So here's the journey fic I've been meaning to post and took such a long time to do so. Feel free to read and of course, review! All critics welcome.
Rated PG (for now, I believe)
so without further ado...
It was a day with a crow in it. No, wait. It was a day with a Murkrow in it. Early mornings made her feel dull and sluggish.
May sat up, throwing the musty white blankets off her. The morning sun sent shafts of warm light into the tiny motel room through the cracks in the dust-covered blinds that looked as if they were about to fall from their hinges. It shaded the walls (which were the color of old milk) a soft golden. May closed her eyes for a while and listened to sounds around her:
1. A toilet flushing (that was her mother).
2. Sound of a toothbrush working vigorously to clean teeth (also her mother).
3. The clicking of a bug light.
4. A car pulling out of its spot in the parking lot outside.
May quickly got dressed and pulled up the blinds, sending dust motes swirling through the air and sunlight glaring through the room. The Murkrow who was perched on the windowsill looking outside closed his bright red-orange eyes.
“Morning Earwig,” said May. Earwig the Murkrow gave a soft, brief squawk. He belonged to May’s mother, and though he looked old and heavy, he was actually very quick and graceful in flight. May remembered when she was three, and how she shrieked with glee when Earwig grabbed her by the shoulders and took her for a short flight over their old home in Fallarbor Town. Earwig was nicknamed by her mother’s twin sister for unclear reasons, and Earwig, being the stoic black bird as he is, never complained.
The bathroom door swung open, and May’s mother emerged calling, “May, are you up yet? If we want to get to Littleroot early, we’ll have to leave now.”
“I’m up now,” said May. May’s mother nodded. Her name was Natalia, and she was a tall woman with long brown hair and eyes the color of celery. Her freckles were copper as pennies in the sunlight, and she held out her arm for Earwig to fly to and land.
Natalia lugged their suitcases towards the door while calling May’s father. “Hello, Neville? Yeah, we’ll be here today. So you’ve got everything sorted out already? Be sure to put the little feng shui fountain in the northwest corner of the living room, it is good luck, or so they say.”
Natalia and May left the motel at seven-thirty in the morning, and sped away towards the port town of Littleroot, where Professor Neville Birch, May’s father, was already waiting in their new home.
Natalia rolled down the car window, sending great gusts of buffeting wind inside and turned on the radio with country music blaring from the speakers. Earwig darted out through the window and glided away, a blur of black against an untroubled blue sky. May turned away from the wind and grabbed her green belt pack and unzipped it.
It was filled mostly with chewing gum wrappers, loose change, her horoscope sign, a neon pink Post-it containing a short conversation she shared with a friend during a math class from Trainer’s School, and a glossy red trainer card. May took the trainer card. A picture of her was smiling—no, it was more like a grimace—out of the tiny frame.
May smiled to herself as she placed the card back into her belt pack. An image of her traveling across Hoenn danced through her head. The notion of crawling through damp grass, gliding down highways on a bike with the wind, wandering in caverns and forests, and even getting a little homesick delighted May’s heart. She leaned back against her seat and watched the landscape outside the window change from brown to green.
Brendan contemplated his bedroom. It looked as if a tornado blew through it. Clothes were strewn everywhere, books and comics piled precariously in towers or joined the clothes on the floor, and garbage filled every bare corner. He loved the state of it.
Brendan’s big green hiking backpack lay patiently on his bed, empty and waiting to be filled. He walked over to it (knocking over several book towers in the process) and checked his packing list:
Packing List:
1. Clothes (pants and tops and stuff like that)
2. Food (junky kind)
3. Food (healthy kind)
4. Food (for Pokémon)
5. Underwear
6. Camcorder and charger
7. First aid kit
The list had originally been longer, but Brendan ultimately came to the reality that his backpack won’t have room to fit his Nintendo Wii, and he has no use for his entire collection Pokémon Special *****. He scrounged through his bedroom and closet, made trips down to the kitchen, and half an hour later his backpack was bulging, complete with a sleeping bag tied on top.
“Hey Noir!” cried Brendan. “Noir! Where are you?”
“I’m actually right in your room. Can you find me? Let’s play ‘Where’s Waldo, Poochyena version!’”
Brendan rolled his eyes, smiling at his loquacious Poochyena’s joke, and walked over to his overflowing recycling bin. He whistled a short tune, feigning ignorance before tipping the bin over and spilling Noir out.
“Sweet mother of Mew!” barked Noir, his dark gray fur ruffled. “How’d you know I was hiding here?”
“Um, because the paper in the recycling bin usually don’t smell like Poochyena?” Brendan replied. “Seriously, dude. When was the last time you took a bath?”
“Pokémon don’t take baths.”
“Fine, then. When was the last time my mom caught you and forced you to wash?”
“Two months ago. I’m getting better at the art of eluding.” Noir grinned. “I’m a ninja!”
“Er, right,” said Brendan. He swung the backpack onto his shoulders. “Hey, this is lighter than I thought!”
“I’m a ninja! I’m a ninja!” sang Noir, leaping around the room. He didn’t stop until Brendan chucked a book at him. Noir pranced to a stop and said, “Well, forgive me for being excited. Look! Today’s the day we go out into the wild blue yonder! Aren’t you the least bit happy?”
“I am happy, but I’m not going to express it by acting like an idiot!” snapped Brendan. “And besides, this journey isn’t a cakewalk. This is a trial journey for the Hoenn League. Do you know what trial means?”
“Huh?” said Noir, not really paying attention.
Brendan sighed. “It means a test. If I don’t meet the requirements, I can forget about being a professional trainer. I think it’s to see who has talent and who does not, so the League could prevent everybody from just wasting time traveling around and not doing any work and stuff like that.”
“What requirements?”
“Oh, you know!” said Brendan. “You gotta decent achievement in the given year! So, like if you take the gym challenge, you have to have at least four badges before your year ends. If you become a coordinator, you must get at least three ribbons out of five. Stuff like that.”
“Well then,” said Noir. “That’s easy! We could totally do it, piece of cake!”
“We have to,” said Brendan, and he thought of his father, Norman. Norman was the gym leader of Petalburg, owning over sixteen badges, and impressive as impressive can be. His wife Caroline was a coordinator with an equally remarkable collection of ribbons and was now a contest judge. And then there was their son, eager to prove himself but quaking in his shoes as well. Brendan had a right to be nervous. Didn’t he?
Brendan stared down at Noir. The promise the bite Pokémon showed was…Brendan didn’t know. Noir was good in battle, but he just couldn’t focus sometimes. Noir seemed to have no seriousness in him sometimes.
“Come one, I’m itching to leave!” cried Noir happily. “Let’s go to Petalburg first and find Norman!”
May read the large sign in the middle of the highway: “Welcome to Littleroot Town: The Town That’s Can’t Be Shaded Any Hue!” May didn’t have time to think about what that meant, because as the car streaked past it May gasped in wonder.
Littleroot Town was as different as can be from Fallarbor Town. Fallarbor Town was flat with suburbs and surrounded by farmland. It had only two colors: brown and green. Littleroot Town was nestled comfortably within forested hills, the edge kissing the sea. May marveled. She had only seen the sea before on television, but that version of the sea was advertisement, beautified to please viewers. The sea at Littleroot Town wasn’t the perfect shade of blue, but rather a mix of gray and blue, with boats going out and clouds of Wingulls above. She made a mental note to go swim in it as soon as possible.
Natalia drove up to a large Queen Anne style house with a wooded hill in the back. May jumped out and unloaded the suitcases while the front door of the house swung open and the stout figure of her father ran out.
“Neville!” shouted Natalia with joy. They rushed to each other and hugged. “We’ve missed you for a week. How’s being Director of your new little research group? Does it beat working with Cozmo?”
“Very much so,” said Professor Birch. Then he went over to give May a big hug. “Hello, love!”
“So what have you been up to?” asked May as they pulled the luggage inside the house.
“All of the main Pokémon research facilities across Hoenn are starting a project called Project Pokédex. We’re all supposed to submit data on the Pokémon in habitat around the facilities and put everything together in a portable encyclopedia called a Pokédex,” explained Professor Birch proudly.
“That’ll change the lives of all the people in Hoenn, that will,” said May. The first thing May noted about her new house was how different it was from her old one in Fallarbor. The walls were covered with floral-patterned wallpaper in shades of pink and green and blue, and the previous inhabitants painted an enormous Latias flying to the moon on a living room wall. The house on the outside was pink. Back in Fallarbor Town, their neat little suburban dwelling had unassuming white walls and was a plain brown on the outside. If anyone dared paint their house pink, neighbors would come at night and spray-paint it beige.
May walked out into the backyard and wondered at the sight of it. The noon sun glowed over the rusted garden gate and the small rose-less rosebushes in front of the gate. There was a rockery that was all rocks (and two Geodudes pretending to be rocks) and the small hill in the back mainly held pines and maples.
May went exploring in the wooded hill beyond the rockery. She found a Seviper skin (but no Seviper), a nest of fledgling Taillows, and a Treecko that leaped from tree limb to tree limb.
And then she saw the Absol.
---------
This is a new chapter one, which is in my opinion, much better than the original. It's also much shorter so readers can digest it more easily.
~Mally
Rated PG (for now, I believe)
so without further ado...
Iridescence~
Chapter One: Into
It was a day with a crow in it. No, wait. It was a day with a Murkrow in it. Early mornings made her feel dull and sluggish.
May sat up, throwing the musty white blankets off her. The morning sun sent shafts of warm light into the tiny motel room through the cracks in the dust-covered blinds that looked as if they were about to fall from their hinges. It shaded the walls (which were the color of old milk) a soft golden. May closed her eyes for a while and listened to sounds around her:
1. A toilet flushing (that was her mother).
2. Sound of a toothbrush working vigorously to clean teeth (also her mother).
3. The clicking of a bug light.
4. A car pulling out of its spot in the parking lot outside.
May quickly got dressed and pulled up the blinds, sending dust motes swirling through the air and sunlight glaring through the room. The Murkrow who was perched on the windowsill looking outside closed his bright red-orange eyes.
“Morning Earwig,” said May. Earwig the Murkrow gave a soft, brief squawk. He belonged to May’s mother, and though he looked old and heavy, he was actually very quick and graceful in flight. May remembered when she was three, and how she shrieked with glee when Earwig grabbed her by the shoulders and took her for a short flight over their old home in Fallarbor Town. Earwig was nicknamed by her mother’s twin sister for unclear reasons, and Earwig, being the stoic black bird as he is, never complained.
The bathroom door swung open, and May’s mother emerged calling, “May, are you up yet? If we want to get to Littleroot early, we’ll have to leave now.”
“I’m up now,” said May. May’s mother nodded. Her name was Natalia, and she was a tall woman with long brown hair and eyes the color of celery. Her freckles were copper as pennies in the sunlight, and she held out her arm for Earwig to fly to and land.
Natalia lugged their suitcases towards the door while calling May’s father. “Hello, Neville? Yeah, we’ll be here today. So you’ve got everything sorted out already? Be sure to put the little feng shui fountain in the northwest corner of the living room, it is good luck, or so they say.”
Natalia and May left the motel at seven-thirty in the morning, and sped away towards the port town of Littleroot, where Professor Neville Birch, May’s father, was already waiting in their new home.
Natalia rolled down the car window, sending great gusts of buffeting wind inside and turned on the radio with country music blaring from the speakers. Earwig darted out through the window and glided away, a blur of black against an untroubled blue sky. May turned away from the wind and grabbed her green belt pack and unzipped it.
It was filled mostly with chewing gum wrappers, loose change, her horoscope sign, a neon pink Post-it containing a short conversation she shared with a friend during a math class from Trainer’s School, and a glossy red trainer card. May took the trainer card. A picture of her was smiling—no, it was more like a grimace—out of the tiny frame.
May smiled to herself as she placed the card back into her belt pack. An image of her traveling across Hoenn danced through her head. The notion of crawling through damp grass, gliding down highways on a bike with the wind, wandering in caverns and forests, and even getting a little homesick delighted May’s heart. She leaned back against her seat and watched the landscape outside the window change from brown to green.
~
Brendan contemplated his bedroom. It looked as if a tornado blew through it. Clothes were strewn everywhere, books and comics piled precariously in towers or joined the clothes on the floor, and garbage filled every bare corner. He loved the state of it.
Brendan’s big green hiking backpack lay patiently on his bed, empty and waiting to be filled. He walked over to it (knocking over several book towers in the process) and checked his packing list:
Packing List:
1. Clothes (pants and tops and stuff like that)
2. Food (junky kind)
3. Food (healthy kind)
4. Food (for Pokémon)
5. Underwear
6. Camcorder and charger
7. First aid kit
The list had originally been longer, but Brendan ultimately came to the reality that his backpack won’t have room to fit his Nintendo Wii, and he has no use for his entire collection Pokémon Special *****. He scrounged through his bedroom and closet, made trips down to the kitchen, and half an hour later his backpack was bulging, complete with a sleeping bag tied on top.
“Hey Noir!” cried Brendan. “Noir! Where are you?”
“I’m actually right in your room. Can you find me? Let’s play ‘Where’s Waldo, Poochyena version!’”
Brendan rolled his eyes, smiling at his loquacious Poochyena’s joke, and walked over to his overflowing recycling bin. He whistled a short tune, feigning ignorance before tipping the bin over and spilling Noir out.
“Sweet mother of Mew!” barked Noir, his dark gray fur ruffled. “How’d you know I was hiding here?”
“Um, because the paper in the recycling bin usually don’t smell like Poochyena?” Brendan replied. “Seriously, dude. When was the last time you took a bath?”
“Pokémon don’t take baths.”
“Fine, then. When was the last time my mom caught you and forced you to wash?”
“Two months ago. I’m getting better at the art of eluding.” Noir grinned. “I’m a ninja!”
“Er, right,” said Brendan. He swung the backpack onto his shoulders. “Hey, this is lighter than I thought!”
“I’m a ninja! I’m a ninja!” sang Noir, leaping around the room. He didn’t stop until Brendan chucked a book at him. Noir pranced to a stop and said, “Well, forgive me for being excited. Look! Today’s the day we go out into the wild blue yonder! Aren’t you the least bit happy?”
“I am happy, but I’m not going to express it by acting like an idiot!” snapped Brendan. “And besides, this journey isn’t a cakewalk. This is a trial journey for the Hoenn League. Do you know what trial means?”
“Huh?” said Noir, not really paying attention.
Brendan sighed. “It means a test. If I don’t meet the requirements, I can forget about being a professional trainer. I think it’s to see who has talent and who does not, so the League could prevent everybody from just wasting time traveling around and not doing any work and stuff like that.”
“What requirements?”
“Oh, you know!” said Brendan. “You gotta decent achievement in the given year! So, like if you take the gym challenge, you have to have at least four badges before your year ends. If you become a coordinator, you must get at least three ribbons out of five. Stuff like that.”
“Well then,” said Noir. “That’s easy! We could totally do it, piece of cake!”
“We have to,” said Brendan, and he thought of his father, Norman. Norman was the gym leader of Petalburg, owning over sixteen badges, and impressive as impressive can be. His wife Caroline was a coordinator with an equally remarkable collection of ribbons and was now a contest judge. And then there was their son, eager to prove himself but quaking in his shoes as well. Brendan had a right to be nervous. Didn’t he?
Brendan stared down at Noir. The promise the bite Pokémon showed was…Brendan didn’t know. Noir was good in battle, but he just couldn’t focus sometimes. Noir seemed to have no seriousness in him sometimes.
“Come one, I’m itching to leave!” cried Noir happily. “Let’s go to Petalburg first and find Norman!”
~
May read the large sign in the middle of the highway: “Welcome to Littleroot Town: The Town That’s Can’t Be Shaded Any Hue!” May didn’t have time to think about what that meant, because as the car streaked past it May gasped in wonder.
Littleroot Town was as different as can be from Fallarbor Town. Fallarbor Town was flat with suburbs and surrounded by farmland. It had only two colors: brown and green. Littleroot Town was nestled comfortably within forested hills, the edge kissing the sea. May marveled. She had only seen the sea before on television, but that version of the sea was advertisement, beautified to please viewers. The sea at Littleroot Town wasn’t the perfect shade of blue, but rather a mix of gray and blue, with boats going out and clouds of Wingulls above. She made a mental note to go swim in it as soon as possible.
Natalia drove up to a large Queen Anne style house with a wooded hill in the back. May jumped out and unloaded the suitcases while the front door of the house swung open and the stout figure of her father ran out.
“Neville!” shouted Natalia with joy. They rushed to each other and hugged. “We’ve missed you for a week. How’s being Director of your new little research group? Does it beat working with Cozmo?”
“Very much so,” said Professor Birch. Then he went over to give May a big hug. “Hello, love!”
“So what have you been up to?” asked May as they pulled the luggage inside the house.
“All of the main Pokémon research facilities across Hoenn are starting a project called Project Pokédex. We’re all supposed to submit data on the Pokémon in habitat around the facilities and put everything together in a portable encyclopedia called a Pokédex,” explained Professor Birch proudly.
“That’ll change the lives of all the people in Hoenn, that will,” said May. The first thing May noted about her new house was how different it was from her old one in Fallarbor. The walls were covered with floral-patterned wallpaper in shades of pink and green and blue, and the previous inhabitants painted an enormous Latias flying to the moon on a living room wall. The house on the outside was pink. Back in Fallarbor Town, their neat little suburban dwelling had unassuming white walls and was a plain brown on the outside. If anyone dared paint their house pink, neighbors would come at night and spray-paint it beige.
May walked out into the backyard and wondered at the sight of it. The noon sun glowed over the rusted garden gate and the small rose-less rosebushes in front of the gate. There was a rockery that was all rocks (and two Geodudes pretending to be rocks) and the small hill in the back mainly held pines and maples.
May went exploring in the wooded hill beyond the rockery. She found a Seviper skin (but no Seviper), a nest of fledgling Taillows, and a Treecko that leaped from tree limb to tree limb.
And then she saw the Absol.
---------
This is a new chapter one, which is in my opinion, much better than the original. It's also much shorter so readers can digest it more easily.
~Mally
Last edited:
As for the semicolon mistake, that was my microsoft word being screwy. It mixes up semicolons and commas and automatically corrects them, and as I'm typing quickly I don't catch it. Which is bad. :/