Jericho

[Breeder Drew]

Just a little fic idea I had that I had originally planned to just be a one shot. I figured I might as well add onto that and make it a full blown story. It may be an AS fic, but believe me, that does not take center stage here.

Jericho​

Chapter One: Test Tube

No sunlight creaked through any windows. No chilled winds blew through the air. Nothing at all. Just darkness. Until he flipped the switch.

Suddenly, the lights flashed on and Mewtwo could see that he was in some sort of laboratory. Holes started appearing in the room's steel walls, emitting toxic fumes strong enough to take down a Wailord.

Mewtwo opened his nostrils to see if he could tell what the scent was. The green smoke went up his nose and he fell to the ground. The fumes washed over his leathery silver and purple skin. Mewtwo could faintly hear a voice and see a man before he passed out.

"Subject 549 has been restricted. Commence the operation." Said the man who had a gas mask on. Then it all went black.
____________

Mewtwo awoke inside a test tube, floating in some sticky liquid. He tried to touch his face, only to feel tubes connected to his mouth. He assumed that this was to keep him alive.

The man was on the outside of the test tube, minus the gas mask this time. His cold, blue eyes met Mewtwo's heartless purple eyes. The man had unkept, messy auburn colored hair and wore a black suit and tie.

"Don't touch those tubes," Said the man, frowning. "They're the only reason you're alive right now."

Mewtwo squinted a bit and frowned. The man smirked.

"I bet you're wondering how I caught you."

Mewtwo just continued staring. The man figured that this was a yes.

"See that tranquilizer gun over there?" He said, pointing to his left. Mewtwo nodded yes. "I shot you with about fifteen of those darts. You were tough to bring down."

Mewtwo was flattered. Or as close to flattered as you can get inside a test tube with breathing assistance being the only thing keeping you alive. But flattery annoyed Mewtwo, along with about everything else.

"I just realised that I haven't told you my name, 549!" Said the man. "My name is Olaf. I know, a weird name for such a dashing person, right?"

Mewtwo wasn't amused.

"Okay," Muttered Olaf. "Let's get to why I captured you. We here at Advanced Futuristic Science are working on a project called Jericho. We're trying to show our new way of powering things instead of electricity, which has been completely ignored by the scientific community. We want to force people to use our method."

Mewtwo was interested at this point.

"We're planning on shutting down all of Hoenn's power systems and causing a region-wide blackout to force the region's government to use our method. Oh, and pay us." Said
Olaf.

"Just what is your method and why do you need me?" Asked Mewtwo with a deep, booming voice.

"That's the interestingly disturbing part."
____________

Ash sat in his room, thinking about the day ahead. It was Christmas Eve, and he had come home to Kanto to be with his mother for the holiday. Pikachu laid on his bed, tangled inside a mob of blue blankets. The small, yellow, mouse-like pokemon rubbed his red cheeks, causing some electricity to build up on his fingertips. He looked over to his side and saw Ash, now asleep at his computer desk, drooling all over the keyboard.

Pikachu decided to have a little fun with him. He scuttled over to the desk silently. He saw that Ash's mouth was open. Pikachu took his electricly enhanced fingertips and grabbed Ash's tongue.

"AHHHH!" Yelled Ash, falling out of the seat. "What was that for?!"

"Piikaaa!" Taunted the small mouse pokemon. Ash pulled himself up from the ground and started to chase Pikachu downstairs. Pikachu was much too fast for Ash, however. Ash eventually realised this and gently stroked his now medium-rare tongue. Ash went into the kitchen and found his Mother, Delia, frying bacon.

"Good morning, Ash," Said Delia. "Do you want any bacon?"

"Not right now," Slurred Ash. He could hardly talk due to Pikachu's joke. Pikachu, however, was glad to have some bacon. He ran iver to Delia and started rubbing his head against her leg while she threw him two pieces of bacon. Pikachu then walked over to the table and tugged on Ash's blue jeans, whispering a faint "Pika?"

Ash knew what this meant. He rolled his eyes and gave Pikachu the ketchup bottle. Pikachu's eyes immediatly lit up as he coated the bacon in the red sauce. Once he had finished the bacon, he turned the bottle upside down and squirted all that remained of the delicacy into his mouth.

Pikachu carried the empty bottle with him to the couch and laid there, cuddling with it. Ash muttered to his Mom, "We need some more ketchup." Ash sat down at the table and prepared himself a sandwich. After he had eaten it, his tongue burned like fire.

"Ash, can you go outside and get the mail?" Asked Delia, who was busy trying to get the ketchup bottle away fron Pikachu. Ash nodded yes, and to his suprise, a package came. For him. It had a note attached to it. "I'm sorry," it read. He opened the small package and saw a case inside. He opened it up and found May's half of the ribbon that they had won in a contest. He looked next to it and there was another note. Ash started to read it.

"Dear Ash,

I can't keep this anymore. I can't think of you anymore. I know this must sound awful to you, but I think I want to forget about you and move on.

I have a boyfriend, Ash, and Drew loves me more than you ever could. I'm sorry if this letter hurts you, but that's just how it has to be. Please, forgive me.

Sincerely,
May Maple"

This couldn't be happening. This couldn't be real. This had to be a sick joke. There was no way she could ever love that arrogant douche Drew, no way.

Ash was enraged. He picked up the half ribbon and threw it on the ground, stomping on it. He took the letter and ripped it to shreds, tearing the paper all over his front porch. Suddenly, he reached down and grabbed the ribbon and carried it inside. He put it on his computer desk, calming down a bit.

"I still love you, May." He muttered to himself. "I still do."

 

[Psychic]

I enjoy reading stories involving Mewtwo, so once I started reading I figured I would drop in my two cents.

You have an interesting start to a story here. Suddenly Mewtwo, a powerful creature only a select few know of, is in the custody of a new character with a sinister plan, who calls Mewtwo by a number (which implies that Mewtwo isn’t the only trapped creature). At the same time, Ash ishome instead of travelling with his friends, and is suffering some heartbreak. You’ve automatically set up an interesting story, one that will require a fair amount of explanation.


Personally, I’ll admit that I have trouble getting my head around it. This is something you will have to explain very well in future chapters if you want readers to buy into it, because I found it to really go against canon. For once thing, the only people who knew about Mewtwo were the Rockets, Ash and company, and Mewtwo made sure to keep it that way. For another, Mewtwo can withstand attack after attack – how could one measly human approach Mewtwo without his knowing about it, get close enough to use tranquilizers, and not have Mewtwo fight back before all 15 shots are fired? And then instead of shoving Mewtwo right into the tube in the first place, they put him in a room where he could escape, then poison him, then imprison him. It was certainly more dramatic the way you did it, but the way you wrote the scene and Olaf explaining the entire thing to Mewtwo meant that all these logical gaps and plotholes started appearing.

This is why mystery is often key. The less a character says and does, the less that’s outright explained, the more mystery and excitement you get. It’s not always exciting to hear the bad guy giving away everything right away. You can cut a lot of that out and save it for later – instead, if all we hear Olaf say is to not touch the tubes, maybe brag about having caught Metwwo, and then say that Mewtwo will play a very interesting and disturbing role in his scheme, then both Mewtwo and the reader are left to wonder what on earth happened, and what will happen next.


Next, I wanted to talk about your characters. I like that you kept Mewtwo quiet – he is generally quiet, unresponsive, and looks down on humans. I especially like the descriptions of Mewtwo staring silently and not being amused. However, I think he could have been even more unresponsive. Mewtwo doesn’t have to nod to acknowledge some stupid human – he knows the Olaf will explain himself either way. I liked that Mewtwo had just one line of dialogue, though – he only needed one at most. Another issue I found was that Mewtwo never tries to fight back! Mewtwo has insane powers and is never afraid to use them, yet he doesn’t seem to think about/try to escape even once. In fact, he never really thinks much at all, and that was a little disappointing. It would have been interesting to see him wondering where it is, or how he suddenly got in a giant test tube, why he suddenly can’t survive without these tubes, or even thinking about getting the hell out of there.

I thought Ash and Pikachu were interesting and definitely had a solid relationship, if a little weird. Pikachu hasn’t electrocuted Ash since they were in Kanto, nor has Pikachu recently wanted to play any tricks, especially a mean one like that. So it’s weird to see their relationship has sort of devolved to the way they were when they first met, especially if it's past the Hoenn saga. The ketchup thing with Pikachu was amusing and I remember it from ages ago, but again, not something we’ve seen in canon in over ten years to my knowledge.

Lastly, I think showing a bit of Ash’s history and feeling for May were interesting, but it felt a little forced and overdramatic. Ash reads the letter, calls Drew an immature name, rages by stomping and tearing, then takes it all back in the next sentence and whines about still loving May. It’s a good try, but it’s so dramatic that it feels a little ridiculous. Ash doesn’t react to seeing the letter or even the initial “I’m sorry” – his heart doesn’t jump, he doesn’t feel afraid or excited or curious, and then a moment later he’s in a fit of rage. It sounds dramatic, yes, but not all that realistic.


I do like the final words of the chapter, but the problem is making sure Ash’s emotions make sense going from one to another so that he still ends with acknowledging he still loves May. Additionally, keep in mind that you are setting up for Ash to be pretty miserable and heart-broken during this fic if you end the chapter on that note. This means that he will probably still be preoccupied with this in future chapters, and that may or may not be distracting readers from the overall story.



Your grammar was pretty good; I only saw one problem. It’s easy to fix, though! A lot of writers do this, but if your dialogue ends in a comma, then you don’t capitalize the next word after. So instead of
"Okay," Muttered Olaf.
It should be
"Okay," muttered Olaf.
This is because, if you ignore the quotation marks, it’s essentially one sentence. The part inside the quotation marks and the part outside rely on one another to make sense, so it’s treated as a single sentence. You only use capitals at the start of a new sentence, but we’re not starting a new sentence in this case. This is pretty easy to fix is your writing, so be sure to remember it for the future.


Other than that, your chapter seemed a little on the short side, but it wasn’t too big of a problem. Just remember that description is key; describe where a character is, especially if it’s a different, scary setting (like for Mewtwo), and describe emotions – what characters are feeling and what thoughts may be passing through their heads. These will especially help your reader imagine what’s going on and how the characters are reacting.

You have a very interesting start here, as I've said! I'm curious to know what Olaf's plan is, where Mewtwo comes in, if he isn't the only experiment, and how Ash comes in. I know my review is a little long, but I hope I can make you think a little more about your story and how you tell it. Please do try to think about and make some of the changes I suggested. Good luck!

~Psychic