, and Swift was flying around like crazy. From what little I could make out, he was saying you were in trouble? So I followed him out into the forest and that’s when I ran into Spencer here.”
This thing with the license seems overly convoluded. Couldn't Rudy have just already gotten it and that was the bombshell he dropped in their biking convo? And then there wouldn't be need for this explanation that really doesn't matter, but disrupts the tone.

“Alright. You fix your Charmander
Oof, cold.

“It was half-dead when I found it. I’ve gotta like… find some healing items or something.” I turned to gaze vaguely around all the supply boxes in the cargo hold.
Another place where I wonder what gets covered in trainer prep. I'd assume healing items qualify?

Could it even understand me? As a wild Pokémon, it might never have heard human speech before.
Is pokespeech justabout hearing? Or can people learn to speak it back?

“Not injuries. Energy.”

“Oh right… uh, I think it’s called Elixir? Never used one before—not a lot of stores carry ‘em.”

I dug through the box some more. “Got it,” I said, pulling out a yellow bottle labeled “Max Elixir.” I flipped the cap open and poured a small amount into the fire-type’s mouth. Within seconds, the tiny flare on its tail burst into full flame. Slowly, it opened its bright blue eyes and stumbled to its feet.
Oof, so Elixier's are like adrenaline shots?

After having gotten over his initial shock, Firestorm was calmly glancing around at his surrounding, seemingly unconcerned with having been taken from his home and not even very curious about his situation.
That seems odd and a little worrying.

“I’m just looking,” Rudy countered. “I’m not gonna let them out. Huh… these are weird looking, aren’t they?” He pulled one of the black spheres out of its holder and rotated it in his palm.
Hah, believable behavior for the age group.

The three of us whirled around in a panic, all eyes falling on the Pokémon that had appeared behind us. A jagged, lightning bolt-shaped tail twitched. Four paws slowly lifted a small, golden-furred mouse off the floor. No… it couldn’t be…

“It’s… it’s a Pikachu?” Spencer blurted out, stifling a laugh. “A Pikachu?

Except something looked… off about it. It was missing the familiar red cheek markings. And… the fur on its head was long and stiffly pointed, almost like feathers. And then its eyes snapped open, revealing a pair of piercing, birdlike eyes.
Ooh, bird!pika. Nice description here--I can picture what's off about it from the standard pika image.

My face fell with dread.

. . .

I gaped in horror—what were we supposed to do now?
The fic feels like it's swinging between these generalized expressions of intense emotion and dialogue that reveals a lack of concern. It's a bit jarring.

“WHAT. THE. EVER. LIVING. HELL?!!

My stomach sank even lower as I turned to see an extremely pissed-off Tyson standing in the doorway to the cargo area, his jaw hanging open from shock.

“Uhh, hey…” Spencer said awkwardly. “Could you leave for a bit? We kind of have a situation here.”
The three of us couldn’t do anything but sit there, frozen in horror as the blade-armed nightmare shot toward us, too fast to even see.
Bit of a 180 from comedic to life-or-death, in a way that doesn't feel integrated.

Chapter Three

This chapter was battle, battle, battle! I liked how the experimental pikachu acts as this rogue element in the fight, where nobody is quite sure what he's going to do. Jade's relegated to something of a passive narrator in this--there's quite a lot of staring openmouthed. Despite all the attacks flying around, I never quite felt a sense of tension or physical danger, maybe because Spencer doesn't seem very concerned, and Jade seems more overwhelmed than frightened. I don't really know these characters well enough to be independently attached to them, and Jade doesn't seem that concerned in her internal narration, so the battle sequence dragged on a bit, since the only thing at stake is really 'will they die' and I know they won't. I can see how you're in a pickle with this--you need Jade to not be able to do anything here so she can be upset about not being able to do anything later, but having a passive narrator in an action chapter is tricky.

Both combatants raced around with such blazing speed, narrowly avoiding the other, that it was almost impossible to follow the action.
The interjection "narrowly avoiding the other" clutters the sentence and is already implied. Also, "the action" gives me the feeling of a sports match being spectacted, rather than a life-or-death situation.

And then all of a sudden, I felt a tug on my leg and glanced down to see Firestorm standing alongside me. A twinge of guilt hit me—I had forgotten he was even here.
Yes, that seems to be a theme for her . . .

A twinge of guilt hit me—I had forgotten he was even here.

“Yeah? What is it?” I asked him

He didn’t seem to know how to say it. He kept glancing up at me, then toward the raging battle. I couldn’t help noticing the conviction in his eyes.

“What, you want to help? No, no no no, that’s not—I mean, it’s great if you want to help and all, but that’s a bad idea, trust me. You wouldn’t stand a… well, they’re too strong; I don’t think we should get in their way.”

Firestorm turned away, nodding distantly. So now even he wanted to help in some small way. I wasn’t the only useless one here, but I was the only one who had just given up on being able to do anything. That realization was aggravating.
Found this interaction a little odd. Feels pretty obvious Firestorm would be outmatched, but it he really wants to fight, why doesn't he jump in? Why ask Jade? Actually, that could be a place for Jade to do something? See that Firestorm is going to try and join the fray and taking the initiative to stop him.

It was a strange contrast to its appearance just minutes earlier, and I couldn’t help feeling a sudden twinge of pity. It had been raised as a lab specimen before finally being branded as a failure. Was this mad blitz just out of trying to get free?
Nice to see a moment of empathy!

The Pikachu let out a cry and sent waves of electricity flying all around—it didn’t seem to appreciate the other experiments’ arrival. Seizing the chance, Razors streaked toward it, blades flashing—but then Typhlosion took the opportunity to fire another spurt of flames at Razors. The Scyther stopped just short of slicing the Pikachu to attempt to avoid the Flamethrower. But that left it wide open. The Pikachu turned and refocused its attention on Razors and finally struck the Scyther with all its power. An overwhelming rush of fire and lightning collided against each other, with Razors caught right in the middle.
This paragraph has a lot of actions happening, but less of a sense of how those actions are related causaly. In the first sentence, for example, we get the justification for why the pikachu acts the way it does after it happens, which disrupts the flow. The repeated "buts" make it sound like the narrative is lagging, rather than things happening simultaneously and in response to other things. I'm not the best at describing, but hopefully this rewritten paragraph conveys a bit what I mean about actions happening in response to other actions.

"The pikachu didn't seem to appreciate the other experiment's arrival. It let out a cry, and the air filled with rippling electricity. At once, Razor shot forward, blades flashing. He was feet away from the pikachu when a stream of fire erupted from the tyflosion, forcing him to swerve. The pikachu turned with a glare and launched a concentrated bolt of lighting, just as the tyflosion fired another spurt of flame. The fire and lightning collided in a blinding burst, with Razors caught right in the middle."

“Nah, Typhlosion is the one made of hot stuff.” How Spencer managed to keep a straight face on that comeback was beyond me.

“What the hell are you even doing here?!” Tyson roared. “I don’t have to take this crap from some random-ass kid!”
“He shot at me?” Spencer blurted out, picking himself up from the floor, completely stunned. I couldn’t do anything but stare back. “He actually shot at me. I know I shouldn’t be surprised, but… yeah, I… I wasn’t ready for that.
The feels like it's seesawing between an anime banter vibe and a 'shit is real' vibe.

They were eerily blank and soulless, almost like there was nothing there. And thinking back—I could’ve sworn that the Scyther had the exact same mindless look. What was the deal with these Pokémon?
Huh, some kind of mind-control?

“Isn’t Surf a locked move? Like, you can only use it if you’ve registered a certain number of badges?” I wasn’t really sure of it myself, but it sounded right, in any case.
Game logic like this feels a bit out of place. What does that mean? How is it enforced?

And then all I could do was stare dumbfounded as Typhlosion leapt out of nowhere and grabbed Tyson in a bear hug, knocking the gun aside.

“What? Just… what?” I said stupidly.
This felt more random than climactic.

Swift had been with my family since before I’d learned any Pokéspeech, so I’d gotten used to him being more of a pet than someone to talk with. And, well, he’d never been one to talk much anyway.
Huh, do her parents not know any pokespeech? Are there different standards for being allowed to own a 'pet' pokemon? If it's considered important for trainers to be able to communicate with their pokemon, why isn't that considered important in other contexts? And if pokespeech was Jade's biggest hurdle and a pokemon lived right at her house, wasn't that sort of free practice?

Firestorm looked a bit puzzled at first. “*Catch? Humans can… catch Legendaries? Just like Pokémon?*”

To be honest, it was not something that had really crossed my mind before this point either. Sure, every school-age kid in the world had their dream team complete with their favorite legend, but that wasn’t something that could ever actually happen. And yet… it had happened. And it would probably happen again, unless…
That's interesting. So Jade and her classmates, at least, don't view legendaries as distinct from other pokemon? Clearly Firestorm sees a fundamental difference.

*Legendaries shouldn’t be captured,*” the Pidgey replied simply. I couldn’t help staring—where had he gotten that opinion from? The topic of Legendaries had never really come up in my house, barring that two-month-or-so period I wouldn’t shut up after reading about them in social studies.
Love how adament Swift is here.

Jade's thoughts have the odd implication that she thinks Swift couldn't have formed an opinion unless it was mentioned in the house?

It was more of an impulse than anything—I didn’t even know why I was doing it.
Hm, this sort of thing stretches suspension of disbelief, making characters just feel like plot avatars, and it's already happened before, when she went into the forest.

She had a hardened and mature look about her features, which almost made me forget that she was probably younger than most of the other Rockets there. Somehow, before she’d even done anything, she just felt more dangerous than the rest.
Just saying a character "felt" more dangerous than the rest is a bit unconvincing. Something like [She had sounded like a highschooler, but there was a hardness in her eyes that didn't match her voice. Somehow, the incongruity made her feel dangerous] still communicates that Jade isn't quite sure why she's getting the danger vibe, but grounds it in something concrete. Subjective doesn't have to mean vague.

“I don’t even know why you still bother training them after all the progress that your division’s made on number thirty-six.”

“Better than using regular Pokémon,” Tyson shot back. “And I think you’re forgetting that it’s what I was assigned to do. Of course, you wouldn’t know what that’s like because the second you joined you were—”

“Still going on with that crap about how I was always an executive, is that it? I think you should watch what you say there Tyson, unless you feel secure enough in your position to pick fights with me.” Tyson flinched and didn’t say anything more.
So the hierarchy seems very important, but exceptionally skilled people seem able to leapfrog into high position.

“Electabuzz, keep them from getting close with non-stop Thunderbolts. Dewgong, use Brine; Pidgeot, Air Slash; Mightyena, Dark Pulse!”

All of his Pokémon got into position upon hearing the commands,
The list of commands doesn't do much; you could probably just say he shouted commands to his pokemon.

Can’t we just fly out of here?!” I exclaimed, pointing at the massive tawny eagle taking flight.

Spencer paused, smiling weakly. “It’s cool that you think he’s that hardcore, but… yeah, no way can he pull off carrying all three of us.”
Hah, I liked this moment of realism.

At the bottom of the hill, a Raichu stood, clearly smirking, with sparks still leaping off its yellow cheeks. It swished a long, inky-black tail before dashing forward into the fray.

Spencer was staring wide-eyed at what had just happened, his mouth agape. Slowly, he reached down to his Pokéball belt and recalled Pidgeot in a beam of red light. In that one moment, the real weight of the situation crashed down on me like a bucket of cold water—it had felt like we had a fighting chance to get out of here, but… we really didn’t, did we?

“Yeah, that would have been us if we’d tried flying away,” Rudy pointed out. No one said anything as the implications of what he’d said sunk in.
Oof, that poor pidgeot. So is the implication here that they would have been killed, or just badly injured?

Chapter Four

Chibi's shaping up to be an interesting character. You do a good job describing his emotions and how those emotions manifest in his battling. The moment where he proposes his plan was really strong. My suspension of disbelief was a bit stretched by the teaching of the TMs during the battle, but I liked the ultimate disastrous effect. I was surprised by how badass Jade's friend is! I guess three years is a long time. Jade's really behind her peers here. It will be interesting to see what role she can play in light of that, though I suspect crazy hybrid pokemon and legendaries can even the playing field. I'm sorry I don't have as much to much to say about this chapter--the long stretch of battling was a bit fatiguing, and by the time they were doing the detour back into the helicopter to heal their pokemon for several minutes to fly away, I was wondering if things couldn't be condensed a bit.

I let out a breath that I didn’t know I’d been holding.
@ Persephone ;)

Would you be willing to learn it to help us fight them?” I was trying not to sound too forceful, even though we couldn’t afford for him to say no.

Firestorm nodded almost immediately. I blinked, surprised at how willing he was to fight. Did he realize what kind of dangers this would involve?
Jade isn't aware of the risks of TMs here, right? So why does she think Firestorm would be any less aware of the danger than she is? Aren't they both spectating the same fight?

After nearly a minute, the disc slowed; I pulled it away, but he still had a blank stare on his face.
Uh oh, that sounds like Tyson's pokemon earlier.

At once, he spewed out a column of raging flames, sending his small figure reeling backwards from the force. With a roar, the blazing stream of fire split off into five branches, twisting off wildly in different directions.

I stood frozen. This wasn’t supposed to happen. Firestorm’s eyes went wide, and he jerked his head, trying desperately to control the blaze, though nothing he did seemed to make any difference. Flames pouring relentlessly from his mouth, even when he tried to force it shut.
This was a strong scene. The image is really vivid and frightening. Almost a kind of body horror to it.

“Using a TM just gives a Pokémon the ability to do the move. They’re not suddenly gonna be an expert at it without any practice. That goes double for the uber ones that’re hard to control,” Spencer explained while directing his Pokémon back into battle position.
The exposition feels a little leisurely here for the middle of a life or death battle.

Swift, who was standing next to him, looked almost embarrassed at being unable to help.
Similarly, embarrassed doesn't sound like an emotion that matches the intensity of the situation. Is Jade also embarrassed at not being able to help? Isn't she more frustrated and terrified?

You… how… how are you here? I haven’t seen you in… over a year, at least. Not since you left to train in Johto.”
It's a small world ;)

Ajia turned sharply to face the battlefield, already pulling out several Pokéballs and quickly taking in the details of the battle with an expression that had shifted into intense determination.
This seems unecessarily wordy.

“She still hasn’t evolved?” I asked, watching the nimble rodent skillfully ducking under her opponents and letting loose small jolts of electricity at them.

“She didn’t want to,” Ajia replied, shrugging in a way that seemed to imply that she didn’t mind. “We’ve focused all our training on getting around it.”
Nice!

I stared, chills running down my spine. Everything that she’d said was starting to come together. “Ajia, you’ve… have you fought Rockets before?”
I'm a little unsure why this particular revelation is the most stunning in this whole situation.

“*I know how.*”

The sudden voice in Pokéspeech caught me off guard, and I whirled around to see the experimental Pikachu finally pulling himself to his feet. He swayed a bit but fixed his eyes on us intensely.
Ooh, dramatic.

He paused heavily. And then, for the first time I’d seen, he managed to wrench his face into something other than pain or rage: an ironic smile. “*Most Pokémon can’t drain their whole power supply into one move. It’s not natural. Their bodies aren’t designed to handle it. But me? I have a hard time not doing that.*” His words were slow and strained.
This moment landed strongly. You know without him having to say how painful that's going to be for him. And I like his sense of irony that his unnaturalness is going to be an asset.

The orange rodent tried to make a break for it, but was hilariously unprepared for the barrage of attacks now honing in on him, despite his best attempts at evasion.
Huh, "hilariously" felt like a weird adverb here.


Chapter Five

I enjoyed Jade's uneasy relationship with Chibi in this one. I wish we learned a bit more about what it means to be an unregistered trainer. She can't use pokemon centers, but can she purchase pokemon supplies? Can she battle? What are the consequences if she's caught? I would have liked to get more of a sense of how she's spending that time. Three weeks is a pretty long period to sit on a life-changing decision without much happening. It's one thing to make a decision in the aftermath of a lot of shock and adrenaline; it's another to sit around contemplating that you're planning to join a random group to fight Team Rocket. I'm also a bit surprised we don't see her trying to verify anything she's been told--even a line about her ducking into stores to watch the news/buying newspapers to see if they mention anything about Entei's capture or Team Rocket would give me a sense of time passing and her interest. Maybe seeing no mention of these events reinforces her decision, because if no one else seems to know anything, it's down to me. I'd also like to see some reflection on why she's not going to authority figures about any of this. Like, she saw Team Rocket capture Entei. Does she really not think this is a thing that the world should be aware of? Why not report any of this to the police? If she's worried that it will get in the way of her ability to join her vigilante group, why does she think her joinng this group is better for the world than people with actual resources trying to do something? From what Stalker told her, I can definitely see where she might draw the conclusion that authority figures are not to be trusted on this, but I feel like that's something I'd want to see her work through, not have the narrative assume. This is the first time Jade's lived away from home on her own, right? It feels like an opportunity to give her some characterization. What does she miss from home? What does she not miss? Is she keeping in touch with Rudy? What's he doing? She's got Ajia's phone number now--why not call her, get the explanation she didn't get earlier? I'm normally a big advocate of timeskips, but when the thing we're timeskipping is a period of introspection after life-changing events, and what we're skipping to is more action, for the sake of characterization I want to understand why the character is choosing this and what that choice looks like, before the battling starts.

I hadn’t moved from the spot I’d collapsed onto after sliding down Aerodactyl’s back, utterly numb. It would have been nice to just lie there with the wind rustling the leaves and watch the sky slowly melt into red as the day drew to a close.
Nice beat of much-needed aftermath.

looked down to see a blue psychic aura surrounding the shackles that were still clasped around my wrists and ankles, causing them to snap open suddenly. I had stopped noticing that they were there, what with all the fear and adrenaline that had been flooding my system all day.
Really? That's a little hard to swallow. I feel like it could have been a good reocurring physical detail during the battle, even a chance at a metaphor about how even though she's technically not shackled, she's a prisoner since she's helpless in the fight. Having her completely forget about the shackles feels a bit like her and the charmander earlier--detracts from my sense that this is a real, physical world.

I couldn’t have done anything. It was the same way with the Rocket situation we had just been in. In both cases, I’d been powerless.

“What would you have done in that situation?” I found myself asking, not entirely sure why.

“What? That’s—what kind of question is that?”

I sighed. “Never mind. It was stupid, forget it.”
Sensing this will be a theme.

Ajia chuckled slightly. “Okay, okay, I already knew you were in trouble. I heard about the situation from a friend. It’s kind of a long story, though.”

I raised an eyebrow. “We’ve got time. And does this have anything to do with the fact that you’ve fought Rockets before?”
Huh, but she never explains this? Even if Jade doesn't press in the moment, I'm surprised that she doesn't call Ajia during the month she's hanging around doing nothing. They're friends, right? Wouldn't she want to catch up?

After the events of today, the idea of returning home like nothing had ever happened felt… strange.
Could use a little more here--maybe her imaging what going home would look like? Brushing her teeth, going to school the next morning, sitting trapped in class wondering what was happening to the legendary pokemon?

One thought was stuck in my mind: I hadn’t been able to do anything, either to help myself or anyone else, all day. Sure, maybe I was too weak to do anything about Team Rocket’s Legendary catching now. But wasn’t that what the Charizard trainer was aiming to change? How could I go home and do nothing after knowing what he had told me about Team Rocket catching Legendaries and seeing proof of it right before me? It was stupid, but I couldn’t help feeling that I’d met him for a reason… and that I needed to take that opportunity.
I'm curious what Team Rocket catching legendaries means to Jade. It seems like before this, she hasn't thought much about legendaries. So is it how Swift and the charmander felt about it that's influencing her? Or what she witnessed in the forest?

I didn’t say anything for several seconds. Then: “Rudy, tell my mom I’m leaving on a training journey.”
Why can't Jade tell her mom herself?

I’d have to tell him what had happened eventually… and attempt to apologize for taking him here without his consent. No sense putting it off. A flash of white light formed into the flame-tailed lizard, who glanced around, looking puzzled.

“*Are we safe now?*” he asked.

I nodded. “We’re far from your old home, though. I’m not sure what you want to do, but—”

He cut me off: “*I don’t get it. Aren’t you my trainer now?*”
Well, that's convenient. Getting the sense he's had trainers before, and is perhaps desensitized to having no control over his circumstances? It was a bit odd that this is presented as Jade forgetting she had him with her, when earlier in the conversation she considers the irony of her ending up with a charmander when Rudy got stuck with a squirtle.

It was a good thing TMs were so valuable; I’d held onto to the Fire Blast TM after I made the connection that Series 5 discs were the reusable ones. Pawning it off the second I got to Vermilion had managed to land me 20,000 pyen—probably far less than it was actually worth, but I was far too desperate to care. I had spent well over half of it within my first two days in Vermilion, but hopefully I wouldn’t need to buy anything more than food for the remainder of my time here.
Ah, clever way to refresh Jade's lost cash. I'm a bit curious about the pawning--has she done something like that before? How sketch was it? I imagine a Team Rocket TM might be of dubious origin.

“*Well alright… then couldn’t you talk with Swift?*” he asked.

Rubbing the back of my head, I answered, “Er, not really…” Swift had never exactly been one to talk very much. Upon noticing his name come up, the Pidgey turned away shyly.
It doesn't really seem like Jade has tried to talk with Swift? He clearly is fond of her to have risked his life to help her, and clearly has opinions she didn't know about previously, so why not try?

How could a tiny handful of syllables make up every word in an entire language? How could every Pokémon species use an entirely different syllable set to make the exact same words? ‘Char’ alone could mean a dozen different things. But eventually they’d trained us to ignore the sound itself, and notice only the way it was said. I’d been awful at it for the longest time. Even fumbling through slow and awkward conversations with Firestorm would have been completely unthinkable a year ago.
I like Pokemon speech as a tonal language, though I feel like physiological differences would make it impossible for all pokemon to use exactly the same tonal variations.

“You know, I heard when you snuck into the tent last night to steal food. You could have just asked.”

Not a word. Not even a look. His spiky fur stood on end as he leaped forward and tail slammed the dead remains of a tree, unleashing a wave of electricity from the impact and scorching the trunk even more than it was before.

“Seriously, I know I’m not your trainer but could you at least give me a reason you haven’t left yet? I have no idea what to think about you!”

The rodent’s breathing was starting to grow heavier from the intense training. With each wave of sparks that leaped off his fur, he let off a narrow string of lightning straight along the ground. Compared to his previous moves, this was a lot more precise and controlled.

“You know, in a few weeks, I’m gonna be leaving to join a group fighting the Rockets! Are you going to follow me then too?”
Chibi's concentration on his training and refusal to speak characterize him well.

Three more weeks in Vermilion…
That's a lot of time to wait around! Seems like she could have gone home first and gotten some spare clothes . . .

My footsteps dragged as I walked down the boardwalk for what felt like the hundredth time. I paused to lean against the railing and pulled out the card I had been given, reading it over for what must have been the thousandth time.
This might be a bit more vivid if you described that card as been worn thin by her handling it, or described how she recognizes familiar boats on the boardwalk because she's been here so many times.

“You said you were recruiting beginning trainers,” I said. “Why? Why not more experienced ones that would have a better chance when fighting Team Rocket?” I couldn’t help thinking back to the way Ajia had battled.

He paused, mulling the question over. “I suppose I just preferred having a blank slate to work with. I want to be able to train you all from the start in the battle style that will be most useful for our missions. As opposed to forcing an experienced to trainer to relearn everything.” That didn’t fully make sense to me. But before I could say anything, he asked, “Have you caught any more Pokémon?”
Doesn't make sense to me either, but I won't question the premise.

“I suppose you guys will need something to call me…” He turned away, and the last thing he said before taking to the air was, “Stalker.”
My mental image right now:
1*zj4Ts86Ykb9YhYCB9K9fFg.jpeg


Chapter Five - Phonecall

Not sure why you cut this moment from the main chapter! It's the first place I feel like I'm getting a sense of who Jade is and what she wants, outside of her reacting to events. Having this in chapter five would be really appropriate, since it's a chapter dealing with aftermath and set-up. If this phonecall hadn't been included at all, I would have been really taken aback at the complete break Jade's making from her past life and wonder how bad her relationship with her family was.

“You know, I don’t think I’ve ever heard you so serious about anything in your life.”

Of course I was serious about it. I’d wanted this ever since Starr left. Wanted it even more when Ajia left. With each passing month, the odds of being able to go on a journey felt more and more distant. And now, with the opportunity to join the anti-Rocket team handed to me on a silver platter, I could actually learn from a master trainer, and have the chance to put those skills to use actually helping save Legendary Pokémon. I could stop wasting my time at home and actually make a difference in the world.
Nice to see what's driving her. I wish more of this had come through in the opening chapters--I didn't get the sense that Jade was too bothered about not being able to become a trainer. She seemed more upset at the fact she'd have less friends around than the trainer part. Her mom's confusion here also supports that she wasn't really doing all she could to reach that goal. That feels like something interesting to tease out--what caused the gap between wanting and doing?


Chapter Six

Team Rocket infiltration of a cruise ship? Where have I heard that one before? Seems like Team Rocket's prepared to invest a lot in capturing Stalker, and also pretty clear that don't know much about him, considering he was able to flounce around the harbor last chapter without being spotted. The eavesdropped conversations were interesting--seems like dissent's been formenting within the team for awhile.

I found Chibi and Jade's relationship to be a little puzzling in this chapter. Time and time again, we get the impression that Jade is scared of Chibi, afraid to interact with him, etc, but there are also moments where she refers to him as her responsibility and her pikachu. Does she want him around, or not? Obviously once things start heating up, there's not much choice, but it would have been nice to see more interrogation of whether she wants him to be there or not earlier. Like, what if she told Chibi not to come with her, but when she gets on the ship, she realizes he's sneaked on--flash of yellow at the corner of her eye, oh shit? Then she'd have to make the choice to try to ignore it, or go after him. A scenario like that would make Jade a bit more of an active character, though still being forced forward by events outside her control, and would avoid this issue that a lot of time has passed with Jade unable to even talk to Chibi.

This chapter seems to be working to establish that things really are going to be life and death, through the scene where Chibi electrocutes and threatens the Rocket. In this scene, Jade felt kind of removed to me as a narrator, and so the scene and its brutality didn't have as much impact as I might have expected--I think the lack of concrete details might be one place that could change. When Chibi has his tail up against this man's face, threatening him, what does his face look like? That's the kind of detail I'd expect a first-person POV narrator to fixate on, because how could you not? We're told he has a look of terror, and is sweating, but it's all very general. Maybe she notices that his eyes are a surprising shade of green. Maybe he's got the beginings of a beard. Maybe one of his ears is pierced, and the earing is shaped like a pokeball. As is, I'm just left with the sense of 'uniform Rocket Grunt', not person, and so the stake-setting of human life being in play here is diminished. In turn, that makes the threat to Jade feel less imminent and real.

The S.S. Anne was huge. It towered over nearly everything else around it, which was saying something, as the rest of the cargo ships that frequented Vermilion harbor were the biggest I had ever seen. (Not that I’d ever been to a port town this large before, but still.)
The structure of this paragraph kind of ends up deflating the impact of the SS Anne being big. It would hit harder if you started with the cargo ships being big, and then had the SS Anne come in and dwarf them eg "The cargo ships that frequented Vermilion harbor were the biggest I had ever seen. But the S.S. Anne made them look like toy boats."

who stood at my heels with an indifferent sort of expression like he was trying to pretend he wasn’t following me, even though he clearly wasn’t here with anyone else.
Nice characterization of Chibi. Evokes a clear image.

I was kind of afraid to question him at this point, as I couldn’t afford any unpredictable reactions with all these people surrounding us. Honestly, I didn’t even know if someone stepping on his tail would be enough to send him into a violent rage. It was a valid concern given how often people were shuffled between lines, getting bags checked and Pokémon registered and ID cleared and—oh crap.
It's weird to me that Jade hasn't broached this in the vast free time leading up to this moment. What's she be doing instead? Having a time gap where nothing really seems to progress makes it feel like the world's been on hold.

The expression of dread covering my face must have looked ridiculous as my legs slowly carried me to the check-in booth without me telling them to.
The "as" conjoiner doesn't quite work--suggests a perplexing relationship between the dread and the legs. I think splitting this up would work better, [To anyone watching, the dread on my face probably looked ridiculous. My legs seemed to move without me telling them to. One step, then another, and I was at the check-in booth.]

The people in this line were almost all my age or younger, which felt extremely odd. What were a bunch of kids like us even doing boarding a cruise ship, as if we were old enough to do things like that. But then… trainers were able to travel the region with only their Pokémon by their side, so I guess it wasn’t that weird.
And--she knows this is a meeting site for recruits who are all going to be fresh trainers. So, not odd for that reason, as well?

He gave me a bit of an inscrutable expression, like he was trying to figure something out.
Hm, think you need to pick one or the other here. If it's inscrutable, it doesn't look like he's trying to figure something out.

“This ship is specially designed to accommodate and entertain Pokémon trainers, and as such, has a comparatively lax policy regarding Pokémon on the ship. However, there are still rules that must be obeyed at all times. No more than two Pokémon per trainer may be out of their Pokéballs at any given time. Pokémon taller than 6’5” or weighing in excess of 500 lbs. should only be released on the upper deck in the training grounds and battlefield C. Please ensure that your Pokémon stay by your side at all times, except in the training grounds where it is specifically permitted otherwise.”
I like the regulations! Nice dose of realism. Though 500 pounds sounds high for the limit!

This never would have happened if I’d just told him to go be free in the wild. I’d been afraid to say it the whole time. But did I even have a reason to be so afraid? He hadn’t attacked me or anything yet. I just didn’t know.
This feels a bit frustrating. An example of her suggesting he leave and it not working/back-firing would help explain why she hasn't done anything further.

And yeah, I’d been most worried about him being around people, but a sudden gut feeling told me that I should be searching the empty areas. I couldn’t explain why.
This seems to really lampshade that Jade has no reason to think this. I'd recommend giving some indication of her reasoning. It doesn't seem like that would be too hard--she's spent a lot of time searching the crowded areas, sees an empty corridor, why not give it a try? But phrases like "a sudden gut feeling" and "I couldn't explain why" sound like the story turning to the audience and saying, 'I can't justify this, but just go along with it.'

Finally—without looking at me—he said, “*I didn’t give you a reason for staying with you because I hadn’t decided why myself.*” His words were very slow and meticulous. “*I don’t owe you an explanation. So don’t treat me like some kind of mindless raging beast.*”

I blinked. I guess he did have a point, in a weird sort of way. Why did I deserve an explana—no. I shook my head. No, I had to be firm on this. Even though I was already starting to question why.

“I won’t treat you like that if you give me a reason why I shouldn’t. If you’re going to be staying with me, then I want a reason.”

Again, he spoke incredibly slowly, with a deliberate emphasis on each word: “*You’re not in control of me. Why should my actions concern you?*”

“If you’re with me, then I’m responsible for you, that’s why. I know I’m not in control of you. Why on earth would I think that?”

At that point, he finally spun around to face me, staring with an expression I couldn’t read. I had no idea how he felt about my words until he said, “*You’re… strange.*” I stared blankly. His piercing, hawk-like eyes stared back. I was just about to come up with a response when he continued, “*Or maybe I just need to learn more about humans. You’re not all the same.*”
I found this discussion a bit odd. Jade is entitled to an explanation, because staying with someone isn't a unilateral decision. His actions concern her, because he's the one insisting on staying with her, and potentially endangering her. It doesn't make Jade responsible for him or in control of him, but it does mean he owes her some communication.

“*And I do have a name. I only ever used it with… But that doesn’t matter now… Call me Chibi.*”
Hm, sounds like Chibi might have had a trainer, before being labeled a failed experiment? Or pre-experiment, even?

You should’ve seen it—the head executives were freaking out when they heard that the guy organizing this was going around calling himself ‘Stalker.’”

I heard the younger Rocket give an unimpressed snort. “Yeah, that narrows it down. Wasn’t it all but proven that the original Stalker was multiple people? I mean, I know that all happened before I joined, but—”

“That’s just the point. We have no idea who it is, and that’s why we can’t afford to ignore him. Whoever it is knows about the revolt. He could be a deserter. He could be the former commander. Do you have any idea how important that is? If there’s even a chance we could get him, or any of the others working with him, we can’t ignore it.”
Enjoying the Team Rocket backstory exposition.

Chibi pressed his tail harder against the man’s neck until it was nearly digging into the flesh. I had no idea what move he was using, but I had the sickening suspicion that he could have ended the man’s life right then and there.
"Sinking suspicion" doesn't quite convey the extremity of what's happening here, especially after Jade's heard him screaming.

We were going to stop them. I repeated it again in my head, but it still felt fake and it was hard to ignore the fact that I just plain really didn’t want to do this. I had agreed to join the rebel team knowing that my life would be in danger, but now that it actually was, I couldn’t handle it.
This would make more sense to me if she'd never experienced being in danger before, but she decides to join directly after undergoing a near-death experience. Not that that means she should be over it or anything, it just seems odd to suggest that her understanding of the danger was only theoretical up until now.

Chibi’s words still gripped every inch of me, though.
You use this phrase twice in the chapter! It stands out, since it's unusual phrasing.

Chapter Seven

This chapter really felt like Chibi's show, which made sense. He's the one with the experience and the drive. I've gotten a strong sense of his character so far, his determination and his desperation, and how the one doesn't exist without the other. He's a bit of a stealth big-damn-hero--I don't fully know his motives yet, but the most reasonabe motive to impute to him based on everythign we've seen so far, would be to screw Team Rocket over as much as possible, but his focus when he learns about the bomb seems exclusively focused on saving the ship and the people aboard. Heart of gold.

The sense of time felt a bit odd to me in this chapter. The twenty minutes that Jade runs around collecting bombs, throwing bombs overboard, and then collecting more bombs seemed implausibly long. I don't see how she could believe Chibi would have been able to hold them off for that much time. Most of these battles seem to be fast-paced and decided in minutes. But the five minutes she has to run to the engine room and have the conversation? That felt implausibly short. And also too short for the Rockets--assuming they've got psychic pokemon, they still need to gather all their people first, which seems like a greater than five minute task, particularly since it didn't seem like blowing up the ship was the original plan? I thought they intended to hold the ship hostage to try to draw out Stalker, and I'm a bit confused why that changed. Blowing up a ship on the off-chance he's on it before confirming that is just going to leave them more uncertain. The sense of events not making logical sense in the latter half of the chapter was a bit distracting.

“*You didn’t tell them what we were doing,*” Chibi said slowly. His tone was rather deadpan, so I couldn’t tell why he said it.

I didn’t respond. I just stared at the floor as we walked, hoping the elaborately patterned carpet was a believable enough distraction for me to ignore his statement. I could tell he was still eyeing me, though. It was weird—even without any force from the hybrid, there was that one look that unfailingly could get me to give in and answer him.

“It’s just…”—the more I thought about it, the more stupid I felt—“this is something I have to do. I don’t want to drag them into it pointlessly.”

“*But if you fail, they’ll die anyway, so it doesn’t make any difference.*”

I froze, feeling an uncomfortable tightness in my chest. “…Yeah. I guess you’re right.” He sure had a knack for jumping right to the unpleasant truth of any situation. After that, Chibi looked away, either satisfied at getting to me or content to let the topic die.
Chibi with the remorseless logic here. I liked "either satisfied at getting to me or content to let the topic die" here--it feels like an interpretation that's colored by Jade's POV, and gave me a nice sense of the distance between them, as well as the possibility it could be a different reason entirely that she doesn't know him well enough to pick up on.

I really was getting better at Pokéspeech, wasn’t I?
Nice moment! It's good to see Jade improving with this.

He grabbed my hand and pulled it, willing me to stand.
This was a bit of a strange mental image--pika hands are so tiny!

“I didn’t say weapons at the ready, now did I?” a male voice called out. It wasn’t angry, just decisive—the sort of voice that wasn’t to be argued with.
The dialogue felt a bit at odds with how the tone is described. I'd expect a decisive voice to lead with the pertinent command "Firearms down." He can berate them for the full specifics of it once he's ensured the command's been followed.

Chibi darted forward and grabbed it in his mouth, tossing it away from the group.

“*Now go!*” Chibi cried out before a newly-materialized Nidoqueen landed a punch on him.

I clenched my teeth and sprung forward, pausing just long enough to grab the controls before darting back the opposite direction. I could hear the crashing of lightning against a barrier, which faded amidst the constant engine noise the further I got from the conflict. As soon I reached the end of the platform, I ducked behind one of the tanks and sank to my knees immediately. My heart was pounding, but I couldn’t help feeling exhilarated—we’d gotten the controls from them. We honestly had a shot now.
Suprised no one comes after her here.

It wasn’t long before lungs burned and legs went numb from exhaustion, and yet I still couldn’t think about anything other than finding the next one… and the next one…
Did you drop a word here? Feels like it should read, "It wasn’t long before my lungs burned and legs were numb from exhaustion"

by now all of my pockets were stuffed full of bombs—at least twelve or fifteen of them.
Those are some big pockets! Bit hard to take this seriously, if the bombs are the size of CDs.

“*Pokémon are… they’re supposed to protect their trainer,*” Firestorm muttered. I ignored him.
I mean, if Team Rocket is trying to kill everyone, that includes him too. I feel like the story's been hinting pretty strongly that Firestorm had a trainer before, but I'm confused as to why this wouldn't have come up in the three weeks he and Jade shared a tent, practicing conversation.

I brushed a few strands out of my eyes just in time to see the Rocket struggling against a whirlwind before it swept him off his feet and sent him crashing into the wall. The wind ceased, and he slumped to the ground, looking dazed.

Swift fluttered down to the ground and turned to face us, tilting his head. “*I think that worked out well,*” he said, rather matter-of-factly.
Good job, Swift! I do wonder why the Rocket wouldn't have a pokemon out. I don't think it would blow cover or look strange for normal crew members to have a pokemon on them--the ship has open pokeball rules, so at least some crew members must have pokemon for any incidents that happen.

“*How come you didn’t have anything for me to do back there?*” the fire lizard said in a small voice.

“The heck? What, you think I wanted to set him on fire? What could I have had you do?” The Charmander didn’t say anything else.
Firestorm is team Burn People Alive, I guess.

there were still a lot of bombs left to collect in the cabin area. I took a deep breath before resuming my search, stopping briefly to grab each bomb one by one. After a while, it was like I was incapable of thinking about anything else. Just one bomb after the next, filling my pockets with them.

And then I had to stop and blink when I first felt my pockets full to bursting. It barely felt like I’d spent any time gathering them. Either way, time to go back to the upper deck, and hopefully not run into any Rockets for once.
This pushed against my suspension of disbelief. She's able to run back and collect all these bombs without seeing anyone? Wouldn't the cabin area be a lot more populated than the engine room?

The way this is a described right now, it feels like Jade is running around in an empty ship, sparsely populated with Team Rocket members, methodically grabbing bombs and disposing of them. But . . . this is a full cruise ship, right? Has she really not passed any normal people in all this running, or on the upper deck? A moment where Jade has to dodge some fellow passengers in the hallway, or has to push between people enjoying a view of the water, would make this seuqnece feel more grounded to me, and make the cruise ship feel less like an obsctacle course, and more like a cruise ship.

My movements were on autopilot as I navigated back to the first open deck I could get to, going through the motions of disposing of the bombs yet again. When I was done, I began the descent back to the lower levels of the ship. It had been nearly twenty minutes since I’d left Chibi in the engine room. Where was he now… and was he still alright?
That's a really long time. Most of these poke battles only seem to take minutes. It seems unfeasible for Jade to believe Chibi's managing to hold them off for that long.

Now that I actually had a full view of him, the lead Rocket was tall and thin, with an angular face and dark circles under his eyes, which gave his face a cold look in contrast to his ironic grin.
I like all the elements here, but I'm not quite sure how the dark circles give him a cold look.

“*We don’t have a choice,*” Firestorm added through gritted teeth. Where on earth had he gotten that determination from?
He has seemed pretty consistently wanting to fight in all these battles, so I'm not sure why Jade's narration treats this like something new.

His words held a dangerous air, contrasting with his previous smooth attitude.
Not sure what a 'smooth attitude' means, or how it contrasts to a 'dangerous air.'

“You know, we were rather… upset when you took him,” the man went on. “We need him for our experiments, otherwise we might never figure out how to break those overpowered, undeserving monsters you call Legendaries.
That's interesting--suggests some resentment towards legendary pokemon.

While Ninetales dashed forward, closing in on Firestorm, Swift down toward its face, talons outstretched. But it saw him. In one smooth motion, the fire fox turned aside and struck him on the back with its slender paw. I flinched as the Pidgey smashed into the floor with a pained cry. He just managed to flutter into the air before another spurt of fire hit the spot where he’d landed, but the superheated air prevented him from approaching his opponent.

Firestorm tried to take advantage of the enemy’s distraction by breathing scattered embers, but Ninetales didn’t even look fazed. In fact, the embers just sank into its fur, making its whole body glow with a fiery sheen. The fox smirked, then unleashed a pitch-black pulse of energy from its body, striking the fire lizard and knocking him back. Swift saw the opening and dove down from above, ready to strike. But upon hearing its trainer’s order of “Hypnosis!” the fox lunged to the side, eyes radiating with a creepy red aura and tails swaying rhythmically behind it. Swift caught its gaze and crashed to the floor, fast asleep.

I stared at the ongoing battle, a wave of dread slowly spreading through me. The sheer difference in skill—both between the Ninetales and my Pokémon, and between the Rocket and me—was starting to sink in.
This battle does a good job showing the power imbalance.

but the flame blocked the recall beam
How does this work?

“At least they would have if we hadn’t reapplied explosives to the engine room after you so thoughtlessly ruined all our hard work down there.”
. . . how many explosives do they cart around?

“We—we’re gonna use explosives to hold the ship hostage and force the rebel leader to reveal himself,” the Rocket finally managed, in between panicked gasps for breath.
Its screen was jumbled and glitchy, but I could just make out the words—

“No… you’ve gotta be kidding me…” I mumbled weakly. “I spent all that time… this can’t be happening.”

Automatic timed detonation activated.

The screen stuttered a bit before displaying a countdown, starting at five minutes. My mind flew into a frenzy, struggling to think of something, anything to stop the detonation. The engine room was too far away; I couldn’t possibly remove all the bombs in time. I stared hopelessly at the screen, crushing despair filling every inch of me.

It was over. The Rockets had won, and the ship was doomed.

The ship… but if we managed to make it off in time…
Why would they detonate? I thought the whole point of this was to take the ship hostage?
 

unrepentantAuthor

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Ugh, finally got around to reading ch24! Gonna avoid cluttering my reading list until I'm caught up with LC, I think. Right, here goes:

The dialogue about the Starr reveal is just slightly off, somehow. I think it's the incredibly direct way Jade drops the info, since Ajia's reaction tracks. No biggie, though.
Ajia is good, I love her. I can already tell at this point that she's going to be fun to read, she's got this ludicrous boldness that comes with clowning on Rockets for too long while going unscathed. I'm confident it will blow up in her face eventually. Or Jade's!
Espeon! It's just nice to see another of my faves.
Aww hugs!!!! I love to see a hug, and I don't think we've had any special hug moments yet. Fleeting, but nice.
Ajia is picking up where they left off but I'm glad Jade gets to feel like a stranger. It's lovely, but perhaps naive, that Ajia treats Jade the way she does, and it really shows how big the gap between them is. Sure, it's closed a little now that Jade is a trainer with experience fighting Rockets, but just as that's closed the gap, a new one has opened in the form of Jade's traumatic experiences which Ajia sure doesn't seem to intuit.
Holy shit. Jade is really hammering herself about Moltres. That paragraph about how Moltres will never make any further benevolent appearances ever again almost feels like too didactic a paragraph, except that it really suits Jade's brain gremlins tbh.

Love that Jade wishes she'd gone with Ajia even though she can't know how it would have gone. I somehow doubt that Ajia would have been able to give her the same value of experience as the Rebellion (for all that the Rebellion damaged her), and Ajia sure seems like the sort of person to be incautious about Jade's safety in the name of mad plans. AU where they travelled together and got captured due to Ajia's overconfidence in Jade's rookie abilities, that sounds delightfully painful. Speaking of AUs, I'd love to read some of those noncanon indulgences you keep mentioning.

Lmfao Ajia can harass Starr literally whenever she likes, apparently. I'd honestly be surprised if she hasn't done something like this already, given her near-nonchalance about it.
It's very interesting that Starr doesn't distinguish between believing in the Rocket cause and coerced loyalty. I mean, I don't know yet but I definitely know that she was raised to be part of TR, so I already understand that it's a matter of never having a choice in membership, a matter of being groomed, a matter of not having it in her to discard her family however awful it is, and so on. She's crazy young to be an executive, and I totally get what that means. And of course in order to live with that, she has to deal, psychologically, with the incompatibility between her situation and stuff like compassion, friendship, mercy, and even a desire to choose her own life. She can't entertain those thoughts, it isn't safe in the evironment she's stuck in. Ajia's interference is the sort of thing it would take to force her out at this point, clearly, but at this point I'm wondering just how bad the fallout will be...

Ajia holy shit are you gonna blackmail Starr into leaving? Apparently. This sucks because she's removing Starr from a terrible situation where she has no agency (child soldier), via a terrible situation where she has no agency (framed as traitor), to put her in a terrible situation where she has no agency (on the run from Super Mafia).
Ajia's plan is absolutely bullshit oh my god I have no idea how this is gonna go and I'm scared!! If this goes even close to how she intends, it definitely won't be a good thing, and there are so many ways it can go worse.
Jade snooping around a TR base while terrified of being caught is nostalgic by now, given how many times it's happened.
Umbreon! Love an umbreon. Ajia has those Wes vibes, what with being a cool but somewhat shady trainer with Johto eeveelutions fighting an evil gang.
Pichu is impressive! Love to see unevolved pokémon kicking some ass.
There is totally a need to be so sappy. Recent events have been dreadful and we need some friendship and comfort, goddamnit.
I'm a fan of them using plans like Espeon's return and teleport gambit and combat supplements, it's nice to see nonstandard methods of dealing with problems via pokémon.
Lampshading texting Giovanni doesn't make it less wild that Ajia totally just texted Giovanni. Wow.
Starr's swearing text!! Love to get to things you've told me about in advance.
Oh my god it actually happened, Giovanni turned up, the plan worked? And he thinks Starr is a double agent. Still pretty sure she's his daughter and I would be sure even if it was just for the Viridian thing in the prologue, of course. But anyway that's rough as hell, oh god. He's not even phased. He just sics his goons on her.
"I can't believe I actually cared about you two" is such a rough line, it has related energy to "stay away from me!" Lines like that where friendships crumble are so rough on my heart.
Chatlog is pretty interesting. I guess Lexx came up in the prologue, huh? Everyone from that school is probably either a Rocket or a resistance fighter in some way, ha.

Excited to be on the Starr redemption arc at last! Oh boy. Seeya next chapter.
 
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unrepentantAuthor

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So I went right ahead and read ch25 because of course I did.

First off, I adore the chapter art. I keep looking at it. Starr's face, with flowing tears but a grit-teeth wide-eyed stare of horror. Her hands, are they reaching out, or coming up to defend herself? Her executive outfit, and how it has elements of both strength and vulnerability, light and dark. The hulking feraligatr behind her, concerned but ultimately no asset to her strength in the situation they're in. The stark grey wall behind, reminding us that the Team Rocket environment is a bleak one. The shadows. The handgun. The emblem. Wow.

Reactions first!

Ajia is very competent and Starr is on the back foot... or is she? I'm not exactly expecting at this point that she might use the rest of her impressive team together with her sidearm to take control of the situation, because I know she's been increasingly a mess for some time now. More that I'm expecting Ajia to fuck up or have poorly predicted the outcomes.
Wow Starr really isn't handling this psychologically, huh? She's very much in the 'denial' phase. Intensely so.
What a win! Love to see stuff like pichu-beats-raichu, not a fan of evolution being a ticket to strictly superior battle competency.
Giovanni sure makes an entrance. What an intimidating fellow. This is a serious version of the character, and I love to see it.
I fucking knew they wouldn't free Mewtwo lmfao. There was no way they'd pull the plan off that easily, or that Gio would leave himself so vulnerable.

Oh god this is fucking terrifying and I fully expect Gio to demand that Starr executes the gals. What an awful situation. Definitely not feeling a "get sent to the cells for Stracion to bust out" vibe this time...
"Ruined" is such an gut-wrenching word to use about Astrid. It's clear how Gio only sees her as an asset and perhaps an extension of his pride, and not as family. It's also a button of mine when antagonists go off on how worthless someone is specifically for their redeeming traits, or becuase they're on a redemption path.
He was already suspicious, of course. We don't see much of the consequences for Starr letting Jade get away repeatedly, except in her mounting stress levels and that delicious extra, which I loved, but it must have been awful for so long. How much scrutiny has she been under her whole life? That line about her being 'singled out' later on really hammers this home.
Ajia is a "criminal" lol. The fuck. I guess Gio thinks that Team Rocket are already sovereign, or something.
Oh shit oh shit this is gonna be so awful...
Ajia sure seems like she really overplayed her hand here, and Jade was hopelessly naive, to the point that even though I know Starr gets out I still somehow don't believe it'll happen??
"This decides your fate" is a metal line. It has the same energy as "Angry at her? Dusk, I'm angry at you." It also really makes it even more intense that Starr can't go through with it, considering she knows it's futile and she has almost nothing to lose by killing them herself.
Starr's begging and pleading hurts my heart. I assume this is not a habit she's made during her TR career.
Oh wow, Jade's emotions when Starr refuses! I feel that, Jade. What a mood. I believe in Starr!

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa Umbreon! Espeon! This fucking battle is so sick, omg. Such intensity! I love it.
"It was my choice" no it fucking wasn't, you WALNUT. YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND AGENCY. YOU WERE A MINOR BEING COERCED BY AN ARMED CABAL LED BY YOUR FATHER. YOU FUCKING MORON. Anyway my heart is breaking for Starr. She really does believe that her life is her own.
Lmfao that Ajia keeps assuming stuff of Jade. Why would Jade, a certified idiot, have uncovered or guessed Starr's relationship to Giovanni? Haha.
HOLY SHIT THEY PULLED IT OFF WOW. I was stunned, and confused, and couldn't think what Umbreon did.
Lmfao at half the Rockets fucking off tbh. I bet they're totally going to get resources to help out and not just fleeing for their lives~
What the fuck did Umbreon DO, though? What's Ajia's fucking deal?

Yeah, Jade you hardly know either of these girls. Five years is a long time, and a year isn't. Honestly, it's sometimes pretty rough to realise that in five years, some of the most important people in Jade's life are people she hasn't seen in that long, knows fuck-all about, and in Starr's case, has been tortured by extensively. She doesn't go with Ajia for Starr because she thinks it's her moral duty, but because Starr is still her friend. She doesn't seem to have people in her life, exactly. The Rebellion, sure, but that's done and she didn't go with her teammates. She hasn't thought about her family hardly at all since the call to her mother forever ago. The most important people in her life besides these two are her own pokémon, I think. It's kindof rough to think about.

Further on that note, Jade's goals and cares don't often seem firm in her own mind. I think she wants to be significant to the people who left her behind. I think she wants to matter to the people who went off and lived lives without her. It really makes my heart ache. By contrast, Starr's goals and cares have been obliterated by the weight of 'survive being a Team Rocket executive' and 'don't murder your childhood friend and lose what humanity you have left'. That's even worse heartbreak. Ajia seems to just love dunking on Team Rocket. Power to her. I'm sure she's very well-balanced psychologically~ I actually feel like we could stand to know more by now about what the friendship at school was actually like. Jade doesn't elaborate on it much, and I feel like if she thought back to it sometimes it would track better that she'd take such risks as this one. She mentions that Starr used to love water pokémon—that stood out to me a lot because such details are pretty rare in her narration. Don't get me wrong, I love these three, but it's just something I've been musing over a little.

Love how Starr processes the situation as Ajia ruining her life, when her life was already shit and she could totally have just killed them. Except of course, she couldn't, and Jade and Ajia were right to gamble on that fact. Damn.
Jade's internal narration is laying it on a bit thick here but I like that she's still bothered that Starr is okay with different murders. She isn't getting out of moral scrutiny just because she's done this one thing.
"Have you forgotten what I did to you" oh man this is some delicious guilt. It's not the same as remorse, but that's surely to come.

Kinda surprised that Ajia fucks off and that Jade was about to. I thought both of them would be more insistent on staying together. Hell, Ajia just leaves without even showing concern that, say, Starr might verbally rip into Jade out of shock and anger. Or that Starr might literally not be able to process what to do next. Or that she has a firearm and a lot of fear that she'll be hunted down and tortured. Oof. Really surprised that Starr is the one reaching out given the state of shock she's in! I think the actual lines used could use a little tweaking to sell it as natural, but I get it. Starr does care, and everything stopping her shwing it but habit are very suddenly gone. It tracks. And of course, Jade just watched Starr yell at Ajia, and Ajia walk away, and she doesn't know what to do. It's rough.

Starr volunteering that description of her social life is pretty rough... Even though she admits she couldn't trust anyone, she still talks about having plentiful social interaction and the opportunity to 'fool around' as being a desirable thing. But I know that as a very young executive, all her relationships, if they even qualify as that, were probably sketchy as fuck. Even if they'd been with miraculously decent Rockets, who weren't sickeningly exploitative of her, they still represented a threat to her strength and a risk of attachment, of weakness, of slipping up. I don't believe for a second that Starr had a single healthy intimate moment with another Rocket during her time there and I am miserable about the implications of what sshe's saying. I'm desperate for her to have a real friendship with someone who actually cares about her. Oh gods.

Jade is a good kid and I love her. Well done for offering your hand, Jade. I'm proud of you. HOORAY FOR BIG HUG! I love big hug. I know we probably aren't gonna get platonic spooning bc of inevitable reader perceptions but I choose to imagine it will happen bc it makes me happy. I hope we at least have plenty more hugs to come! I love the friendship, hhhhhhhh.

So, this was one of my favourite chapters so far too, along with ch23. I love this stuff so much. I'm gripped. And so relieved there's so much more to go. I did think to myself that by now there's still a lot of stuff that feels either like it's been dropped or was a deus ex machina of some kind, or just a strange narrative choice, but I trust that we'll get answers to everything in due time. I'm having way too much fun to get hung up on stuff like that right now!
Very hype for the next chapter, Chibi!
 
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unrepentantAuthor

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ch26, I'm on a roll~

Love how unimpressed and uncomfortable Feraligatr is in the header art.
The pokémon don't like this! For the most part, anyway. I like that, it's a good way to layer on the difficulty of the new arrangement without having Jade and Starr lay into each other. Bless Raichu for wanting to make friends even though he's a walking trigger. Kinda fucked up, though.
Many fire types, huh? I have this image in my head that she's used them as a unit to burn out targets many times, and this is the reason for having several.
'Loop of nope' is a slightly irreverant way to describe Jade being triggered, but I chuckled. It's really delicious trauma brain all round, this chapter, actually.
"Flagged for something I've actually done" is a great way to remind us how fucked up Starr's history is. We already know she attended a massacre of teenagers, and saw her torture a 14yo, but I'm waiting for her to reveal something even more awful that she's done.
Starr being legit impressed at illegal trainership is a nice moment. It's good banter! I like that she's so good at slipping into comfortable jesting and jockeying despite awful, awful, awful things on her mind. It's a good character trait. Also, Duskcore.
Jade, you are truly a dumbass! Get a diploma in dumbassery, you have all the qualifications. Starr is literally holding a pile of money.
Sleepy train rides are good. Really felt the vibe. This chapter was less 'essay on Osaka' than you'd led me to believe, I actually found it all really natural and grounding. Love to see bacon pancakes pop up in the fic.
That was a rough moment with Chibi. He's becoming the weapon he was created to be, I guess. I know that surely he'll recover some eventually but it's tasty to see him so angry and shut down right now. I love Jade for trying so hard with him, and feeling so bad.
New outfit and no flinching! This is a very good scene, I love a few things about it but particularly how it plays on Jade's compartmentalisation of Astrid and Starr.
Starr's guilt! Jade's trauma! It's absolutely delicious to read. I think I'd have preferred a more consistent nightmare, it feels a little spread thin over many characters taunting Jade, but it was still good and I really loved how out of it Jade was afterwards and how she manages to open up about what's on her mind despite Starr's resistance. I loved how Starr is so affected by it and desperate to shut it out but talks about her feelings anyway and Jade both sympathises and begrudges because this shit is complicated. It was an exceptionally good scene, imo. Big fan of Starr's willingness to start making up for things in small ways, that "five years?" comment especially. Oh, Starr. I know you care.
"Forced out of us" is a great line. I'm a huge fan of this kind of indirectly brutal communication, the way Jade can say something with no explicit link to the awful experience they're trying to move away from and still be saying "the reason you couldn't get useful information out of me by electrocuting me repeatedly was because I was a child and nobody trusted me with useful information." She's saying "you tortured me for nothing." It really hurts my heart, like everything in this fic lately!
Stalker scene was good, I'm fascinated by what must be going on inside his head and to what extent he's basically just grooming Jade to be an asset in his war. Very excited to finally learn a little more about his name and whole deal! Also delighted to hear more about Mewtwo's escape, which I've been anticipating for a while and which I'm crediting as the main reason Jade and Starr aren't already dead or imprisoned.
 
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unrepentantAuthor

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Here we go, with ch27!

I had a feeling Stalker was still an active Rocket member and this explains why there's such a rift between the forces, I guess! I fiure I was supposed to believe he was a defector, but I always assumed he was still very much integrated and that his goal was specifically to prevent the use of Legendaries rather than to take down the team. Wish I'd called it!
He calls her Astrid, he calls her loyal. He knows how to get a rise out of her, it seems.
I too am impressed with Jade! Demanding answers and getting them, you go, kid!
Ajia is so central to the events of the revolt! What a story! She's very impressive, but I still don't like her emotional wellbeing credentials.
Who is the Kanto commander? I am fascinated by this 'strongest trainer ever' reputation. It also occurs to me, how does Team Rocket recruit so many extraordinary individuals? It sure seems like a tremendously powerful organisation.
"Treason" is an interesting word to use. Yet again with the implication that Team Rocket is sovereign and not an insurgent group itself. What does Giovanni believe in?
Executions, huh. Rough to think of Starr murdering people, rough to think of her gunning down prisoners in cold blood. Or worse.
Starr knew about this guy all along and couldn't do anything, huh? She's been under some intense and sustained stress for one hell of a long time. Her only reasonable play was to keep out of trouble, but she's under pressure as the boss' daughter to perform. A no-win scenario, to be sure.
Kinda love how mad both Ajia and Starr are at Sebastian, but for different reasons (save for the shared distate at his chessmastery).
Starr cares about doing shit yourself and taking the heat yourself because she had to, and Sebastian is a puppeteer. I can't imagine her ever expecting someone to do something distasteful for her, and she seems to have fully internalised that if you mess up, you must be punished. I wonder how many times she's been punished, and in what ways. I guess we'll find out.
Sebastian has his own agenda, naturally! I mean, was there really ever any doubt?
Also, why haven't the pantheon obliterated TR by now?
Oh wait, they're doing exactly that. Really enjoy how Ajia gets the same memo via telepathy.
Also, Ajia is a chosen! Many thoughts on this, but I was too tired to type them up.
Starr cares about atrocities, and dead innocents. Love to see some moral backbone in a recovering villain, even if the bar is incredibly low on this one.
Stalker's departing words are very interesting. What a manipulator! Bet he thinks he can still get his claws in Jade by appealing to her need to be considered significant. Which I don't know if Starr and Ajia are going to give her considering how much she's still in their shadow. I mean, Stalker even credits the Mewtwo mission to Jade, here, even though it was very nearly 100% on Ajia, and I think he hopes it will make Jade feel loyalty.
Ajia is pretty based! Best of luck to you, you mad trainer.
Starr will join! Wonderful. Very excited for that.
Love how Mew just pops up and starts chatting to them. No biggie. She's seen some crazy shit, probably.
Looking forward to the next!
 
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unrepentantAuthor

A cat that writes stories.
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  7. mewtwo
  8. zeraora
What a long fucking read ch28 was! Really enjoyed it. Here goes.

Lugia time! Problems on purpose! The chapter art is especially gorgeous, and I'm very excited for the famed large horrible superpowered goose creature and all the terrible decisions they're gonna make!
Holy shit this is one hell of a conflict. It reminds me of the destruction of Midnight Stadium and the first kid deaths. The destruction of city blocks and the presumed death or injury of many, many civilians is a rough thing to take even sympathising with the Legendaries as one might do at this point. I'm anticipating that some of them may be not just assholes, but close to or outright malevolent, given that this is how the so-far-sympathetic Mewtwo and the soon-to-be-Team-Jade Lugia are behaving.

Mew is sad! Instantly likable little kitty, worrying about the wellbeing of petty mortals. I wonder whether she's actually a moral paragon, since I suspect the prominent legendaries will be more complicated than that.
Jade is so good and she's out of her depth like never before. Really enjoying that she's heading into this with really nasty odds, and I'm proud of her for how far she's come. This is so intense.
"People are dying, Twenty-four" is such a line and I love it. Just putting it down flat. Really enjoy Aros' little reboot of confusion as everything tells him to go save the day instead of taking revenge.
"List of conversations owed" is a great concept and I'm looking forward to seeing some of those overdue discussions. Will one of them be about Firestorm's strength fixation?

Don't get killed, Jade! Starr needs you to stay alive or she'll have fuck-all to live for. I suspect Starr is gonna be pretty damn dedicated to Jade's survival, considering it's her lifeline to not being totally irretrievable as a person.
Cool combat and orders! Really like that Starr is able to command a specific focus-fire with a handful of syllables. That's fantastic stuff.
Interlopers sure aren't wanted by every Legendary, huh? Since there are seven Legendaries choosing human partners, that leaves an awful lot of Legendaries who aren't doing that. Even if only the first four or five generations of Legendary are relevant to the conflict, that's a huge number of them who aren't throwing their lot in with that gambit.

Master ball cannons are not allowed! Jade Arens says so! D:<
Mewtwo captured himself, huh? Kinda genius. I really enjoy this sort of thing, I know I loved this kind of idea when I was writing fanfic in the mid 2000s and all that. It feels weirdly nostalgic.
Healing Moltres and Articuno repeatedly sounds pretty terrifying. Lugia is clearly on a different level, but the power levels on display combined with restorative aid makes for an unassailable foe if not disrupted.
Love the inventive use of sandstorm. Always a big fan of moves being used to do useful things and not just fill out a battle scene.

The evolution of both Swift and Firestorm was fucking sick. That fight was intense, and I was delighted to see Jade in a serious duel at last, against a tough opponent no less!
I AM YELLING. OH MY GOD, FIRESTORM. That was so brutal. That was so sickeningly cathartic. This is incredibly FI-core oh my god?
Hey, nice, Jade is horrified but relieved. Good reactions. Looks like Firestorm is more messed up than anticipated, but the freakout tracks perfectly well with his strength fetishism and general obsessiveness. Excited to learn more, see him recover (or get worse...)
Swift is once again the MVP! He is so excellent. What a lovely bird dude. Wholesome. why would you ship jadestorm when you could instead ship swiftjade
Also, we're finally past the banner art! With Swift and Firestorm at their final evolutionary stages besides megas (👀), that gorgeous art of Jade in Rocket uniform runnin with her team is now fully in the past! I'm guessing Lugia is gonna be the sixth team member, of course, leaving her with three fliers for those essential Chibi-brand aerial combats and fraught flights.

Jade you idiot! You have no plan at all! Did she not even think about the consequences of this or consider running the plan by anyone at all? Oh my god, she just wants to be significant, doesn't she? She wants to make a difference. Oh no.
I love Chibi for being so protective of her. He does care! He fucking slapped a god in the face to save her life. Bless you, you little edgy pikachu.
Lugia is... probably probing Jade's mind, right? Otherwise they'd just beam her again and get it right this time. That, or they're sparing her by means of torture, I guess, but I think probing is more likely considering the likely imminent addition of Jade to chosen one ranks.
Oops, though~
 
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unrepentantAuthor

A cat that writes stories.
Location
UK
Pronouns
they/she
Partners
  1. purrloin-salem
  2. sneasel-dusk
  3. luz-companion
  4. brisa-companion
  5. meowth-laura
  6. delphox-jesse
  7. mewtwo
  8. zeraora
It's TIME to review Ch29!
Fantastic art, as always. Really like this one.
"Someone's charizard" is pretty rough. She's not thinking of him as Firestorm right now, huh.
She got whumped HARD. Damn. Really enjoying the consequent pain and hardship.
Chibi was LYING, he DID care!! I am tearing up at this.
Psychic torture, huh? I wonder if that was really the goal. I'm not really expecting the attack to have been meant as a punitive measure. Big frowns at Lugia if so.
Get your fucking license, Jade. Go do it. Fuck's sake!
HANDHOLDING! Love a bit of platonic handholding.
Starr: Please don't make me fight TR, but I will follow you anywhere-
Jade: Nah, I'm good, lmao.
I love them.
Ajia's not really part of a big resistance, huh. It never felt like she was recieving orders or coordinating efforts the way Stalker was, but it's a pretty decent surprise that the Johto resistance straight-up doesn't exist. And Jade thinks she's 'supposed' to be a big brave bold invincible hero, who doesn't feel fear. Oh man. Ajia's still just a kid with talent and boldness, though.
Starr saying "we" about TR, Jade calling her on it. I have a soft spot for that trope. Wonder how long it'll take for Starr to drop such things.
Lmfao six other people to help Ajia. Has she met any of them? ...mayb.
"Thanks or whatever" lmfao can you be sincere and vulnerable for three seconds
Love the banter between these three. The dynamic feels complete. It's like the story's been waiting to reunite them this whole time. I love each of them anyway, but bouncing off each other is a total delight. Aaaaaa!
I like that Jade fusses about the state Firestorm will be in and immediately wants to recall him. She's so bothered by this, of course. Reasonable.
His shame at failing to protect his trainers and at losing control and her shame at not helping him through his issues or appreciating him before he'd killed someone. It hurts, but it's delicious, and I hope they're both okay. x
He's taller! Maybe she'll think of him differently now that she has to look up to him a bit.
Learn to fly, Firestorm! Oh, how wonderful. What a lovely ending to this chapter. My heart.
 
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Chibi Pika

Stay positive
Staff
Location
somewhere in spacetime
Pronouns
they/them
Partners
  1. pikachu-chibi
  2. lugia
  3. palkia
  4. lucario-shiny
  5. incineroar-starr
Some horribly overdue review replies!

I will admit it was kinda funny, while sadistic of me, to laugh a bit when Rayquaza basically showed up saying 'WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN MY SWAMP?!' only for him to get trapped into a barrier and knocked around a few times
This is quite possibly the best interpretation of the ending to 44 ever.
I was half expecting Rayquaza to Mega evolve, but I suppose TR don't know how to make him do that yet.
Oh god. Yeah, TR getting Mega Rayquaza would've been an instant Game Over.
While it was hinted at in the previous chapter, I thought it was just some nakama power spurring Latios out of the brainwashing momentarily.
Haha, that's what I was hoping people might think! But nah, he was pretending the whole time. >:3
We were given a first hand insight into how Kaiba put off his professional children's card game career to pursue being in team rocket part time.
Have I mentioned that I love this.
The way he first started out researching about the legends and how his obsession with it became a curse makes me feel like someone deliberately set him on that path. I'm hesitant to go with that conclusion since your whole goal with this fic is about subverting the expectations of destiny and about choice.
I like that you're thinking about this~
Seeing his life journey to this point did give me some appreciation about his character, and the conversation he had with babey Vesta was also cute. In fact, I'm honestly surprised at all that he's always been pretty close to his pokemon and doesn't treat them as expendable utilities.
That's part of the reason I thought it was really important to show him spending quality time with his team. He's absolutely a manipulator, buuuuuut things are never quite so simple as that.
Jade continues to be the most relatable character ever. XD
Glad you think so! ^^
“It was nice meeting you! I’m Astrid.”

“asfdjhgsfhdaf????”
I lost it at this. x'D
I was surprised to see Astrid lose consciousness so easily. Surely Chibi’s attack wasn’t that powerful right? And couldn’t Astrid just (try to) move out of the way?
He had a decent amount of power from absorbing Raichu's thunderbolt with his Lightningrod. And she did try to move, but he's way faster than her.
That said, I don’t really like how easily the Rockets got taken out here. Absol and Flygon get near them, slam them, and then they’re instantly down. I understand that from a narrative standpoint it wouldn’t have been better if this encounter got dragged out more, but looking at it in universe the Rockets do seem a bit too helpless against Absol and Flygon. Especially since despite being clones, the two are just normal Pokémon instead of crazy strong hybrids.
AH, that's fair. My setting tends to portray humans as pretty much no match for Pokemon at all, especially not Pokemon around level 45 or so like they are.
I’d make a comment about this being hard to imagine (especially if it’s a metal door), but I think I already made a comment like in that in my last review when Flygon was trying to escape. ^^;
Ah, he didn't tear through the door itself, it was just a Dragon Claw to the door hinges.
Anyway, made it to the end of the chapter. Overall I don’t think it was a bad one, but compared to the other climaxes LC has had so far this one was definitely my least favorite. Absol and Flygon are probably one of the main reasons for this (though mostly Flygon). I understand that they’re not meant to be likable, but they actually made it hard to enjoy certain parts. Sorry. :(
Ahh, sorry about that. If it helps, he's going to become a lot more cooperative pretty soon, he just had a lot of pent up human negativity to get out first. He'll be more like the "grumpy teammate" archetype during the next arc.
I like that Jade gets to grab a couple of extremely cool experimental pokémon and that this is cool as fuck, but they neither fall into her lap, nor present a particular asset for her it seems. They manage to be very exciting but without being contrived or anything, y'know?
This was one of my main priorities with this arc (especially considering it was planned back when giving cool mutant Pokemon to your protagonist was an instant reader turnoff.) So I had to take it slow and get readers wanting them to join her. xD
Mewtwo!!!! Very good miserable cat. Love to see him. The chapter art is very good as always: a moody, classic, musing Mewtwo moment. Pretty terrified about Team Rocket possessing a mind-controlled super-psychic, which it looks like they have.
I'm glad you approve of Mewtwo!! I know you have Opinions about Mewtwo and I hope I can live up to them! >:3
Love that Flygon/Aros is so oppositional that he considers sleeping outside just to be difficult.
I really love writing contrary characters, don't I.
Jade's emerging trauma about thunder shock is very good, the way her narration puts it makes the horror of it plain and sickening.
This actually made me wonder if I'd already written the torture chapter (in Revision 12 proper) before chapter 16, because it seems too much like I'm setting up for it here. Turns out, I actually wrote it a whopping 3 months before this one so yeah, I knew exactly where it was headed.
Stalker really is quite a character. What's his fuckin deal?
Put a pin in this for later. :3
Lastly, I am fuckin snorting at Firestorm's obvious crush and Jade's total smugness at spotting it. Wonderful.
I was giggling to myself quite a bit when I wrote that in, so I'm glad you took note of it. ;P

Also wanted to thank @kintsugi and @Pen for the super long and in-depth reviews! While I probably won't respond to everything in your reviews (a lot of things were already on my incredibly long edit list rip) you both hit a lot of really interesting stuff that I'd love to comment on when I get the chance~

Also many thanks to uA for completely demolishing Book 1 holy heck.
 
Chapter 45: Deluge and Desolation

Chibi Pika

Stay positive
Staff
Location
somewhere in spacetime
Pronouns
they/them
Partners
  1. pikachu-chibi
  2. lugia
  3. palkia
  4. lucario-shiny
  5. incineroar-starr
The grand finale of the Hoenn arc is here at last! One way or another, the fight ends here.



~CHAPTER 45: DELUGE AND DESOLATION~

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We shot through skies torn with fire and lightning, ducking and weaving past blades of wind as meteors rained down all around us. Swift nimbly dodged every single one, fueling his flight with bursts of Agility that almost made me lose my grip. The whole time I kept my eyes focused on the red streak shooting through the air just ahead of us. A Shadow Ball shot from nowhere, passing so close to Latias I thought she’d been hit. But she deftly looped around it, keeping Latios in her sights the entire time.

“We can’t lose them,” I muttered.

“*Will you be able to hold on?*” Swift asked, glancing back at me with concern.

“Doesn’t matter, we gotta keep up.” If Stalker caught Rayquaza now, this entire mission would be for nothing. All the pain, all the failure, for nothing. Couldn’t let that happen.

In the center of the sky battle, Mew swooped closer to Rayquaza, cautiously approaching. It almost looked like she was offering something, but the serpent just smacked her aside with its tail. It was too agitated, too anxious to distinguish between friend or foe, angrily flinging blades of wind at anything that got close. The airships converging inward weren’t deterred, though. An ALR beam fired; Rayquaza snarled in agony. Then the crack of a Master Ball cannon split the air, and my heart stopped. But there was no red beam—Rayquaza was still intact. My eyes locked onto the gray blur of an Aerodactyl zipping around it. Then a second one—Mew had switched her form. She wasn’t teleporting. (Did the airships still have an anti-teleport field up?) And for another thing—why didn’t Mew and Ajia have any backup? Where the hell were the rest of our Legendaries?

<He’s going to catch Rayquaza!> I yelled to Lugia.

I couldn’t even see where Lugia was right now, but I could feel the apprehension in its mind. <There are capture balls flying everywhere,> Lugia said sharply. <It’s too risky to interfere, one of us could get captured instead.>

What?! Seriously? Sure, it was something to watch out for, but that didn’t mean we could just leave Rayquaza!

I threw a frantic glance around at the other Legendaries. Even Ho-oh was hovering some distance from the battle, eyeing the airships closely. We had more of a reason to be afraid than them!

<We’ll attack them from afar to weaken their forces. Don’t let that human out of your sight!>

Ugh, fine. Guess we were on our own, then.

Swift’s wings were a blur at my side. Every few seconds we’d accelerate with another burst of Agility. It wouldn’t last long, I knew that much—this was a ridiculous waste of energy. Every so often, his flight stuttered for just a fraction of a second. I’d been pushing him this hard, and he had to be exhausted. But Firestorm and Aros would never be able to catch up with Stalker. And they’d never be able to avoid all the crap flying through the air. Only Swift could do it.

Latios dove. Latias fired a Dragon Pulse right into his path, forcing him to brake hard just to keep from flying into it. Then he ducked behind an airship to avoid an Air Slash that shot out from inside the circle. It was only for a second—the instant his path was clear, Latios darted back into the open, Stalker already leveling his arm cannon at Rayquaza. But the winds were too vicious, there was no way he’d land a hit. Then Latios had to duck to avoid a spurt of dragonfire that went right over Stalker’s head.

“*Let my brother go!*” Latias cried.

I honestly didn’t expect a response. But he yelled back, “I need his strength! Stay out of the way or we’re all done for!”

“*I’m not giving up!*” she exclaimed, shooting right at him. Latios put on a burst of speed and dove into the center of the Legendary melee, trying to lose Latias in the chaos.

I clung tightly to Swift as he pursued while the fighting raged on all around us. Rayquaza swerved to avoid a bolt of lightning fired by Raikou but wasn’t fast enough to avoid the Flamethrower that followed from Entei. In the chaos, with how much I’d been focused on Stalker, I’d actually forgotten that we still had to deal with the Kanto force.

By now, the airships themselves were firing on Stalker, forcing Latios to swerve wildly in and out of the beams, slowing him down. Raikou countered as many of them as it could with strings of lightning while the Johto airships fired back on the Kanto ones. Altaria swooped around behind Raikou, breathing out a Dragonbreath at Lexx, only for it to be blocked by… a Magnezone? Yeah, a Magnezone was guarding the pair from behind so Raikou could keep up the offensive.

In the midst of it all was Rayquaza, and it was clearly tiring. Its spiraling flight grew slower, the winds less turbulent. With Latios’s speed… Stalker would easily have a clear shot. But no, he was still struggling to evade Latias, who’d been doing a much better job keeping up with him than we were.

“*Latios! Latios can you hear me!*” Latias’s voice called out. Latios’s flight path faltered slightly, but he kept going.

She was gaining on them, having to dodge just as much fire, but having the advantage of being smaller and more maneuverable and not carrying a rider.

A sudden blizzard ripped through the air within the circle, forcing Latios to fall back. Swift flared his wings to avoid flying straight into it, but even from here, the icy chill made my hairs stand on end. I glanced below us to see Articuno flying back up—what? Hadn’t Raikou taken it down earlier? Wait, obviously Ender had flown down to heal it.

Rayquaza was clearly sick of being the target, because it immediately shot toward Articuno, smashing it down with its tail before spiraling away from attacks launched by Raikou and Entei. Latios closed in from behind. My heart stopped as Stalker pointed his arm forward.

And after all this, I couldn’t just let that be the end of it.

“Twister!” I yelled.

With great effort, Swift snapped his wings together in front of us, slowing our flight but kicking up a vicious whirlwind lit with dragonfire. I didn’t expect it to hit. But Swift never missed his mark. The whirlwind swept into Latios, and though the jet dragon’s flight didn’t waver, he wasn’t the one I was aiming to disrupt. Stalker yanked his arm back with a wince. We locked eye contact for a moment.

Then a golden blur smashed a fist into the side of Swift’s head.

The blow knocked us reeling. A rush of cold swept over me as ice crystals flared up around the impact point. My hands clutched at Swift’s feathers, brain struggling to process what the hell had just happened. I saw Stalker, his eyes cold and expressionless. Saw Dragonite, her expression mirroring her trainer’s. Then Swift’s wings gave out, and we were falling.

I was weightless, the wind rushing past me as I tumbled through the air, the back of my head screaming even as my hands flew to my belt. I fumbled with my Pokéballs until I found Swift’s and managed to recall him, then grabbed Firestorm’s ball just as quickly. Orange wings spread at my side and immediately pitched back the moment their owner realized what was going on. The Charizard swooped under me, matching speeds with my fall until I managed to reach out and grab his shoulders.

“Got to catch Stalker. Got to stop him,” I said breathlessly. He’d attacked us. He’d attacked us.

Firestorm’s eyes fell on Stalker, and I felt his shoulders tense up. “*I’ll stop him,*” he growled.

“We don’t have to beat him, we just have to distract him until…” Until what? When would this end?

Firestorm put on a burst of speed, ascending as powerfully as he could. But by now it felt like Latios was miles away, a pinprick high above us. He blasted out a stream of fire, aiming straight at Stalker. But Latios drifted around it effortlessly. With a growl, Firestorm blasted out another stream, and another, but these ones had less power, and they didn’t even reach.

Firestorm wasn’t fast enough. No Quick Attack, no Agility. Stalker outstretched his arm, preparing to fire. I couldn’t reach him in time. Had no way to stop him.

And in the moment that the two had slowed enough for him to take the shot, a red-winged blur shot from nowhere, impossibly fast.

“*Please!*” Latias cried.

She clutched the larger dragon’s tail fin with her claws, his flight jerked, Stalker pitched forward, and his Master Ball shot wildly off into the distance. Not a second later, he spun around, staring at her in disbelief.

And then, above us, Rayquaza was transformed into blood-red energy. Sucked inside the Master Ball. I stared in horror, feeling like my brain had to restart. What. What. How?! He’d missed, he’d definitely—

My eyes suddenly locked onto Articuno, not too far from us. On its back was Ender, and he was wearing a Master Ball cannon. He pointed, and the ice bird swooped forward, clutching the ball in its talons before immediately banking around and flying back to the airship fleet as fast as its wings would take it.

My whole body went numb. We hadn’t saved Rayquaza. We’d only ensured that the Kanto force got it instead of the Johto force.

Stalker whirled around, his eyes lit with more fury than I’d ever seen. “Do you have any idea what you just did?!”

Latias shrank back slightly, looking devastated. But then her gaze hardened, and she darted around to face the larger blue dragon, whose eyes were shut.

“*Latios, please.*” She pressed her forehead against his, willing him to respond. But Latios said nothing.

Stalker stared wordlessly at her for several seconds. Then, without warning, he swung his arm forward and fired a Master Ball point-blank.

It was like I’d just been punched in the face. I gaped stupidly as the smaller dragon instantly transformed into blood-red energy before she was sucked into the ball. He caught the ball before it could drop and held it tight as it shook furiously before finally growing still.

I was frozen in mute horror, struggling to find something to say, but the words kept dying in my throat.

“W-why would you do that?!” I shouted, my voice breaking.

Stalker glanced at me out of the corner of one eye. The fury was gone from his face, replaced with an icy cold stare. He didn’t answer me. He just motioned to Latios, and the pair of them shot off.

No. No, I was not going to let him get away with that without an explanation. No!

Without me even saying anything, Firestorm blasted out a Flamethrower at the retreating dragon. When that failed, he shot forward as fast as he could, but Latios was already miles ahead of us, and there was no way we’d ever catch up.

Dammit. He couldn’t get away with that! No! We couldn’t let him!

A Flamethrower from above cut right across our path. I threw a glance upward to see Stalker’s Charizard glaring at us. Firestorm froze, staring at her in disbelief. I didn’t even know whether to order an attack or what. What was I even going to do when we caught up to Stalker? Attack him? Knock him off his Legendary? As if I could do any of that. I couldn’t do anything to him, and he knew it.

I’d thought I was prepared for the idea of fighting Stalker. I was wrong.

<I’ve got a message from Mew. They’re saying we should use this chaos to steal the orbs.>

Lugia’s words were a cold, hard blow back to reality, dragging me out of the all-consuming focus on Stalker. Even though half of me was screaming that no, we had to go after him, he had to pay. So loud that I was afraid Lugia would hear it.

But Mew was counting on us… I couldn’t get wrapped up in what I wanted. Had to do this for the sake of the mission.

<On it,> I replied, grabbing Firestorm’s shoulder. His flight slowed, and he glanced back at me in confusion.

“*We’re not going after him?*” he asked.

“Lugia said we have to get the orbs,” I said, my voice dead.

“*We’re—we’re just letting him get away with that?*” he asked in disbelief.

I screwed my eyes shut. “We’re not, we’re just—” I took a deep breath, forcing my breathing to stay level even though my blood wanted to boil. “We’ve got to put a stop to all this, and getting the orbs is the only way to do it.”

“*I… okay,*” he said reluctantly, banking around.

I scanned the aerial battlefield. Did we still know which ship had the orbs? They’d all been circling around in a frenzy, there was no way it was still in the same place we’d last seen it. But a glance back down at Groudon and Kyogre made it obvious—the duo’s attention was locked onto one ship in particular. Even though their attacks fell short, there was no mistaking their target.

The only problem was how to approach it. The sky was still a warzone, and I couldn’t rely on Swift’s speed anymore. We’d need more firepower. Some way to get close without just throwing our lives away.

And then Starr’s words drifted to the front of my mind: You’ve got a Legendary. Use it.

My eyes slid to Lugia. It was just hovering right below us, some ways away from the chaotic sky battle between the Kanto and Johto Rockets. Launching attacks at the airships while also steering clear just in case any of them decided to fire a Master Ball out of the blue.

What if I just…

It was a stupid idea. Just stupid enough that I had to try it. Easier to ask forgiveness than permission.

I grabbed Firestorm’s Pokéball. “I’ve got a plan, I need you to trust me,” I said. Had to do it before I changed my mind.

Firestorm turned. His gaze slid between his Pokéball, and what was below us, and I felt him tense up. I could tell he didn’t want to do it. But then he said, “*Alright.*”

I recalled Firestorm and let myself fall. A single, heart-stopping moment of weightlessness later, I landed on Lugia’s back and immediately clung to its neck as tightly as I could.

Lugia jolted, turning its head to stare right at me. <What are you—?>

“I need you to take me to that airship,” I said.

<Take… you to?> it said blankly. Like it had never remotely expected me to ask that.

“We need to get the orbs, and I need your power to have a shot at getting close enough to that ship to do it,” I said as firmly as I could. Like the fact that I’d already made up my mind meant that it couldn’t argue.

Lugia was stupefied, still struggling to process my words. And its confusion was bleeding over into my head so much that even I was starting to wonder why I’d done it.

<F… fine,> Lugia said finally, and with a mighty flap, it turned and took off for the airship.

Man, riding Lugia was weird. My fingers slipped against sleek, densely-packed feathers. Each wingbeat was like a thunderclap echoing through my body. Lugia was way too big for me to move with it like any of my team. I was just along for the ride, and I couldn’t help immediately wishing I could switch back to Firestorm. But this was what I’d chosen.

We traced a wide arc around the sky battle, approaching our target from behind. Hopefully both it and the rest of the Kanto force would be too busy with the Johto force (and hopefully the Johto force just plain wouldn’t care). A blur of red and green wings caught my eye alongside us—Aros, with Chibi still on his back. Of course they’d be nearby— I had told them to protect Lugia. And I felt better having them near, as there was no way I could keep watch for enemies in every direction.

As we neared our target, the telltale shimmer of a barrier flickered to life. But they’d have a lot harder time standing up to a Legendary without the whole fleet in defense mode. I felt Lugia scoff internally before drawing power from within. It focused the energy into its mouth, preparing to fire a piercing beam attack.

Then a heavy impact struck from behind, knocking Lugia askew. I pitched forward, clinging desperately to Lugia’s neck just in time to keep myself from being thrown off. A wave of pain shot through my entire body, but that was nothing compared to the torrent of outrage and confusion assaulting my mind through the psychic link. Lugia flapped its wings wildly to regain itself, glancing around in a frenzy.

“What the hell was—” I froze, shaking. The feathers on Lugia’s back were charred black. I’d just felt the shock wave from the blast. If it had hit me directly, I’d have been toast.

My eyes locked onto the culprit—two airships had broken from the battle against the Johto force and were fast approaching us. The panic in Lugia’s mind melted into anger. The dragon-bird focused its energy again, firing a blindingly orange beam right at them. But the Rockets had obviously seen that coming, because Lugia’s target seamlessly switched back into defense mode, and the attack went sliding off the barrier and out into the open air. The second ship fired, and I felt a split second of dread as that deadly beam shot right for us… until a huge lightning bolt struck out of nowhere, and the two attacks collided with explosive force.

I covered my eyes as the smoke washed over us, and when it cleared, I could see Chibi sparking wildly on Aros’s back. I let out a huge sigh of relief. But that attack must have taken a huge amount of power, and there was no way he could keep that up.

The first ship’s barrier dropped. A jolt of alarm flickered through Lugia, and it raised a Protect around us just as both ships fired at once. I screwed my eyes shut as sound of the beams crashing against Lugia’s shield assaulted my ears. When the sounds had let up, I opened my eyes to see the ships already preparing to fire again, and Lugia struggling to call up the energy for a second barrier back-to-back.

<I’ll have to dodge, brace yourself!>

Lugia dove. I clung to its neck for dear life and felt the tingle of that searing energy shooting right overhead. The ships pivoted in midair, following us with their cannons, readying another shot—

Which meant they were completely unprepared for the all-out Fire Blast consuming them from above in a raging inferno. Both ships fell backward, sparks leaping from their melted shield projectors.

“Need help?!” a voice called out.

I spun around to see Moltres soaring over to meet us, Rudy perched on its back with all the confidence of someone who’d ridden a legend into battle a hundred times.

“Rudy!” I yelled, waving to him. “We’ve gotta get inside that airship!”

He nodded sharply, then turned to motion over his shoulder. “Come on!” Who was he talking to?

I got my answer a few seconds later when Fearow soared into view, and it took me a bit to realize that she had a rider. Darren was riding Fearow, Weavile sitting in front of him.

“Darren? What are you doing up here?” I asked blankly.

“Thanks, I feel super wanted,” he said dryly. Before I could protest, he added, “We finished things up in the crater. Figured I could make myself somewhat useful up here, maybe. Also this one might have dragged me into it.”

“Shut up!” Rudy yelled, face going red. “I needed the ice support against that Flygon, okay?!” Weavile flashed a toothy grin at his words.

The two airships that had been attacking us pulled back. With their shield projectors damaged, they had no way of defending themselves or absorbing more power to fire at us. That just left the third—the one that held the orbs. Lugia nodded to Moltres, and the two of them unleashed a relentless barrage of raging flames and psychic blasts. Way too much power for it to absorb on its own—the shield projectors shorted out right away.

Satisfaction flooded my mind from Lugia, and I couldn’t help letting it bleed into my own thoughts. The dragon bird swooped closer until it was right above the ship, and I slid down its tail to land on the flat metal platform that Entei and Raikou had been using as a perch.

<I’ll let you know once we’ve got em!> I said to Lugia, pulling my focus away from our link. Then I waved to Rudy and Darren and yelled, “Come on!”

Moltres and Fearow flew close enough for Rudy and Darren to jump down after me before recalling their Pokémon. What surprised me was the Pikachu that took a flying leap and landed right in front of us.

“*I’m coming with you,*” Chibi said firmly.

I blinked. “Weren’t you gonna stick to protecting Lugia?”

He glanced back at the dragon-bird, eyes narrowed. “*I don’t expect it to stay in the line of fire once we’re inside. You deserve the help more.*”

I gave him a grateful smile. “Thanks.”

There was an entry hatch on the far end of the platform. I pointed it out and Chibi swung an Iron Tail at it, cleaving through the lock. Pulling the hatch aside revealed a set of rungs leading downward. I lowered myself down the passage as quickly as possible, closely followed by Rudy, then Darren.

The three of us found ourselves in a cramped, narrow passage lined with pipes. The air was filled with the roar of the engines. We followed the hallway toward the front of the ship, footsteps slowing as we approached the bridge. Two Rockets were in there, from what I could see. They hadn’t noticed us yet, not with the engine noise.

Chibi’s feathers crackled before he leaped from my shoulder. I shut my eyes, but I could still hear the jolt of lightning and the garbled cries from the Rockets. A few seconds after they fell silent, I opened my eyes to see them passed out in their seats.

“*They obviously weren’t expecting an attack from the inside,*” Chibi said with a bit of a scoff.

He was right. No combat unit to speak of. Then again with the ship’s defenses, and how little space there was inside...

“So, we made it. Now’s probably a good time to find out why we’re here.” Darren said, crossing his arms behind his head and giving me a sideways glance.

Oh. Right.

“We’ve got to find the orbs,” I said. “Groudon and Kyogre promised they could defeat the Rockets if we could get them the orbs.”

Darren just nodded in a ‘that makes sense’ kind of way, while Rudy fixed me with an incredulous glare. “You’re telling me you talked with those things?” he asked, gaping at me.

“They’re Pokémon,” I just said.

Rudy made a face like that was the farthest thing from an explanation. Then Darren cut in with, “Alright, let’s hurry up and find ‘em.”

We jumped to work, throwing open every drawer and compartment we could get our hands on. They were here, they had to be here. Groudon and Kyogre had sensed them, and there was no way those two could be mistaken, not when their entire world seemed to revolve around getting these orbs.

My eyes fell on a metal case wedged under the main console. I tugged on its handle, sliding it out into the open. My pulse quickened as my fingers hurriedly undid all the latches before throwing the lid open, and—

“Here they are,” I said breathlessly.

I was staring down at two glossy, translucent orbs, each bearing some kind of rune inside them. I reached out to grab the red one and felt a tingle run through my fingers, making the hairs on my arm stand on end. The power emanating from this thing was almost tangible.

“The same person shouldn’t hold both,” Darren pointed out. “That way if one of us gets taken out, the others can at least get the second orb to them.”

Good point. I was just about to hand him the Blue Orb but then happened to catch a glimpse of Rudy’s disapproving face.

“Don’t talk like that,” he muttered, eyes firmly on the floor.

Darren shrugged. “It’s just how it is.”

“And I’m saying that’s not how it is,” Rudy snapped, rounding on him. “No one’s allowed to die, got it?!”

Darren didn’t reply, he just turned and gave me a knowing look. I wasn’t about to tell Rudy that I’d been thinking the same thing. Still, I went ahead and handed the Blue Orb to Darren, who pocketed it.

Chibi’s ears twitched. Before I could ask why, he leaped from my shoulder and raised a Protect behind me. A sudden burst of heat washed over us, and I spun around to see flames crashing against the shield, spilling out all around it.

“Aiming to unleash the primals? And I suppose that makes you the heroes?” a voice drawled.

The flames cleared, revealing Ender and his Ninetales, standing there in the hallway, staring us down. In a flash, Rudy let out Ebony, and Darren let out Golduck. The six of us all facing him, ready to attack at any moment, and he didn’t look remotely concerned by that.

“Power like what the legends have can’t be allowed to run wild,” he said, all amusement gone from his voice. “You’re running down a losing path if you think it should be unrestrained.”

A chill ran down my spine. What was he…? Never mind, I wasn’t gonna let myself think about it. It was just more garbage trying to sound like any of this was justified.

“You’re outnumbered. You can’t beat all three of us,” Rudy said.

Ender just shrugged. “I don’t have to beat you, I just have to stop you from getting out before the other squads finish up their work.”

I didn’t like the sound of that. Had to get out of here as soon as possible. He’d been relying on Articuno throughout most of the fight, so his team was likely still in good shape. And that was assuming he didn’t have reinforcements on the way right now.

Wait. Of course he did, Rockets always did. He was stalling.

Without warning, Chibi jumped up and fired a thin bolt over our heads. There was a flash of light followed by Nidoqueen standing in front of Ender, blocking him. He snapped his fingers—Ninetales’s eyes flashed an eerie red. The Pikachu dropped to the ground and, to my horror, he’d gone slightly cross-eyed, lights dancing around his head. Was Ender insane? Throwing off Chibi’s aim with all of us crammed into a narrow passage where a single stray bolt could blow the place? Chibi shook his head, sparks crackling across his feathers, and I couldn’t risk it—I recalled him in an instant.

Ebony jumped in front of us so that she could absorb any more flames from Ninetales, but that just made it all the easier for Nidoqueen to nail her in the face with a jet of water. Golduck retaliated with a Water Pulse of his own that splashed across the corridor, soaking both opponents. Seconds later, he was slammed into the wall when a glowing orb of green energy exploded into his face. Ninetales flashed a smirk as the water-type sank to his knees, then proceeded to fix Ebony with a hypnotic stare, tails swaying behind it.

God, we didn’t have time for this. Or the space. Had to get out of here. Needed some other way out besides the exit hatch. Some way to make our own exit.

And then a terrible, brilliant idea dawned on me.

<Lugia,> I said.

<Yes?>

<Use your psychic power to rip the airship open.>

The silence was tangible. <…Are you joking?>

<Does it sound like I am?> I asked.

Lugia’s mind was silent with stunned disbelief and total bafflement.

<Alright. Brace yourself.>

“Recall your Pokémon,” I hissed under my breath.

What?” Rudy snapped.

I didn’t get a chance to say anything else. With the squealing of metal as our only warning, the floor suddenly split open. Ninetales leaped away in a panic, practically bowling its trainer over as the hole in the floor stretched wider and wider.

“What the heelllll?!” Rudy cried.

A mess of recall beams filled the room as all the Pokémon got recalled. The crack was practically a chasm now, and everything not bolted down had started sliding into it. Rudy clawed at the slick metal floor, desperately trying and failing to grab hold of something. Darren flashed a tired look my way, like he knew I was somehow responsible for this. That was the last thing I saw before all of us slid out into the open air.

Falling. But this time I was ready for it. This time I was able to fight back the panic flaring up in the back of my head, because we’d escaped—we’d escaped!—and that was all that mattered. A giant pair of white wings swooped past, taking up my entire field of vision. I landed on Lugia’s back with a thud that knocked the wind out of me, then felt two thuds behind me that signified Rudy and Darren landing as well, before Lugia spread its wings and leveled our flight.

<That was… surprisingly efficient,> Lugia said, its voice somewhat shaken.

“Hoooly crap. That was awesome. Insane, but awesome,” Rudy said, eyes wide with exhilaration like that was the best thing he’d ever experienced.

“Okay, gotta admit I didn’t see that coming,” Darren said with a wry grin. “Be honest, did you know that was going to work?”

I didn’t reply. I was too busy watching Ender and the two pilots falling through the air behind us. Twin flashes of light appeared as the former let out his Xatu and Altaria. The dragon-bird caught him, and then Xatu teleported the pilots away.

They’d made it. Okay. I wasn’t… I wasn’t ready to think about something like that being my fault. In any case, we did it. We got the orbs. Lugia was already making a beeline for the crater, flapping its wings as powerfully as it could. We were going to make it. We were going to—

An earth-shattering roar tore the air, echoing in my ears and gripping my body from all over. I glanced around hurriedly to find its source and—what? Rayquaza had just appeared from within the circle of airships. It had escaped? How?! Unless… they let it out on purpose? But that could only mean…

My stomach tied itself into a knot. They’d already managed to program the mind control for it. That’s why the Rockets didn’t retreat after they caught it. They were preparing to use it against the others! If we didn’t do something fast, the Rockets would walk away from here with a lot more than just two Legendaries.

The serpent shot toward us like a green lightning bolt, and I felt my insides dissolve. Lugia swerved to the side at the last second, just in time for it to go barreling past us like a train, so close I could have reached out and touched it. I was sure that it was going to loop around instantly and catch up with us, striking Lugia down and tearing through the rest of us in a blaze. But Rayquaza hadn’t followed. It paused for a moment, then began twisting and turning in midair, greenish-red dragonfire wreathing its body.

The black hole of dread inside me somehow grew even bigger. “It’s powering itself up!”

<I’ll try to hold it back. Get the orbs to those two, now!> Lugia demanded.

Our flight slowed, and the flicker of embers caught my eye to our left. Moltres was gliding just under us, matching speeds with Lugia. Oh geez. Yet again, I had to switch rides in midair. I was really getting sick of it. Rudy didn’t waste a second; he hurled himself toward his patron, landing so smoothly you’d think he was used to this. Next was my turn—I swallowed hard and took a flying leap. A half second of falling later, I hit Moltres’s back with a thud, immediately grabbing Rudy’s shoulder to steady myself. Then Darren grabbed hold of me, and Lugia immediately banked around to confront Rayquaza.

“What now?” Moltres asked.

“We have to get to Groudon and Kyogre!” Rudy yelled.

Moltres pitched its wings back and shot downward, and suddenly I was clinging to Rudy for dear life. I couldn’t help glancing back at Lugia, who was lunging into battle with blue dragonfire streaking its body. But compared to Rayquaza, it was practically standing still. The serpent looped around, dodging effortlessly, moving so fast it was like the wind. Lugia swung its tail, trying to snag Rayquaza in a whirlwind, but the serpent cut through like it was nothing, slashing across the seabird’s back. Lugia’s pained cries echoed through my head.

It would be okay. We just had to make it to Groudon and Kyogre, and we could end this.

Moltres beat its wings as fast as it could. Past Raikou and Entei and Articuno and the fleet of airships, weaving around bolts and beams, flames and ice. It was fast, but I couldn’t help feeling less safe on Moltres’s back from how big of a target it was. My hand had just started inching toward a Pokéball when an ALR beam struck.

Moltres screeched in pain, its flight jerking erratically. My heart jumped into my throat as we pitched forward, all three of us clinging desperately to each other to keep from being thrown off. My eyes fell on Moltres’s side, where the feathers had disintegrated, leaving raw, torn flesh behind.

Moltres grunted in pain. “I’m… fine. I just…” Its wings faltered slightly. Moltres shook its head as though trying to get its bearings, but then its eyes went unfocused. (God, it’d flown halfway across the region and then had to endure this crap?)

“Where’s Mew, she can do it,” the firebird said, its voice weak.

Mew, where was Mew? I scanned the air for a Charizard but couldn’t see one anymore. No wait, she’d switched to Aerodactyl—gray wings, gray wings… Then again, she could have transformed into anything by now. And that was assuming that she hadn’t been cap—

Another beam struck. Moltres went limp, and then we were falling.

“Moltres!” Rudy screamed. But the phoenix didn’t respond. He turned to me and Darren and yelled, “We gotta bail!”

He pushed off from Moltres’s back before releasing Fearow and letting her catch him in the freefall. I let out Firestorm, awkwardly flailing toward him in midair the moment he’d appeared. His eyes went wide once he realized I was falling again, and the Charizard immediately pitched his wings back to swoop under me. I threw my arms around his neck, and he reached out to grab Darren by the wrists before flaring his wings to level our flight.

Moltres spiraled past us, freefalling downward before crashing into the side of a house in a mangled heap. Rudy went pale. He nudged Fearow, and she dove as quickly as she could. The instant the two touched down, Rudy practically tripped over himself jumping from her back.

“Moltres!” he yelled, sprinting over to the firebird and already pulling out a revive for it.

Firestorm glided down after them to land in the flooded streets. I slid from his back and landed in water up to my ankles. This whole block had been flooded from Kyogre’s arrival. Clouds of steam drifted up from where Moltres lay.

And then in a flash of light, Mew suddenly appeared right in front of us.

<Lugia just informed me. You got the orbs?> Mew asked.

I pulled the orb from my pocket and held it up to her, and she gave a sigh of relief. <Good. I fear those two may not be able to hold Rayquaza at bay for much longer.> She glanced upward at Lugia and Ho-oh struggling to fend off Rayquaza. The emerald serpent circled around them so blazingly fast it was a green blur. I winced as it tore across Lugia, slashing wildly. Even from here I could see the bright red streaks staining its feathers.

The fluttering of wings caught my eye. I turned to see Aerodactyl touching down around a block away, limbs trembling. Ajia jumped down from his back right before he collapsed, wings splayed out across the ground. Injured? No, just exhausted. She recalled him, then ran over to us.

“You guys did it! I’m so glad you’re okay!” she exclaimed, grabbing my shoulder and practically collapsing against it.

I blinked. “Ajia…”

She looked up at me, eyes dead with exhaustion. “I’m so, so sorry I wasn’t able to help, but Mew and I have been busy with all this and—”

“It’s—it’s okay,” I said, putting my hand on hers. She’d been having to deal with so much today. “It’s not your fault.”

“Are you all alright?” a voice called out.

I turned to look behind us, back up the slopes of the crater, where Steven Stone was riding towards us on the back of his Metagross. Its limbs were folded inward as it hovered just above the ground, weaving around crumbled buildings and crushed vehicles.

“I saw you falling from the cliffs up there,” he said once he reached us. “I was unsure what to believe before… until I saw you riding the guardian of fire just now,” he said, like he was still having a hard time believing it. Then his eyes went wide when he saw what I was holding. “How did you get that?”

I instinctively clutched the orb a bit tighter. “Groudon and Kyogre asked us to get them.”

“They asked you?” The look on his face made it clear that he’d never remotely considered that talking to them was even an option.

“We’ve got to get the orbs to them,” I said, hoping that my voice sounded firm. We couldn’t think about him right now. I turned my back to him, taking a few steps toward the lake.

“Wait,” Steven said, stepping in front of me. “The orbs will revert those two back to the form they had when they shaped the earth’s surface… or so the legend goes.” He gazed out at where Groudon and Kyogre were still firing waterspouts and lava bursts into the air with just as much vigor as they’d had when this all started. “That’s not the sort of power we should be trifling with.”

Rudy looked up from where he was tending to Moltres. For the first time throughout all this, his eyes had lost some of their fire. “That’s… that’s not…”

“Mm, I’m pretty sure more lives will be lost if we let that kind of power fall into Team Rocket’s hands,” Darren said flatly.

Steven was silent for some time. He sighed, shaking his head. “I’m going to regret this.” He turned to face Ajia. “Your guardians will keep this under control? That kind of power… I don’t want to think about how many lives would be lost if it ran wild,” he said, giving her a very serious look.

Power running wild… the words echoed in my head. My thoughts drifted back to what Ender had said, and… no. No, I wasn’t going to let myself think about anything that he’d said. This whole mess was their fault.

<We’ll make sure they know they can’t stay like that,> Mew said. <You have my word.>

Steven turned to face her. It looked like he was having a hard time coming up with what to say. Finally, he nodded, averting his eyes like he didn’t think he could address her directly.

The ground shook, sending sent ripples through the flooded streets. Groudon and Kyogre were approaching us now—Kyogre cutting a trail through the water and Groudon walking across fresh earth that bloomed in its path. Even though I knew they weren’t going to attack us, there was something undeniably intimidating about seeing those two ancient beasts approaching.

Mew took an orb in each paw. She hovered out to the duo, who had almost reached the edge of the lake.

<We need your help,> she said.

Groudon nodded. “*You need our power to defeat those humans, yes?*”

<It’s not just that,> the psychic cat went on, her tail twisting restlessly. <We need you to use your true power to stop Rayquaza.>

Both titans recoiled visibly at her words, their eyes widening with shock and outrage.

“*Stop… the messenger?*” Groudon asked. Like such a thought had never remotely occurred to it.

“*That was not our deal!*” Kyogre hissed.

<Please—>

“*Attacking the messenger from the heavens is unthinkable,*” Groudon said with a heavy shake of its head. “*Their word is the divine will. The only thing that can halt the ceaseless urging of our dance.*”

<I know that, but their mind is not their own!> Mew exclaimed, struggling to keep the exasperation out of her voice.

Groudon gave a low rumble of contemplation. “*What does this mean?*”

<They aren’t in control of their actions.>

“*How is such a thing possible?*” Kyogre demanded.

<Those humans up there have created weapons that let them enslave their minds,> Mew said carefully. <Including those as powerful as the great messenger.>

Both titans paused, processing Mew’s words. I honestly wasn’t sure if either of them would have any idea what that was supposed to mean, but then—

Groudon hung its head. “*Such a thing… would be a most detestable act. That which never should be done.*” Its words held a faint sorrow.

“*The Orb,*” Kyogre said, nudging Groudon aside, forcing itself to the front.

Mew recoiled backward slightly, clutching the orbs tighter. <You have to promise that you will return to your sanctum afterward.>

Kyogre stared long and hard at her. “*That was the agreement,*” it said, hating every word.

Mew paused, taking a deep breath. Then she slowly levitated the two orbs over to them. Both orbs touched Groudon and Kyogre’s heads at the same time. In an instant, waves of rippling light spread across their bodies. The light strengthened, solidifying, encasing them in radiant cocoons of faceted glass. We watched with bated breath as their bodies turned molten within, shifting, changing, growing, pulsing with unimaginable power. Then, without warning, the cocoons shattered. I squinted through steam at the pair of titans before us, their silhouettes familiar, but the details strange and new. Kyogre’s skin glowed, glassy, transparent in places, revealing the energy pulsing vibrantly inside its core. Groudon’s craggy hide had split open, traced by piercingly bright lines of molten magma flowing freely underneath. It was almost like… like their bodies were struggling to contain the sheer, monstrous power.

And then I felt the heat wave begin to radiate outward.

<We must leave,> Mew said, and without waiting for an answer, she teleported us out.

All of us—me, Ajia, Rudy, Darren, Moltres, Steven, and Metagross—reappeared on the crater’s edge, looking down on the lake. Groudon and Kyogre glowed like twin stars, red and blue, below us. And then the unnaturally still air that Rayquaza had brought was shattered instantly. The clouds covering half of Sootopolis shifted to pitch black. Rain burst forth, so thick it was like a solid wall of water crashing down onto Sootopolis. The other half of the sky was on fire, shimmering with a heat haze so dense I could barely see through it. The lakewater boiled. The roads and buildings of Sootopolis twisted and distorted, then glowed, finally melting under the relentless heat.

Lugia and Ho-oh swooped downward to land awkwardly next to us, both of them bleeding profusely, staining the gleaming white rocks a vibrant red. I could feel Lugia fighting back its exhaustion, doing everything in its power not to let it show. The dragon bird slowly pulled itself into a more dignified posture, forcing a healing energy through its body. Mew joined Ho-oh’s side, and the two of them raised a shimmering veil around our group, keeping the scorching heat at bay. Then Lugia flicked its wings, and I felt a cool ocean breeze wash over us from behind, despite the fact that I could see the lethal heat right below.

Everyone… they’d made it outside the crater, right? But even beyond Sootopolis wasn’t safe. This level of power… Steven was right. We shouldn’t have done it. But we’d had no choice—we couldn’t let the battle keep going. It had to end. Had to keep telling myself that.

The Rocket airships quickly pulled back beyond the edge of the crater. That just left Rayquaza alone, circling overhead. A pulsing blast of dragonfire rained down on Groudon and Kyogre, and neither flinched. They’d been on par with the other higher legends before, but this? This was a whole new level.

“*Forgive us,*” Groudon said, its voice a low tremor.

Shock waves radiated from the crater, vibrating through my feet even from way up here. Six piercing lights encircled Kyogre, pulling water toward its body, collapsing it into tiny pinpricks. Then the light exploded into a barrage of piercingly blue beams, looping over Rayquaza before slamming into its back. The serpent had no time to react. It let out a cry as the waterjets smashed it down into a fresh lava field of Groudon’s, just in time for the volcano beast to slam a foot into the earth. Jagged spires of molten rock erupted from the ground, digging into its body from every direction. Again and again, water pummeling it from above, earth stabbing it from below. The serpent flailed against their hold, but there was nothing it could do. It was almost pitiful seeing the great messenger from the heavens so utterly dominated like this.

A high-pitched tone sounded from one of the airships. There was a flicker of light next to Rayquaza—something teleporting next to it? And then it was gone.

The Rocket fleet accelerated suddenly, leaving the crater at last. They were retreating. They’d gotten their prize, no need to stick around and fight a losing battle. With a thunderous roar, Groudon stamped the earth, calling up a towering surge of lava hundreds of feet into the air, catching the airship at the back of the formation and incinerating it in an instant.

Ajia glanced at Mew, her eyes wide and face pale. The psychic cat gave a somber nod and vanished. A pulse of light signaled her reappearing next to the pair of titans below. Lugia tensed up. Readying itself in case it needed to fly down after her. But then, after several agonizingly long moments, there was a flicker of light. It started as a pinprick, then grew into a blazing wave of red and blue, swirling around in a vortex. The clouds lightened; the sunlight dimmed. And then, when the light faded, there they were—Groudon and Kyogre, in their normal forms once more, looking almost tame compared to the nightmares they’d become. That terrifying, unearthly glow was gone, contained within the orbs once more.

Mew reappeared in front of us, one orb in each paw, both pulsing softly.

<It’s over,> she said.






~End Chapter 45~

Next Chapter: Jade and Sebastian have a chat.
 

unrepentantAuthor

A cat that writes stories.
Location
UK
Pronouns
they/she
Partners
  1. purrloin-salem
  2. sneasel-dusk
  3. luz-companion
  4. brisa-companion
  5. meowth-laura
  6. delphox-jesse
  7. mewtwo
  8. zeraora
Ch30
Gorgeous art!! Always gorgeous art, but damn.
So, this is the end of Book 1!! I really did demolish it, as you say. If anything, I'm gonna get faster now.
Jade is a real trainer! What a journey, from failing her exam to having a big team of evolved and powerful pokémon and travelling far from home with her friends. I'm so proud and happy for her I'm getting teary.
Telling the experiments goodbye is a touching scene in its way. They're still oppositional assholes, but they have obviously become fond of her, even if they won't show it.
Swift and Firestorm are proud of her! Okay, now I'm really emotional.
Negotiations! The experiments are all tsunderes and I love them. You little shits, just admit you care about the human already.
Get hype for a great journey! I know it'll go wrong, but for now I'm hype!
That moment with Chibi is genuinely so touching. What a great character. I know he's like, got that edgy dA OC vibe and you missed your chance to give him a reasonable name, but I don't care. I love the birdchu.
This is the best I felt I've understood Rudy and Darren so far. Really enjoyed their scenes with Jade this chapter.
Love the growlithe fight, and the way it just feels like this is how pokémon journies are meant to be, with Ebony having fun and fights being to bond and test strength. It's so much sweeter after all the pain to date.
Buizel seems fun! Looking forward to having her around.
Lmfao Jade is still a dumbass with no ability to plan. Has she never thrown a pokéball before? Nice catch, idiot. I love her.
Can't believe I'm finally this far through. It was a wonderful experience, and definitely a complete 'book' in its own right.
I'm proud and hopeful and and and I love this fucking fic holy shit.

Ch31
Hooray! Excitement to begin Book 2, excitement for some serious competitive battling.
Jet already having evolved makes for a good timeskip demonstration. Good choice, there.
Lol I already know T Fang is coming from the cover art. Jet is possibly fucked here.
"Our opponent was still huge metal snake" missing the indefinite article 'a' here, bud
Four moves does matter, I see. Interesting. I'm only learning this now, and only in the next chapter am I learning it's four moves per battle rather than four moves possible to remember at any one time. That's really interesting.
Jet only knows water moves but they each matter!! I actually love that. It's way too specialised to be worthwhile in the games, but in this fic it provides a lot of tactical options. I really love that, the way I love how smokescreen and scary face and so on actually have utility.
80LBS OF SOGGY AFFECTION. I love Jet.
The various pokémon and human banter makes me really happy, I feel wonderful and kinda like everything is about to go wrong, but maybe not just yet. It's comforting for them to be getting on each other's case in such a friendly, low stakes way.
"Weren't hoping to be in the battle weren't you" reduplicated 'weren't's there, bud
Lol Book 1 is just Jade telling Jet things over the course of their journey I guess.
It has been SO LONG with nothing coming of Jade's weird rock. what. When are we gonna get Legendary Bullshit. I'm frankly amazed she hasn't so much as done a little idle research into it.

Ch32
Hooray for sick stadiums and battles! Definitely an exciting change of pace, and good to see what high level battling is like in a regulated environment. The note about high powered moves being forbidden in certain areas is a fun piece of worldbuilding.
Stygian vs Pupitar! I really loved the way Pupitar is so indifferent even before reachin her final stage, and her interesting method of propulsion. Definitely a surprising match.
Aros vs Nidoking! Pretty rough for Jade to fuck up an entire move choice like that. Poor Aros will be humiliated.
Firestorm vs Tauros! I liked that Jade fell to more or less the same trap as last time, because she's a slow learner. I feel like I don't tend to see that in fiction, with protagonists usually adapting fast. Also I snorted hard at Firestorm hurting himself in his confusion. Excellent moment.
All in all, those were really fun battles to read. I felt like a real spectator. Great stuff, Battles Georg.
Rudy is better at pokéspeech because Jade made it cool! I love that! How wonderful, bless, oh my god. I'm delighted.
Starr bickering is the best part of this chapter lmfao she's so grumpy all the damn time. Friendship is so based.
Hype for next chapter!
 
Last edited:

Virgil134

PMD Writer
Partners
  1. sylveon
  2. weavile
  3. kommo-o
  4. noivern
  5. mothim
Chapter 16

With slow, hesitant steps, Chibi walked over to him, not breaking eye contact the entire time. He then reached out and placed a trembling paw on the green edge of Razors’s scythe.

“*I’ve probably imagined this a million times. When you were first taken… I told myself I wouldn’t give up hope. That I would spend every day trying to free you.*”

Such a sweet moment to start things off with! I like it when Chibi has moments like these considering the edgy attitude he normally has.

He was closely followed by Absol, who rolled her eyes at the fuss he was making.

Damn, even Absol is getting tired of Flygon’s shenanigans.

Stalker paused, considering the information carefully. “I’ll keep an eye on your Rocket account and see whether or not it’s been flagged for suspicion. But just in case, stay away from any Rocket bases for now.” That was going to be a problem.

I guess this is the part where those security cameras come back to bite her.

That script wasn’t just copying the data to the drive. It was uploading it to an online storage.

Ooh, that’s pretty clever.

I couldn’t help chuckling a bit under my breath at how much everyone was admiring them.

How come everyone is impressed with Flygon and Absol? While they are clones, aren’t they just regular Pokémon at the end of the day?

Absol closed her eyes. “*Whatever.*”

Flygon glanced around uncertainly, as though looking for some excuse to not have to say anything. Finally, he put on his best disinterested face and said, “*I… guess I wouldn’t mind still getting to fight.*”

Despite all their tough talk when they debuted they sure changed their minds fast about joining a group of humans. I guess the alternative of being homeless is a good motivator lol

He was… always in pain? And that was normal for him?

Ouch, that’s pretty rough.

“*I’ll stay by your side. It’s the least I can do to repay you for what you’ve done.*”

Pikachu, get!

“*Even after all the training here… I didn’t stand a chance. Swift at least got a few hits off, but I…*” His voice trailed off.

Poor Firestorm is taking his loss hard. :(

And I know we’ve tried working a bit with Fire Fang, but—”

“*I don’t like Fire Fang. It’s too hard to land a hit with it.*”

Also Charmeleon are special attackers.

Alright, so his fire breath wasn’t controlled enough for Flamethrower yet… what else could we try?

How come she doesn’t look for a TM? Since obviously Firestorm isn’t just gonna learn Flamethrower on the spot.

I was definitely onto something with idea of focusing on physical moves—I was sure of it.

Jade stop.

“Try breathing a fireball onto your fist.”

Wouldn’t this logically hurt Firestorm same way if another Pokémon used a Fire-Type move at him?

“*Nothing, she’s just… really strong, and I wanna be strong like that someday,*” he mumbled. Sure, that’s all there was to it. I definitely believed that, except that I didn’t.

I nudged him playfully in the ribs but didn’t press the matter any further. The embarrassed look on his face was more than enough for me.

D’aww, that’s cute. I love Firestorm ^^

Alright, looks like that’s the end of the first chapter. A bit shorter than usual and a bit of breather, but that totally makes sense given the last few chapters. On to the next one!

Chapter 17

Should I be the one, or would it be better to lead with Protect and wait for an opening?

Of course you should. Gotta use them third party tactics if you wanna win a battle royale.

I’m just gonna use Razor Leaf again, if that’s alright with everyone

I don’t know Darren, I’m not sure if everyone is willing to give you permission to order your own Pokémon.

“You’ve been using Ebony in every battle since she evolved,” I said, rolling my eyes.

Rudy was unimpressed. “Well yeah, Houndoom are awesome and she always wins.”

Poor Wartortle getting neglected out here if it wasn’t for Jade and Darren. :’(

Sneasel, the newest addition to the team, listened to Darren with starry eyes.

I see Darren has good taste in Pokémon.

The tawny bird shook his head. “*It’s in the forest.*”

What? A walled place with writing in the forest? Why was there…?

Well that’s suspicious.

The crisp autumn air swept through the trees, scattering multicolored leaves that blanketed the forest floor, resulting in a hearty crunch with each step I took.

Reading this right now was really fitting considering the current season :p

Swift’s eyes brightened. “*I was glad when you started to learn Pokéspeech, even if it took a long time.*”

It was weird… it seemed like just yesterday that I had to focus all my effort into catching a few words out of Swift’s chirps. And now we were conversing like nothing was more natural.

“I’m glad too.”

I really like this segment here. It’s a sweet little moment and reveals more about Swift’s backstory while expanding his character a little bit.

Legendary Pokémon. It was a message about Legendary Pokémon. But it wasn’t written like a story… it was written like it was something that had actually happened. Something that would happen again. A war involving Legendary Pokémon that had happened once before and was going to happen again.

A prophecy, in other words.

I see we’ve found the true premise of this fic XD

“I believe it refers to the wars that tore through multiple regions 3000 years ago.”

3000 years ago? So around the exact same time when AZ used the Ultimate Weapon?

8c6.gif


Anger flashed through the beast’s eyes, and the air around it whipped into a frenzy. Oh god I’d done it now, angering a Legendary right to its face. I screwed my eyes shut, half expecting a frigid burst of wind to freeze me to the spot.

“Leave now. Do not return,” the Legendary barked.

Wow, asshole Legendary.

Anyway, this whole situation with the orb is pretty interesting! Definitely getting some “chosen one” vibes here as well. Will look forward to seeing how this will continue on top of all the stuff currently going on with Team Rocket. Their actions are totally gonna start the war, aren’t they?
 

SparklingEspeon

Back on Her Bullshit
Staff
Location
a Terrace of Indeterminate Location in Snowbelle
Pronouns
She/Her
Partners
  1. espurr
  2. fennekin
  3. zoroark
~Review of the Prologue to Chapter 5 Extra (Prologue/The Plane Arc)~

She was already pulling out two more Pokéballs, letting out a pair of foxes. The first one, an Espeon,
nO this iS eeveel OUTRAgE espeon is CAT not foX Quilaree.png

Hello I am is now here for the BLEC review awards! LC gets hyped up a lot, and it's been on my list for over half a year... and I just got to it now. Now I'm wishing I got to it sooner, because this is legitimately a really good and polished read and I am totally in for the long haul.

I've been going back and forth on the vibe I've gotten from this fic for a while - I very much get a 1980's "kids go on an adventure" blockbuster movie feel from it, but that's probably mostly due to the scope - We have a fully militarized Team Rocket ( Copyka.png ) apparently out to capture the Kanto Region's legendaries, a long-broken up group of friends slowly reuniting under a common cause, experimental pokemon hybrids, a cruise ship under attack, etc. And that's just in seven chapters. But now that I've had some time to think on it, I think my real answer is that Legendarian Chronicles gives me the vibe of "old" pokemon - the more down-to-earth, realistic feel Kanto and Johto offered that has slowly been slipping away into a more high fantasy tone ever since Gen III released. It very much feels like a product of that 2003ish era, which makes sense - I think you've said LC is like 15 or so years old? Either way, it's really nice to see Team Rocket finally treated like the threat it is, and it looks like you're also providing some cool callbacks to the anime with the criminally underused SS Anne attack setpiece!

But I'm getting a bit ahead of myself. I should start at the beginning, with the prologue. My biggest comment for this chapter is: Calling it, Starr is Giovanni's daughter/related to him in some way. She'd probably have to be siblings with Silver considering the mention of a "brother", but I'm really sure about this one. Even though I'm basically just basing this off the feeling I got when I first read the prologue, and the fact that her dad is super shady and stuff. It's a gut feeling, I guess. But even so, poor Jade for getting left behind.

And even more poor Jade, who just fails the test every year and has to watch her (I think "her" is the right pronoun?) friends all leave one by one, while she gets held back. Getting left behind is really frustrating, and I empathize. I can't say I envy what happens to her next, because getting kidnapped by TR is decidedly pretty not-fun. I like how militarized Team Rocket is in this version - I'm aware that the original Team Rocket was based off the Japanese Yakuza, who generally seem more elegent and less mobolized than this TR is, but I've always been of the opinion that to wreak the havoc they did in the base RBY, let alone whatever they seem to have their eyes on here, Team Rocket needs to essentially be a criminal military. I can't say I'm not disappointed that the jeeps they were driving around in weren't marked with the trademark "R", but oh well. That'd be super conspicuous, anyway. Although on that point I don't think there was very much description at all - a lot was left up to the imagination here. I feel like some more description or a supplementary illustration here would do wonders in helping us readers to picture something a bit more menacing than "jeep".

What is pretty menacing is the way that they treat Jade later on after capturing her. You really get across that feeling of "oh crap, this is not good" when Jade is captured in the Jeep with the rockets, and when she's left chained up in their base it genuinely feels like there's no way out for her.

Then comes the plane setpiece, and it's in Chapter Three that I begin to feel that the action is getting a little stifling. This setpiece goes on for so, so long, without even a hint of a break, and I feel like I'm beginning to get tired out by the nonstop action and stress for our characters here. It's also pretty dense because there's a lot going on here - Chibi's introduction, Spencer and Rudy, Firestorm, the Tyson battle, etc. it's so much to absorb all at once and I'm finding it quite tiresome to keep up with all that stuff flying around, lol.

I saw it coming from a mile of tbh, but Rudy who wanted a charmander not getting one while Jade who wasn't even supposed to get a pokemon ended up with Firestorm, but still a nice piece of dramatic irony.

I think I begin to get legit bored around the time Aija arrives and we're just watching her and her team fight off the rockets while she trades strategy bullet points with Jade. At that point I think I've seen enough of the Rocket battle to get the overall point, but I also get the feel that you're trying to deliver all the opening exposition and lacing it with the battle so people don't notice as much. The result is a really dense action sequence that's mentally tiring to get through, because there are new things being thrown at you every few seconds. And for it to go on so long... I genuinely had to put it down for a while just so I could properly absorb everything before I could read to the end of the Plane Arc. Which is a first for me.

I did like the wind-down afterwards, though, and that finally someone is acknowledging that 'okay, maybe this guy who's going around recruiting trainers to take down Team Rocket doesn't actually have everyone's best interests in mind'. Aija seems pretty level-headed, tbh. I hope she sticks around later on before the rest of them get stuck into another rut they can't get themselves out of, lol.

Ah yes the famous Chibi makes his first entrance

He's such an edgelord, lol. I don't know why I get attached to characters like that, but I just do. Maybe it's because almost all of them have been hurt/mistreated in some way :sadwott: Likewise, here, I can imagine "Number 9" underwent a lot of harsh treatment from the Rockets and was apparently sitting around in a pokeball left for dead. I feel like that's why he's following Jade, honestly - he's never had a human show him anything like compassion before, and he's just trying to process. Although on the note of being left there on the plane, that frankly just makes me think two things: (A) that's really awful and he just needs love, and (B) there were more of those pokeballs on the plane. Were they just destroyed in the crash, or did the Rockets get them back? And furthermore, now that one of their experiments is out in the open, I feel like they're going to be more inclined to use the same type of pokemon to get him back...

One thing I should mention that I haven't already is that I'm loving your interpretation of Pokespeech as an actual language. Things like "telepathic field" and handwaving it always felt too magic-y to me, but more realistic interpretations that are more in-line with the way IRL animals communicate don't really do it for me either. So far, this is the only interpretation of Pokespeech I have seen that actually follows the source material and does something that could actually be plausible in the Canon Pokeverse. And honestly, I just plain appreciate that you've given the pokemon the ability to speak and communicate like actual characters here. I've said it a thousand times already, but one of my biggest pet peeves with trainerfic is pokemon that are eye/arm/battle candy, so to see that's not the case here is a super big positive in my book.

I think my last point of discussion for this arc is the extra with Jade's telephone call. I get three vibes from this: (A) It's nice that Jade decided to at least loop her mother in on the situation before totally disappearing, (B) this stretched my suspension of disbelief a bit, because literally no mother I know would ever be okay with this, and (C) Haha this is important for later isn't it... I hope nothing bad but I feel like that's a spot-on prediction somehow😟

And, y'know, oof for Entei. I totally didn't just forget that and add it to the end of the review as an afterthought. Ha

~SparklingEspeon

Listening to: Let it Go Orchestra
 
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SparklingEspeon

Back on Her Bullshit
Staff
Location
a Terrace of Indeterminate Location in Snowbelle
Pronouns
She/Her
Partners
  1. espurr
  2. fennekin
  3. zoroark
~Review of Chapters 6 - 9 (The S.S. Anne Arc)~

This arc used to be riddled with all sorts of evidence that I Did Not Do The Research on ships at all. Well…now I’ve done the research, and my Google search history is filled with such odd things as “cruise ship layout,” “where do you board the ship,” “what to do if a ship's lifeboats are faulty,” “where is the engine room on a cruise ship,” “engine room layout,” “ship emergency alarm types,” “are ship engine rooms loud,” “where are the lifeboats on a ship,” and “ticket for a cruise ship looks like.” Also it might seem kind of suspicious that I’ve looked up “if the engine room explodes will a ship sink?” (I’m not a terrorist, I swears.)

was it worth it

Yes, it was definitely worth it. I wrote a similar setpiece on this ship, and I Did Not Do the Research either. The ship had catacombs!

Henlo I is return

I really liked what I'd read of the first five chapters, so I decided to come back for another round with the next arc... and totally not because this is the first time I've seen someone actually play the S.S. Anne attack straight in a fic and I was really eager to read it ^^

And, at least in my opinion, it hasn't disappointed. My biggest gripe with it is how fast it went - cruise ships are basically floating amusement parks, and I totally would have wanted to see more of what a pokemon world one looked like outside of the battlefields. But on the other hand, it all really would have been filler considering how the rest of the arc went, since it only really picks up once Chibi runs off.

And of course the Rockets are here. Because Jade just can't get a break lol
GoOd.

My favorite part of this fic so far remains the worldbuilding. In only one or two other fics have I seen the Pokemon World decked out so lavishly while remaining true to the spirit/tone of the canon, and I can tell you're really enjoying going around and setting this all up. I especially enjoyed reading all of the little details you're slipping in, like Trainers getting discounts for pokemon centers/gear, Pokespeech being a legitimate language people can understand, and each region having its own league battle standard. Sadness that it looks like Kalos, Alola, and Galar aren't gonna make the canon here, but even with only Kanto you've provided a bunch of stuff for readers to digest, and I can't wait for all the lore that comes with the inevitable scope creep-- A-and the story! That too.

So I was somewhat right about Chibi. It's nice that he and Jade sort of decide to work together instead of him just being a tsundere edgelord and shunning her for 50 chapters or something. It's not nice that he got taken, though, especially given that he seems to have literal trauma attached to his old name... I can't imagine they're treating him well. I hope Jade can get him back soon...

Honestly, when Jade and Chibi first found out that Rockets were on the ship and rigging it to explode with engines, the conclusion I jumped to was that Stalker had set this up as a test to determine whether the trainers he was hiring were serious about this. And... honestly, I'm still not sure that isn't the case. Whoever Stalker is must be an important person in Team Rocket - he's rich enough to rent out a cruise ship and a trainer's stadium, he has lots of know-how about Team Rocket and its inner workings, apparently enough control that he can place his spies wherever he wants, and he's well-known enough that just his face would be enough to instantly incriminate him - this sounds like a higher-up to me. So if Rockets had been deployed to the SS Anne to uncover a potential traitor, it's something Stalker likely would have known about with all his poking around, even if he wasn't told outright. In fact, I think he was the one who spearheaded that mission, because he'd have every reason to. Think about it - if you're essentially hiring a bunch of children to fight a crime-terrorist organization with terrible experimental pokemon and legendaries under their control, you'd want to make sure they're serious about it, right? So to have them attack the SS Anne, where you've conveniently gathered all your recruits... it's the perfect way to break what they're getting into to them in a better way than words ever could. Horrible, sure, and people/pokemon definitely died, but effective. And it explains what Team Rocket was doing there in the first place - who tipped them off, if not Stalker himself? - and why Stalker wasn't present on the ship to oversee an event he scheduled in the first place. And also why help arrived so soon?? He says he'd never throw his recruits into the fire until they're properly trained, but he's also... y'know, running an anti-terrorist-but-still-illegal-technically operation with 11/12/13 year olds. I wouldn't take him at his word here until I have proof.

So full disclosure the first time I read this I got a bit distracted and somehow glazed over the fact that Jade dumped all the bombs in her pockets overboard, so I just imagined her going through the whole escape sequence with... bombs in her pockets, and then being all "???" when the engine room exploded but her pockets were fine lol
....Not really anything useful, but I super wanted to include that

Calling it, the creature who saves Jade when she's drowning is Lugia. Again... gut feeling. Or maybe it's supposed to be obvious, IDK. I'm just really sure on that one

I think Chapter Nine was a nice 'slow down and get to know your surroundings' chapter, much like Chapter Five was. I know you said you didn't care much for that chapter, but I liked it - I'm of the opinion 'slow' chapters are only boring to the reader when there's nothing the author has to say, and you clearly had a lot to say. It just wasn't the middle of an action setpiece. I also thought the ending of Chapter Eight was very powerful! Would have been awkward if Chapters Eight and Nine were still one chapter, tbh

Firestorm evolved! ...And is very hurt by the fact he lost to a grass starter, lol
Why do I feel like his previous trainer is going to make an appearance later on? ...I hope it's not Darren :rowlanxiety:

Oh, and I should quickly mention the chapter art! I know they probably don't take too much work, but they look professionally done and tinted, and they really do add a lot. I'm tempted to start doing those for my own work Copyka.png

Overall, it seems like Midnight Stadium is going to be the base operation of affairs for a bit, and also a temporary thing - which leads me to wonder if Stalker is just going to move bases as they go, or it he realistically thinks his goals can be achieved in the timeframe they have the stadium for. I still don't entirely trust him yet, but it's also hard to trust someone who is doing what he's doing, so. I can't say I think Jade is out of the woods just yet. Especially since it looks like next chapter they'll be running into some more Rockets... Hope Jade will find Chibi there.

Until next time!

~SparklingEspeon
 

DeliriousAbsol

*Crazy Absol Noises*
Location
Behind a laptop, most likely with tea
Pronouns
She/Her
Partners
  1. mawile
Reviewing Chapters 2-5 =D

I'm currently making my way through this 'fic, and I'm really enjoying re-reading the earlier chapters! I love that battle aboard the plane, it has a lovely mix of excitement and comedy, as well as a sense of danger. And Pikachu is just so cute! I get the impression during that battle he's got mixed morals, especially when he seems to consider Jade's plea for him not to crash the plane.

Your use of descriptions are really great, especially the scene you painted with the Rocket battle. You could almost feel the heat of all the fire and thunder going off! Nice! It makes one wonder just how dangerous pokemon really are! Makes sense now why one would need a license!

“Hello there,” he said. “It looks like I’m rescuing you. My name’s Spencer—I think we’re gonna be good friends.”
My stomach sank even lower as I turned to see an extremely pissed-off Tyson standing in the doorway to the cargo area, his jaw hanging open from shock.

“Uhh, hey…” Spencer said awkwardly. “Could you leave for a bit? We kind of have a situation here.”

Yup, Spencer is definitely my favourite character so far! XD I love his ham entrance. He's great comic relief! Also, he has a typhlosion, and I'm biased.

The Pikachu stood in his seat, forcing the control wheel forward, sending the plane into a nosedive.

This is so adorable, I can't even... (Yanno... ignoring the fact he's on a mission to destroy the plane at everyone else's expense...)

It was more of an impulse than anything—I didn’t even know why I was doing it. I dashed over, snatched the Pikachu with my right arm before scooping up Firestorm under my left and throwing a leg over the Arcanine’s back.

As much as her rescue of the pikachu is impulsive, I'm very happy she's taken him. Poor 'chu. My memories of him are a little vague, and I initially thought they lost track of him at this point and he showed up again later.

I glanced down at the TM case, now noticing the label along the bottom corner that read “Rating: 120 (Highly Advanced).”

This may have slipped by me the first time, but that rating of 120 is echoing the move's in-game power before it got nerfed? If so, that's brilliant XD

Umbreon charged forward, squirting out a noxious liquid from its pores and hitting the Arcanine right on target.

I bring this up again, as it's an image that's stuck with me. The use of the pokedex here to portray the way Umbreon uses toxic is fantastic! I love little things like this!

And then without warning, Pidgeot accelerated out of nowhere, speeding forward to catch up with us and narrowly avoiding the Thunderbolt that was sent hurtling straight for them.

“Hah, yeah! I knew it’d be good to give you a dose of that X Speed in there!” Spencer exclaimed wildly, patting his bird’s neck.

Nice thinking there, Spencer!

I've really enjoyed the use of various pokemon items in this so far =D It's great to see how the in-game mechanics are being used in prose, as it's hard to think of ways they'd make sense. This is spot on!

But… do you need to get a license first…?”

I clenched my fists. “I failed the test again, so I can’t.

Wait... does this mean she can't take the test again?

The art-work of Pikachu in Chapter 5's header is so adorable XD I just had to say that.

It's really cute how Firestorm is helping Jade with her pokespeech, while also being a bit baffled and frustrated with it. He's a good boy. Also, wasn't Swift her family's pidgey? If so, won't her parents be a bit miffed she's taken him with her?

So I'm about to get into the S.S.Anne plot-line again! That's one I have clearer memories of. I can't remember how far I got after that! Exciting!
 

unrepentantAuthor

A cat that writes stories.
Location
UK
Pronouns
they/she
Partners
  1. purrloin-salem
  2. sneasel-dusk
  3. luz-companion
  4. brisa-companion
  5. meowth-laura
  6. delphox-jesse
  7. mewtwo
  8. zeraora
Chapter 33
Really enjoyed the tournament content this chapter. I love the takes on competitive battling in LC, and I really felt hype for the events as if I were a convention attendee myself. I couldn't help but think of Worlds in real life. Pokémon really lets me care about sports by way of animal companions.
Friendgroup shit! Love it. It brings me such joy for Jade to be spending time casually with her friends, all her friends! I like how she's caught between her older friend pair and her younger friend pair, each of which has very different but related traumas. Delightful. Will they eventually squad up?
I wanted to scream with Jade during that fight holy shit. I wanted to stand up and cheer with my arms up and fists clenched. Hype!
Lexx! This guy! Barely know he exists, absolutely expected him to show up but without having any particular expectation. Turns out he's basically a huge smug dick. Goddamnit Lexx.
Team Rocket will attack the League, huh? My running theory is that when 'the war' happens, it'll be open conflict between humanity and the Legendaries, with Team Rocket heading up humanity. You said before that 'treason' was foreshadowing. I'm sure that the Chosen are going to find themselves fugitives not only from Team Rocket but from legitimate authority in due time.
Starr being this torn up is fun to read. I love her and how much she cares and how hard for her things are.
Rudy is so competitive! What a little munchkin of a trainer. Man, you go, kid. I'd bet on ya.
Oh no! The Thing!

"Chapter 34"
Lmfao.
Actually, I really enjoyed this April Fool's joke. I often get distracted from and come back to LC chapters while reading, and because of this, I actually forgot I was reading a Fool, and for like a full three seconds I thought Trilugia was still canon. My misapprehension was quickly ended by Chibi and then Everything Else, and I settled in to enjoy a bunch of total bullshit with a big dumb grin. I'm especially a fan of Stalker making no fucking sense whatsoever, that was delightful. Thanks for a good laugh. This made me want to do an April Fool's joke chapter of my own!

Chapter 34
Jade's terrified face in the chapter art is wonderful. I do love to see her in a state of total panic.
HOORAY PTSD FLASHBACKS. These are always superb; you're damn good at them.
"You're not alone" oh my heart. I'm a sucker for moments like this.
The aerial combat is fucking intense! I found the whole sequence gripping, honestly.
Love that Jade's experiments aren't necessarily competitive with TR's forces, just because they have significant innate strength. It really serves to emphasise both that Jade's team is not a solution to any of her problems, necessarily, and that TR are a serious threat.
I like that you lampshaded the frequent presence of ice beams specifically to make life hell for Jade's fliers. I'd begun to notice it, in fact.
MEGA BOLT! That's really sick. Imagining that as an actual move similar to Explosion.
Hooray for the battery of trainers volleying beam moves. That's sick as hell.
Hooray for Dragonite! Whose are they? Or rather, WHO are they? I'm calling it now that this is Mew transformed.

Chapter 35
Lmao it was Mew. Fastest confirmation of a piece of speculation ever.
The escape to the ranger station is very cool. The whole concept of it is cool, rangers are cool.
Love to see Ajia's father and the rangers. Real feeling of a lived-in world and of her having a life. It also makes it feel like Jade just... isn't connected to her family, rather than that you keep forgetting she has one.
Forgetting Rudy and Darren and feeling bad about it is a nice moment for Jade. It's like, sure yeah I get it, it sucks, but you were literally afraid for your life while under attack from a minor deific figure. Holy shit, girl.
REACHED JADESTARR HUG! HAND: DETAINED. I love these moments so much.
"You just can't be upfront, ever?" I can really feel everyone's frustration, oof. Still, I love seeing the three of them together even when it's sad and hard. They're good kids. Flawed as hell, but I love them. Their dynamic as a trio is a real "more than the sum of the parts" deal.
Mew, you dick! Just have a fucking conversation with the poor girl! I'm desperate to know what it is that's making it impossible to communicate anything meaningful to her right now. I feel like she could at least more clearly explain that there are conditions silencing her.
Love the reveal that only Ajia has been chosen to-date by the way. I'm not at all surprised, although I had little reason to believe it was definitely the case. The next-most likely possibility was that some unknown face was a Chosen with whom she had a difficult working relationship if any, but to be honest I should have called this one. The implications! Leaving it late indeed.
BEEG LOOG. I am ready for the CONSEQUENCES. It's ALL BEEN LEADING TO THIS (CHAPTER).

Chapter 36
It's THIS chapter! The chapter everything's been leading to! Beeg loog moment!
I love to see Jade this terrified, but she really is a huge dumbass to think Lugia failed to kill her. Lugia's probably spent the last year thinking that she'd know that they could've killed her and chose to spare her and must be taken aback by this.
You know, if it weren't for that the Jade & Lugia bond was practically an up-front reveal, I would probably also be surprised by Lugia being a member of the Order, given how aggro they are. Fair enough on Jade's part.
Really enjoy the conversation between these two. Careful balance of negativity and positivity from both parties here. Really interesting implications for character, lore, foreshadowing, and all sorts. Sortof expected Jade to wonder what Starr would think if she agreed to this before doing so.
Hooray psychic whump! Low key chills when Jade's uncertainty is forced out of her by the bonding process.
Holy shit if she'd turned Lugia down... they'd have killed her? Goddamn.
Bless Mew. She's a sweetheart when she's not bound by secrecy.
Interesting that the Order essentially is composed of Mew and both Tohjo quartets, with the exception of one beast and one bird. I wonder why those two are not members.
There's a feeling in the prose for this chapter that you're taking pains to make as explicit as possible why events are happening in the order and manner that they do, but a couple times it just comes off as Jade being a dumbass. Asking which other Legends have chosen a human when she already knows is the egregious one. Which leads me to wonder if it's somehow significant that Lugia wouldn't confide that information. It gives the impression that Legendary etiquette is a big deal, or that Lugia just doesn't want to give Jade info.
Excited for the 'meat' of the fic, and for the power of friendship!
 
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IFBench

Rescue Team Member
Location
Pokemon Paradise
Partners
  1. chikorita-saltriv
  2. bench-gen
  3. charmander
  4. snivy
  5. treecko
  6. tropius
  7. arctozolt
  8. wartortle
On Prologue

I absolutely love the description at the beginning. It's so vivid!

In addition, that one stylized person is a VERY intriguing hook.

The second half, unfortunately, isn't nearly as engaging, at least to me. It just sorta feels like mostly generic school drama stuff.

I really liked that final line, though! A great way to leave things off that really shows Jade's feelings on this whole matter.
 

IFBench

Rescue Team Member
Location
Pokemon Paradise
Partners
  1. chikorita-saltriv
  2. bench-gen
  3. charmander
  4. snivy
  5. treecko
  6. tropius
  7. arctozolt
  8. wartortle
On Chapter 1

The description at the beginning while Jade was riding their bike was absolutely amazing!

The bit about Rudy about to be going on their trainer journey was excellent. The small part where Jade interacts with the Houndour right before Rudy announces his plans makes it really hit hard.

The explanation for how trainer journeys work was really interesting, too! I am very intrigued by just why Jade keeps failing their tests, and if this is going to play a factor in their ability to train Pokemon later.

The part about the sky being completely empty doesn't make all that much sense to me. Surely there'd be some Pokemon fleeing the wildfire? I could be wrong, though, and Team Rocket purposefully made sure every Pokemon in that forest burnt to death.

Speaking of the wildfire, that scene is really great! The utter desolation smell of burnt flesh, and the barely-alive Charmander paint a gruesome image before I even fully knew what was going on.

This mysterious trainer and his ties to Team Rocket are really interesting, too! So is Team Rocket in general! You've made Team Rocket a very formidable threat within only a single chapter!

That cliffhanger was a great way to leave things off! It really got me wanting to know just what happens next!

I'm really liking this so far!
 
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