Pokémon The Legendarian Chronicles

[Virgil134]

Then the alarm sounded. An earsplitting siren, assaulting my senses out of nowhere.

Oh boy, Team Rocket has finally found them, haven’t they? No way this is just a random fire (even if waking up in the middle of the night to find out the building you’re in is on fire can still be pretty terrifying)

Reed had crumpled to the ground in an awkward heap, his eyes wide and staring and a bullet hole in his head.

Rest in peace Reed, we hardly knew ya

Our best bet is busting through a side wall

Wouldn’t busting through a side window be easier? With how big the place is, I doubt the Rockets are watching every single window anyway.

Anyone with priority attackers should send them with me, they’ll be too fast to get shot.

You can’t get shot if you Naruto run past the bullets. Everyone knows this.

humans were easy enough to knock down with a Quick Attack or two, but Pokémon?

But that would logically only apply to Pokémon that are heavier than humans.

A scarily bright orange glow lit the night sky, and then the brilliant form of a blazing phoenix soared into view overhead. My stomach tied itself into knots just looking at it. Moltres. They’d brought Moltres with them?

Oh shit, I see Team Rocket is not playing around.

What were we supposed to do if a Legendary Pokémon was targeting us?

Spam Protect and run?

“*This place is our home too. And it’s under attack. Why wouldn’t we be involved?*”

This place was their home. I’d always thought the experiments merely tolerated us, but they actually liked it here, didn’t they?

Eyyyy, character development!

The buzzing of insect wings was the only warning. A green blur shot out of nowhere, striking all four Rockets with such speed and precision that by the time I had finished blinking, all of them had staggered backward, unconscious before they even hit the ground.

A recurring trope in LC that I’ve noticed is “Experiment/Clone enters the scene and instantly defeats all the Rockets on screen”, with this here being another example of it. I’ll be honest… I really don’t like it when that happens. It doesn’t make me appreciate the experiments’ strength and just give me the feeling the protagonists are getting easy and unearned victories, even if they’re relatively small and minor victories. This point may be moot since I’m far behind, but I hope we’ll see less of it in the future, since it almost feels like an LC staple for every Team Rocket encounter.

I stared, feeling a chill run down my spine. I recognized him. The lead experiment handler. Razors’s old trainer—Tyson.

Whelp, seems like everyone is here. First Astrid and now him. I still can’t help but think of the Tyson from the anime every time he appears, since they’re both from Team Rocket and hold the same rank

In one swift motion, he raised an arm and drew a scythe across his own throat. Dark blood sprayed as his body jerked suddenly, then his legs gave out and his body fell to the ground with a dull thud.

Holy shit, I definitely didn’t see that one coming.

And then Chibi turned his attention to Tyson, who blanched and recalled the rock-type before taking off running.

Not sure why Tyson doesn’t just try to shoot or punch or kick away Chibi. With how insanely fast Pokémon can move in this setting with Quick Attack and the like, I feel like he should have known that he was never outrunning Chibi.

instantly snapping it sideways at a grotesque angle.

OK

And he continued screaming the entire time he stabbed the Rocket over and over with his tail

Wait, what? How? I know Chibi ain’t a normal Pikachu, but even in all the art I’ve seen, his tail never looked like it was hard or sharp, let alone both. And unless I’ve completely missed something, I don’t think there were ever any hints in the story that Chibi could use his tail as a knife.

My eyes slid behind her, where the experimental Raticate lay motionless aside from its matted fur rising and falling with each shuddering breath.

I’m almost surprised she didn’t kill the Raticate at this point.

“Tell me you have an empty Pokéball,” I pleaded.

Darren nodded before quickly retrieving one from his backpack and handing it to me. I tapped it to Stygian’s shoulder, and her form dissolved into it. Then Darren grabbed my hand and our surroundings melted into distorted light before re-forming into somewhere completely different. We were standing in the middle of the street in a small town. The polished red roof of a Pokémon Center stood out against a scattering of old wooden buildings, and the oppressive heat of the stadium fire had become a cool, salty breeze.

“This isn’t… where are we?” I asked.

I feel like the chapter really could have benefited from a scene break here.

“Wartortle’s dead,” Rudy croaked.

Well… damn.

Reassure him that it wasn’t his fault? In other words, lie to his face?

Ouch, that’s harsh.

Our identities were safe, he’d said. Not mine. Mine was compromised ever since the day Astrid pieced together who I was.

Yeah, I guess she’s into this until the end, huh. Looks like we’re moving onto Johto next then.

Overall, I have mixed feelings about this chapter. On the one hand, from a high level I like what happened here and it’s a cool chapter. Team Rocket raiding the rebels’ headquarters, a final confrontation with Tyson, and a mix up of the status quo alongside some serious losses on the protagonist side.

On the other hand, the execution just… didn’t do it for me. I didn’t like how the individual fights with the Rockets were written, in particular Tyson’s. The way Chibi killed him just felt… for a lack of a better word, “edgy”. Tyson just suddenly stopped being a threat and gets killed in this brutal and over the top way. Like, I get that Chibi was very upset over Tyson driving Razors to kill himself, and while him trying this was justified, it actually succeeding so easily (or it even happening period) is another thing entirely.

At least I look forward to how things will continue, since it’s the end of the rebellion and arc of the story. Just wish I would have enjoyed such a hype and climactic chapter more.

 

[icomeanon6]

Okay, been about 7 years since my last proper review of this and 5 years since my last out-of-thread semi-review, but I'm back on the wagon. Since it had been long enough that I forgot where exactly I left off, I started over from the beginning a while ago. I just reached chapter 49 (which I notice has the art from your sig banner, neat!), and I didn't take notes, so this is going to be some out-of-order impressions of what I've read of Book 2 so far. Going to aim to read and review chapters 49-to-latest in more detailed fashion for the upcoming Review Blitz.

Anyway:

Spoiler: Up to chapter 49

At last, the long-foreshadowed teamup with Lugia! Loved Jade's freakout during their meeting in the cave. What sticks out to me is how Lugia's reaction to Jade mistakenly thinking she was about to get killed wasn't, "Allow me to clear up the misunderstanding, child," but, "You are offensively stupid." This ain't Movie Lugia. Also, plenty of nice, intense, terrifying psychic stuff, just as promised.

Stalker's flashback chapter is a standout. His backstory kinda reminds me of Reinhard in Legend of the Galactic Heroes: the prodigy rising through the ranks at what to others is an alarming rate, and who has motivations/ambitions that would spell trouble if widely known. Something else I like is how he embodies that sense of heightened focus people sometimes get in crisis situations, a sort of eerily calm tunnel-vision on the problem at hand. It feels like he got that way when his home got Legendaried, and it just stuck with him for life.

Very intriguing that Stalker not only knew about all the chosen pact, but was trying to expedite it as part of his chess match. Going to be interesting down the road to see how much of what Stalker does is due to his own strategic skill and how much is due to whatever Unicode monster is in his head. I'm not going to hazard any predictions.

Rayquaza being so fed up with humanity's shit was golden.

Not Book 2, but in the process of re-reading I think I saw more of Starr getting sprinkled in pre-twist in a way that would have definitely averted my "Wait, who?" reaction to her twist when I first read. :typhuckyeah: I see you also went back and added Rudy's League Championship credential to the chapter illustrations. :typhuckyeah:

Particularly good action in chapter 38. I was seriously worried Swift was dead there.

Excited to get caught up again!