Pokémon A Tale from Pinwheel Forest

[StellarWind]

A trainer reminisces about his first battle alongside one of his oldest friends. Originally a post from an RP that died before it even really had a chance to begin, I liked this particular story enough to keep it around in some form.

~*~​

"... Well, like I said, Leavanny and I go way back." the trainer nodded as he begun his tale "I first met her when I was a kid and she was still a Sewaddle. I was taking a walk in the forest - as I usually did at the time - and she just randomly walked up to me. I guess she was curious about the strange new creature. I said hello, but she just jumped off back into the trees. I kept on walking - but I couldn't help noticing that she was following me around for a while, staying just barely out of sight... Or trying to, anyway. The next time we met face to face, I offered her this berry I picked - and over time we pretty much just hung out together.

And then one day..."

~*~​

"Hey, wait up, Sewaddle!" the child laughed as he chased the small Bug/Grass-Type along the forest path, illuminated by the specks of sunlight that filtered through the leaves. It was summer - but here in the shade of the trees it was never too hot and the play of light and shadow was always a wonderful background for adventure.

They were playing another one of their games. The grownups would probably think of it as some form of Hide and Seek - but in the child's mind, he was a Sylvan Knight Trainee and the Wizard Leafcloak the Great was teaching him the ways of listening to the voice of the forest in order to find things hidden among the leaves. Sometimes, they traded places - He would hide, and the Sewaddle would seek him out. She was much better at finding him than he was at finding her, of course, but he was getting better and better at it - enough for the two to decide that it was time to move on to a new area - an unfamiliar area of the forest, with its own trees, each tree with its own song.

To an eight-year-old playing in the forest with his friend, it seemed that nothing bad could ever happen - which is why it struck him as terribly odd that suddenly, the Sewaddle just stopped in her tracks as soon as the path gave way into a clearing. He came to an abrupt, awkward halt of his own right behind the insect Pokémon, regaining his balance just in time to avoid falling. He knew that during their adventures the Sewaddle would occasionally stop to partake of an interesting leaf or two, but that was not it - there was something different this time.

There was another creature in this clearing - an odd, humpbacked arthropod, primarily red and green, with black markings and multiple small legs. He recognized it as one of the creatures he's been told to try to avoid - a Venipede. The vivid colors of the creature's exoskeleton were not merely for show - they were warning colors, warning of the creature's poisonous bite. To the child, it seemed pretty big - certainly bigger than Sewaddle - and what's worse, Venipedes were carnivores. It was probably a good thing that the creature wasn't facing in their direction at the moment.

"We should get out of here before it sees us." the child whispered at the Sewaddle. The small insect nodded, and the two silently tiptoed backwards along the path, watching for leaf litter or dry twigs that may give away their position.

Suddenly, one of the strange antenna-like structures on the Venipede's back twitched - and with velocity nearly unbelievable for a creature its shape, the creature turned, regarding the child and the small bug with a lazy yellow glare. The boy froze. Maybe if they didn't make any sudden moves...

"SKREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!"

The Centipede Pokémon emitted a loud Screech - so loud that the magnitude of the sound seemed to knock the Sewaddle back into the boy, who wrapped his arms around her and proceeded to take off on a run, the Bug/Poison-Type bolting after him.

His heart was racing as his eyes seemed to give way to tunnel vision. He had no idea where exactly he was running - he was just following paths, occasionally taking left and rights into branching paths in hopes of losing his pursuer - but the Venipede did not relent. How the hell was this creature so fast? In his fight-or-flight daze, he was vaguely aware that the Sewaddle wiggled her way out of his arms and onto his shoulder, facing backwards and firing strands of silk at the Venipede in what could have only been an attempt to slow it down. The Centipede, alas, was fast enough to evade these strands - tearing through them with ease as it continued its chase.

He noticed the path was coming to an end soon, and that there were two trees by the sides of the path where it passed into another clearing. He had to catch his breath soon - but an idea was formulating in his mind. He still had enough air for this one last sprint...

With energy he wasn't sure he knew where he got, he made a mad dash for the clearing, the Sewaddle hanging on for dear life. As soon as he passed the two trees he started slowing down, calling out.

"String Shot the trees!" he said, and the Sewaddle complied, shaking her head and firing a rapid succession of string shots between the trees, weaving a silken barrier blocking the path - a barrier that the pursuing Venipede proceeded to unceremoniously collide with and bounce off.

The child collapsed to his knees, breathing heavily. Were they safe? He wasn't entirely sure. Everything was a haze. The clearing. It had no other paths leading away from it - only the one they've just blocked. Until the Venipede relented, they could not leave this clearing - and judging by the way the creature continued to slam against the silken barrier, this could take a while.

Sewaddle, too, needed a chance to regenerate some silk. The boy and the Bug/Grass-Type looked at each other. They knew that there was no escape.

"We need to fight this thing, Sewaddle." the boy said, standing up and drawing his sword. "The Sylvan Knights cannot allow a wild monster to chase them away!"

Well, "Sword" wasn't the right word for it. It was actually a couple of sticks tied together with vines and Sewaddle silk, set in a scabbard of woven leaves and vines that he carried around in the forest and practiced dramatic battle moves with - but right now, it was the only weapon he had, save for a few small rocks.

Suddenly, the Venipede's continuous attack on the silken barrier seemed to stop. The boy narrowed his eyes. It couldn't have given up so easily, right? No. It was still there. In the silence, he could almost hear the crinkling of its armor - and he could vaguely see the silhouette of the creature through the curtain of silk. the hump on its back was swelling. What was the thing doing?

Suddenly, there was a wet squelching sound followed by a hiss as the Venipede sprayed a glob of fluid from its mouth which proceed to impact the silk, melting through it like acid. The Venipede burst into the clearing - and it was pissed off.

"Get ready, Sewaddle..." the child murmured, clenching his wooden sword tighter in his hands as his muscles tensed. He was aware of the danger. The Venipede will not hold back. This was a real fight. There was no where to run. He had to win this. Had to. He had to protect his friend and no mean old Venipede will eat her!

The Venipede made its move. Its carapace swelling again, the creature emitted a volley of glowing pink needles in the Sewaddle's direction. The boy rushed, sword drawn, taking a few swings at the needles as if he was blocking the volleys of weakened Razor Leaves - unable to actually cut - that the Sewaddle occasionally threw at him when he practiced his "swordplay" as a target. Some of the needles were knocked away, while others embedded deeply within the sword and only narrowly missed his arm. Another volley, on a wider spread. The Sewaddle and the trainer rolled in opposite directions, narrowly evading the blast. The boy rushed forward, sword raised, preparing to strike, when the Venipede dashed forward, preparing to tackle. Noticing this, the boy flung his sword forward directly at the poison-type's face, as he scampered and rolled to the side.

The sword impacted with all the magnificent magnitude of a pair of sticks thrown by an eight-year-old, not even denting the Venipede's thick carapace. However, the pink needles embedded in the sword - remnants of the Venipede's deflected Poison Sting attack - did. Though obviously immune to its own toxins, some of the needles hit the creature's sensitive eyes. The Venipede screeched again, temporarily blinded and enraged. Its carapace swelled again as it fired another wide volley of needles in the direction it last saw the boy rolling to. The boy's eyes widened - even if he rolled away there was no way he could avoid those, unless...

A volley of leaves from no where. It was the Sewaddle, leaping to the boy's defense, unleashing a Razor Leaf attack. The leaves flew at a wide angle, some colliding with the needles and knocking them away from their desired target, some crossing the barrage and impacting its originator... only to bounce harmlessly off the Venipede's exoskeleton. Not that a Grass-type attack would, on the whole, damage a Bug/Poison-Type all that much - but they had to work with what they were given.

"Thanks, Sewaddle." the boy sighed with relief, looking over his brave compatriot to make sure she wasn't hit by any stray needles. She wasn't. He then proceeded to gaze at the Venipede. The creature was positively fuming, uncertain where to direct its next attack, torn between rage and hunger - they could use this uncertainty against it. Quickly, the boy turned his eyes to the ground not too far from there - his sword was there, still intact, though the handguard branches were a bit wonky.

Suddenly, he grinned. He had an idea. Even the most powerful armor must have had a weak spot - and with such a heavy armor on its back, the creature's underside would probably need much flexibility for it to be able to move that fast. That had to be it - their shot.

"I have an idea - I'll get its attention. You wrap it up!" he said, and the Sewaddle nodded in preparation. "Meet you on the other side of the clearing!"

He picked up a few rocks off the ground - not too large, but not too small either. Perfect throwing size.

"Hey!" he cried out and flung a rock at the Centipede, hitting it squarely on its hump.

The Centipede hissed. THAT decided it.

"NOW!" he said, and bolted in one direction of the clearing as the Sewaddle bolted in the other. The Venipede gave chase as the boy continued taunting it and throwing stones at it while running. The Sewaddle, in the meantime, was running in their direction, building up silk. Blinded by its rage, the Venipede was so focused on the young human throwing rocks at it that it failed to notice the Sewaddle coming in from the other side.

As their paths crossed, the boy made a break for his fallen weapon as the Sewaddle fired a massive array of silken strands directly at the Venipede's face. The raging creature stumbled, vision clouded, antennae bound together, disrupting its sensory world. The Sewaddle made a break to the side, firing more sprays of silk, entangling the poison-type more and more. The Venipede screeched, knocking away some strands, leaping up to the best of its capability with a tackle, only narrowly missing the Sewaddle which rolled to the side, firing another String Shot. The Venipede crashed to the ground, struggling against its bindings. It was just the right amount of delay that the boy needed to reclaim his sword. He could already see the Venipede's carapace beginning to swell.

Now was the time.

He made a wild dash towards the Venipede, sword at hand, preparing to aim low. Everything seemed to happen terribly quickly and terribly slowly at the same time - he only had one shot at this.

"Sewaddle, the underside!" he yelled, and swung the sword, striking an upward blow from the Venipede's legs up, knocking the venomous bug into the air. For a creature so heavily armored, it was surprisingly light - or maybe it was simply the adrenaline talking.

And as the Venipede burst out of its silken prison in midair with a spray of fluid emitting from its mouth...

It was treated to a unrelenting flurry of razor-sharp leaves directly to its soft underbelly, knocking it further up as other leaves took the brunt of the poisoned liquid, shielding the boy and the Sewaddle from its effects. The creature screeched loudly as the leaf barrage continued, but to no avail.

Then the flurry subsided. Continuing along its arcing trajectory, the Venipede collapsed on the complete other end of the clearing, rolled into a ball and fled the scene. It has taken enough damage to consider the continued attack not worth the effort.

They had won.

"YES!" the child cried out, and the Sewaddle emitted its own happy vocalization as the two struck a triumphant pose. In his mind, he could hear a victory fanfare. They stood there for a little while, laughing happily. Then, as the laughter subsided, the boy turned his eyes to the Sewaddle, crouching down so it could look directly into its eyes.

"Hey. You were amazing back there, Sewaddle." the boy grinned "Thank you."

The Sewaddle emitted a small chirp, and the two touched foreheads - a gesture of familiarity and friendship. After this battle - defending each other in the field of honor against a real foe - the two knew that their friendship and alliance will remain forever.

And then, the child looked to his sword. The makeshift weapon was in a sorry state - the "blade" was full of little burned pinpricks where the poison needles once were and was all but broken at the point where it impacted the Venipede - the poison needles must have destabilized it. The handguard branches were rather twisted as well. He sighed a little - It was just a silly couple of sticks, but it was still an instrument of their mutual triumph.

Suddenly the Sewaddle chirped - and with a quick motion, she got to work, using silk and leaves to mend the fractures and reinforce the sword, giving it an improved grip as well. The boy's eyes widened as the small insect finished her work, emitting a few happy chirps.

"You're the best, Sewaddle." the child grinned, and with the Sewaddle clambering to the top of his head, the boy raised his Sylvan Saber up to the sky and called out "We're the best!"

~*~​

"And that's how it happened." the trainer smiled as his reminiscence faded "It was our first real Pokémon battle - even if I battled almost just as much as she did. Of course, we were pretty lost afterwards."

He chuckled softly.

"And then this pair of teal eyes shines out of no where - and out from behind the trees, Shu'al walks out. My dad's Zoroark, that is. He was there for the whole thing. Watching us, ready to intervene in case things took a turn for the worse beyond what we could handle - but not before that. He's like that, the old fox - major battle veteran. I could tell he was proud of me. Of us, really. He led us out back to the main path. Sewaddle headed back into the forest, and I went home. After that, things were a bit more fun - my parents started teaching me some more interesting battle techniques so if I get caught up in a situation like this again, I'd have less chances to have such a close call. As for me and Leavanny... We trained and evolved together really." he grinned "Of course, as I grew up, I found myself taking more to the pencil than to the sword... And one day, Leavanny and I found our way back to that clearing and stuck the sword into the ground - a tribute of sorts to our first victory. That was years ago. A lot has happened to us since, and a lot more happened in the forest... But last I checked, it was still there."

 

[Negrek]

Ah, this is a kind of story we really don't get enough of, I think... Humans and pokémon living together and helping each other out without one of them being the trainer and the other one being the trained. Of course, it's a trainer/trainee backstory, but it doesn't directly lead into "and then I caught the sewaddle and we began our journey together;" it's just one episode in a childhood friendship that ends up evolving into a trainer/trainee relationship down the line.

Just a few notes on technical things:

Since this sentence is pretty near the beginning of the story, it threw me for a loop a bit before I could get going:

"... Well, like I said, Leavanny and I go way back." the trainer nodded as he begun his tale "I first met her when I was a kid and she was still a Sewaddle.

It'd be "began" his tale, rather than begun, there'd be a period after "tale," and a comma after "back." In general you want to remember to end dialogue in a comma if it's followed up with a speech tag, like here:

"We need to fight this thing, Sewaddle." the boy said, standing up and drawing his sword.

There should be a comma after "Sewaddle." There are more ambiguous cases as well, like this one:

"Thanks, Sewaddle." the boy sighed with relief...

Here you could either let "Thanks, Sewaddle" stand on its own as a sentence, in which case you'd want to capitalize "the," or you could have "sighed" describe how the dialogue was being said, in which case you'd want a comma after "Sewaddle" instead.

If you're following dialogue up with some variation on "he said" or "she said," though, that dialogue should be ending with a comma.

The small insect nodded, and the two silently tiptoed backwards along the path, watching for leaf litter or dry twigs that may give away their position.

It'd be "might" give away, not "may."

The Centipede Pokémon emitted a loud Screech - so loud that the magnitude of the sound seemed to knock the Sewaddle back into the boy, who wrapped his arms around her and proceeded to take off on a run, the Bug/Poison-Type bolting after him.

It's usually be took off at a run.

...an unfamiliar area of the forest, with its own trees, each tree with its own song.

"Each tree with its own song" is a cool way to describe it! Is that Sewaddle being able to hear the trees singing, or is it something like the sound of the wind in the leaves?

- It comes up a couple of times in this story: it's "nowhere" rather than "no where"

- I also found it a little weird how often you used e.g. "the Bug/Poison-Type" or "the Centipede" rather than "the Venipede." In particular referring to pokémon by their types reads a bit clunky to me, and type combos tend to be much longer than just the species name, so they kind of take up a lot of space and draw attention to themselves. While it's nice to get some variety, I usually find using epithets like this more distracting than simply referring to the venipede as "the Venipede" most of the time.

This is a cute piece--nice and simple, and while clearly part of a larger story it stands well on its own. I liked the call-back to the child's "sword" at the end, where it's made clear how much this episode means to the narrator and to Leavanny with a single image.

I thought that the battle against the venipede worked well--it was a nice balance of the boy needing to come up with an actual strategy to defeat the venipede, plus a whole lot of luck. It made the battle feel true to life and not like the boy won purely as a result of Protagonist Syndrome. I also liked how the sewaddle had a life and character of its own; it wasn't just hanging around waiting for the boy to tell it what to do, but was actively helping out and trying things on its own. Sometimes pokémon in stories can get a bit forgotten about until their trainer is actively telling them to do something, but especially for a story like this, it works so much better when they have a more active role to play.

This also seemed like a very realistically kid-ish kind of story--like, I'm sure an adult would be horrified at the idea of the boy charging a poison-spewing venipede with nothing but a stick, but that childhood bravado feels on point. It's not that the narrator wasn't scared, as such, but they put a lot of faith in a kind of storybook understanding of the world, really buying into their own image of knights and defenders and duty, in a way that an adult really wouldn't.

All in all, a nice little one-shot that feels well in line with the pokémon world's themes of friendship and innocence.

 

[kintsugi]

Starting with this one since OSJ beat me to your other one!

Quick grammar notes r/q; sorry if you've heard these before:

There was another creature in this clearing - an odd, humpbacked arthropod

You use hyphens (-) instead of em dashes (— or sometimes just --). Em dashes are used to break up sentences and can function as punctuation marks, like how you're using hyphens above. On the other hand, hyphens are used to break up words (think "thirty-five", "reddish-orange", etc), but can't function as a punctuation mark.

This probably feels really nitpicky, and it is, but it's also a super easy switch once you know to look for it + it makes your sentences look a lot cleaner.

And dialogue also has a pretty specific way of being punctuated and usually involves a lot of commas. For me it was easier to learn this by looking at the dialogue as one complete sentence:

"We need to fight this thing, Sewaddle." the boy said

So if you have a period between the dialogue ("we need to fight") and the descriptor ("the boy said"), you sort of have two incomplete sentences. ["We need to fight this thing, Sewaddle."] can function on its own, but [the boy said] doesn't really work too well as its own sentence -- it makes sense grammatically, but what did the boy say?

So with that mindset, it makes a lot more sense that these two phrases should be part of one sentence, so we should use a comma instead:

"We need to fight this thing, Sewaddle," the boy said

And again, this probably feels really nitpicky, but these kinds of grammar conventions tend to stick out when they aren't followed.

the two knew that their friendship and alliance will remain forever.

Most of the story is in past tense, but you switch into present tense a few times and I wasn't sure if there was a reason for it.

Real story thoughts now!

The grownups would probably think of it as some form of Hide and Seek - but in the child's mind, he was a Sylvan Knight Trainee and the Wizard Leafcloak the Great was teaching him the ways of listening to the voice of the forest in order to find things hidden among the leaves.

"The Sylvan Knights cannot allow a wild monster to chase them away!"

I really love the image you paint here -- kids having fun with pokemon is basically the thesis of, well, Pokemon, and you do a great job of portraying that in an organic manner. These little details add a lot of character to this story, and made it really fun to read.

The clearing. It had no other paths leading away from it - only the one they've just blocked.

This painted an interesting mental picture for me. Forest clearings are usually more devoid of trees than the rest of the forest, but it's uncommon that there's a clearing that's completely fenced in by trees and only has one exit -- usually the trees are only that dense in videogames? I think having a rocky ravine face/big rock formation blocking the rest of their path would be more realistic, but usually it's fairly possible (but highly unadvisable) to go off-trail and into the trees.

"You're the best, Sewaddle." the child grinned, and with the Sewaddle clambering to the top of his head, the boy raised his Sylvan Saber up to the sky and called out "We're the best!"

But overall I really love the tone that you nailed down with this fic. There's a good amount of tension, but the stakes are still pretty low -- it's a small child and a medium bug throwing stuff at a large bug -- so you're able to have a good amount of action while still keeping things light-hearted. I love that we don't even know the boy's name but I still got really invested in his plight here. My favorite part was the cute bits like the one above where he's cheering on Sewaddle or strategizing with her to figure out a way to win -- to me this is the crux of the fun/light bits of Pokemon. The repetition between the pretend knights/the sword is a really fun touch, and I think it drives home how young this cast is compared to the old trainer reminiscing in a bar somewhere about the glory days when he would poke a sack of poison with a stick. Lotta fun to read, and thanks for sharing!

 

[K_S]

Hi, I'm here twiddling down everyone who tossed their name into the review blitz suggestion/self-promo page and I'm at your name on my master list...

So let's take a gander at what we have here.

Review for "Pinwheel forest"

Hmm so we got a trainer spooling out a tale of his sewaddle... from the "was" I guess there's an evolution or two in the cards... a childhood relationship not solely based on battling. I guess food is one way to make a bond and live the cliche all at once...

And the kids got a wild imagination, doesn't he? Initially, when he stopped in the clearing I suspected it was going to be a bird type swinging in... I don't know if the other shape is less alarming but still... Goes off to look up the name... yeah never mind the bird might of been better here.. I doubt the bug's eyes are built like the stereotypical Jurassic park Trex's... aka they only reply to movement but it's a hope. A misplaced one but still... yon poison type has one heck of a screech/lungs leveled up to scream that loud and that hard.

or screech, fair.

gutsy... well if evasion isn't going to work the kid is the type to go out swinging.. a stick but it's something.

well was something courtesy of an acid attack...

Love how noth swaddle and our pretrainer are bouncing off of each other to make this work.

You know throwing rocks in the reserve never lead.to.this much excitment in my old red/blue files...

Well all starts.well ends well.. Amd seriously mr vetren mon helping could of been a thing like 5 paragraphs ago! Sigh. Well it wemt well and this fic did a good job all.around

Loved the attention to detail in combat btw.

Thanks for sharing.

 

[Arukona]

Since this week’s theme is about unsung chapters, I thought I’d give my opinion in this oneshot that caught my attention.

Let’s get into it.

—-

So this is a tale about how a budding trainer met one of his closest Pokémon. I like this sort of origin story, about where and how they met. Plus, I like the Sewaddle line, so that’s a good start.

I find the boy’s dubbing of himself as a ‘Sylvan Knight’ rather charming. He’s still a playacting kid. (Also etymologically interesting on the basis of ‘Sylvan’ meaning ‘wood’ - something I found out not too long ago.)

The Venipede will not hold back. This was a real fight. There was no where to run. He had to win this. Had to. He had to protect his friend and no mean old Venipede will eat her!

It’s a good sentence to prepare the boy and Sewaddle for the upcoming fight, although there’s some tense mixups here, where parts containing ‘will’ would be better off replacing with ‘would’, and ‘nowhere’ should be one word. Just a slight nitpick.

I like this kind of confrontation where the boy fights together with his Sewaddle, rather than just barking orders as some other Trainers would. It really emphasises a greater bond between the two of them.

I also love the gratitude the Sewaddle shows the boy by mending his ‘sword’. A firm display of friendship between the two of them. It’s cute, the bond between the two of them.

"And then this pair of teal eyes shines out of no where - and out from behind the trees, Shu'al walks out. My dad's Zoroark, that is. He was there for the whole thing. Watching us, ready to intervene in case things took a turn for the worse beyond what we could handle - but not before that. He's like that, the old fox - major battle veteran. I could tell he was proud of me. Of us, really. He led us out back to the main path. Sewaddle headed back into the forest, and I went home. After that, things were a bit more fun - my parents started teaching me some more interesting battle techniques so if I get caught up in a situation like this again, I'd have less chances to have such a close call. As for me and Leavanny... We trained and evolved together really." he grinned "Of course, as I grew up, I found myself taking more to the pencil than to the sword... And one day, Leavanny and I found our way back to that clearing and stuck the sword into the ground - a tribute of sorts to our first victory. That was years ago. A lot has happened to us since, and a lot more happened in the forest... But last I checked, it was still there."

What’s said in this closing paragraph is quite nice, although I feel it could have been split into three smaller paragraphs: perhaps when Shu’al finds the boy and the Sewaddle, then when the parents began to teach the boy battle techniques, and finally ending with the Trainer and his Leavanny return to the clearing to find the sword’s still there. The flow of this line would be better that way, I think.

In conclusion, I quite liked this nice, down-to-earth story of reminiscence in childhood. The overall feel of this story made it a pleasant read. Despite those smaller snags I mentioned, this was a good read, short and sweet. I really like what you did here, and you did a very good job. :)