I'm in the same situation, actually- I've already decided that Chespin and Helioptile will be on my team. If both turn out to be Grass-types, it won't be the end of the world as far as I'm concerned- after all, I had two Water-types on my team in Ruby. Granted, Swampert and Pelipper have completely different weaknesses, but still... I'm not sure I could see Helioptile as the Pikaclone, either... those generally have spots on their cheeks like Pikachu, and the English name tends to be similar to (if not identical to) the Japanese name, and neither of those are the case with Helioptile. It's definitely cute enough, though. Did it strike you as a Mawile pre-evolution when you first saw it, though? Definitely gave off that vibe with me.
And yeah, a while back, I had a real surge of motivation, and I just kept on writing until the story was finished. If you still want to review it, you're more than welcome to post in the thread for the sequel. Speaking of which, I gotta get working on the next chapter for that...