Hi Kiba! Back again for another review of Fogcut as per Diner's P-Wheel. This review will be covering Chapter 8.
Chapter 8
These shadowy beings yelling "Ceroooo!" - is this
Fogcut's version of Addam's ghost yelling, "Rogue! Rogue! Everbrero! Rogue! Multus! Everbrero! Rogue! Rogue!"?
“What in Lunala's seas is going on!?” T'nuri screamed, holding her bone-club high above her head, arms trembling.
“Lunala's seas?” Alejandrien asked. “What?”
The Cubone groaned. “Nevermind that now!” Shoot. She thought. I forgot not to mention that! they'll ask about the flooded kingdom nonstop!
Another bit of the curtain is pulled back on what T'nuri knows.
Maybe if they ask she can always steer it to mean some equivalent of the Sea of Tranquility instead - as in upon the moon itself.
“What are those mockeries!” Elder Rapidash gasped from behind the wall of fog blocking the gravesite, her eyes wide in terror. “That beast has mine form, but t’was spawned by flames!”
Never seen a fire Rapidash before, Elder?
And with that water Wooper, there's certainly a bit of culture shock here in finding out what regional forms are. I guess that would make sense in a way - there's bound to be regional form designs in the future that'll shock us too.
The Grookey across from her waved her stick.“Well, they are made of fog, and they produce fog.”
“Fogbeasts?” Alejandrien offered.
Might as well go all in with the Xenoblade analogues, huh?
'Spark' is already a common colloquialism, so why not? But in that case, perhaps an appropriate theme for the fight is needed:
Well, it seems 'Fogbringers' is the consensus. Looks like the culture shock's a thing Alejandrien has to deal with too, with how harshly the term 'Fogbeast' was rebuked by the others.
Some more fighting, where with a Fogcutting team-up by Emile and T'nuri, our heroes appear to gain the upper hand even after a wave of the black fog washes over them.
“But how're we gonna bloody do anything together?” Kaliente huffed.
Lifting their claw, the Jangmo-o's golden eyes lit up. “Let's try a chained attack or something!”
A Chain Attack finish?
As one who likes writing pair up finishers, I'm all for seeing how the gang do an attack in unison.
“You're not invincible!” the Cubone screamed, running head first into the tidal wave of fire and fog.
On reflex I heard "Monado Enchant!" after that yell of "You're not invincible!"
But it appears the Chain Attack was enough to vanquish the fog altogether from the island. Enough that the fog Rapidash and Wooper up and left altogether with no trace left. Mysterious....
“Yo se, I think I got it. The Fogcutting powers may affect your mood,” Emile explained, gently placing a broken stone atop a shattered grave.
The Fuecoco nodded. “As when yew mates got agitated, your control of yer Fogcutting powers slipped, thus your body loosened its control over yer mood instead of lettin’ out your Fogcutting.”
Ah, so that explains why T'nuri would have occasional outbursts earlier on in the fic.
I kinda wonder if there should be a scene break where Elder Rapidash takes the Fogcutters to the church to get rested up, to transition from the fight against the Fogbringers.
And doubly so when they're moving out to the islet 'where it all began' - there's not any line breaks anywhere. Splitting it up would do good for spacing things apart.
T'nuri found her carving again!
Good to see it wasn't lost amidst the chaos of the fog.
As she turned toward the distant sea T'nuri's brown eyes wavered. “Yep, the different-” A roaring beast of Pokémon visage lit up in her mind. Teal, black, red, and yellow, something like a Mega Salmance but fiercer. Just like the dream the Cubone had earlier.
Hmmm, a Roaring Moon by the sounds of it?
And it seems T'nuri's getting visions of an Alolan Marowak. Makes me wonder: might she evolve into one when the time comes on that front?
“It's easier to search for any potential Ruinous Fog traces from on board,” Bao explained before she floated back to the rudder of the massive ship.
Of course we're not done. T'nuri sighed.
A hero's job is never done, alas.
“Got it!” Luciano headed down to the bow of Zháo Launcher and blasted out a yellow current, and Electric Terrain soon took over the grass, and in turn all the lamps and lanterns aboard lit up even brighter, almost like daybreak.
A little too many 'and's in this line. One less would make it flow better.
Pretty neat to have Grassy Terrain be used on a ship to bolt everything and resist it better against crashing waves. That's a very intriguing use case for it.
“It’s La Llovinzna,” she gasped. “Completely destroyed.”
A few dead bodies floated in the midnight lit waters, some hidden beneath the broken cruise ship, others deep into the charcoal black darkness.
Oh, as in the ship that T'nuri was on...Well, that's an unfortunate end to it, and to the people T'nuri travelled with.
But it seems the attack was a mysterious one, with three huge claw marks in the ship's side. That seems to rule out the usual shipwrecker 'mons like Jellicent and Dragalge, but in that case who or what could it be? Giratina's been mentioned before...could it be them?
Below the Zháo Launcher was a particular disturbance of the seas. One that parted through the ebb and flow all around, like it drained water from a tub. A piece of land. Not a tiny sea-lapped island, but a red, dusty valley, barren and dry as those same off pink sparkling fog shimmered amidst the waves. Sparkling fog and a valley, all at sea right beside Iaijutsukage Island.
Seems like the next bit of land is on the horizon for our heroes to explore - quite literally in this case.
Conclusion
I quite liked this chapter for the combat in it, especially the 'chained attack' as Alejandrien called it, where they all combined their attacks to put together one great attack that dispelled the fog and the foes before them, with a strange mystery behind the disappearance of the fire Rapidash and water Wooper. That combat part at the beginning was very nice to see play out, with a satisfaction of the team being fully in sync - Alejandrien's 'Fogbeast' misstep notwithstanding, of course. That was also a nice show of culture shock, that as a 'mon from the Sand Continent, they're not fully the same as Emile, Kaliente, and even T'nuri, for how odd she is. Along with that, the freakout over the Fogbringers, with them being a different species to the norm.
One thing to just be mindful of is scene breaks. There's not that many here - I'm not sure if it's the same on the AO3 and/or PMDFF ports, but it should be the same between sites, I'd think - and I find it a bit of an issue that it flows as one continuous scene, when there should be various points of transition. For instance, after the battle when the Fogcutters are taken to the Church by Elder Rapidash, when they leave aboard the Zháo Launcher, and when they arrive back at Iaijutsukage are all points worthy of inserting scene breaks into.
Other than that, this was a good read. Looking forward to what happens next with the sparkling fog and valley implied at the end of this chapter, and the future adventures of our quartet of heroes.
