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A young trainer strives to become Pokémon League Champion the real way. How far can hard work and grit bring you?
CW: Language, abuse, gore and graphic violence.
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this story is a modified version of my entry to the villains one-shot contest. it’s a concept i’ve been sitting on for a long time, and i really struggled to fit it into the word count restriction, so i hope to give it a bit more breathing room here so it can be the story i initially envisioned it to be. some pieces of this story were cut after being written in order to meet the word count restriction, so some detail might be lost even after my expansion and adaptation. if there’s anything you think could use some extra time or development, please let me know! although it’s shorter, i’d like for this story to be as complete and satisfying as it can be. it’s difficult to be specific about what specific components i’d like feedback on without spoiling the story, but in general, i’d love to hear about my pacing and the overall quality of the protagonist’s character arcs, as well as the characterization of the side characters. thanks for checking out my fic and i hope you enjoy it!
The television comes to life in the dark, snowy signal noise painting Gemma’s face with its pins-and-needles light, loud static crackling from the speakers. The light and sound might as well be a blaring siren in the living room, and she has to shake herself out of her momentary panic to mash the volume-down button until the crackling is just audible.
She should be tucked into bed right now, fast asleep. If her father saw her out here at this hour watching TV… She doesn’t even want to think about it.
Dad smiled a lot once, and sometimes still does—he loves mago berry sorbet, and no one ever looks so at peace as he does when he's petting his cat Mars. But he's gone so much these days, sometimes for weeks at a time, and when he's home he seems to be in a bad mood all the time. Things he had ignored once anger him now, and she doesn't always understand why. The one thing she has learned, sure as anything, is not to push her limits.
Watching the TV is not something she would normally risk provoking him over. But this isn't just any old TV show. This matters. Unfortunately, she has no idea how to find it. She’s never watched TV on her own, doesn’t know the channels—it’s always him with the remote, leaned back in his leather chair with his legs crossed. Gemma’s only option is to surf until she finds what she wants.
Each time she changes the channel, the screen fuzzes and hisses for a moment before the picture comes in. First it’s a cooking show. No thanks. Zygarde Warriors. Pass. An advertisement for the all-new Super Rod, twice the strength for the price you love. Next. A reporter blathering about disaster relief in Hoenn. Boring!
Click.
The screen becomes an overhead portal to a stadium, and an announcer’s voice comes through the speaker. “Indigo League Champion Red defends his title against challenger Branson in this championship match,” he booms to the delight of the screaming crowd. A sea of fans and flashing cameras like stars surround the battlefield, a green pitch under spotlight. On one end is a a young man bouncing on his heels, and on the other…
“Red,” Gemma whispers to herself. It must be a rerun, then. The former Indigo League Champion is plainly dressed and standing there cool as a pyukumuku, maybe even a little impatiently, like he’s waiting in line at the PokéMart. This guy was the strongest trainer in the region? Gemma’s heard of him from the awed chatter of the kids at the park she likes to hang out at. The best ever to do it, they said, til’ he relinquished his title last year to go find himself on Mount Silver—just gave his title away, they’d said breathlessly. No one had ever done that before. That’s how wicked strong Red is.
She had to see what the fuss was about. That’s why she was out here in the middle of the night, straining her eyes against the light of the television. She’d expected someone bombastic, a figure pulled from legend. But the man on the screen unclipping a poké ball from his belt was just some guy.
“The defender will send out his pokémon first, as always,” the commentator says. “Lately Red has had a habit of starting with his Venusaur, but our analysts predict that for a higher-stakes fight like this, he might choose—”
His words are cut short by a flash of white on the battlefield. The camera cuts to a pokémon—huge and orange, stocky arms rippling with muscles, massive teal wings unfurling. Gleaming ivory teeth peek from its huge jaws, big enough to wrap comfortably around a human head. The creature fixes its eyes on the camera—its reptilian gaze is cold and unnerving, like it’s peering at Gemma herself and assessing whether her flesh would be worth its effort. A chill runs down her spine.
“Champion Red leads with his charizard! What a treat we’re in for tonight folks, what a treat indeed!”
Right, a charizard. She’s heard that name.
The challenger sends out some kind of rock monster the commentator calls a “rhydon.” It’s got a big horn on its face, and its whole body is clad in stony armor. It looks slow, but the commentator seems to think it’s threatening enough. Something technical about type advantages and defense factors—it all flies right over Gemma’s head. Right when she’s thinking the blathering has gone on too long, the charizard leaps into action, and the battle starts.
The dragon flies low to the ground, its wings flared out and smoke streaming from its nostrils. The rhydon plants its feet and beats its boulder-like fists into the turf, cracking it into pieces. It hefts one of the pieces up, revealing a stony underside, and pitches it at the charizard so fast it becomes a blur. But the charizard lazily tilts a wing just a hair and the rock sails right past it, exploding against the forcefield protecting the trainers from the battle.
Letting out a snort of irritation but otherwise unperturbed, the rhydon hurls another boulder at the charizard. This time the charizard doesn’t move, and Gemma recoils, expecting to see the dragon go flying back from the impact—but suddenly Charizard’s feet are flat on the ground and the boulder is halted. It caught it.
The charizard throws its head back, thick white smoke pouring from its face, then lunges its head back forward and unhinges its jaw. A pure-blue jet of flame shoots from its throat like a laser and drills against the rock, sapphire embers flying from the collision. At first nothing happens, except the rhydon paws anxiously at the ground, but the charizard persists until the rock glows red hot and then melts, running through its hands like sludge and pooling on the ground.
“What a display of strength from Red’s charizard, I think that was a flamethrower, and a pretty nasty one at that, maybe a little hotter than regulation there—”
Gemma’s eyes are dinner plates. She’s seen the kids at the playground spar with their little pokémon before, and once dad even took her to watch a minor league match with some bigger pokémon, but nothing like that, never anything like that—
“What are you doing?” a voice hisses. A real one, definitely not the announcer. For the second time tonight Gemma leaps out of her skin. She reflexively smashes her thumb into the television’s power button, feeling sick with panic as she whips her head around.
Oh. It’s just Ariana standing there with her hands on her hips. Gemma’s twin sister—older just by a few minutes, though she acts like it's years. She’s visible in the light of the TV for a moment before it whines into blackness. Her ruby-red hair is a wild nest, and her expression is a mixture of surprise and disapproval and sleepiness and… interest.
“Quiet,” Gemma hisses back, but motions for her to sit down. “You scared the crap out of me. Jeez. I’m just watching a battle. It’s Red. You know him?”
“Of course I know him,” Ariana says as she sits on the floor by Gemma’s side. “You really shouldn’t be watching this. You know what Dad said…” Despite her words, she’s looking pleadingly at the television.
“That’s why we’re watching it in the middle of the night, stupidhead,” Gemma mumbles, switching the television back on.
It’s a closeup shot of Charizard. It stomps a foot and snorts, flames popping out of its nostrils.
“—the fastest solar beam warmup I’ve ever seen! And the rhydon was no match for it,” the announcer booms. The camera cuts back to the challenger, who’s scowling as he unclips a poké ball from his belt and withdraws his rhydon.
“Hey, want to know something?” Ariana says. Then, without waiting for an answer: “I think Dad used to be a Gym Leader.”
Gemma snorts and rolls her eyes.
“Seriously,” Ariana insists. “I been in his office. He’s got all these medals and poké balls, pictures with important people… And think about it. Where did he go for all those years? And plus he doesn’t like us watching battles on TV without him. I think he doesn’t want us to find out and see him on there. That’s why we can’t—”
Something pads across the floor. Both girls’ heads jerk toward the sound. Gemma sees just the tip of Mars’s tail as he slinks into the hallway.
The sisters look at each other. Ariana looks like she’s seen a ghost. Gemma shakes herself out of her fear-induced paralysis and springs into action. “Crap. Crap. Crap,” she mutters, fumbling for the remote and shutting the television back off. “We need to get back to bed.” Ariana’s just staring straight ahead, breathing shallowly—Gemma grabs her wrist and feels her hands shaking. “Ariana, come on, we have to—”
The lights come on. Gemma strains her eyes against the sudden bright and sees him standing at the mouth of the hallway. Button-up satin top, matching pants, even a pair of socks—it’s as close to a suit as pajamas get. The deep fold between his eyebrows is a canyon, his black eyes unblinking. Mars stands at his ankles, wiry tail wrapped around his master’s leg, one ear twitching, his smug gaze fixed on the girls.
“What,” Father says, almost a whisper, “are you two doing awake.” There’s a quiet fury simmering behind the almost calm delivery of the question.
“I—,” Gemma sputters, but Ariana is there first like always, talking a thousand miles a minute.
“Gemma woke me up sneaking out,” she blurts out. Gemma’s throat constricts. She gives Ariana the nastiest look she can possibly muster, not that it counts for much now. “I just came out here to see what was—”
“Liar,” Father says, approaching them. Ariana turns away, but Father takes her face in his hand, squishing her cheeks. Tears well up in her eyes. “Do you think you can lie to me? Do you think I’m some imbecile, to be manipulated by a child?” He lets go of her forcefully and she stumbles backward, back to the wall. There are red marks on her skin where his fingers were.
Gemma is frozen, petrified that his attention will return to her next. But he looks right past her, at the TV. “Let’s see what was so important for you to watch that you had to break the rules and then lie to me,” he commands. “Gemma. The remote.” It takes a piercing glare from him to pull Gemma back to her senses. She abruptly falls to her knees and fumbles for the remote. Her hands are shaking as she offers it to him.
Gemma doesn’t watch but hears as he turns the television on. The click of the button, the momentary whine of the TV as it whirs back into life, the tinny voice of the announcer.
“A League battle?” Father scoffs. “So you disrespected me, disobeyed the rules, and snuck into the night like rats to watch a League battle.” He takes a deep breath, jaw clenched. “We’ve spoken about this. What did I tell you about watching this garbage? What did I tell you?”
The girls just look at him. Gemma wishes she could speak or move or do anything right now, but she’s locked in her body.
The announcer on the TV breaks the silence. “It’s an easy 3-0 victory for defending champion Red of Pallet Town—”
Something about that pushes Father over the edge. The cool, composed, deliberate facade slips away, and all thats left is fury. Pure fury, white hot.
Gemma’s only seen him this way once before. Just before he left. He’d been angry with someone on the phone, and she’d interrupted him to ask for a snack.
Not her best memory.
Father grips the remote with a shaking, white-knuckled hand and pitches it at the TV. Gemma recoils at the sound. The remote explodes against the screen, batteries flying.
She watches in silence as Father advances to the TV, pulls his leg back, and drives his foot into the screen. It shatters, glass flying past his ankles, but he doesn’t care.
He kicks it again, and again. And again. There’s a loud bang each time, and the TV slides along the carpet, smacks into the wall. Father’s breaths come heavy, forced through gritted teeth, and he grunts loudly with each kick.
Gemma eventually manages to pry her eyes away, and she looks to Ariana. Her back is still to the wall, and she’s pulling her legs tight to her as she unblinkingly watches their father’s rampage. Gemma could go to her, steal her away into their bedroom or out the front door or something, but images flash through her mind of Father turning his attention to her, grabbing her by the wrist—no.
She disappears into her bedroom alone. The banging continues. She can hear his breaths, quick and ragged.
She wants to run away, so badly, to run away and find her own pokémon and start her own life and never come to this place again. But she’s too scared to do that, right now or ever. She just hides under her blankets, holds her pillow over her head, shudders. She can’t make herself cry. Or sleep. The sounds of anger and breaking things don’t stop. She’s just praying over and over that Father doesn’t get bored of the TV, that he spends all his rage before the thought crosses his mind to come in here to her bedroom.
He never does. Neither does Ariana.
Eventually things go quiet.
She’s awake long enough to hear Father leave for work in the morning. She stays in bed with her eyes wide open for an hour after that, then finally pries herself out from the sheets and creeps into the living room.
It’s exactly how it was the day before, before anything had happened. It’s like it never happened at all. The television looks brand new. The only thing that’s off is the smell of paint; she notices after a moment that there are patches of the wall that have been freshly painted over.
Hey, kyeugh! Very exciting to see you expanding your oneshot into a multi-chapter. From what you've said, it sounds like that was always the better fit.
I'm reading this having read the oneshot first, so unless things shift hugely I have some sense of where this is going. On this read, I paid a lot of attention to Gemma and Ariana's different reactions to Giovanni. I was interested in the fact that Ariana freezes and doesn't seem able to react quickly physically when Giovanni comes, but she's far faster than Gemma at trying to defuse the situation by speaking. Ariana's the older sister, but at this point in time, Gemma comes off as the more assertive one and Ariana the younger one--so and so made me do it seems like the natural defense of the younger sibling. I do think Ariana's freezing reaction and her general lack of boldness compared to Gemma might speak to the fact that she's faced scary behavior from Giovanni more often and has had more disobedience beaten out of her at this point. From this encounter, at least, it seems like Giovanni might hold the older sibling accountable for the younger's behavior, but not so much so that Gemma's would consider her acting out as putting Ariana at risk. I found the moment where Gemma thinks about whether she should grab her frozen sister and pull her out of there, but doesn't, compelling in light of the turn their relationship ultimately takes.
The battle scene was a lot of fun. Announcer's are a great tool for dropping exposition about how battling works without it feeling out-of-place and that worked well here. I'm interested in the portrayal of Red as 'just some guy' since a theme of the story is telegraphed to be the extent to which you can make it to the top without wealth and support. Red from the games seems like a pretty classic nothing to something story, but maybe in your verse he has more advantages.
I'm quite curious what Gio's up to at this point in time, though since the next chapter is in three year's, maybe we won't find out exactly. This is post defeat by Red, post disbanding of Team Rocket. It's interesting to me that Gio kept being a gym leader in particular a secret from them--or maybe it's just that he'd be easy to find once you know to look up gym leader's? I was finding myself curious about some of the day-to-day logistics of Gemma's life. I doubt they're being sent to normal school. She's meeting other kids at the park, so not totally cut-off. I normally don't hanker too much for environmental description, but I'm curious whether they live in a large house, a small one? Are they mostly cared for by a nanny, if Gio is gone most of the time?
As the first chapter of a longer story, this sets up Gemma's backstory and relationship with Giovanni. Unfortunately I can't really say whether I'd find it substantial enough as a first chapter, since I already have a lot of context about where it's going. I think the dates nicely signal that the fic will be more impressionistic, though.
The television comes to life in the dark, snowy signal noise painting Gemma’s face with its pins-and-needles light, loud static crackling from the speakers.The light and sound might as well be a blaring siren in the living room, and she has to shake herself out of her momentary panic to mash the volume-down button until the crackling is just audible.
It reads a bit strangely to have the noise of the TV painting Gemma's fac with light. I'd maybe cut "noise" since you talk about sound in the next clause? These opening sentences in general feel like you're maybe trying to pack in more words/clauses than they want.
The voice here feels pretty formal and grown-up. Later in the story the narration seems to suit her age a bit more. Either's fine, but it's a bit jarring to have both.
The best ever to do it, they said, til’ he relinquished his title last year to go find himself on Mount Silver—just gave his title away, they’d said breathlessly.
“What a display of strength from Red’s charizard, I think that was a flamethrower, and a pretty nasty one at that, maybe a little hotter than regulation there—”
“Crap. Crap. Crap,” she mutters, fumbling for the remote and shutting the television back off. “We need to get back to bed.” Ariana’s just staring straight ahead, breathing shallowly—Gemma grabs her wrist and feels her hands shaking. “Ariana, come on, we have to—”
his black eyes smoldering with rage. Mars stands at his ankles, wiry tail wrapped around his master’s ankle, one ear twitching, his smug gaze fixed on the girls.
“What,” Father says, almost a whisper, “are you two doing awake.” There’s fury smoldering behind the almost calm delivery of the question.
Father grips the remote with a shaking, white-knuckled hand and pitches it at the TV. Gemma recoils at the sound; the screen fractures, and the remote tumbles onto the carpet.
I'm a bit skeptical a remote, which is usually plastic, would break TV glass? I could see it bouncing off, then Giovanni moving in to break it himself.
The sounds of anger and breaking things don’t stop. She’s just praying over and over that Father doesn’t get bored of the TV, that he spends all his rage before the thought crosses his mind to come in here to her bedroom.
thank you for the speedy review on this! it’ll be awesome to get some feedback from someone who has read the original one-shot; definitely will be good to know which changes are good and which i can draw out more.
I'm reading this having read the oneshot first, so unless things shift hugely I have some sense of where this is going. On this read, I paid a lot of attention to Gemma and Ariana's different reactions to Giovanni. I was interested in the fact that Ariana freezes and doesn't seem able to react quickly physically when Giovanni comes, but she's far faster than Gemma at trying to defuse the situation by speaking. Ariana's the older sister, but at this point in time, Gemma comes off as the more assertive one and Ariana the younger one--so and so made me do it seems like the natural defense of the younger sibling. I do think Ariana's freezing reaction and her general lack of boldness compared to Gemma might speak to the fact that she's faced scary behavior from Giovanni more often and has had more disobedience beaten out of her at this point. From this encounter, at least, it seems like Giovanni might hold the older sibling accountable for the younger's behavior, but not so much so that Gemma's would consider her acting out as putting Ariana at risk. I found the moment where Gemma thinks about whether she should grab her frozen sister and pull her out of there, but doesn't, compelling in light of the turn their relationship ultimately takes.
this is a really interesting analysis and gives me a lot to think about. thanks for writing it out. i have to admit that i’m an eldest sibling and my own experience may be leaking in here where it shouldn’t be. but i think your observations are mostly true to what i was going for, which is reassuring. i actually didn’t think much about the older/younger sibling dynamics and was thinking more about the golden child/scapegoat dynamic as well as ariana’s tendency towards cruelty/mimicking her father and gemma’s (current) aversion to both. but i think gemma’s unrequited desire for ariana’s approval and solidarity as the older sibling is something really interesting that i could draw more out of—thank you for highlighting it! will have to chew on this.
The battle scene was a lot of fun. Announcer's are a great tool for dropping exposition about how battling works without it feeling out-of-place and that worked well here. I'm interested in the portrayal of Red as 'just some guy' since a theme of the story is telegraphed to be the extent to which you can make it to the top without wealth and support. Red from the games seems like a pretty classic nothing to something story, but maybe in your verse he has more advantages.
very pleased you thought this worked! battles are not my forte, but there are a lot of them in this fic, so it’s great to get feedback on that front. as for red—i think johto existing in the shadow of red’s actions is pretty interesting and silver’s idolization of him is something i largely had to cut out of the contest version of the story for word count purposes, but i’d definitely like to develop it further here. glad his characterization caught your eye!
I'm quite curious what Gio's up to at this point in time, though since the next chapter is in three year's, maybe we won't find out exactly. This is post defeat by Red, post disbanding of Team Rocket. It's interesting to me that Gio kept being a gym leader in particular a secret from them--or maybe it's just that he'd be easy to find once you know to look up gym leader's? I was finding myself curious about some of the day-to-day logistics of Gemma's life. I doubt they're being sent to normal school. She's meeting other kids at the park, so not totally cut-off. I normally don't hanker too much for environmental description, but I'm curious whether they live in a large house, a small one? Are they mostly cared for by a nanny, if Gio is gone most of the time?
these are great questions. i may edit the chapter to provide some answers for them. as for what gio is up to exactly—it’s a bit tricky to provide specifics in the chapter because i really don’t want the kids to know about his rocket affiliation this early on. in general he’s very secretive toward them. but it might be interesting to flesh out their conversation about him to better convey what they (think) they know about him.
good questions. to some extent the lack of clarity is intentional—gemma doesn’t know exactly where ariana has gone. but i don’t want it to be actively confusing. it would be less punchy but it could be interesting to have a sentence or two about what happens when she returns… might go with that if it’s too ambiguous as is.
thanks for the line edits—i’ll make the corrections ASAP. and thank you again for the review!
Mar. 1999
“Well done. Very well done.”
He’s talking to Ariana, of course. He never sounds so proud when he’s talking to Gemma.
Ariana was a good battler, to be fair, but Gemma hadn’t watched her fight. Couldn’t. The pidgey that Ariana’s oddish had defeated is an indistinct pile of claws and feathers on the ground. Its plumage is dusted with stun spores that glimmer in the halogen light, giving the twitching body a golden sheen.
Ariana only needed to win the battle, but 100% is never good enough for her. She always needs to go... a little further.
Wings aren’t supposed to bend like that, are they?
“You’ve done more than enough to prove your competence as a trainer, Ariana,” Dad says. “I will be proud to sponsor your journey.”
The sponsorship. The stupid sponsorship.
Ever since the calamity in Hoenn, aspiring young trainers can’t just up and leave on a journey because they feel like it. She's heard Dad grumble about it—how times have changed, what a disaster the mass production of the poké ball has been. Too many sleeping gods prodded by too-strong children. Too dangerous. There’s government paperwork required for a journey now, signatures to get from parents, physical and psychological exams to pass, the whole nine yards. For Gemma’s friends, getting their parents to sign off was the easiest part of the process. But of course nothing came for free with Dad. Of course she has to pass a test first, prove herself.
She always has to prove herself.
When Dad speaks again, her stomach is all knots.
“Gemma. Your turn.”
She wills herself forward. Ariana only has a smug look to offer as they pass each other by. She’s the picture of a bright young trainer, red hair shiny and brushed, outfit pressed and fashionable. Even though they're twins, Ariana's just a little taller—maybe it's the way she stands, carries herself.
Gemma blows a strand of bushy hair out of her face and pushes past her sister, baggy clothes swishing. Then she’s standing within the white-tape lines of the trainer box, poké ball resting in her sweaty palm.
With a flash of light, she sends out her pokémon. Mr. Hisser lets out a hiss of excitement and shakes his rattle as he materializes. He's a coiled length of scaly purple hose, looking back at her with trusting golden eyes.
Ekans is a good pokémon, Gemma thinks. Red trained with an arbok for years and it was one of his strongest pokémon. And Mr. Hisser is a loyal, obedient pokémon. She trusts him fully to do his half, to fight to the end. And in turn he trusts her to think clearly and lead him to victory.
She only hopes to live up to that.
They’ve trained together for this moment for years now, so he knows as well as she does how important this battle is. She wants to call to him, offer some encouragement, but she can’t even bring herself to say his name. Mr. Hisser. It had seemed cute and funny at the time, but suddenly it feels so juvenile and stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
“This is a one-on-one battle…,” the referee begins, but Gemma’s tuning him out. She knows the spiel. Her eyes are fixed on the other trainer instead. Some hireling. He’s sent out his pokémon too, a pichu. Ekans prey on pichu in the wild, so this should be a breeze.
Should be. Except…
“Begin.”
“Wrap it!” Gemma cries out. The ekans darts forward, body undulating.
Pichu, she thinks as her pokémon closes the gap between him and his foe. Pichu. What does she know about pichu. They’re small. Agile. But weak control over their electricity. Still, if emotionally provoked, they can be powerful—
Mr. Hisser lunges. The pichu leaps out of the way, but he still manages to whip its face with a snap of his rattle-tipped tail—a move she’d practiced with Mr. Hisser after seeing Red’s arbok do it. The pichu yelps in pain, tiny sparks flying from its fur.
Right. Sparks. Ranged attacks. Pichu wants distance. So close the gap. Keep it closed.
“Stay close!” she cries. “C’mon, wrap it! Don’t let it get away!”
The ekans darts towards the pichu again, and again he just misses. Once he lands he starts sidewinding towards it, sticks out his neck and gears up for a bite—and misses again. This time when the pichu leaps out of the way, a small bolt of electricity arcs off its tail and zaps Mr. Hisser in the snout. He hisses in irritation, tail rattling.
“Don’t let it scare you! If you get in close it’ll be helpless!” Gemma is bouncing in place now, fists clenched. They can do this!
Mr. Hisser snaps his tail again. It whiffs air again, but the loud rattling sound catches the pichu’s attention, distracting it from his real weapon...
“Do it!”
The ekans seizes the moment and lunges forward, fangs bared. This time he hits his mark. Before the pichu can wise up and dart away, Mr. Hisser wraps his body around the little mouse and constricts.
It struggles. But no matter how it squirms, the pichu can’t escape the ekans’ tight bind. It squeals in frustration, eyes screwed shut, but it can only muster a few static sparks that dissipate uselessly in the air.
Trapped. It can’t move. The battle is in Gemma’s hands now. Just one decisive move from victory.
This is the part she hates.
Her hands are shaking. She hears Dad: “Well? Do something.”
Is it really him saying it, or is it just a memory ringing in her ears? It doesn’t matter. It feels real. The way she’s freezing up right now, unable to issue another command, that’s real.
All she needs to do is win the battle. Thousands of battles are won every day. She can do this. She's done it before, even.
The memory of it swells up in her. The sentret's ragged breaths, the poison seeping from its wound, the distant gaze of its trainer. Yes, she'd won that one. Is that how victory feels? Like something crawling down your back?
Mr. Hisser looks back at her, waiting. The pichu is struggling in his coil. Panicking. It must think it’s going to die. How many of its wild cousins spent their last moments this way? Sputtering for breath, choking in the binds of a monster, skin tightening, throat burning until everything goes black? She knows what to do. Constrict it tighter, bite it, fill its bloodstream with venom, wait until it passes out, something. Probably Mr. Hisser is fighting every animal impulse in his brain not to do it unbidden. That’s how you end a battle, after all. That’s how you win. You fight until someone can’t.
But it’s so small. She imagines its delicate little head in her hand, resting, snoozing, its breaths so tiny. She imagines clenching her fist. Its squeaks of pain, betrayal, fear, confusion. The pouring of blood through her fingers, the crushing of bone, the squishing of gore.
“Finish it, Gemma. Now.”
She only needs to say a word. One word to begin her journey, to do her part for her pokémon, to make Dad proud. One word. There’s nothing easier.
She turns away, trembling.
She feels her hairs prick up and stand on end, and she can feel the flash of light even through her wrenched-shut eyelids. With a shallow breath she pries one open.
Mr. Hisser is twitching on the ground upside-down. The pichu has run far away from him, safe but still trembling. The battle is over.
No one says anything at first. Gemma stands on the pitch, feeling full of stone, feeling every eye on her. She fixes her gaze on the ground.
This was it. This was her chance, and she blew it. Distantly she knows this. She won’t be going on a journey. Her friends and her sister will leave her behind to go on life-changing adventures in the sun, free of their parents, free to live their lives, and here she will remain. Alone. With him.
Distantly, she knows this. But she can’t even think of that now. She just sees herself frozen in place there, as if observing herself from the outside. She can only be too-aware of all the eyes burning into her back as hot tears run down her face. Crying. When did she start crying?
“Disappointing,” Dad says at last. It’s a mild word, but it’s coated in acid. “You could have won easily, and yet you wavered. Not a mistake. A choice. You chose weakness.”
Gemma can’t face this right now. She wishes she could disappear, but she just shuts her eyes again instead. The world disappears for her, but she can still feel his eyes on her like daggers, vivisecting her on display.
“Withdraw your pokémon,” he orders. It only takes the press of a button, so she manages it. “Good. Now give me the poké ball.”
Her eyes fly open. “What?”
Dad’s face is gravely serious. He’s holding out an open hand, waiting, fingertips twitching.
“This ekans is a good and capable pokémon. Its attacks are strong. When you gave an order, it obeyed. Yet it was led to failure. I’m not a cruel man, Gemma. I will not keep this pokémon locked indoors with a weak, incompetent trainer and deny it the thrill and adventure that every pokémon desires. It deserves more. It has earned it. Your sister will bring it along with her on her journey.”
Gemma just stares at him. His cold eyes bore into her. She heard his words, but they won’t stick in her brain.
“Oh, thank you, Daddy!” A huge smile splits Ariana’s pretty face. This is exactly what she wanted, wasn’t it? Why shouldn’t she get what she wants, just like always?
The competent one. The beautiful one. The obedient one. The loved one. She’s like a perfected version of Gemma herself—the same face, the same hair, but with all the rough edges polished out, capable where Gemma lagged, feminine where Gemma was dowdy, gleaming where Gemma was dull. She should have been everything Gemma aspired to. But it’s not jealousy clawing at her heart, nor desire to follow in her footsteps. Just nausea. And hate.
“The ball, Gemma,” Dad says. “Now.”
“I… I…”
“Now.”
She wants to rebel, to hold onto what is hers, but Dad’s eyes flash and any impulse of rebellion inside her vanishes. Instead she’s walking forward without even realizing it, feeling the smooth texture of the ball beneath her fingers one more time.
Mr. Hisser will always remember her like this, she realizes. Looking away, tears in her eyes, as he’s fried into unconsciousness by a creature that his wild cousins consider a snack.
He’s right. Mr. Hisser deserves so much better.
Why is it that she ruins everything she touches?
The ball falls out of her hand. Ariana’s now. And just like that, Gemma is completely, totally alone in the world.
She plays that scene over and over in her head as she lies in bed, her room painted blue by the sunlight filtering through cerulean curtains.
this is a really interesting analysis and gives me a lot to think about. thanks for writing it out. i have to admit that i’m an eldest sibling and my own experience may be leaking in here where it shouldn’t be. but i think your observations are mostly true to what i was going for, which is reassuring. i actually didn’t think much about the older/younger sibling dynamics and was thinking more about the golden child/scapegoat dynamic as well as ariana’s tendency towards cruelty/mimicking her father and gemma’s (current) aversion to both. but i think gemma’s unrequited desire for ariana’s approval and solidarity as the older sibling is something really interesting that i could draw more out of—thank you for highlighting it! will have to chew on this.
I definitely remember golden child/scapegoat being the main dynamic in the oneshot and it's on full display in chapter two--but in chapter one I was interested in the fact that Ariana didn't really seem to be the golden child. She's less confident around their father and her attempt to scapegoat backfires miserably. If anything, at that point I would guess that Ariana resents Gemma for being the one who causes problems but doesn't bear their consequences. A lot can shift in three years!
these are great questions. i may edit the chapter to provide some answers for them. as for what gio is up to exactly—it’s a bit tricky to provide specifics in the chapter because i really don’t want the kids to know about his rocket affiliation this early on. in general he’s very secretive toward them. but it might be interesting to flesh out their conversation about him to better convey what they (think) they know about him.
Yeah, I was more thinking of things that wouldn't mean much to the kids but would give the more savvy reader some contexts cues of where exactly Gio is in life. Like, is this mid-life crisis Gio wearing an apron and raising his two baby girls (with a healthy dose of violence) or is he still lording it about in a mansion and their lives are full of hired staff like they're British royalty, or are they in some secret Rocket lair on the Sevi islands and the local kids think they're super weird? It could be a lot of different vibes!
Hmm, if you continue to post updates directly after I review I'm going to get some sort of Pavlovian association. Back for chapter two, I guess!
We've jumped three years, but a lot has changed. Where last chapter Gemma seemed a bit insulated, with Ariana bearing the brunt of their father's disapproval, Ariana's now firmly established as the Good One. The clothing and hair comparisons were simple but effective in getting their respective places across. I was a bit confused why the battle trials are happening at the same time for the two of them--wouldn't Ariana's have already happened, if she's older? But it certainly helps you set up your parallel.
Gio making his kids prove they can murder small pokemon before he'll unleash them on the world certainly checks out. With the worldbuilding last chapter about there being regulations in pokemon battling, even at the highest level, I was unsure how Gio's 'battles should be murder' approach works out. Gemma seems to think this is the natural order of things, but my sense is if you did this in a real battle, there would be some consequences. I don't think Gio would want his kids to get cited on their first day as trainers.
The most impressive thing about this chapter is how convincingly guilty you make Gemma feel about not murdering a small fluffy animal. It shows how deeply Gio's mindset about strength and weakness had been ingrained on them--weakness is not hurting others. Even if Gemma has enough outside information to know that having to pass a trial from your parent to go on your journey is unusual, she can't untangle herself from all the other damaging assumptions that have been built into her childhood.
Mr. Hisser’s lets out a hiss of excitement and shakes his rattle as he materializes, a coiled length of scaly purple hose with wide golden eyes and a penchant for honey.
Mr. Hisser lunges. The pichu leaps out of the way, but the ekans sitll manages to whip its face with a snap of his rattle-tiped tail—a move she’d practiced with Mr. Hisser after seeing Red’s arbok do it.
Probably Mr. Hisser is fighting every animal impulse in his brain not to do it unbidden. That’s how you end a battle, after all. That’s how you win. You fight until someone can’t.
“This ekans is a good and capable pokémon. Its attacks are strong. When you gave an order, it obeyed. Yet it was led to failure. I’m not a cruel man, Gemma. I will not keep this pokémon locked indoors with a weak, incompetent trainer and deny it the thrill and adventure that every pokémon desires. It deserves more. It has earned it. Your sister will bring it along with her on her journey.”
Mr. Hisser will always remember her like this, she realizes. Looking away, tears in her eyes, as he’s fried into unconsciousness by a creature that his wild cousins consider a snack.
We love to see MR. HISSER given pride of place, right where he belongs! idk if spoilers, so I'm going to be referring to Gemma as the narration does throughout my comments.
I think giving this story a little more room to breathe is a good idea, and I look forward to seeing what you do with the extra space! It's also really interesting to think about how my experience with this would be different if I hadn't read the previous version and therefore know the general direction that this story will take. Like, most readers will have figured out what's going on with Gemma's dad by the end of this chapter right? The clues seem pretty strong, but it's hard for me to say! One way or another, knowing who he is definitely takes the tension up a notch here--like bad enough when Gemma's watching TV without approval, but then when it turns out to be a battle with Red it's just like OH NO, oh no, I know exactly how this is going to go.
I like the sketch we get here of the relationship of Ariana and Gemma. "You're not allowed to watch TV by yourself, butthead," followed by joining in is such a sibling mood. The moment where Ariana sells out Gemma is also so heartbreakingly understandable... another big sibling mood, but one with much more weighty consequences here than for most siblings. You get the sense of how much the relationship between these two must be warped by the presence of their father, where trying to appease him will sometimes cause them to be cruel to one another.
And of course, their dad is properly terrifying. The scene where he destroys the television is horribly intense, and you do an excellent job of conveying Gemma's fear throughout. The part where she's huddled in bed, listening to the noise and dreading the sound of footsteps coming for her is straight out of a horror movie, and you make it clear by the way the two girls react that this is not an unexpected outcome, this is just how things go sometimes in their family. Scary stuff.
All in all, I think this makes an effective first chapter; it's a strong introduction to Gemma and her family situation, and it's a quick but powerful read. The OH NO atmosphere is strong throughout the entire section, and I read the whole thing just waiting for the other shoe to drop, and dreading it. Great use of tension and suspense! Look forward to seeing you post the next chapter. (Note: it looks like you posted the next chapter in the time since I loaded the first, so I'll see if I can get to it later today, lol.)
A couple quick linequotes:
The rhydon plants its feet into the ground and beats its boulder-like fists into the turf, cracking it into pieces.
Glad this got posted! I've been wanting to read this since you were talking about writing a Silver fic for the contest.
The first chapter was a great, harrowing read. There's lots of good background worldbuilding in the TV battle, and oh, the irony of Gemma idolizing Red, the trainer who unknown to her took down her father's criminal empire. I liked the little mention that she saw her father like this once before, just before he left - completely flies over her head that that previous time also involved Red, doesn't it.
It's kind of interesting to me how little Gemma knows and understands about Pokémon - she's heard of a Charizard once or twice but never seen one, talk about type advantages is technical and way over her head. It sounds like Giovanni doesn't want them to watch battles specifically - he implies he's spoken to them before about watching this garbage which suggests it was about that in particular. I wonder what's behind that - not wanting them to become trainers and get out from under his thumb?
Ariana as Silver's sister (rather than mother) is something I'm not sure I've seen before but it makes a lot of sense, and oh boy, looking forward to where that sibling dynamic might go. They're both so terrified of their father, Gemma more rebellious and seemingly having a longer leash while Ariana seems used to being blamed for things, immediately on the defensive (only to get called a liar, of course). Oof, I feel for both of them. And worry about what happened to Ariana for a week there.
Giovanni, of course, is deeply terrifying. I enjoyed the little detail about how even his pajamas basically look like a suit, the way he's immediately threatening when approaching his children, the anger at the idea he could be manipulated by a child. Truly chilling and hair-raising. The moment where there's a brand-new TV and a new coat of paint on the walls is also really strong; what a note to end on. Giovanni is abusive, violent, but also rich and knows perhaps more than anyone about keeping up a facade, doesn't he. He can have fits of rage whenever he wants, so long as he just pays to get the house fixed up afterwards. (I'm at least sure not imagining he did the cleanup himself.)
The television comes to life in the dark, snowy signal noise painting Gemma’s face with its pins-and-needles light, loud static crackling from the speakers.The light and sound might as well be a blaring siren in the living room, and she has to shake herself out of her momentary panic to mash the volume-down button until the crackling is just audible.
On to chapter two. It's kind of heartbreaking to see that in the interim between chapters Ariana has successfully molded herself into what Giovanni wants from her, and is praised for it, while Gemma remains unfavored. The brutality of the 'test' is awful; I'm not even sure if Giovanni cares that they're capable of killing so much as he wants to humiliate Gemma for not managing it. Choosing weakness, indeed.
The punishment of taking Mr. Hisser away, and framing it as how he's not a cruel man and wouldn't let him suffer the direction of a weak trainer is especially insidious. Love the mileage you get out of the childish nickname - it's cute, but also makes for that great little moment of insecurity at the beginning when she wants to say his name but can't bring herself to in front of her father because it just feels juvenile and stupid, and it just makes it more tangible that they've been together for a while, since she was a small child who would name him that, and now he's just taking him away. Awful.
Mr. Hisser’s lets out a hiss of excitement and shakes his rattle as he materializes, a coiled length of scaly purple hose with wide golden eyes and a penchant for honey.
Mr. Hisser looks back at her, awaiting the command. The pichu is struggling in his coil. Panicking. It must think it’s going to die. How many of its wild cousins spent their last moments this way? Sputtering for breath, choking in the binds of a monster, skin tightening, throat burning until everything goes black? She knows what to do. Constrict it tighter, bite it, fill its bloodstream with venom, wait until it passes out, something. Probably Mr. Hisser is fighting every animal impulse in his brain not to do it unbidden. That’s how you end a battle, after all. That’s how you win. You fight until someone can’t.
But it’s so small. She imagines its delicate little head in her hand, resting, snoozing, its breaths so tiny. She imagines clenching her fist. Its squeaks of pain, betrayal, fear, confusion. The pouring of blood through her fingers, the crushing of bone, the squishing of gore.
That said, I think as direct thoughts in an otherwise third-person story these should probably be italicized here.
All in all, you've definitely hooked me in. What a horrible, scary home situation you've created. It's impossible not to root hard for Gemma to escape that environment, and oof, I bet the relationship with Ariana is going to be a big part of it going forward.
One thing I'm a bit fuzzy on right now are their ages. The fact they're being tested simultaneously for trainer sponsorship makes them sound close together in age, but I wouldn't have thought so based on the games, and in the first chapter I was picturing Ariana as a fair bit older. Unsure if it'd be easy to make it clearer... We have these years but no obvious way to place when either of them was born.
Looking forward to following the rest of this; it's very compelling so far.
Ahaha, that author's note at the end. It do be that sort of chapter, don't it? I think this chapter provides a nice amount of progression after the first one; here we see Ariana becoming cemented as their father's favorite and how Gemma has latched onto pokémon training as her hope for leaving her home, and specifically her father, behind. It makes me a little curious about what the ages of the sisters are; the first section made me think of them as both around 6-8 or so, which would potentially make Gemma quite young to be starting as a trainer at this point. Extra unfair that Gemma's being judged at the same standard as her older sister, who's presumably had more time to work with her pokémon, or if not would be expected to be at least mildly more mature. Sad, too, that the small degree of comraderie that we saw between them in the last chapter is now entirely gone.
The bit of worldbuilding about the league instituting all these new regulations after the Hoenn Weather Crisis is a little surprising to me, since I usually don't think of that as something that would in any way prevented/improved by having older trainers? Did things become too dangerous for kids in Hoenn with Aqua/Magma running around beating people up or something? Were loads of young, undocumented trainers specifically getting recruited into Aqua/Magma? The titans awakening in Hoenn seemed like it kind of just sucked for everybody rather than trainers specifically, so I'm wondering what problem the new regulations are supposed to address. Regardless, though, the it's clear how it matters for the story here--becoming a trainer is one of the only opportunities for Gemma to get out from under her father's thumb, and now it seems her only way of doing so will be to act outside the system...
I like the way that Red keeps coming up in Gemma's thoughts here; it's obvious how much he's kind of shaped her understanding of what it means to be a good trainer. Seems her realization that he's Just Some Guy earlier hasn't diminished her respect for him. (I'm sure she keeps mighty quiet about him around Dad, though...)
Poor Gemma, and poor Mr. Hisser. The "test" itself was cruel, of course, and Gemma's dad seems to have set her up to fail to begin with, but his framing of the results as being for the good of Mr. Hisser is so terribly insidious. She really has so few weapons to fight against that sort of psychological manipulation, with how tightly her dad's been controlling her exposure to training in particular. It's heartbreaking to see her blame herself and take what he said at face value when it's easy for any reader to see straight through it. Gemma seems so far from becoming a trainer now, and worse, now has (had prior to this chapter, even) trauma associated with training/battling that's sure to make things even more difficult for her if and when she tries to go it on her own.
Another short but impactful chapter. I think the bite-sized scenes are working out well, even if they were to some extent originally necessitated by the contest wordcount limit. Looking forward to the next one! If you've already posted it, I stg...
(Also, I missed it earlier, but Dragonfree's review reminded me... the whole "I won't be manipulated by a child" thing, oh boy, Gemma's dad would have a bit of a complex about being shown up by a kid, wouldn't he?)
I was a bit confused why the battle trials are happening at the same time for the two of them--wouldn't Ariana's have already happened, if she's older? But it certainly helps you set up your parallel.
you’re not the only one to mention this. to be honest this wasn’t something i was thinking about, but you’re right that it doesn’t make sense. i decided it made the most sense to make the pair of them twins and edited accordingly. to be honest i think it kind of works better anyway, and definitely draws the parallel out more explicitly.
Gio making his kids prove they can murder small pokemon before he'll unleash them on the world certainly checks out. With the worldbuilding last chapter about there being regulations in pokemon battling, even at the highest level, I was unsure how Gio's 'battles should be murder' approach works out.
i actually didn’t intend for it to come across like giovanni wanted his kids to murder the other pokémon, although it certainly doesn’t bother him. ariana is just kind of extra like that, but all he really wants them to do is simply win a battle. i’ve made some changes that hopefully convey this a little better.
he’s not a cruel man after all, didn’t you hear him?
thanks for the line edits—i’ve incorporated them all, i think.
hey, thanks for checking out the fic! it’s honestly really neat to have a couple readers who are looking at this for the second time, and i’ve been really enjoying your insights so far.
One way or another, knowing who he is definitely takes the tension up a notch here--like bad enough when Gemma's watching TV without approval, but then when it turns out to be a battle with Red it's just like OH NO, oh no, I know exactly how this is going to go.
hahaha, i’m glad this came through! i definitely wanted to place that hint but didn’t want it to beat you over the head with it, so it’s good to know it was clearer on re-read; that was my hope.
You get the sense of how much the relationship between these two must be warped by the presence of their father, where trying to appease him will sometimes cause them to be cruel to one another.
bless! i really like the idea that these two sisters have more in common than they do apart, and should be sticking up for each other, but giovanni is just to scary and drives a wedge that grows and grows with time until they’re radically different people.
it’s that sort of fic, lowkey. hoping to make some changes so it’s not just OOF OOF OOF compliation, but yeah, the beginning just kinda has to be sort of rough. i thought about sprinkling some bonus stuff to break it up, but i think the more time we spend with gemma the more evident it becomes who she is, and i do still want that to surprise at least some proportion of my readers, even though i haven’t been able to shut my trap about writing a silver fic lolol.
It makes me a little curious about what the ages of the sisters are; the first section made me think of them as both around 6-8 or so, which would potentially make Gemma quite young to be starting as a trainer at this point. Extra unfair that Gemma's being judged at the same standard as her older sister, who's presumably had more time to work with her pokémon, or if not would be expected to be at least mildly more mature.
i fully did not think about the age difference being weird here, but every reviewer has noticed it. :p i actually went ahead and made some edits so they’re twins now, which makes this less weird and i think also works better to contrast them anyway.
The bit of worldbuilding about the league instituting all these new regulations after the Hoenn Weather Crisis is a little surprising to me, since I usually don't think of that as something that would in any way prevented/improved by having older trainers? Did things become too dangerous for kids in Hoenn with Aqua/Magma running around beating people up or something? Were loads of young, undocumented trainers specifically getting recruited into Aqua/Magma? The titans awakening in Hoenn seemed like it kind of just sucked for everybody rather than trainers specifically, so I'm wondering what problem the new regulations are supposed to address
these are great questions! i went ahead and edited in a tidbit that hopefully elucidates it a little. my thinking is more or less that the mass production of the poké ball is somewhat recent, and it really blew the roof off what pokémon training can be by removing a lot of the practical limitations on it. overall the scale has increased wildly on basically everything, and it’s a spike that nobody was quite ready for, and one that almost ended the world. the new layers of bureaucracy are a reaction to that shock and an attempt to sort of get a handle on things. ultimately you’re right though, it’s sorta just a passing detail that needs to exist so that gemma needs parental consent to journey. :p i could just say so i guess but i liked tying it into “recent events.”
(Also, I missed it earlier, but Dragonfree's review reminded me... the whole "I won't be manipulated by a child" thing, oh boy, Gemma's dad would have a bit of a complex about being shown up by a kid, wouldn't he?)
It's kind of interesting to me how little Gemma knows and understands about Pokémon - she's heard of a Charizard once or twice but never seen one, talk about type advantages is technical and way over her head. It sounds like Giovanni doesn't want them to watch battles specifically - he implies he's spoken to them before about watching this garbage which suggests it was about that in particular. I wonder what's behind that - not wanting them to become trainers and get out from under his thumb?
to some degree, yeah. most of all, giovanni is trying to stay under the radar right now following his defeat by red, and he doesn’t trust his children not to blab, so the less they know, the better. unfortunately for him he’s basically a celebrity, so it requires quite a bit of control to pull the wool over their eyes.
Ariana as Silver's sister (rather than mother) is something I'm not sure I've seen before but it makes a lot of sense, and oh boy, looking forward to where that sibling dynamic might go.
The brutality of the 'test' is awful; I'm not even sure if Giovanni cares that they're capable of killing so much as he wants to humiliate Gemma for not managing it. Choosing weakness, indeed.
i actually did not intend to convey that giovanni was requiring them to make a kill, specifically, but you’re not the only one who read it that way and i can definitely see why it would come off as such; in reality they just need to win the battle, and ariana is just extra as hell and took it further because she’s Like That. i’ve made some edits that hopefully make this a bit more clear. still i think your analysis is correct; it is a situation giovanni engineered to exert control, particularly in that way.
One thing I'm a bit fuzzy on right now are their ages. The fact they're being tested simultaneously for trainer sponsorship makes them sound close together in age, but I wouldn't have thought so based on the games, and in the first chapter I was picturing Ariana as a fair bit older. Unsure if it'd be easy to make it clearer... We have these years but no obvious way to place when either of them was born.
here’s another thing that tripped everyone up! i wasn’t thinking much about this, just nebulously that ariana is older, but again it doesn’t make sense for them to embark on their journeys at the same time if that’s the case. i’ve made some edits to make them twins; ariana is still technically older, but only just. it is a liiiittle weird given canon, but i think it works better for this scene and in general for this story.
thanks for checking out the story, and hope to see you back!!
There's a running theme of trying to attain validation from your superiors while trying to rebel against them. It seems contradictory on the outside, to try to both conform and rebel, but it's a very real phenomenon that happens abusive or dysfunctional relationships, speaking from research and personal experience.
so glad this came through! being a kid and having horrible parents is rough. no matter how bad they are, it can be really hard not to love them and crave their approval, especially when it’s hard to come by.
I just... really vibe with this story a lot. Canon characters, cycles of abuse, dysfunctional families, trans themes... this is my shit. And splitting it up into chapters both makes it a lot easier (for me, at least) to read and allows more room to expand on the good stuff.
i thought it might be a little bit up your alley. :p it’s different from my usual stuff, but i’m really glad you’re enjoying! thanks for giving it a look!
Aug. 1999
Gemma’s nose is bleeding, elbowed by a police officer when she’d tried to squirm out of his grip. Her back hurts from sleeping outside. Shoulder hurts where the cop’s hand is digging into it, pushing her into the professor’s office. She grunts as he shoves her into a chair.
“And don’t even think about running,” the cop growls. Gemma makes a face at him, but he ignores it and leaves her alone there, a growlithe at his heels, slamming the door behind him.
There's a sour taste in her mouth as she sits there in silence for a while, just staring at her hands. Feeling hollow. This is the first moment of respite she’s had in hours.
No matter what comes next, she can’t let them find out who she is. She’ll serve any punishment gladly so long as Dad never hears a word about it. Not like he’d find out unless they tell him; she ran away months ago, and it didn’t seem like he’d tried particularly hard to find her.
She wasn’t even afraid he’d be angry. Not anymore. She’d seen so much of that, borne so much of his wrath, that the threat of it barely made her feel anything now. Now what she feared was something worse. She feared that if he heard what happened, what she’d done, he would—for the first time in her life—actually be proud of her.
The professor shuffles into the room. There’s an aura of chaos around him; a crumpled piece of paper falls from his pocket, corners all bent. He sits down at his desk with a huff, facing Gemma, but doesn’t look at her until he’s done shuffling around what seems like a thousand sheets of paper on the desktop. It looks no more organized when he’s done.
As he leans back in his chair, he retrieves something from his coat pocket and sets it gingerly on the desk. A poké ball.
Gemma's heart flutters.
“Right,” the professor grumbles, and finally his beady eyes look up at her from behind his thin-wired glasses. She doesn’t look away. “Professor Elm, pokémon researcher, yadda yadda. So you’re the delinquent, uh. I’m supposed to give a speech about responsibility. Right? Or wait. Are you just some trainer looking for orientation? Sorry, afraid you’re a bit late if that’s the case, but—”
Fully aware of how easy it would be to lie to this scatter-brained man and weasel her way out of trouble, Gemma just stares back at the professor unflinchingly. Lying is what Ariana would do. What Dad would do.
I'm not like them.
“Okay. Delinquent. Right.” He sighs and moves some papers around seemingly at random. “Listen. I don’t know what your story is, but you don’t have to steal. Really. Almost anything you want in this world is at your fingertips if you put in a little work. Seriously, I mean that. You want a starter pokémon? Okay. You need a sponsorship for that here, yes, but we have programs. Programs for kids who don’t have the money, you know? Do a little fieldwork and we’ll get you on your feet. That’s a service we offer. There’s no shame in it at all. That’s how Red got his start, did you know that?”
That piques her interest. She didn’t know that. Red was such a prodigy, she always assumed he’d had the full force of the league behind him, but… if he started from nothing, maybe there’s a chance for her…
She must have shown her excitement plainly, because Elm’s face lifts a little. “Yes, really! I can get you started today, see? You don’t need to break the law or push people around, we can help you. You just gotta play nice. Now, I’ll remind you, it does require work, and it is real work. But you’ll get a sponsorship for free at the end. And—you know what, maybe this is bad, but—this pokémon," he says, tapping the capsule on the desk. Gemma becomes very aware of her heartbeat. "You've taken a little bit of a shining to it, haven't you? I figure the little guy's taken a bit of a liking to you, too. They kinda imprint like that. So look... If you’ve bonded with this pokémon, I can set it aside and look after it, and when you finish your work, I’ll make sure it comes back to you. But you do have to earn it. Understand? How does that sound?”
She takes a deep breath, considering it, trying not to let her excitement show. She'd considered the pokémon as good as gone; after all, she'd stolen it, and she'd gotten caught. Mr. Hisser's amber eyes flash in her mind, and she realizes this is one fact she knows well: if you want to keep something, you must be able to defend it, and she has failed.
What Elm is offering her is seems impossibly good—it’s everything she wanted, in fact. A chance to do this for real, to keep her pokémon, to become an honest-to-god trainer. All on her own, just like Red did it.
Except… Yes, she still needs Dad’s permission, doesn’t she? Maybe she can find another way to fund her journey, but he still needs to approve it. Her heart sinks. Unless… could there be another way?
“Look, you think about it for a second, and I’ll get some paperwork started for you. I’m sure I have one of those forms around here somewhere…” The desk becomes a tempest of papers, but he finds it eventually. “Right. Okay, first thing’s first. Name. What did you say your name was?”
Her heart skips. Name. She can’t tell him the truth, of course. Her last name would be a dead giveaway. And how many Gemmas are there at her age in this part of the country, anyway? No, she’ll have to come up with… something else.
To her own surprise, her heart soars at the thought.
A new name.
She’s always hated the one she has. So old-fashioned, so girly. It doesn’t suit who she is inside at all. And now she can pick a new one of her very own, a cool name befitting a pokémon master.
Silver, second best to gold. It stings, but it feels good in a way, too. Feels right.
“Silver,” Elm repeats. “Silver. Okay. Got it. Now… I’m going to need your parent’s gear number. I don’t have to tell them about what you did, but we’re going to need their consent to enroll you in our program, naturally.”
Gemma’s—no, Silver’s—heart sinks. Of course. It couldn’t have been so easy to escape Dad. She hadn’t expected otherwise, not really, but she had let herself hope. Stupid.
Elm’s face becomes deathly serious. “Silver,” he says again. “Are you… safe at home? You can trust me. The lab can help you.”
“Um.” She shifts in her seat. “Yes. It’s fine. And it’s none of your business, so just butt out of it, okay?”
He furrows his brows, and she knows this isn’t going to work. She balls her hands into fists, eyes flitting to the window. She could definitely outrun this man if need be, just bust through the window and be on her way if it came to that.
But the look Elm gives her isn’t anger. It’s… pity. She shrinks into herself. It’s not the first time she’s gotten that look in the last couple months, and there’s nothing she hates more. She doesn’t want to be pitied. She wants to be free.
“You can tell me the truth, Silver,” he says, like he’s talking to a baby. “We can send someone to check things out and get you out of there. You just need to trust me.”
Send someone? Oh no, oh no no no. She’d only run away at his mercy. She knew that if he wanted her found, she would be found within the hour. With the resources he had, it wasn’t a question. And if someone came poking around in his business out of nowhere… No. She’d be dead. Actually dead. Probably Elm, too, and everyone else in this building.
Her eyes flit to the window again, and she sees trees swaying in the breeze.
“Forrest,” she says. “Forrest Jones. That’s my dad’s name.”
Elm exhales slowly out of his nose, giving her the saddest look. Then he shakes his head and pinches the bridge of his nose. “Okay. Okay. Forrest Jones. I’ll write that down. Look, stay put right here, alright? I’m going to step outside and talk with the nice police officer out there for just a moment, and then I’ll come back and get this paperwork finished up, okay? I’ll sign for you, and then you can get started. Just stay right here.”
He gets up and shuffles out, closing the door quietly.
The poké ball remains on the desk.
Silver waits until she can’t hear the clicking of his shoes anymore. Then she springs out of her chair, lunges for the ball, throws herself over the professor’s desk, drives a foot through the window, and clambers through it. The broken glass slices through her hands and knees, but she doesn’t care.
The shell of the poké ball—her poké ball—is cool in her hand.
All that matters now is putting as much distance as possible between herself and this laboratory as fast as she can.
If she gets far enough, maybe they’ll stop looking for her.
i actually didn’t intend for it to come across like giovanni wanted his kids to murder the other pokémon, although it certainly doesn’t bother him. ariana is just kind of extra like that, but all he really wants them to do is simply win a battle. i’ve made some changes that hopefully convey this a little better.
Ohh, gotcha! I think what gave me that impression was Gemma's hesitation about ending the battle. After what happened with Ariana, it seemed like battles end in death, which is why she can't do it. Maybe a line where she's reminding herself she's done this before, but the image of what she just saw intrudes?
my thinking is more or less that the mass production of the poké ball is somewhat recent, and it really blew the roof off what pokémon training can be by removing a lot of the practical limitations on it. overall the scale has increased wildly on basically everything, and it’s a spike that nobody was quite ready for, and one that almost ended the world. the new layers of bureaucracy are a reaction to that shock and an attempt to sort of get a handle on things. ultimately you’re right though, it’s sorta just a passing detail that needs to exist so that gemma needs parental consent to journey. :p i could just say so i guess but i liked tying it into “recent events.”
Very interesting. I'm super curious how that's going to shape this setting. I also see the development of mass produced pokeballs as being game-changing--exciting to have something set as those changes are still rippling out.
Ah, the famous laboratory scene! We're picking up after a four month gap, but a lot has changed for Silver. She's made the decision to run away and has been managing, if not well. It's clear by now that she knows the truth of who Giovanni is--I wasn't sure how much she knew still last chapter. I don't mind picking up here, though I am curious what the final straw was for her. Her emotional state at the end of last chapter didn't quite seem ready to coalesce into run away. Being left alone with Giovanni, without Ariana to take up some of the attention--that couldn't have been easy. I wonder if a part of her hoped after Ariana left and she didn't that she might get the chance to be the Golden Child. Obviously, that was not to be. I'm also curious why Giovanni hasn't come after her--as she recognizes, he absolutely could. Maybe he doesn't care what a kid who's failed does or maybe he thinks this is a good way to toughen her up or have her learn a lesson. He must be less concerned about secrecy at this point, too.
I really like the direction you took with Professor Elm here. The absent-mindedness is a given, but the kindness wasn't. After the trauma-fest the last two chapters have been, Elm's portrayal as a scattered, geeky, fundamentally kind person who's trying his best for this random delinquent kid was moving, and touched me a lot more than if he's been reserved or dismissive. He's so excited about helping! They have programs! But Silver's problems are way beyond the scope of what he can fix, and she knows it. Worse, she knows if she told him any part of the truth, she'd be putting him in danger.
The one thing that bugged me a bit this chapter is Silver still having the tododile. Police love to frisk and I feel like frisking the delinquent who just broke in to steal a pokemon would be the natural move. It feels strange that they'd leave Elm alone with her if she had a pokemon on her. Definitely lots of ways around that--Elm could just have out a pokemon that could clearly handle a tododile or something. But it seems strange the police wouldn't have even checked.
No matter what comes next, she can’t let them find out who she is. She’ll serve any punishment gladly so long as Dad never hears a word about it. Not like he’d find out unless they tell him; she ran away months ago, and it didn’t seem like he’d tried particularly hard to find her.
She wasn’t even afraid he’d be angry. Not anymore. She’d seen so much of that, borne so much of his wrath, that the threat of it barely made her feel anything now. Now what she feared was something worse. She feared that if he heard what happened, what she’d done, he would—for the first time in her life—actually be proud of her.
Hm, I'm not sure how much to believe this. I'm guessing she's still pretty scared of his anger. Is the thing he'd be proud of that she stole a pokemon? He might be less proud that she got caught, rip.
Fully aware of how easy it would be to lie to this scatter-brained man and weasel her way out of trouble, Gemma just stares back at the professor unflinchingly.
She knew that if he wanted her found, she would be found within the hour. With the resources he had, it wasn’t a question. And if someone came poking around in his business out of nowhere… No. She’d be dead. Actually dead. Probably Elm, too, and everyone else in this building.
you are on these reviews so quick, damn. thank you! some excellent excellent here and definitely some stuff to think about. i’m learning quickly the power of tiny chapters, they’re so comfy and easy to edit.
Ohh, gotcha! I think what gave me that impression was Gemma's hesitation about ending the battle. After what happened with Ariana, it seemed like battles end in death, which is why she can't do it. Maybe a line where she's reminding herself she's done this before, but the image of what she just saw intrudes?
I don't mind picking up here, though I am curious what the final straw was for her. Her emotional state at the end of last chapter didn't quite seem ready to coalesce into run away.
i went back and forth on injecting another chapter before this. i think you’re right that jumping ahead here leaves a lot up to inference. but i was having trouble thinking of anything fresh to write that wasn’t just more of gemma being treated horribly, and i didn’t want to get excessive with that.
I'm also curious why Giovanni hasn't come after her--as she recognizes, he absolutely could. Maybe he doesn't care what a kid who's failed does or maybe he thinks this is a good way to toughen her up or have her learn a lesson. He must be less concerned about secrecy at this point, too.
i think you’ve basically got it. giovanni is in a more secure place than he was before and isn’t worried about some kid toppling him by running her mouth, least of all one who he believes is weak.
another part of this that i’m not sure how or whether to draw out in this chapter is that giovanni is grooming his children for leadership in rocket—their journeys are a means to that end—and it’s clear that gemma will not be useful to him, so he’s lost interest in raising her. i’ll have to think about how to convey this… the previous chapter might be a good place.
I really like the direction you took with Professor Elm here. The absent-mindedness is a given, but the kindness wasn't. After the trauma-fest the last two chapters have been, Elm's portrayal as a scattered, geeky, fundamentally kind person who's trying his best for this random delinquent kid was moving, and touched me a lot more than if he's been reserved or dismissive. He's so excited about helping! They have programs!
thank you! writing canon characters is not something i normally do, but i for sure had a lot of fun with it here. elm always struck me as a lot more tender and personally invested in the player’s success than other professors except for maybe birch.
The one thing that bugged me a bit this chapter is Silver still having the tododile. Police love to frisk and I feel like frisking the delinquent who just broke in to steal a pokemon would be the natural move. It feels strange that they'd leave Elm alone with her if she had a pokemon on her. Definitely lots of ways around that--Elm could just have out a pokemon that could clearly handle a tododile or something. But it seems strange the police wouldn't have even checked.
oop. i completely agree, but i straight up couldn’t think of a reason why the cop wouldn’t just snatch it, and i need him not to for this story to work, so i kind of just sent it. but now that you raise it, i think i might have an idea that makes a bit more sense and will try to edit it in—thanks for pointing this out.
Hm, I'm not sure how much to believe this. I'm guessing she's still pretty scared of his anger. Is the thing he'd be proud of that she stole a pokemon?
i think she’s more scared than she lets on, but it isn’t existential because by now she knows the limits of his rage. and yeah, kind of—she thinks he would like that she saw something she wanted and took it, even at risk to herself.
What a lovely, heartbreaking chapter. Silver's already very much becoming recognizable as the Silver we know, permanently on the defensive after all the cruel lessons she's learned from her life so far. Loved Professor Elm; he's so genuinely good, just wants to help this obviously troubled kid and give her a second chance, and he's observant enough to pick up what's going on in Silver's head - that she lights up at the idea of getting to officially go on a journey, that her face falls when he brings up parental consent. He tries so hard to get this kid some help.
And yet, Silver is too guarded - too wary of things that seem too good to be true, too paranoid about her dad. She probably could have gotten Elm to help without putting everyone in danger of Giovanni's wrath. But Elm's asking probing questions and pitying her and is insistent on involving her dad somehow and she just grabs the first chance she gets to run away again, missing her chance to do it all the legal way, like Red.
Oof at her treatment at the hands of the policeman - too bad Elm didn't come in until afterwards, doubt he would have approved if he'd seen the manhandling. And of course, Silver doesn't think anything of it and doesn't even think of saying anything to Elm about it; too used to abuse and being treated like dirt and not trusting anyone.
She wasn’t even afraid he’d be angry. Not anymore. She’d seen so much of that, borne so much of his wrath, that the threat of it barely made her feel anything now. Now what she feared was something worse. She feared that if he heard what happened, what she’d done, he would—for the first time in her life—actually be proud of her.
What a sentiment, huh. It makes a horrible, twisted sense that after a while she would get numb to it in a way. At a certain point it's just normal, just how things are. And at the same time the thought of him approving of her, ceasing to just not care, has become the truly repellent one.
Almost anything you want in this world is at your finger tips if you put in a little work.
Oh, boy! I've been looking forward to this one for a while now, having been very interested in the premise back when it was a oneshot contest concept. Trans Silver fic? Yes please.
1
So, first up we get this lovely little insight into Silver's childhood. There's not much of the future jerkass rival here, yet, but there's a fixation on strong pokémon, and there's a sort of fear-tinged impatience/frustration. Interesting that he's got a twin sister called Ariana – very much used to the idea that Ariana was his mother since she seemed so much older, but perhaps she's named for her mum...? Ariana's an adult-looking character with a lot of authority only a few years after this if it is her. The ekans she gets later feels like evidence that it is. Eh, either way, I like the dynamic, the way Gemma is superficially the ostensibly older/more responsible one but will immediately lie to put Silver in the shit.
I really enjoy the way common knowledge to readers plays out in this – the way watching Red on TV is what sends Giovanni into a rage, even if Gemma can't know that's what the problem is. Kid!Silver is, obviously, hella sympathetic in this. What's interesting is the way Giovanni feels slightly sympathetic for about five seconds, what with the way Gemma remembers him as having been happy. Clearly the man's a power-drunk monster, though. That TV destruction is terrifying, as is the way no specific, directed consequence ever comes for Gemma. The TV is replaced instantly, because he's loaded and cares about appearances. Ariana disappears for a week with no explanation. The anticipation is awful.
I also like how you named the persian Mars and had him enter first, as a harbinger of Giovanni's rage. Sinister.
2
So, three years later, huh? That's the time of the GS release, though... [checks] not for a few months yet. Oh boy.
I enjoy the intensely miserable emotional cocktail here. The easy brutality of Ariana's victory, Gemma's dread and anxiety and guilt, Giovanni's pride, Giovanni's acid, contemptuous disappointment. I think the cruelest part of this is the way he frames his cruelty as him not being cruel, as a favour to Mr Hisser, as if Giovanni could possibly care about a pokémon's wellbeing when he's literally just demanded brutal put-downs of other pokémon. This is just about strength and humiliation and obedience.
Must victory feel like something crawling down your back? God, I feel so bad for this kid. That title – tarnishing – feels like it's starting to matter already. Silver ruins what he touches, in his own mind, but really this is about Silver being ruined. Giovanni's influence on him is corrosive – acidic.
Also, I do love the sponsorship worldbuilding, the way you've easily pieced together plausible details with verisimilitude that serve to justify the narrative in turn. Nicely done.
3
So, 1999 again. The narrative as we've seen it is upon us.
This scene with Elm does something I really enjoy in fanfic – letting us see more of an event we're familiar with, more details, a perspective we lacked, realism and implication and information. What's sad about this moment is that it's nearly good. But there's that sticking point, about a legal guardian. Silver can't be free. He has to do what he does, because there isn't a better option for him. He lost the chance for Gio's approval, and so he lost the chance to do things legit. It's heartbreaking that Elm would gladly help Silver to get out of an abusive household but that it's not possible here, damnit. (It makes me wonder what provision there is for outright homeless kids, if any.) It hurts to see Silver get his hopes up. It's strange, to end up rooting for him to do what he does.
It makes sense for Silver to be a runaway, to steal the starter 'mon because he has no other option, to be scared as much as angry. I like this interpretation. A lot. I also like his characterisation, a lot. Defensive and reticent, but wanting to be honest, independent, free. Authentic. No facade, no bullshit. I like that he's bonded with the 'mon already and wants them as a partner, wants to protect them. (The guilt and shame coming back is great.) I like that he puts his foot through the glass without caring about the shards in just the way his dad put his foot through the TV. The implicit mirroring, the way abusive parents create damaged kids.
Good shit. Eager for the rest. I truly do hope it'll be less miserable, but goodness, what a delicious misery it is so far.
Hello again! So this is the trans Silver fic you'd been threatening to write for a while! I didn't actually have a chance to read any contest entries at the time, so I don't have the context of the original one-shot version to go on—starting fresh here. Maybe for the best, if you believe it's got more room to breathe as a chapterfic!
Admittedly I didn't realize at first that that's what this was about; it wasn't until I saw the name "Ariana" that I realized. Wasn't expecting to get backstory on her as well! I tend to assume a much larger age gap between Ariana and Silver than is depicted here(as most readers did, seems like), but they do both got that red hair goin' on, and given how young so many other people seem to be in the pokémon world there's no reason Ariana couldn't be an exec even as a teenager. And heck, anyway, she is daddy's girl, so who's to say she can't get a fancy promotion even earlier than normal?
this does give new meaning to my occasional joking about how the plot of the johto games is just team rocket crying for daddy to come home, heh. this new meaning is... a lot less funny than a joke. :/
I wonder how often Ariana might've taken the fall, intentionally or accidentally, for things Gemma did before. She was actually telling the truth here (not that Gemma wouldn't prefer her sister sticking up for her, of course), and yet she's the one who gets so severely punished that Gemma doesn't see her again for a week. I'd say I'd expect this to cause a lot of tension later down the line, but Ariana is also the one who ends up buying into Giovanni's worldview and his organization more directly than her sibling, so maybe it won't come up again after all?
Regardless, it should be interesting to explore the ways in which coming up in this horrible situation causes them to grow into different people—and in which ways they might end up being the same.
Gemma's only seen him this way once before. Just before he left. He'd been angry with someone on the phone, and she'd interrupted him to ask for a snack.
Absolutely nothing about what actually happened was described here, and yet you immediately feel what an understatement "not the best" actually is, ugh. Very effective place to leave this up to reader imagination.
Wings aren't supposed to bend like that, are they?
The picture of a "bright young trainer", but also, perhaps, the picture of someone who's more comfortable feeling feminine than Gemma and her "baggy clothes". In general this chapter gives a great overview of all the ways Ariana and Gemma are growing apart, all the ways that Ariana is getting closer and closer to being who she eventually becomes in the games, and that seed of how much Gemma both resents this and envies it.
You really feel for Gemma having such a difficult time ordering Mr. Hisser to attack the pichu, even though she knows trainer battles aren't normally fatal. (Though if seeing Ariana mangle pidgey is a regular sight, I guess she can't help but worry that pokémon might get more injured than they're supposed to.) Such empathy, and all going to get crushed out of her—presumably mostly by her own thoughts, in the end! I can imagine her coming back to how much she wants to be nice to her pokémon and others but clearly choosing to play nice doesn't work, it's never worked for her, he says it never works, why should she start now?
She wasn’t even afraid he’d be angry. Not anymore. She’d seen so much of that, borne so much of his wrath, that the threat of it barely made her feel anything now. Now what she feared was something worse. She feared that if he heard what happened, what she’d done, he would—for the first time in her life—actually be proud of her.
big yikes, chief. (And yet she goes on to do it again—for now, just out of fear of getting caught and of having to be separated from her new partner, but what's the excuse when it happens again with the sneasel down the line? How much prouder might Dad be of his little repeat offender then?)
It is at least nice to see that, at least in theory, the sponsorship programs have options to make them more accessible for disadvantaged kids.
Her heart skips. Name. She can’t tell him the truth, of course. Her last name would be a dead giveaway. And how many Gemmas are there at her age in this part of the country, anyway? No, she’ll have to come up with… something else.
To her own surprise, her heart soars at the thought.
A new name.
She’s always hated the one she has. So old-fashioned, so girly. It doesn’t suit who she is inside at all. And now she can pick a new one of her very own, a cool name befitting a pokémon master.
In general the expansion of how Silver ends up with Totodile was great. She steals it, gets caught, gets offered a chance to obtain it legitimately and to accept some actual support now she's out on her own, but there's still far too great a chance for even this generosity to make its way back to her father, so she still ends up having to abandon ship, cut and run. She's basically just getting herself into even hotter water with Elm and the police, but maybe that's worth it as long as it means never seeing Giovanni again. ...Right?
(Since I didn't read the original fic I'm not sure exactly what moment will be popping up next, but I do have to wonder how Silver will do in his first battle with Totodile—another predatory pokémon, another one that's naturally designed to kill. Will that fear of hurting his opponents still be there as a struggle to overcome? Or will it be easier to just stamp down that "nonsense" right away and go full aggro, the way Ariana does?)
If she gets far enough, maybe they’ll stop looking for her.
And help, real help, was so close, too... Giovanni having them all snuffed out, or at least doing something to them, is a pretty legit concern, but still...
I'm really looking forward to reading the rest of this as it's posted, and as we begin to see more of how that previous life with Giovanni and his sister and all those expectations begins to color how Silver interacts with pokémon and with others going forward. Heavier stuff isn't normally my jam, but this is a really affecting read in spite of how gut-wrenchingly awful their childhood is, and if nothing else it's really gripping—you just have to see how Silver manages to get himself out of these bad situations and then stumble right back into them when he can't escape the cycle. And, well *gestures vaguely at current forum avatar* I am a bit of a sucker for rival backstories, so. Will definitely be following the rest of this!
Hi Q!!!! Here for a nice lil' catnip review. I didn't realize you'd written this so recently but I'm excited to read something else from you, considering how much I liked Wandersword. I read all three of the available chapters here so I'll be covering those!
So right off the bat I get the gist that Gemma and Ariana live in an abusive household. You don't really drop too much at the beginning, but just based on these absurd ass rules and how afraid Gemma is to cause her dad's wrath, leads me to believe that he is indeed......not the kindest. My heart hit the fucking flood when he caught them, and just based on the context clues, I was like.........is that.......Giovanni???? Which segues into how absolutely fucking braindead I am.
Once it dawned on me this their dad was Giovanni, I was like OH OKAY I know who Ariana is she's a Rocket Admin........but then I was like......who the actual fuck is Gemma?? I was trying to do some research to figure it out because my knowledge on Gen 1/2/3 is very limited so I was trying to at least supplement my reading with a better understanding of what was going on here, but I COULD NOT FIND ANYTHING ABOUT A FUCKING GEMMA. And then I got to the third chapter and saw "Silver" and it all dawned on me, "OHHHHHHHHHH THIS IS A SILVER TRANS FIC OHHHHHHHHHHHHHH" and then it dawned on me EVEN FUCKING MORE WHY IT'S CALLED TARNISHING, BECAUSE SILVER FUCKING TARNISHES HAHAHAHAHAHAHA yeah tl;dr Sind's a slow asf braindead chimpanzee.
Anyway, these chapters are relatively short but I was absolutely obsessed with how much you'd managed to cram into them without overdoing it. Establishing Giovanni's abusive nature, then flashing forward to his clear favoritism of Ariana over Gemma (and further showing how apart they seem to have grown, yikes), to Gemma getting caught by Elm stealing a starter. A lot to unpack and a lot to digest, and I dig it.
Honestly, the rage I felt toward Giovanni was so goddamn visceral so......good job, fam. Literally wanted to jump through the screen and just throttle him. Ariana too, even from the beginning how she just threw Gemma under the bus when they got caught. They were young then, but STILL, it gave an adequate look into how her character was going to grow; constantly throwing poor Gemma under the bus, which I assume is going to come up more as the story goes on.
Also, it seems Pokemon battling is a little more deadly in this world, huh? Like, a won battle could mean a dead opponent, judging by the state Ariana's opponent pidgey was left in and how it seemed to be implied that Gemma was supposed to have the opponent pichu killed by her ekans. That certainly raises the stakes and I'm looking forward to see how that ends up playing out throughout the course of the story.
I'm admittedly not in a mind to give concrit at the moment but I will say that so far I am feeling good about the pacing and characterization. I was frustrated that Gemma skipped out on Elm trying to help her, which honestly feels very much in line with how a person who has been through what she has been through would react. Much realism, tbh. I think I have some nitpicky line-by-lines but that's about it for now.
She should be tucked into bed right now, fast asleep. If her father saw her out here at this hour watching TV… She doesn’t even want to think about it.
Dad smiled a lot once, and sometimes still does—he loves mago berry sorbet, and no one ever looks so at peace as he does when he's petting his cat Mars. But he's gone so much these days, sometimes for weeks at a time, and when he's home he seems to be in a bad mood all the time. Things he had ignored once anger him now, and she doesn't always understand why. The one thing she has learned, sure as anything, is not to push her limits.
The creature fixes its eyes on the camera—its reptilian gaze is cold and unnerving, like it’s peering at Gemma herself and assessing whether her flesh would be worth its effort. A chill runs down her spine.
“What are you doing?” a voice hisses. A real one, definitely not the announcer. For the second time tonight Gemma leaps out of her skin. She reflexively smashes her thumb into the television’s power button, feeling sick with panic as she whips her head around.
Oh. It’s just Ariana standing there with her hands on her hips. Gemma’s twin sister—older just by a few minutes, though she acts like it's years. She’s visible in the light of the TV for a moment before it whines into blackness. Her ruby-red hair is a wild nest, and her expression is a mixture of surprise and disapproval and sleepiness and… interest.
“Gemma woke me up sneaking out,” she blurts out. Gemma’s throat constricts. She gives Ariana the nastiest look she can possibly muster, not that it counts for much now. “I just came out here to see what was—
Father grips the remote with a shaking, white-knuckled hand and pitches it at the TV. Gemma recoils at the sound. The remote explodes against the screen, batteries flying.
It's interesting that he never hits them himself, he just takes his anger out on the surroundings. Not that that's not any less abusive, I just found it interesting. Though, I guess it is implied that he HAS done so in the past and isn't afraid too, considering he grabbed Ariana by the face.
For Gemma’s friends, getting their parents to sign off was the easiest part of the process. But of course nothing came for free with Dad. Of course she has to pass a test first, prove herself.
Mr. Hisser lunges. The pichu leaps out of the way, but he still manages to whip its face with a snap of his rattle-tipped tail—a move she’d practiced with Mr. Hisser after seeing Red’s arbok do it. The pichu yelps in pain, tiny sparks flying from its fur.
The memory of it swells up in her. The sentret's ragged breaths, the poison seeping from its wound, the distant gaze of its trainer. Yes, she'd won that one. Is that how victory feels? Like something crawling down your back?
Ariana was a good battler, to be fair, but Gemma hadn’t watched her fight. Couldn’t. The pidgey that Ariana’s oddish had defeated is an indistinct pile of claws and feathers on the ground. Its plumage is dusted with stun spores that glimmer in the halogen light, giving the twitching body a golden sheen.
This was it. This was her chance, and she blew it. Distantly she knows this. She won’t be going on a journey. Her friends and her sister will leave her behind to go on life-changing adventures in the sun, free of their parents, free to live their lives, and here she will remain. Alone. With him.
Gods she was really stuck between a rock and a hard place there. On one hand, not wanting to straight up moider the innocent Pokemon but on the other hand, not doing so meant being stuck with her abusive fuck of a dad. I feel so bad for her.
“This ekans is a good and capable pokémon. Its attacks are strong. When you gave an order, it obeyed. Yet it was led to failure. I’m not a cruel man, Gemma. I will not keep this pokémon locked indoors with a weak, incompetent trainer and deny it the thrill and adventure that every pokémon desires. It deserves more. It has earned it. Your sister will bring it along with her on her journey.”
Now what she feared was something worse. She feared that if he heard what happened, what she’d done, he would—for the first time in her life—actually be proud of her.
She must have shown her excitement plainly, because Elm’s face lifts a little. “Yes, really! I can get you started today, see? You don’t need to break the law or push people around, we can help you. You just gotta play nice. Now, I’ll remind you, it does require work, and it is real work. But you’ll get a sponsorship for free at the end. And—you know what, maybe this is bad, but—this pokémon," he says, tapping the capsule on the desk. Gemma becomes very aware of her heartbeat. "You've taken a little bit of a shining to it, haven't you? I figure the little guy's taken a bit of a liking to you, too. They kinda imprint like that. So look... If you’ve bonded with this pokémon, I can set it aside and look after it, and when you finish your work, I’ll make sure it comes back to you. But you do have to earn it. Understand? How does that sound?”
Oh my god okay I believe you, I really hope she takes this offer but if I know characters like her like I THINK I do she's definitely not which fucking blows. Elm, you're a good doober.
Silver waits until she can’t hear the clicking of his shoes anymore. Then she springs out of her chair, lunges for the ball, throws herself over the professor’s desk, drives a foot through the window, and clambers through it. The broken glass slices through her hands and knees, but she doesn’t care.
Heya, don’t know a whole lot about this story other than that it’s an AU retelling of Silver’s backstory that apparently goes places later down the line, but here for Catnip and to see what all the hubbub is about:
Oct. 1996
The television comes to life in the dark, snowy signal noise painting Gemma’s face with its pins-and-needles light, loud static crackling from the speakers. The light and sound might as well be a blaring siren in the living room, and she has to shake herself out of her momentary panic to mash the volume-down button until the crackling is just audible.
Wait, just how loud was that thing left on last time, anyways?
She should be tucked into bed right now, fast asleep. If her father saw her out here at this hour watching TV… She doesn’t even want to think about it.
Oh, that’s a good sign about dad already. I mean, I’m pretty sure that it’s Gio from what I remember premise-wise of this story as described in the contest roundup, but still.
Dad smiled a lot once, and sometimes still does—he loves mago berry sorbet, and no one ever looks so at peace as he does when he's petting his cat Mars. But he's gone so much these days, sometimes for weeks at a time, and when he's home he seems to be in a bad mood all the time. Things he had ignored once anger him now, and she doesn't always understand why. The one thing she has learned, sure as anything, is not to push her limits.
That… is shockingly fitting as a name for Gio’s Persian. Like one step further would be to make it the name of some sort of rocket, but it’s not bad. Though I presume that this is happening in the backdrop of things going to pot for Team Rocket during the events of Gen 1, huh?
Watching the TV is not something she would normally risk provoking him over. But this isn't just any old TV show. This matters. Unfortunately, she has no idea how to find it. She’s never watched TV on her own, doesn’t know the channels—it’s always him with the remote, leaned back in his leather chair with his legs crossed. Gemma’s only option is to surf until she finds what she wants.
Gemma’s not very observant, is she? Since you’d think that she’d have noticed the channel number in the corner while scrolling, since that used to be a staple of consumer CRT TVs.
Each time she changes the channel, the screen fuzzes and hisses for a moment before the picture comes in. First it’s a cooking show. No thanks. Zygarde Warriors. Pass. An advertisement for the all-new Super Rod, twice the strength for the price you love. Next. A reporter blathering about disaster relief in Hoenn. Boring!
Yeah, this is set sometime during or after the events of Gen 1.
Click.
The screen becomes an overhead portal to a stadium, and an announcer’s voice comes through the speaker. “Indigo League Champion Red defends his title against challenger Branson in this championship match,” he booms to the delight of the screaming crowd. A sea of fans and flashing cameras like stars surround the battlefield, a green pitch under spotlight. On one end is a young man bouncing on his heels, and on the other…
“Red,” Gemma whispers to herself. It must be a rerun, then. The former Indigo League Champion is plainly dressed and standing there cool as a pyukumuku, maybe even a little impatiently, like he’s waiting in line at the PokéMart. This guy was the strongest trainer in the region? Gemma’s heard of him from the awed chatter of the kids at the park she likes to hang out at. The best ever to do it, they said, til’ he relinquished his title last year to go find himself on Mount Silver—just gave his title away, they’d said breathlessly. No one had ever done that before. That’s how wicked strong Red is.
Cue the “I wanna be just like him” right as Gio walks in through the door.
She had to see what the fuss was about. That’s why she was out here in the middle of the night, straining her eyes against the light of the television. She’d expected someone bombastic, a figure pulled from legend. But the man on the screen unclipping a poké ball from his belt was just some guy.
Wait, just how sheltered of a life has Gemma been living anyways?
“The defender will send out his pokémon first, as always,” the commentator says. “Lately Red has had a habit of starting with his Venusaur, but our analysts predict that for a higher-stakes fight like this, he might choose—”
His words are cut short by a flash of white on the battlefield. The camera cuts to a pokémon—huge and orange, stocky arms rippling with muscles, massive teal wings unfurling. Gleaming ivory teeth peek from its huge jaws, big enough to wrap comfortably around a human head. The creature fixes its eyes on the camera—its reptilian gaze is cold and unnerving, like it’s peering at Gemma herself and assessing whether her flesh would be worth its effort. A chill runs down her spine.
Just waiting for Gio to stroll in and ruin everything by smashing the TV in a fit of pique.
Right, a charizard. She’s heard that name.
The challenger sends out some kind of rock monster the commentator calls a “rhydon.” It’s got a big horn on its face, and its whole body is clad in stony armor. It looks slow, but the commentator seems to think it’s threatening enough. Something technical about type advantages and defense factors—it all flies right over Gemma’s head. Right when she’s thinking the blathering has gone on too long, the charizard leaps into action, and the battle starts.
I mean, I get that meta-wise it makes sense, but you’d think that the commentators would put less stock into this after this kid shamed a crime boss into going to ground at the tender young age of 10.
The dragon flies low to the ground, its wings flared out and smoke streaming from its nostrils. The rhydon plants its feet and beats its boulder-like fists into the turf, cracking it into pieces. It hefts one of the pieces up, revealing a stony underside, and pitches it at the charizard so fast it becomes a blur. But the charizard lazily tilts a wing just a hair and the rock sails right past it, exploding against the forcefield protecting the trainers from the battle.
Wait, are those canonically things in the anime now? Or is that your workaround for how sport matches don’t casually murder dozens of people out of existence with each match?
Letting out a snort of irritation but otherwise unperturbed, the rhydon hurls another boulder at the charizard. This time the charizard doesn’t move, and Gemma recoils, expecting to see the dragon go flying back from the impact—but suddenly Charizard’s feet are flat on the ground and the boulder is halted. It caught it.
Rhydon: “*Wait, what the hell?! This is right up there with Lance’s Barrier Dragonite as utter Tauros-*” O_O;
Charizard: “*Spent the summer in some ‘Smash’ thing and picked it up there. Cry more, buddy.*” >:V
The charizard throws its head back, thick white smoke pouring from its face, then lunges its head back forward and unhinges its jaw. A pure-blue jet of flame shoots from its throat like a laser and drills against the rock, sapphire embers flying from the collision. At first nothing happens, except the rhydon paws anxiously at the ground, but the charizard persists until the rock glows red hot and then melts, running through its hands like sludge and pooling on the ground.
Charizard: “*Also, nobody forced you to just stand there with your mouth hanging open like an idiot, just saying.*”
“What a display of strength from Red’s charizard, I think that was a flamethrower, and a pretty nasty one at that, maybe a little hotter than regulation there—”
Oh, so Pokémon can just straight-up kill each other if they don’t hold back in sporting battles, huh?
Gemma’s eyes are dinner plates. She’s seen the kids at the playground spar with their little pokémon before, and once dad even took her to watch a minor league match with some bigger pokémon, but nothing like that, never anything like that—
Oh, this is like that one mob boss’ girl from DRRR where the kid’s kept sheltered and as in the dark as possible about daddy’s “business”, huh?
“What are you doing?” a voice hisses. A real one, definitely not the announcer. For the second time tonight Gemma leaps out of her skin. She reflexively smashes her thumb into the television’s power button, feeling sick with panic as she whips her head around.
Oh. It’s just Ariana standing there with her hands on her hips. Gemma’s twin sister—older just by a few minutes, though she acts like it's years. She’s visible in the light of the TV for a moment before it whines into blackness. Her ruby-red hair is a wild nest, and her expression is a mixture of surprise and disapproval and sleepiness and… interest.
Or not. Never would’ve pegged Ariana as also being one of Gio’s kids. But noted for this continuity. Though wait, what is the story behind Gemma’s name, then? Since Ariana’s named after a rocket, but not sure about ‘Gemma’ since I don’t know of any rockets with that name or one close to it.
“Quiet,” Gemma hisses back, but motions for her to sit down. “You scared the crap out of me. Jeez. I’m just watching a battle. It’s Red. You know him?”
Ariana: “Yes? Dad goes on drunken rants about him every other night. How do you not know about him?”
“Of course I know him,” Ariana says as she sits on the floor by Gemma’s side. “You really shouldn’t be watching this. You know what Dad said…” Despite her words, she’s looking pleadingly at the television.
“That’s why we’re watching it in the middle of the night, stupidhead,” Gemma mumbles, switching the television back on.
Totally a good sign for where things are going to when Gio inevitably walks in in like a minute.
It’s a closeup shot of Charizard. It stomps a foot and snorts, flames popping out of its nostrils.
“—the fastest solar beam warmup I’ve ever seen! And the rhydon was no match for it,” the announcer booms. The camera cuts back to the challenger, who’s scowling as he unclips a poké ball from his belt and withdraws his rhydon.
Huh. I never realized that Charizard could learn Solar Beam by TM. Guess Gamefreak really does just hate the other Kanto starters since that must’ve been fun to deal with in Gen 6 with Megazard-Y.
“Hey, want to know something?” Ariana says. Then, without waiting for an answer: “I think Dad used to be a Gym Leader.”
… Wait, how on earth does Gio manage to hide something that big from his kids?
Gemma snorts and rolls her eyes.
“Seriously,” Ariana insists. “I’ve been in his office. He’s got all these medals and poké balls, pictures with important people… And think about it. Where did he go for all those years? And plus he doesn’t like us watching battles on TV without him. I think he doesn’t want us to find out and see him on there. That’s why we can’t—”
Gio’s about to walk in on these two right here, isn’t he?
Something pads across the floor. Both girls’ heads jerk toward the sound. Gemma sees just the tip of Mars’s tail as he slinks into the hallway.
The sisters look at each other. Ariana looks like she’s seen a ghost. Gemma shakes herself out of her fear-induced paralysis and springs into action. “Crap. Crap. Crap,” she mutters, fumbling for the remote and shutting the television back off.
“We need to get back to bed.” Ariana’s just staring straight ahead, breathing shallowly—Gemma grabs her wrist and feels her hands shaking. “Ariana, come on, we have to—”
Would suggest breaking this paragraph up. Though these two get abused by Gio, don’t they? Since the way they’re reacting feels a lot more serious than “worried about getting grounded”.
The lights come on. Gemma strains her eyes against the sudden bright and sees him standing at the mouth of the hallway. Button-up satin top, matching pants, even a pair of socks—it’s as close to a suit as pajamas get. The deep fold between his eyebrows is a canyon, his black eyes unblinking. Mars stands at his ankles, wiry tail wrapped around his master’s leg, one ear twitching, his smug gaze fixed on the girls.
“I—,” Gemma sputters, but Ariana is there first like always, talking a thousand miles a minute.
“Gemma woke me up sneaking out,” she blurts out. Gemma’s throat constricts. She gives Ariana the nastiest look she can possibly muster, not that it counts for much now. “I just came out here to see what was—”
“Liar,” Father says, approaching them. Ariana turns away, but Father takes her face in his hand, squishing her cheeks. Tears well up in her eyes. “Do you think you can lie to me? Do you think I’m some imbecile, to be manipulated by a child?”
He lets go of her forcefully and she stumbles backward, back to the wall. There are red marks on her skin where his fingers were.
Yup, I called Gio being abusive as a father. I’ll admit that it wasn’t my baseline expectation, but eh. From what I’m aware of, this story is already off-spec anyways.
Gemma is frozen, petrified that his attention will return to her next. But he looks right past her, at the TV. “Let’s see what was so important for you to watch that you had to break the rules and then lie to me,” he commands. “Gemma. The remote.”
It takes a piercing glare from him to pull Gemma back to her senses. She abruptly falls to her knees and fumbles for the remote. Her hands are shaking as she offers it to him.
Yeah, these two girls are getting beat in about ten seconds.
Gemma doesn’t watch but hears as he turns the television on. The click of the button, the momentary whine of the TV as it whirs back into life, the tinny voice of the announcer.
“A League battle?” Father scoffs. “So you disrespected me, disobeyed the rules, and snuck into the night like rats to watch a League battle.” He takes a deep breath, jaw clenched. “We’ve spoken about this. What did I tell you about watching this garbage? What did I tell you?”
Yup, feeling good about that prediction. Though I wonder if this TV is also going to survive Gio having a normal one.
Gemma’s only seen him this way once before. Just before he left. He’d been angry with someone on the phone, and she’d interrupted him to ask for a snack.
Yup, Gio confirmed for at minimum being verbally abusive.
Father grips the remote with a shaking, white-knuckled hand and pitches it at the TV. Gemma recoils at the sound. The remote explodes against the screen, batteries flying.
Wait, how on earth did that not implode the tube of that CRT right then and there- .-.
She watches in silence as Father advances to the TV, pulls his leg back, and drives his foot into the screen. It shatters, glass flying past his ankles, but he doesn’t care.
Yeah, I just knew that that TV wasn’t making it past this scene in one piece.
He kicks it again, and again. And again. There’s a loud bang each time, and the TV slides along the carpet, smacks into the wall. Father’s breaths come heavy, forced through gritted teeth, and he grunts loudly with each kick.
Sure hope he was wearing shoes then, since otherwise boyGio’s foot must be a mess.
Gemma eventually manages to pry her eyes away, and she looks to Ariana. Her back is still to the wall, and she’s pulling her legs tight to her as she unblinkingly watches their father’s rampage. Gemma could go to her, steal her away into their bedroom or out the front door or something, but images flash through her mind of Father turning his attention to her, grabbing her by the wrist—no.
She disappears into her bedroom alone. The banging continues. She can hear his breaths, quick and ragged.
She wants to run away, so badly, to run away and find her own pokémon and start her own life and never come to this place again. But she’s too scared to do that, right now or ever. She just hides under her blankets, holds her pillow over her head, shudders. She can’t make herself cry. Or sleep. The sounds of anger and breaking things don’t stop. She’s just praying over and over that Father doesn’t get bored of the TV, that he spends all his rage before the thought crosses his mind to come in here to her bedroom.
Given that IIRC Gemma becomes Silver in this story, that would explain a lot for where their relationship winds up going in the end.
He never does. Neither does Ariana.
Eventually things go quiet.
She’s awake long enough to hear Father leave for work in the morning. She stays in bed with her eyes wide open for an hour after that, then finally pries herself out from the sheets and creeps into the living room.
She’s going right back to watching League replays, huh?
It’s exactly how it was the day before, before anything had happened. It’s like it never happened at all. The television looks brand new. The only thing that’s off is the smell of paint; she notices after a moment that there are patches of the wall that have been freshly painted over.
That… is a terrible sign for what happened to Ariana that night since it means she either got shipped off somewhere for the equivalent of a grounding, or she had to get medical attention from Gio not stopping at the TV. .-.
And that’s a wrap! A promising first chapter that does a lot to set the tone, namely that it’s going to be hard-edged and that it’s going to be a story that doesn’t shy away from making readers uncomfortable given the undertones of child abuse and depiction of Giovanni as a volatile and brutal figure that I am convinced doesn’t remain bottled up within the confines of his own house. Not sure how the plot will go from here relative to canon since according to the table of contents, the full span of the story plays out over the course of over a decade while in conventional series canon, Silver is already in Johto 3 years after Gio disbands Team Rocket, so it makes me curious as to where things are going to go.
Beyond the occasional typo here and there and maybe keeping an eye out for a long-running paragraph to break up… I don’t think that I have a lot to complain about for this story. Like it obviously is shaping up to be a very different than conventional take of Silver’s backstory, but on its own merits, it’s delivered well, and captures the terror and desperation of a child trapped in an unhappy and abusive household without an apparent escape from it.
… Yet, anyways. Since I presume that most of this story is going to be far, far away from this house in Kanto. Dunno if I’ll be coming back for more before RB4 lets out, but hey. You’ve made a fairly compelling pitch so far, @kyeugh .
Best of luck with the remainder of Review Blitz, and with the rest of your story.
October 1996:
Y'know, given I showed up because I heard word of a trans character it took me way too long to figure out what was going on here. It was interesting to read the opening twice, once mistakenly thinking "Gemma" was a normal OC and a second time knowing what was up. Amidst the expectedly-strong characterization of Silver and his family that I'm sure you've heard praised already, I want to also give credit where it's due to Red. We don't even see him, and he's a protagonist that can be hard to characterize but I feel even he reads strongly here as a character. I like how he has a distinct feel that comes from him just giving up his title and leaving, and how that contributes to the in-world 'mythos' surrounding him. This guy has possibly never been beaten. I like how this, in turn, can help contextualize Giovanni, especially when we see the challenger using a member of his team. (Because it's title defence I feel like it's probably not Giovanni himself? He was in hiding by then, right?)
I like that his kids don't even know he used to be a gym leader. I wonder if that's why they're not allowed to watch league matches? But they get caught, and we see Ariana... try to get out of it at first, but then she has some protective sister instinct. I like that it's Red that throws him into that rage (he's seeing red amirite?) and the ominous implications of the last line, and the vacuum of possibilities it leaves us to fill in on our own. I've now said the word like 5 times now which seems representative of my experience here.
March 1999:
Well. That is one way to start a chapter. We see who the favourite child is, and then we see why. It's a stark one-two... and honestly I wonder if Silver even got the worse ending of the two. Ariana seems like the more broken person of the two here. That's why Giovanni likes her, after all. It seems like he never could break Silver in the same way as quickly. I feel bad for him, knowing from game canon the relationship he has with his actual team in the earlygame, seeing it after this where he trusts Mr Hisser to the bitter end. I know Giovanni does get to him in the end, just too late. It makes the loss of Mr Hisser sting more, knowing it was ultimately futile. Just not in time to save the kind of childhood levity that lets you love a snake and also name him Mr Hisser. At least Ariana actually uses it, judging by me looking up her canon team. I wonder if they'll meet again later, have to battle. I wonder if either of the two will recognize Silver... And what, if anything Mr Hisser would be renamed to.
You're really good at ending these chapters, too. I wonder what this was like as a oneshot... I'm glad these pieces are all getting their chance to stand as their own pieces.
August 1999:
Poor Silver, he has to interact with a cop. Seriously, though, this guy is cruel. In a very realistically cop kind of way.
I wonder how Silver has survived these past few months. I guess this world has better public services, but still. I'm glad he's free from Giovanni, at least. And he even seems to be able to recognize, to some extent, that Giovanni is a fucked up person whose pride is a problem. Too bad he'll (presumably, based on canon) have a lot more trouble unlearning all the issues that came with being immersed in that for years.
I like Professor Elm here. (Ooh we're at 10 "like"s now.) I can't dislike him, he's too nice. But I feel like I can't quite like him either. He seems naive, entrenched in this faith in institutions to do the right thing in a way that's just not realistic. I mean, Silver's dad is Giovanni for one thing, but honestly I think Elm would still be wrong if Silver's dad was just Some Dude Named Frank. I wonder if He would have been able to cut the red tape after talking to the "nice cop" out there (seriously dude get a fucking clue) or if breaking out really was the only option for him there.
I feel bad for the reflexive self-loathing that end into his name, but hopefully he'll come to recognize that being Silver is actually pretty cool.
Loved Professor Elm; he's so genuinely good, just wants to help this obviously troubled kid and give her a second chance, and he's observant enough to pick up what's going on in Silver's head - that she lights up at the idea of getting to officially go on a journey, that her face falls when he brings up parental consent. He tries so hard to get this kid some help.
i’m glad elm comes across so well! he’s a very nostalgic character for me and i feel like he doesn’t get enough love. such a keen, good-hearted guy who is also just a wreck.
i always thought it was kinda funny that the gen 2 games—unlike other generations where the version names are essentially equal to one another—are called silver and gold, where one takes obvious cultural precedence over the other. and within those games, the name “gold” is associated with the player character, and “silver” is the rival. i doubt it’s intentional but it’s always stood out to me. two things that are precious but definitely not equally valued.
thanks for checking out the chapter!
hey jackie! thanks for checking this fic out. i really appreciated this thorough review and your insights.
I really enjoy the way common knowledge to readers plays out in this – the way watching Red on TV is what sends Giovanni into a rage, even if Gemma can't know that's what the problem is.
pleased you caught this! i definitely tried to write the opening chapter in such a way that it still stands up if you don’t catch onto who the characters are, but makes a lot more sense if you do. of course this authoritarian control freak seeing his daughters flagrantly disobeying his rules to watch the twerp who destroyed his organization is, like, the perfect storm for giovanni.
Clearly the man's a power-drunk monster, though. That TV destruction is terrifying, as is the way no specific, directed consequence ever comes for Gemma. The TV is replaced instantly, because he's loaded and cares about appearances. Ariana disappears for a week with no explanation. The anticipation is awful.
thanks. i’m glad this worked. i think the end of the chapter is a bit confusing for some, but i kind of like it that way. there’s not a clear cause-and-effect relationship between the sisters’ actions and giovanni’s, and it’s not even really clear what the punishment is. you just know something bad is happening, and it could be anything. and you’re in trouble too, and for you the other shoe is yet to drop, and could at any minute. i find the dread induced by that absence of action scarier than any particular action giovanni could have committed here.
I think the cruelest part of this is the way he frames his cruelty as him not being cruel, as a favour to Mr Hisser, as if Giovanni could possibly care about a pokémon's wellbeing when he's literally just demanded brutal put-downs of other pokémon.
i feel like one of the hardest parts about being a kid is that part of parenting is discipline, and you have to kind of trust that your parent knows what they’re doing and is acting in your best interests when they say they are. if they go too far there’s often not really any way for you to know… maybe you just accept that you deserve it.
What's sad about this moment is that it's nearly good. But there's that sticking point, about a legal guardian. Silver can't be free. He has to do what he does, because there isn't a better option for him. He lost the chance for Gio's approval, and so he lost the chance to do things legit.
thanks. i’m glad to hear you say this. this is one of the main things i’d like to drive home with this fic. sometimes you want to do things the right way, and even have people within the system on your side, but it doesn’t matter.
i can’t say this chapter is all great vibes, but i do hope it’s a bit less emotionally punishing overall. thank you again for checking this fic out and sharing your thoughts! i benefited a lot from this review.
thanks! this has always been a little hc of mine. in the games the professor gives you the pokédex because they think you’re cool and ask you to kind of fill it out at your leisure. but i like to imagine it’s sort of a trade-off for getting a free starter and getting to go out on a journey. like ok, i’ll help you do this, but i’m gonna need you to do a bit of fieldwork while you’re out.
Wait, isn't Silver trying to not steal? Granted, here it's done out of desperation, but maybe it would help to have some sort of internal monologue something about Silver going against his beliefs and doing what Giovanni would have done, but going against his desire to not do what Giovanni would do out of desperation to not get CPS called on Giovanni and cause problems for everyone involved.
i don’t think silver is against stealing, particularly, or law-breaking generally—indeed going on a journey and training pokémon at all without a license is illegal. but to her mind, the things she’s doing don’t actually hurt anyone, so it’s ok. unlike her family, who actively profit from the misfortunes of others.
I really like how you wrote the canon stuff—Elm being a bubbling, scattered-brain disaster with a genuine care for others, the interpretation you went with the scene in the games where Silver steals the Pokémon—like always. I love your interpretations of canon. They're really refreshing, unique, and interesting. And did I mention how much I love your interpretation of Elm? Oh my gosh he's such a complex, well-developed, likeable character here. I love how he's absent-minded and disorganized but not incompetent. Ahhhh I hope Silver gets a good parental figure again. Can't wait to see where Silver's story goes.
thanks so much, i’m really glad you enjoy the story so far! canon characters are a bit foreign to me and this is my first real shake at writing them, so it’s great to get feedback on what does and doesn’t work. i really appreciate your review and hope to see you back again!
hey phoenixsong, thanks so much for checking this out!
negrek’s got the foolish oddish… i guess i’ve got the ghoulish one. i originally wrote out the actual action scene here but ended up cutting it for contest wordcounts and left it cut because it didn’t add much… let’s just say there were vines involved.
in my mind RSE is the first, like, apocalyptic type thing to happen, but i’m sure the government is none too pleased about random kiddos coming into possession of articuno/zapdos/moltres/mewtwo either.
The picture of a "bright young trainer", but also, perhaps, the picture of someone who's more comfortable feeling feminine than Gemma and her "baggy clothes".
I'm really looking forward to reading the rest of this as it's posted, and as we begin to see more of how that previous life with Giovanni and his sister and all those expectations begins to color how Silver interacts with pokémon and with others going forward. Heavier stuff isn't normally my jam, but this is a really affecting read in spite of how gut-wrenchingly awful their childhood is, and if nothing else it's really gripping—you just have to see how Silver manages to get himself out of these bad situations and then stumble right back into them when he can't escape the cycle. And, well *gestures vaguely at current forum avatar* I am a bit of a sucker for rival backstories, so. Will definitely be following the rest of this!
thanks so much! this is for sure a heavier story but i think it gets a bit less dire as time passes. i really appreciate you taking the time to read this and share your thoughts—you’ve given me quite a few ideas for some later scenes!
My heart hit the fucking flood when he caught them, and just based on the context clues, I was like.........is that.......Giovanni???? Which segues into how absolutely fucking braindead I am.
hahahaha. not at all! i tried to be sparing with the clues in this first chapter for sure. i’m glad you were able to pick up on it though, and also that the general vibes of their home life came through clearly before he showed up.
Once it dawned on me this their dad was Giovanni, I was like OH OKAY I know who Ariana is she's a Rocket Admin........but then I was like......who the actual fuck is Gemma?? I was trying to do some research to figure it out because my knowledge on Gen 1/2/3 is very limited so I was trying to at least supplement my reading with a better understanding of what was going on here, but I COULD NOT FIND ANYTHING ABOUT A FUCKING GEMMA. And then I got to the third chapter and saw "Silver" and it all dawned on me, "OHHHHHHHHHH THIS IS A SILVER TRANS FIC OHHHHHHHHHHHHHH" and then it dawned on me EVEN FUCKING MORE WHY IT'S CALLED TARNISHING, BECAUSE SILVER FUCKING TARNISHES HAHAHAHAHAHAHA yeah tl;dr Sind's a slow asf braindead chimpanzee.
honestly love to hear this. i definitely tried my best to set up an “oh shit” moment in the second chapter there, and was a bit afraid of giving away the game before that point. you may have noticed i’m still slightly vague in the way i talk about this fic in chat, because i’m trying to preserve that oh shit moment for as many people as possible.
Also, it seems Pokemon battling is a little more deadly in this world, huh? Like, a won battle could mean a dead opponent, judging by the state Ariana's opponent pidgey was left in and how it seemed to be implied that Gemma was supposed to have the opponent pichu killed by her ekans. That certainly raises the stakes and I'm looking forward to see how that ends up playing out throughout the course of the story.
quite a few people got this impression, but i actually didn’t intend for this—pokémon battles are a bit more dangerous than in, say, the anime, but it’s still a huge deal if a pokémon ends up dead or even seriously injured. giovanni is just a sicko. but i can definitely see how it comes across in a confusing way considering the very first battles we see in this fic involve either ariana’s brutality or gemma’s panic spiraling; i tried to tweak the original chapter a bit to make this more clear.
That… is shockingly fitting as a name for Gio’s Persian. Like one step further would be to make it the name of some sort of rocket, but it’s not bad. Though I presume that this is happening in the backdrop of things going to pot for Team Rocket during the events of Gen 1, huh?
Wait, are those canonically things in the anime now? Or is that your workaround for how sport matches don’t casually murder dozens of people out of existence with each match?
yeah. not too different from human combat sports to be fair—you can definitely do some damage if you’re not taking the proper precautions, and sometimes even if you are. but you would still be in serious hot water if you killed or even seriously injured an opposing pokémon; it’s definitely not commonplace.
Huh. I never realized that Charizard could learn Solar Beam by TM. Guess Gamefreak really does just hate the other Kanto starters since that must’ve been fun to deal with in Gen 6 with Megazard-Y.
i think you’d be surprised how easy it is to dictate what your children do and don’t know if you’re solely responsible for their education and have near total dominion over their interactions with the outside world. even if they heard about team rocket etc generally—and i’m sure they have—they wouldn’t piece together that it’s their dad.
thanks for checking out this story! i’m glad you think it works so far. i’m definitely playing a bit fast-and-loose with canon here, but hopefully the story will still be recognizable by the end. :p i appreciated your line reacts—hope to see you back again in the future!
I want to also give credit where it's due to Red. We don't even see him, and he's a protagonist that can be hard to characterize but I feel even he reads strongly here as a character. I like how he has a distinct feel that comes from him just giving up his title and leaving, and how that contributes to the in-world 'mythos' surrounding him. This guy has possibly never been beaten. I like how this, in turn, can help contextualize Giovanni, especially when we see the challenger using a member of his team. (Because it's title defence I feel like it's probably not Giovanni himself? He was in hiding by then, right?)
thanks so much! i definitely agree that red is a difficult character, and he’s also one that has so, so much fanon surrounding him and his characterization already, so i was a bit cautious going in and am glad to hear that you think he worked. i definitely like to think of him as first and foremost a larger-than-life sports figure that all the grade schoolers are idolizing, lolol. and good catch with the giovanni connection! you are correct that it’s not him and that he’s currently in hiding.
spot on. it’s ok for them to hear about team rocket and even about its leader from random kids at the park or whatever—plenty of plausible deniability there still. but if they see him on tv it’s over.
At least Ariana actually uses it, judging by me looking up her canon team. I wonder if they'll meet again later, have to battle. I wonder if either of the two will recognize Silver...
You're really good at ending these chapters, too. I wonder what this was like as a oneshot... I'm glad these pieces are all getting their chance to stand as their own pieces.
thank you!! it was actually almost exactly like this (so far)—the “chapters” were just slightly shorter, with the dates serving as dividers rather than chapter titles.
hahaha. lots of people have remarked on the cop being shitty… maybe the Q leaked into that one a bit. it was just hard to imagine silver getting treated any other way there. and i think it underscored his rapscallion/miscreant/ne’erdowell/etc vibes a bit.
pretty much just that. i went back and forth on exploring it more explicitly and ultimately decided against—the answer is that the pokémon center offers lodging and food free of charge. homelessness solved with this one easy trick! don’t ask me how taxation works in the pokémon world i don’t know
QUOTE="Shiny Phantump, post: 64013, member: 250"]
But I feel like I can't quite like him either. He seems naive, entrenched in this faith in institutions to do the right thing in a way that's just not realistic. I mean, Silver's dad is Giovanni for one thing, but honestly I think Elm would still be wrong if Silver's dad was just Some Dude Named Frank.
[/QUOTE] i like this insight a lot! i think it’s true. i don’t think of the pokémon world as quite so police-dependent as ours, but i think you run into some of the same problems as we do when a guy in a labcoat whose degree is in biology suddenly charged with investigating child welfare.
thanks so much for checking this story out—i’m super pleased that you seem to have liked it! i really enjoyed this review and hope future chapters don’t disappoint!
Sep. 1999
“Don’t let up, Riptide! You have the type advantage! Use water gun!”
No water gun comes.
It’s nothing like the fights on TV. Silver can’t quite tell where the totodile ends and the cyndaquil begins as the pokémon roll over the crunchy brown grass, a writhing, biting, swiping, squeaking mass of scale and fur and tooth and claw.
Silver’s fingernails are digging into her palms, but the other trainer—a young girl with dun brown hair and overalls—watches the battle with half-lidded eyes, a sharply-dressed chaperone looming behind her.
“You can do it!” Silver cries out again. She thinks Riptide fights just a little harder at the sound of her voice.
Then there’s a flash of white, and heat washes over Silver’s face. Riptide croaks and disengages from the cyndaquil, embers flying from the space between them. The cyndaquil blasts him with another lick of flame, and Riptide disappears into the grass with a growl, smoke rising from his scales.
“Don’t give up! Water gun!” Silver commands, but Riptide just whines softly and lowers himself to the ground, panting. The cyndaquil paws at the grass inquisitively, and after a moment Silver realizes the fight is over.
“Uh, is that it?” the other trainer says eventually.
“I guess,” Silver grumbles. Her totodile looks up at her from the grass with inscrutable crimson eyes. She rubs the smooth dome of his poké ball, glowering.
That fight should have been easy for them, and she had given good orders. But Riptide had still gotten hurt. Why?
The answer echoes in Silver’s head. She pushes it away.
“That’s five hundred yen,” the chaperone says, looking up from his pokégear.
Silver exhales through her nose and sucks Riptide back into his ball. “I don’t have that much.”
“Well, you should probably win more battles then,” the other trainer retorts. The chaperone just presses his lips into a line. “Okay, fine. Just give me what you have.”
Silver grinds her teeth. It had taken her a whole day’s worth of fights against kids and their stupid rattata to rack up even this much. She opens her mouth to protest, but the chaperone’s dark eyes flash, and suddenly she feels too small to resist. With one last huff, she pulls the money from her pocket and forces it into the trainer’s hands.
“Happy now?”
“Yep, thanks!” the trainer chirps, recalling her cyndaquil. Something about her chipper tone of voice makes the small of Silver’s back itch with fury.
“Brats like you really piss me off,” Silver blurts out, barely aware of the words until they’ve left her mouth.
The girl just frowns and looks up to her chaperone. “That’s quite enough,” is all he says. “Come along now, Lyra. Falkner is expecting us.”
Silver watches, stewing silently, as they walk away. From behind, the chaperone’s crisp uniform and cropped black hair remind her of someone else, and her anger is quickly replaced with vertigo. She hates herself for how long it takes her to calm down.
A bell jingles overhead as Silver steps into the Pokémon Center.
“Welcome to the Pokémon Center,” the nurse on duty says cheerily from behind the counter. “We’ll help you right over here when you’re ready.”
Silver takes a moment to look around. She’s spent the last few nights at the hostels conjoined to the Pokémon Center, but this is her first time in the actual clinic. There’s been no cause to enter it before now, but the burns are something Riptide can’t just shake off.
She’s seen Pokémon Centers in pictures before, and they've always looked so inviting with their warm colors and wood furnishings. But what doesn’t come through in the photos is the eerie incandescence of the lights overhead, and the overpowering scent of disinfectant. The overall effect is more sterile and severe than she imagined.
Finally she finally makes her way to the counter. The nurse sets down her book and looks up at Silver, smiling. She’s pretty, dark brown hair tied into a tight bun at the nape of her neck.
“How many today?”
“What?”
“Pokémon, dear. How many pokémon need treatment?”
“Oh.” Duh. “Just one.”
“Great. Just set your ball on the counter here then.”
Silver unclips the ball from her belt, then hesitates. What if they find out he’s stolen, somehow? It doesn’t feel right to leave him with someone else. They wouldn’t understand. And Riptide would be so confused and scared if they took him away.
“Is this your first time here?” the nurse says.
Silver swallows. “That obvious, huh?”
The nurse smiles a little, not mockingly.
“That’s okay. Everything has to have a first time, right? I’ll explain to you how this works, then. You leave your pokémon with us and show us your trainer ID. Then when you come to pick your little darling back up, you’ll show us your ID again, and then we’ll know it’s really you, and you’ll get your pokémon back. That helps us make sure the right mons get back to the right people. Make sense?”
“Yes,” Silver says instantly, trying desperately to hide her panic.
She doesn’t have a trainer ID. You need to be a trainer for that. A real one.
When was anything just easy?
A terrible thought jabs at her unexpectedly, a blurred memory of a dark room, an empty space where Mr. Hisser’s cage used to be. Words her father had said to her. She couldn’t take care of Mr. Hisser, couldn’t give him the life every pokémon deserves. Now she can’t even heal Riptide from the injuries she inflicted on him. Was Dad right about her?
“I think I left my ID at home,” she blurts out suddenly. “Sorry. I guess I’ll go get it and come back.”
“No problem, dear,” the nurse says, picking her book back up.
Silver clips the ball back to her belt and tries not to walk outside too quickly.
No, she thinks. Her dad was wrong. She is a pokémon trainer, a real one with her very own pokémon. Better than he thinks, better than that brat from before. Maybe it’s harder for her than it is for everyone else, but that will just make her even stronger. She won’t let something this small stop her.
Like everything else, she’ll just have to do it another way.
Four awkward conversations with strangers, three hours of searching through the woods, and one aching neck later, Silver finds a rawst berry bush nestled between the roots of an old cedar.
She falls to her knees with a groan of relief, legs burning, and pulls her sweatshirt into a makeshift basket. The leaves of the bush are unexpectedly fuzzy against her hand as she plucks the plump, navy-blue fruits from their stems. Once she has enough, she retrieves a mostly-finished bag of trail mix from her backpack, empties its remaining contents onto the forest floor, then dumps her berries inside, adding a squishy oran she scavenged earlier, then seals up the top. Then she smooshes them up the best she can. Their dark, teardrop-shaped seeds and blue innards press against the bag’s transparent siding, and the sweet smell makes her mouth water.
It doesn’t make much, maybe half a handful, but it’s enough. Once she’s satisfied with the consistency, she sets the bag down, then pulls a pocket knife from her backpack and lifts her sweatshirt to reveal a baggy white undershirt. She pulls it away from her skin and carefully cuts it away from her body, then into strips.
Finally, she releases Riptide with a flash of light. He lets out a low rattle and lowers his belly to the grass again, curling his tail. The scales are burned away where the embers hit him, revealing shining pink skin. Silver winces at the sight of it.
“Okay, buddy, listen,” she says softly. “I know you’re hurting right now. I’m sorry. What I’m about to do might hurt a little bit too, but I need to do it for you to feel better. I need you to trust me. Okay?” She’s not sure the words mean anything to him, but she hopes the sound of her voice—low and gentle—is soothing to him. He doesn’t move at all, but his crimson eyes are trained on her.
She takes a deep breath.
“Okay.”
She dips her hand into the bag of berry paste and collects some on her fingertips. It’s cool to the touch. Riptide’s eyes dart at the sound of plastic crinkling. Silver steels herself and tries to control her breaths as she removes her hand from the bag and slowly moves it towards Riptide, trying her best not to look at his bone-white teeth and blood-red eyes.
Riptide flinches when Silver’s fingers make contact with him. Silver’s heart skips a beat, but that’s all that happens. The burn is surprisingly warm to the touch.
“Good boy,” she says. Slowly, gently, she rubs the ointment into the burn. Transparent lids slide over the totodile’s eyes as he watches her. It’s an ancient and predatory gaze, intent but expressionless. Somehow Silver thinks she sees trust in it. “Thank you for being so good.”
The whole burn is coated in a thin layer of the paste now, a bright pool of blue against his dull cyan scales. Satisfied, she pulls her hand back and collects the rest of the paste from the bag, treating the second burn similarly.
“I need to bandage you up now, okay?” She holds up the strip of torn t-shirt. Riptide chirps softly. Screwing up her face with concentration, Silver wraps the t-shirt around Riptide’s body, careful to cover the burns as best she can.
Riptide abruptly struggles. A startled breath is still hitching in Silver’s throat when she registers the white-hot pain in her left hand, like a giant metal stake has been driven through her palm. She bites off a cry of pain, letting out a gravelly wheeze instead, and forces her eyes downward.
The totodile’s jaws are latched onto her hand, his cold red eyes still pointed up. Not devouring. No anger, no fear, no regret. Just looking, jaw clamped.
“Riptide,” Silver says through gritted teeth. She flexes her fingers and can’t help but groan at the pain—she feels the muscles deep in her hand sliding and snagging. It feels so hot and so cold at the same time. She feels her heartbeat in her eyeballs.
It’s everything she has not to scream, but she doesn’t want to scare Riptide any further, so she keeps it inside, hot tears streaming.
“Riptide,” she says again. “You’re biting me. It hurts. I need to help you. Please.”
He doesn’t resist, doesn’t budge. Silver draws a shaky breath through her nose. She doesn’t know what to do because she can’t think of anything but her hand, the pain that’s lancing all the way up to her elbow by now. Every minuscule movement is agony, so her entire existence becomes perfect stillness, almost meditative, as she fights against the screaming impulse to run, scream, kick, do something.
It feels like a lifetime of pain passes before Riptide moves again. Silver cries out as the totodile unlatches his jaw, and cold air rushes in to replace his teeth, bringing a fresh kind of pain—like holding her hand in front of an ice beam. She pulls her hand in and cradles it, hunching over. She can’t force herself to look at it, but she can hear her blood dripping onto the leaves.
Her throat burns. She looks to Riptide. He’s sprawled out on the ground, belly-down. There’s a streak of red smearing this snout.
She isn’t sure what she feels, looking at him. It’s not anger, or fear, or revulsion, or betrayal. It’s not quite sadness, either, but it’s closer to that. How can she blame him? He’s a pokémon. When a pokémon is afraid, or feels backed into a corner, it attacks. That’s why they’re useful.
“That hurt,” she croaks eventually. He doesn’t budge as she scoots towards him. She ignores the pounding in her chest as she reaches out again and takes the cloth in hand. It’s tricker to wrap him up with just one hand, but he doesn’t struggle again.
She bandages him thoroughly enough that there’s only a tatter left over, just enough to wrap her hand once. She tries not to look as she does it, tying it around her palm as tightly as she can. It doesn’t take long before the cloth is all red and uncomfortably wet—but she’ll find a replacement later. The important thing is that Riptide is covered.
Exhausted, Silver falls backward and looks up through the branches at the clouds. The lilac sky and radiant orange clouds tell her that night is fast approaching, but the ground is oddly comfortable, and she can’t find the willpower to get up and navigate her way back to civilization right now.
When the first few stars come to life in the sky, she hears the crunching of leaves, and eventually the little breaths of her pokémon. He nudges her ribs gently with his snout, and she reaches out with her good hand and pats his cool scales.
“I know. I’ll get up in a minute.”
Riptide lets out a low chirp, and a few moments pass in silence.
“I’m sorry you got burned. I know it hurts. But you’ll feel better soon, and we’ll get stronger together. I’ll become a better trainer, and you’ll become a more powerful battler, and this won’t ever happen again. I promise.”
She becomes aware of the throbbing in her hand again. Riptide makes a low growl and then crawls onto Silver’s stomach and curls up there. He’s heavy enough that it makes it harder for her to breathe, but not so heavy as to crush her.
She opens her mouth to say more, then stops. What’s the use? Riptide can’t understand her. She hadn’t been talking for his benefit.
But there is a language they both understand. It’s in the way he lays on her stomach, eyes closed, purring contentedly. It’s in the way that she place her hand on his back and rubs him gently, still trusting him, still loving him. It’s in the way that she feels more at home, somehow, beneath the trees and stars with a monster that just hurt her than she does in a warm bed among other humans. It’s a language that only says three things, the only three sentences a pokémon and its trainer can ever really exchange:
Riptide abruptly struggles. A startled breath is still hitching in Silver’s throat when she registers the white-hot pain in her left hand, like a giant metal stake has been driven through her palm. She bites off a cry of pain, letting out a gravelly wheeze instead, and forces her eyes downward.
The totodile’s jaws are latched onto her hand, his cold red eyes still pointed up. Not devouring. No anger, no fear, no regret. Just looking, jaw clamped.
“Riptide,” Silver says through gritted teeth. She flexes her fingers and can’t help but groan at the pain—she feels the muscles deep in her hand sliding and snagging. It feels so hot and so cold at the same time. She feels her heartbeat in her eyeballs.
This whole description of the bite was so visceral I felt it. Deeply uncomfortable and super effective, all these nasty little details about the muscles sliding and snagging and her heartbeat in her eyeballs. Really good job on evocative whump description.
She isn’t sure what she feels, looking at him. It’s not anger, or fear, or revulsion, or betrayal. It’s not quite sadness, either, but it’s closer to that. How can she blame him? He’s a pokémon. When a pokémon is afraid, or feels backed into a corner, it attacks. That’s why they’re useful.
Such a revealing mindset for where she comes from, isn't it. Still loving (in a deeply pained way) how much Giovanni's influence still affects her even after running away.
The ending is super sweet and tender in its way, just trainer and Pokémon taking some physical comfort in each other's presence despite that it kind of makes it harder to breathe, despite that she's in incredible pain and bleeding severely from a bite wound she couldn't even dress properly (man, is it going to get infected?). Everything hurts. Just really nice job on the emotions of this all in all; really happy to see more of this story.
Silver takes a moment to look around. She’s spent the last few nights at the hostels conjoined to the Pokémon Center, but this is her first time in the actual clinic. There’d been no cause to enter it before now, but the burns were something Riptide couldn’t just shake off.
She’s seen Pokémon Centers in pictures before, and they’d always looked so inviting with their warm colors and wood furnishings. But what doesn’t come through in the photos is the eerie incandescence of the lights overhead, and the overpowering scent of disinfectant. The overall effect is more sterile and severe than she’d imagined.
The tenses are a liiittle wonky here; the main narration is in the present tense, but then when you talk about the past you're using the past perfect, as if you were narrating in the past. You want "There's been no cause to enter it before now..." and "they've always looked so inviting" (or "they always looked..."), and I believe "The overall effect is more sterile and severe than she imagined" as well.
This seems neat and capably written. I appreciate how you've conveyed Silver's disgust with Giovanni and Ariana. It's also hard not to sympathize with her when she's torn between harming a cute electric rat and securing the future she (isn't sure she) wants. That "test" fight was the most memorable scene for me, a brutal scenario made more painful thanks to Silver's sympathetic perspective. Yet she defaults back to pokemon training after running away, even if it means she has to keep hurting other pokemon. How does she justify it? Perhaps she doesn't know an alternative? Or does she regret showing mercy after all? Perhaps if she ever met someone who shared her reservations, she would reconsider.
It’s a language that only says three things, the only three sentences a pokémon and its trainer can ever really exchange:
Don't forget "Water Gun!" More seriously, I'm wondering if this viewpoint will develop as Silver's relationship with her pokemon possibly deepens. If this world is anything like the canon's, there are at least some pokemon intelligent enough to understand more. Anyway, cool story so far.
All this over not wanting to murder a Pichu
