Dragonfree
Just me
7th-8th place TIE: Let's Go, Eevee by AmericanPi
Scoring
Dragonfree: 7th place (30 points)
Negrek: 7th place (30 points)
Rediamond: 7th place (30 points)
Total: 90 points
Reviews
Dragonfree
The beginning of this was quite cute, showing these friends training together with different ideas about what training should be like and the interactions between the characters, and the little scene of planning out the training session, wanting to work on particular moves, was particularly fun to see. I loved the idea of the twist here - a trainer determined to fight Team Rocket finding out their best friend has been secretly on their side all along! I also enjoyed the use of "Let's go, Eevee" as a bitter, dramatic line signifying Eve leaving Picasso behind for good. (Got to give a little nod to the names Picasso and Eve, too - Eve may be obvious, but I would've drawn a blank trying to find a name that sounded like 'Pikachu'.)
However, I think this story needed just a bit more setup to truly have the impact that it could have. While the opening is cute and gets across that they're friends, we don't have enough time to truly get attached to Picasso or invested in their friendship, and that makes the reveal not have the emotional punch that it could have. Imagine if the story were longer, if we got to really know Picasso as a good friend to Eve, and we found out early that his greatest ambition is to one day get to see the three legendary birds for himself. Perhaps Eve thinks about how that's the one thing he does take seriously. Perhaps Eve suggests one day they could explore Seafoam Islands or the Power Plant together, in the hope of helping him fulfill his dream, and she only briefly wonders why he's not as enthusiastic as she expected. Imagine if we saw more of their respective feelings on Team Rocket before the twist - if we actually saw one of the pair's previous encounters with them, Picasso being uncomfortable and reluctant and arguing they might get hurt or get in serious trouble - which'd just seem like reasonable concerns for someone more cautious and risk-averse who doesn't have Eve's heroic passion for personally taking on criminals, until in this later encounter we learn there was a far more sinister reason behind it. This could be such a great, emotional twist! But I think the story's just a bit too short as is to truly deliver on its potential.
Part of it is also how Eve reacts. The moment she learns Picasso is siding with Team Rocket, she just instantly rejects and despises him; she's angry, but she doesn't seem conflicted at all, or really hurt so much as just outraged. That's not a completely unreasonable reaction, and you portray her emotions well, but I think the story would pack a lot more of a punch if there were a stronger sense that she's learning this about a person that she really loved and cared about, that she still wants to see the good in and persuade to see things in a different light - if these were emotions that she really had to visibly struggle with, rather than being immediately able to dismiss him as irredeemable. It's hard to learn something awful about a person you trusted - I think it would be heartwrenching if we saw Eve trying harder to convince Picasso, if she reached for explanations where he's not a bad person and their friendship wasn't a lie, before something finally shatters her image of him.
All in all, the part of the story that you tell here is nicely done - but I think it'd have a lot more impact if there were more depth and development here, and we got more time to get truly emotionally invested before the twist. As it is, I don't think it quite manages to be as effective as it could be, which is a shame.
Negrek
This is a cute idea, bringing the title of the "Let's go!" games directly into your story and playing with the meaning a bit. I love how the "Let's go, Eevee!" that comes up the first time is completely different in meaning and tone from the second; it nicely encapsulates how Eve's feelings change over the course of the story, and I like how it connects with the title in an unexpected way--you wouldn't guess the direction the story's going to go from that upbeat, "Let's go!", but it's nevertheless very fitting.
I'm going to go through and talk about some stuff that jumped out at me in the process of reading, then sum up with some bigger-picture stuff at the end.
I'm a little surprised to see Petrel and Archer here in Kanto, since I've always associated them with the Johto force from HGSS. idk if their background in Kanto and/or association with the legendary birds is just a canon tidbit I'm unaware of, though.
For the most part your mechanics are fine. There's one small punctuation thing to note; when you have a character making a direct address, that is, calling another one by a name or other title, the name is set off by commas. You do this correctly in some places, like here:
...or even in the title of the story! Or with the dialogue, "Good night, Eve," etc. However, you also leave the comma out fairly frequently:
In general, keep an eye out and make sure you're remembering to put that comma in! Also, one small typo:
I like the twist that Picasso ends up being the next best thing to a Rocket and actually interested in joining them once he's old enough. You definitely establish him as friendly and carefree, a bit of a jokester--very typical hero-protagonist material, so to have him end up aligned with the bad guys is a nice twist. In a way it makes sense, though; Picasso doesn't take anything seriously, so of course the idea of Team Rocket doing bad things is pretty abstract to him, especially when lined up against the promise of getting to see these amazing legendary pokémon. He's also a kid, which means he's self-centered by default and probably doesn't really even have the capacity to understand the ways in which Team Rocket does harm, and he's probably going to be predisposed to assume that of course his dad would never be one of the bad guys... Sure, Team Rocket will do anything for money, but it's not just that they're greedy and want money, look at this awesome cause it's going towards! Or there's another angle on it, where sometimes "casual and carefree" can go hand in hand with "callous and aloof," because, well, perhaps the person isn't bothered by much, including the thought of other people potentially being hurt in the pursuit of getting what they want.
What I'm saying is I think the twist works on a number of levels, and it's great when something that comes as a surprise also makes sense from a character or thematic standpoint.
The portrayal of Petrel and Archer here is also interesting. They're very cordial and friendly, and I have to wonder how much of that is a show for Picasso and/or Eve's benefit, or whether they actually believe what they're saying to some extent. My memories of them from HGSS are not of them being particularly pleasant, but since they're just grunts here, perhaps they simply changed as they climbed the ranks. Or this is just a gentler, more anime-y Rocket portrayal; after all, we're introduced to them stealing a magnemite with a net, not mugging a kid at knifepoint or even selling amputated slowpoke tails. One way or another, I could almost buy Archer as a dad who has some villainous qualities but is actually working really hard to make his son's dream come true, and it's neat to have that ambiguity around his true intentions.
You do really sell the anime-esque tone throughout, which is appropriate, given the more anime-inspired Yellow base used for LGPE. I could see this little story being an anime special or spinoff or something like that; the concept and tone would definitely work well for a side-adventure in the animeverse. The only issue I could see with that is that the story as written here doesn't feel finshed to me.
What you have here is a nice set-up for a story where Eve has to come to terms with finding out that Picasso supports Team Rocket, but without seeing that actual coming-to-terms, it feels incomplete to me. Eve basically has her revelation, and then the story ends before she gets the chance to really process or react to it. It's really an abrupt ending, and I kind of wonder whether you had intended to write more but ran out of time. Assuming this was the entry you intended to turn in, though, I'll talk a bit about why this story felt lacking to me and suggest approaches to make it seem more finished.
Typically what makes a story seem complete is a sense of closure, that some sort of question or proposition is raised and by the end of the story it's been either answered or at least commented upon. This isn't a case of a story that just kind of meanders and goes nowhere; Eve obviously experiences a huge shock, an event that's probably going to have a big impact on her character going forward. It would be totally possible to end just where you did here, but I think you'd need to set the beginning of the story up a bit differently. Basically, you'd need to set up a scenario where "Picasso likes Team Rocket" feels like an answer to some question posed by the earlier part of the story. On the extreme end, maybe we see some of Eve's earlier encounters with Team Rocket and witness Picasso's reluctance/shiftiness for ourselves. Or perhaps Picasso talks a lot about how cool the legendary birds are but seems to be leaving something out or is otherwise evasive about it. In either of these cases, Picasso turning out to be a Rocket would resolve some tension raised earlier in the narrative. But there are plenty of other approaches, too.
Having Picasso turn out to support Team Rocket is, the way the story's set up, an event that really causes the reader to wonder what now? Is Eve going to become even more zealous about fighting Team Rocket? Is she going to decide she was too hasty about dropping Picasso and decide to go back and try to reason with him? Will she feel so disgusted with everything that she decides to give up training altogether? There are other elements that give the ending a very open-ended, beginning-of-something-bigger feel, too, like Picasso's pikachu going along with Eve. Is Pikachu deciding to join Eve now, after realizing her trainer supports Team Rocket? Does Pikachu want to try and convince Eve that Picasso's really not so bad? And so on. Again, you've set up a very interesting situation that could go any number of ways. Another way to make the story feel like it had a satisfying finish is some sense that Eve's processed what's happened and chosen a direction in response. Maybe Eve has a tearful heart-to-heart with Pikachu, and they agree to work together to stop Team Rocket, and by the end the reader discovers that we've actually read the origin story for one of Kanto's top hero trainers. Or maybe Eve takes a break from doing the gym challenge and realizes she loves pokémon but would enjoy working at a pokémon daycare or becoming a researcher would be more fun for her than being a trainer. Or perhaps she becomes bitter and untrusting of people in general and gives up fighting Team Rocket, deciding she can never make a difference... not a very happy ending, but one that feels like it would give some closure! One way or another, showing some sort of result from the scenario presented in this story, a sense of how Eve's been changed by the events she's gone through, would be another way to create closure. An answer to what now, basically!
So, again, I think you have a very good set-up here, but you're missing some follow-through. The story as it stands feels unfinished to me, which makes it an intriguing but somewhat frustrating read, since it kind of leaves me hanging. One way or another, the story would probably need to be a little longer in order for it to develop a proper arc... at least one more scene, I think, to bring the story home, whether at the beginning or the end.
That said, this is definitely the strongest contest entry I've read from you. You're doing worlds better with dialogue and making character traits clear through what people say and do rather than by explaining them to the reader with exposition. We get a good sense of who Eve and Picasso are (or who he seems to be!) even just from the first scene of the two of them in the pokémon center. And as I already mentioned, I loved the twist and the unexpected direction you decided to take the story. All in all, I think this is a great start towards a very solid one-shot. It leaves me wanting more, but unfortunately in a bit of a frustrated way. Unfortunately I think I'm probably going to have to rank this one low, simply because it's hard for a story that kind of cuts off to compete with ones that come to a nice and satisfying conclusion, but I didn't want you to think I thought that what you have here is bad by any means--again, definitely your strongest contest entry yet, I'd say. It's just that what you have here strikes me as unfinished, and without a solid ending, it doesn't strike me as ultimately very satisfying.
Rediamond
The good: We don’t actually see pokémon training happen very much in fan fic, largely due to that pesky law of conservation of detail. It’s nice to at least see a plan for it, even if we don’t actually /see/ much of it. Eve’s team is a nice mix of pokémon that mostly avoids the default Kanto pokémon, which makes it nice. Honestly not sure I’ve ever seen one of her pokémon used before. And the kids do come across as kids.
The bad: I think that the story suffers from two very big problems. The first and most troublesome for it is that, fundamentally, it is not a self-contained story. It is the end of Act I or II of a much longer arc, where two friends have their first real disagreement. But I don’t have context for this. Not really. And the story just isn’t long enough for me to get attached to the characters at all, since I could say… maybe three sentences about either of them. I get that it was built around a line, but the problem is that it doesn’t build well to that line.
The other one became clearer on a second read. The story has a big ‘tell, not show’ problem. Eve casually explains that she’s “competitive” and Picasso is laid back. Which feels unnecessary since it’s been established quite well by the subtext. [Side note: that name was distracting to me. I get Kanto and color puns, but… it’s kinda cumbersome and doesn’t sound like a real first name very much.] The history of the two characters is laid out very nicely in “as you know bits.” And the training sequence gets skimmed over with a few tell-y lines about how it went. I feel like this story desperately needed one real, emotional scene to make me care about the ending. And it just never provided one.
The verdict: One-shots are tricky creatures that require either a very good scene or a very compact-but-meaningful plot. While it has some interesting concepts going, and might be an above-average chapter in a journey fic, it just doesn’t feel like a complete or compelling story.
Scoring
Dragonfree: 7th place (30 points)
Negrek: 7th place (30 points)
Rediamond: 7th place (30 points)
Total: 90 points
"Let's Go, Eevee"
A one-shot
By AmericanPi
"Are you sure, Picasso?" Eve asked quietly into the darkness, addressing her friend who slept on the bunk below her. "We can always move on and come back to Fuchsia City later."
"Hey," Picasso said, keeping his voice down so as not to disturb the other resting trainers. "You stayed behind with me back in Vermilion, and thanks to all your help I got that Thunder Badge, even if it took a few tries. I'd better return the favor and help you get your Soul Badge."
"You don't have to do this, you know," Eve said, reaching over to rub Eevee's head.
"Of course I do!" Picasso said stubbornly. "I want to help you. You don't have to worry, Eve."
"Alright," Eve said, smiling to herself as she watched the outline of Eevee's deeply breathing form in the darkness. "More training tomorrow?"
"Gotcha," Picasso said. "You can train up Oddish, and Pikachu can work a bit on her electric attacks."
"Pi-kachu!" Picasso's partner pokémon trilled happily.
"Pikachu, what are you doing up? Go to sleep!" Eve said, laughing to herself. "Speaking of, I'd better go to sleep too if I want to make the most use of our training session tomorrow. Good night, Picasso."
"Good night, Eve."
Eve and Picasso were both up bright and early the next day. After eating breakfast at the Fuchsia City Pokémon Center, Eve sent out her team to address them.
Eve smiled as Eevee joined the four pokémon who materialized from poké balls in front of her - Kingler, Pidgeotto, Mankey, and Oddish. Eve's team of five was coming along nicely. It seemed like a long time ago when she left Cerulean City on her tenth birthday with her partner pokémon, a male eevee, and met Picasso near Saffron City shortly afterwards. Even though in reality it had only been a few months, the growth of her pokémon made her proud of how far she'd come.
"Okay, team," Eve said to her pokémon, who sat in a row in front of her. "Once again, we're going to spend most of today training so we can finally get that Soul Badge. I think we'll be ready when one of you evolves, but we'll see how things go. Oddish, since you're the newest, you're going to be battling a lot, but I'll be sure to switch you out for someone else when the going gets tough. Mankey, today we're going to be using the move Bide a lot to practice self-control. Pidgeotto, I want you to work on your flying and air dodging, and Kingler, we'll keep working on the move Agility today. And finally, Eevee, let's work on Bouncy Bubble."
"Come on, Eve," Picasso said playfully from nearby as Eve's pokémon chirped in affirmation. "Do you have to have a training plan every time?"
"Of course I do!" Eve said stubbornly, crossing her arms and sticking her tongue out at her friend. "Winging it may work for you and Pikachu, but not me."
"Hmm, we don't have wings, so we're more playing it by ear," Picasso joked as he knelt down and petted Pikachu's left ear. "Right, Pikachu?"
"You didn't have to take it so literally," Eve said, rolling her eyes as she picked up Eevee and put him on her shoulder. "You ready to go, Picasso?"
"Yeah, I'm ready," Picasso said. Eve nodded and recalled her team before heading towards the front door of the Pokémon Center. She stopped short as she realized that Picasso wasn't following her.
"Hey, Picasso, the exit is this way," Eve said as she spotted Picasso heading for the bunks.
"I know, but I need to use the restroom," Picasso said.
"You told me you were ready to go!"
"Yeah, and by 'go' I meant go to the bathroom," Picasso said with a cheeky smile.
"Oh man Picasso, you're so annoying," Eve grumbled, though she smiled back at her friend. "I'll be right outside."
"Right," Picasso said, his cheeky smile still plastered on his face as he rushed to the restroom. Eve rolled her eyes as she and Eevee stepped out into the morning sun.
"I wonder if Picasso will ever take anything seriously," Eve murmured to her partner pokémon as she waited outside the Center. She smiled. "Maybe it's a good thing that he's such a goofball. Kinda helps counterbalance my competitiveness."
"Ee!" Eevee trilled happily. Eve ruffled Eevee's fur.
"Done!" Picasso yelled as he burst out of the Pokémon Center, Pikachu happily perched on his shoulder. "Let's go catch a train and by that I mean do some training!"
Eve just laughed at her friend's silliness as she turned and headed towards Route 15. Picasso followed, cracking a joke about trains as the two friends stepped out of Fuchsia City and into the wilderness to train.
Training went smoothly for an hour or so. Oddish held his own surprisingly well for such a little guy, and Eve felt proud of the newest member of her team. Picasso mainly trained Pikachu, whose amazing Splishy Splash technique left even the normally talkative Picasso speechless. Then Eve heard a commotion.
"Hey!" a high-pitched voice yelled from farther up the route. "Give it back!"
"Sorry kid, we need your magnemite for an important purpose," an adult male voice responded.
"Team Rocket!" Eve exclaimed angrily as she whipped her head around towards the source of the voices. In the distance she could see two men in black uniforms running away from a small boy, who was chasing after the men and calling out to the magnemite trapped in one of the men's net.
"Let's go, Eevee," Eve declared, waving her partner pokémon over and interrupting his attack.
"Whoa, hey," Picasso said, moving quickly to block Eve's path. "What are you doing?"
"I don't have time for this, Picasso," Eve grumbled. For all his boldness, Picasso was awfully reserved when it came to confronting Team Rocket grunts. He had a point in that it was the police's job to take care of Team Rocket, but Eve knew how useless the police tended to be.
"Eve, we could get into serious trouble!" Picasso said in a hushed voice. Pikachu nodded, sparks shooting out of her cheeks in affirmation.
"The poor kid and his magnemite are already in serious trouble," Eve countered as she pushed past Picasso. "Come on."
"Alright," Picasso said tentatively as he dashed after Eve, who ran to catch up with the fleeing Team Rocket grunts. Thankfully, the grunts were running towards where Eve and Picasso were. As soon as she was in range, Eve called, "Eevee, Swift attack!"
"Vee!" Eevee yelled as he leapt into the air and let loose a volley of stars from his mouth. The attack clashed with the backs of the fleeing grunts, who fell to the ground. The grunt carrying the magnemite dropped his quarry, and the pokémon broke free of its net and floated back towards its friend.
"You should get out of here, kid," Picasso called to the little boy, who nodded vigorously and ran, carrying the magnemite with him.
"No one's stealing pokémon on my watch," Eve said triumphantly as Eevee landed deftly on the ground and glared at the hapless grunts.
"Meddling kids," one of the grunts, a middle-aged man with teal blue hair, growled as he dusted himself off. "I swear, if you just left everything to the police - Picasso?"
"You know this kid?" the blue-haired man's partner, an older purple-haired man, said.
Eve looked over at Picasso, whose face was white.
"Hi Dad," Picasso said, smiling nervously.
Eve's heart dropped into her stomach as bile rose into her throat. Heart pounding in her chest, she opened her mouth to say something - anything - but the blue-haired man managed to speak first.
"Hey son," the man said, smiling at Picasso. "How's your journey going?"
"I'm sorry," Picasso blurted out. "I tried to get Eve to leave you guys alone, but-"
"Picasso, what?!?" Eve yelled, whirling around to face her friend - or whatever he was. "So that's why you kept trying to keep me away from Team Rocket? You're one of them?!?"
"Eevee!" Eevee trilled angrily as Eve protectively picked him up.
"No!" Picasso exclaimed, holding onto Pikachu and taking a step back. "My dad is part of them, but I swear, Eve, they aren't all bad. Dad's trying to gather Articuno, Zapdos, and Moltres into one place so I can do what I've always wanted to do and meet them."
"Er, yes, I'm on the Project Birds team," the blue-haired man - Picasso's father - said, extending his hand for Eve to shake. "Eve, right? Picasso has told me all about you. I'm Archer."
"You really think hurting and stealing pokémon will let you see all the legendary birds?" Eve growled, her glare darting between Picasso and Archer. "Do you really think doing bad things for the sake of your own selfish desires is okay?"
"I want to meet the birds, Eve," Picasso said. "All of them. And Dad's division of Team Rocket has a plan to make that happen for me. I would join Team Rocket as well but you have to be twelve to do it."
Eve glared at Picasso, breathing heavily as her liking of him vanished into thin air. "And you think what they're doing is okay," she said harshly.
"Well-" Picasso said, looking from Archer to Eve to the unfamiliar purple-haired man. "I mean, it's going to take a lot of money to put Project Birds into motion, so I guess that's why Team Rocket does whatever it can to get money. But think of how awesome it would be, Eve! I'd be meeting Articuno, Zapdos, and Moltres face-to-face. And you can come too!"
"We'd be happy to have you part of Project Birds, Eve," the purple-haired man, who was silent until now, spoke up. "The name's Petrel. I'm Archer's shadow, which basically means that the two of us do fieldwork together. Your friend Picasso-"
"He isn't my friend," Eve said.
"Eve, come on!" Picasso exclaimed, his eyes widening. "I'm your traveling buddy."
"If you're really my buddy," Eve said, glaring at Picasso, "you'd help me fight against Team Rocket, not sit there totally compliant with their crimes while wishing to join them yourself!" She took a step closer to him. "How long have you been with them? And why have you lied to me?"
"I'm sorry Eve," Picasso said hotly, "but I want to meet the legendary birds and Team Rocket is going to help me do that. I was going to tell you and I thought you'd understand! You know how important the legendary birds are to me!"
"And you know how important fighting against Team Rocket is to me," Eve growled. "I can't believe-" She wiped away her tears. "I can't believe you were with them all this time."
"Can't we still be friends?" Picasso blurted out as Eve took a step back. "We can still travel together, just leave Team Rocket alone-"
"Let's go, Eevee," Eve said, turning away from her former friend.
She began walking quickly, not looking back as Pikachu hurried to scamper next to her. Eve ignored her former friend's partner pokémon as she continued to walk, tears forming in her eyes as she left Picasso behind.
This was the worst day of her life.
-END-
A one-shot
By AmericanPi
"Are you sure, Picasso?" Eve asked quietly into the darkness, addressing her friend who slept on the bunk below her. "We can always move on and come back to Fuchsia City later."
"Hey," Picasso said, keeping his voice down so as not to disturb the other resting trainers. "You stayed behind with me back in Vermilion, and thanks to all your help I got that Thunder Badge, even if it took a few tries. I'd better return the favor and help you get your Soul Badge."
"You don't have to do this, you know," Eve said, reaching over to rub Eevee's head.
"Of course I do!" Picasso said stubbornly. "I want to help you. You don't have to worry, Eve."
"Alright," Eve said, smiling to herself as she watched the outline of Eevee's deeply breathing form in the darkness. "More training tomorrow?"
"Gotcha," Picasso said. "You can train up Oddish, and Pikachu can work a bit on her electric attacks."
"Pi-kachu!" Picasso's partner pokémon trilled happily.
"Pikachu, what are you doing up? Go to sleep!" Eve said, laughing to herself. "Speaking of, I'd better go to sleep too if I want to make the most use of our training session tomorrow. Good night, Picasso."
"Good night, Eve."
Eve and Picasso were both up bright and early the next day. After eating breakfast at the Fuchsia City Pokémon Center, Eve sent out her team to address them.
Eve smiled as Eevee joined the four pokémon who materialized from poké balls in front of her - Kingler, Pidgeotto, Mankey, and Oddish. Eve's team of five was coming along nicely. It seemed like a long time ago when she left Cerulean City on her tenth birthday with her partner pokémon, a male eevee, and met Picasso near Saffron City shortly afterwards. Even though in reality it had only been a few months, the growth of her pokémon made her proud of how far she'd come.
"Okay, team," Eve said to her pokémon, who sat in a row in front of her. "Once again, we're going to spend most of today training so we can finally get that Soul Badge. I think we'll be ready when one of you evolves, but we'll see how things go. Oddish, since you're the newest, you're going to be battling a lot, but I'll be sure to switch you out for someone else when the going gets tough. Mankey, today we're going to be using the move Bide a lot to practice self-control. Pidgeotto, I want you to work on your flying and air dodging, and Kingler, we'll keep working on the move Agility today. And finally, Eevee, let's work on Bouncy Bubble."
"Come on, Eve," Picasso said playfully from nearby as Eve's pokémon chirped in affirmation. "Do you have to have a training plan every time?"
"Of course I do!" Eve said stubbornly, crossing her arms and sticking her tongue out at her friend. "Winging it may work for you and Pikachu, but not me."
"Hmm, we don't have wings, so we're more playing it by ear," Picasso joked as he knelt down and petted Pikachu's left ear. "Right, Pikachu?"
"You didn't have to take it so literally," Eve said, rolling her eyes as she picked up Eevee and put him on her shoulder. "You ready to go, Picasso?"
"Yeah, I'm ready," Picasso said. Eve nodded and recalled her team before heading towards the front door of the Pokémon Center. She stopped short as she realized that Picasso wasn't following her.
"Hey, Picasso, the exit is this way," Eve said as she spotted Picasso heading for the bunks.
"I know, but I need to use the restroom," Picasso said.
"You told me you were ready to go!"
"Yeah, and by 'go' I meant go to the bathroom," Picasso said with a cheeky smile.
"Oh man Picasso, you're so annoying," Eve grumbled, though she smiled back at her friend. "I'll be right outside."
"Right," Picasso said, his cheeky smile still plastered on his face as he rushed to the restroom. Eve rolled her eyes as she and Eevee stepped out into the morning sun.
"I wonder if Picasso will ever take anything seriously," Eve murmured to her partner pokémon as she waited outside the Center. She smiled. "Maybe it's a good thing that he's such a goofball. Kinda helps counterbalance my competitiveness."
"Ee!" Eevee trilled happily. Eve ruffled Eevee's fur.
"Done!" Picasso yelled as he burst out of the Pokémon Center, Pikachu happily perched on his shoulder. "Let's go catch a train and by that I mean do some training!"
Eve just laughed at her friend's silliness as she turned and headed towards Route 15. Picasso followed, cracking a joke about trains as the two friends stepped out of Fuchsia City and into the wilderness to train.
Training went smoothly for an hour or so. Oddish held his own surprisingly well for such a little guy, and Eve felt proud of the newest member of her team. Picasso mainly trained Pikachu, whose amazing Splishy Splash technique left even the normally talkative Picasso speechless. Then Eve heard a commotion.
"Hey!" a high-pitched voice yelled from farther up the route. "Give it back!"
"Sorry kid, we need your magnemite for an important purpose," an adult male voice responded.
"Team Rocket!" Eve exclaimed angrily as she whipped her head around towards the source of the voices. In the distance she could see two men in black uniforms running away from a small boy, who was chasing after the men and calling out to the magnemite trapped in one of the men's net.
"Let's go, Eevee," Eve declared, waving her partner pokémon over and interrupting his attack.
"Whoa, hey," Picasso said, moving quickly to block Eve's path. "What are you doing?"
"I don't have time for this, Picasso," Eve grumbled. For all his boldness, Picasso was awfully reserved when it came to confronting Team Rocket grunts. He had a point in that it was the police's job to take care of Team Rocket, but Eve knew how useless the police tended to be.
"Eve, we could get into serious trouble!" Picasso said in a hushed voice. Pikachu nodded, sparks shooting out of her cheeks in affirmation.
"The poor kid and his magnemite are already in serious trouble," Eve countered as she pushed past Picasso. "Come on."
"Alright," Picasso said tentatively as he dashed after Eve, who ran to catch up with the fleeing Team Rocket grunts. Thankfully, the grunts were running towards where Eve and Picasso were. As soon as she was in range, Eve called, "Eevee, Swift attack!"
"Vee!" Eevee yelled as he leapt into the air and let loose a volley of stars from his mouth. The attack clashed with the backs of the fleeing grunts, who fell to the ground. The grunt carrying the magnemite dropped his quarry, and the pokémon broke free of its net and floated back towards its friend.
"You should get out of here, kid," Picasso called to the little boy, who nodded vigorously and ran, carrying the magnemite with him.
"No one's stealing pokémon on my watch," Eve said triumphantly as Eevee landed deftly on the ground and glared at the hapless grunts.
"Meddling kids," one of the grunts, a middle-aged man with teal blue hair, growled as he dusted himself off. "I swear, if you just left everything to the police - Picasso?"
"You know this kid?" the blue-haired man's partner, an older purple-haired man, said.
Eve looked over at Picasso, whose face was white.
"Hi Dad," Picasso said, smiling nervously.
Eve's heart dropped into her stomach as bile rose into her throat. Heart pounding in her chest, she opened her mouth to say something - anything - but the blue-haired man managed to speak first.
"Hey son," the man said, smiling at Picasso. "How's your journey going?"
"I'm sorry," Picasso blurted out. "I tried to get Eve to leave you guys alone, but-"
"Picasso, what?!?" Eve yelled, whirling around to face her friend - or whatever he was. "So that's why you kept trying to keep me away from Team Rocket? You're one of them?!?"
"Eevee!" Eevee trilled angrily as Eve protectively picked him up.
"No!" Picasso exclaimed, holding onto Pikachu and taking a step back. "My dad is part of them, but I swear, Eve, they aren't all bad. Dad's trying to gather Articuno, Zapdos, and Moltres into one place so I can do what I've always wanted to do and meet them."
"Er, yes, I'm on the Project Birds team," the blue-haired man - Picasso's father - said, extending his hand for Eve to shake. "Eve, right? Picasso has told me all about you. I'm Archer."
"You really think hurting and stealing pokémon will let you see all the legendary birds?" Eve growled, her glare darting between Picasso and Archer. "Do you really think doing bad things for the sake of your own selfish desires is okay?"
"I want to meet the birds, Eve," Picasso said. "All of them. And Dad's division of Team Rocket has a plan to make that happen for me. I would join Team Rocket as well but you have to be twelve to do it."
Eve glared at Picasso, breathing heavily as her liking of him vanished into thin air. "And you think what they're doing is okay," she said harshly.
"Well-" Picasso said, looking from Archer to Eve to the unfamiliar purple-haired man. "I mean, it's going to take a lot of money to put Project Birds into motion, so I guess that's why Team Rocket does whatever it can to get money. But think of how awesome it would be, Eve! I'd be meeting Articuno, Zapdos, and Moltres face-to-face. And you can come too!"
"We'd be happy to have you part of Project Birds, Eve," the purple-haired man, who was silent until now, spoke up. "The name's Petrel. I'm Archer's shadow, which basically means that the two of us do fieldwork together. Your friend Picasso-"
"He isn't my friend," Eve said.
"Eve, come on!" Picasso exclaimed, his eyes widening. "I'm your traveling buddy."
"If you're really my buddy," Eve said, glaring at Picasso, "you'd help me fight against Team Rocket, not sit there totally compliant with their crimes while wishing to join them yourself!" She took a step closer to him. "How long have you been with them? And why have you lied to me?"
"I'm sorry Eve," Picasso said hotly, "but I want to meet the legendary birds and Team Rocket is going to help me do that. I was going to tell you and I thought you'd understand! You know how important the legendary birds are to me!"
"And you know how important fighting against Team Rocket is to me," Eve growled. "I can't believe-" She wiped away her tears. "I can't believe you were with them all this time."
"Can't we still be friends?" Picasso blurted out as Eve took a step back. "We can still travel together, just leave Team Rocket alone-"
"Let's go, Eevee," Eve said, turning away from her former friend.
She began walking quickly, not looking back as Pikachu hurried to scamper next to her. Eve ignored her former friend's partner pokémon as she continued to walk, tears forming in her eyes as she left Picasso behind.
This was the worst day of her life.
-END-
Reviews
Dragonfree
The beginning of this was quite cute, showing these friends training together with different ideas about what training should be like and the interactions between the characters, and the little scene of planning out the training session, wanting to work on particular moves, was particularly fun to see. I loved the idea of the twist here - a trainer determined to fight Team Rocket finding out their best friend has been secretly on their side all along! I also enjoyed the use of "Let's go, Eevee" as a bitter, dramatic line signifying Eve leaving Picasso behind for good. (Got to give a little nod to the names Picasso and Eve, too - Eve may be obvious, but I would've drawn a blank trying to find a name that sounded like 'Pikachu'.)
However, I think this story needed just a bit more setup to truly have the impact that it could have. While the opening is cute and gets across that they're friends, we don't have enough time to truly get attached to Picasso or invested in their friendship, and that makes the reveal not have the emotional punch that it could have. Imagine if the story were longer, if we got to really know Picasso as a good friend to Eve, and we found out early that his greatest ambition is to one day get to see the three legendary birds for himself. Perhaps Eve thinks about how that's the one thing he does take seriously. Perhaps Eve suggests one day they could explore Seafoam Islands or the Power Plant together, in the hope of helping him fulfill his dream, and she only briefly wonders why he's not as enthusiastic as she expected. Imagine if we saw more of their respective feelings on Team Rocket before the twist - if we actually saw one of the pair's previous encounters with them, Picasso being uncomfortable and reluctant and arguing they might get hurt or get in serious trouble - which'd just seem like reasonable concerns for someone more cautious and risk-averse who doesn't have Eve's heroic passion for personally taking on criminals, until in this later encounter we learn there was a far more sinister reason behind it. This could be such a great, emotional twist! But I think the story's just a bit too short as is to truly deliver on its potential.
Part of it is also how Eve reacts. The moment she learns Picasso is siding with Team Rocket, she just instantly rejects and despises him; she's angry, but she doesn't seem conflicted at all, or really hurt so much as just outraged. That's not a completely unreasonable reaction, and you portray her emotions well, but I think the story would pack a lot more of a punch if there were a stronger sense that she's learning this about a person that she really loved and cared about, that she still wants to see the good in and persuade to see things in a different light - if these were emotions that she really had to visibly struggle with, rather than being immediately able to dismiss him as irredeemable. It's hard to learn something awful about a person you trusted - I think it would be heartwrenching if we saw Eve trying harder to convince Picasso, if she reached for explanations where he's not a bad person and their friendship wasn't a lie, before something finally shatters her image of him.
All in all, the part of the story that you tell here is nicely done - but I think it'd have a lot more impact if there were more depth and development here, and we got more time to get truly emotionally invested before the twist. As it is, I don't think it quite manages to be as effective as it could be, which is a shame.
Negrek
This is a cute idea, bringing the title of the "Let's go!" games directly into your story and playing with the meaning a bit. I love how the "Let's go, Eevee!" that comes up the first time is completely different in meaning and tone from the second; it nicely encapsulates how Eve's feelings change over the course of the story, and I like how it connects with the title in an unexpected way--you wouldn't guess the direction the story's going to go from that upbeat, "Let's go!", but it's nevertheless very fitting.
I'm going to go through and talk about some stuff that jumped out at me in the process of reading, then sum up with some bigger-picture stuff at the end.
This little bit of exposition felt clumsy to me. It's a little on the nose and clearly there just to get the information across. I'm also not really sure we need to know where Eve's from or where she met Picasso, and we can assume her age pretty well based on what happens otherwise in the story. Leaving it at "It felt like a long time ago when she left Cerulean City" would work well enough for me.It seemed like a long time ago when she left Cerulean City on her tenth birthday with her partner pokémon, a male eevee, and met Picasso near Saffron City shortly afterwards.
I'm a little surprised to see Petrel and Archer here in Kanto, since I've always associated them with the Johto force from HGSS. idk if their background in Kanto and/or association with the legendary birds is just a canon tidbit I'm unaware of, though.
You've generally been doing well with dialogue, keeping it in-character and natural-sounding. I think Eve maybe gets a little formal here, though... "totally compliant" seems out of place when considering how she usually talks, and "And why have you lied to me" has a kind of formal, melodramatic air about it, where something casual like "Why did you lie to me?" would sound more natural to me."If you're really my buddy," Eve said, glaring at Picasso, "you'd help me fight against Team Rocket, not sit there totally compliant with their crimes while wishing to join them yourself!" She took a step closer to him. "How long have you been with them? And why have you lied to me?"
It would have been a good idea to establish Picasso's interest in the legendary birds earlier so the reader would understand how important they are to him, too. It would also be nice to get a sense of why Eve is so gung-ho about Team Rocket: a particularly acute sense of justice in general? Grandiose ideas as a result of watching cartoons/reading stories about kid heroes? Personal connection to someone hurt by the team? It's good that you established she doesn't hesitate to go after them earlier, but more indication of why that is could really illuminate her character.You know how important the legendary birds are to me!
For the most part your mechanics are fine. There's one small punctuation thing to note; when you have a character making a direct address, that is, calling another one by a name or other title, the name is set off by commas. You do this correctly in some places, like here:
"You should get out of here, kid," Picasso called to the little boy, who nodded vigorously and ran, carrying the magnemite with him.
...or even in the title of the story! Or with the dialogue, "Good night, Eve," etc. However, you also leave the comma out fairly frequently:
This should be "Sorry, kid, we need your magnemite...""Sorry kid, we need your magnemite for an important purpose," an adult male voice responded.
"Hey, son," the man said..."Hey son," the man said, smiling at Picasso.
"I'm sorry, Eve," Picasso said hotly..."I'm sorry Eve," Picasso said hotly, "but I want to meet the legendary birds and Team Rocket is going to help me do that.
In general, keep an eye out and make sure you're remembering to put that comma in! Also, one small typo:
Probably supposed to be "have you as part of Project Birds." It would also sound a bit better to say, "the purple-haired man, who had been silent until now," rather than "was" as you have here."We'd be happy to have you part of Project Birds, Eve," the purple-haired man, who was silent until now, spoke up.
I like the twist that Picasso ends up being the next best thing to a Rocket and actually interested in joining them once he's old enough. You definitely establish him as friendly and carefree, a bit of a jokester--very typical hero-protagonist material, so to have him end up aligned with the bad guys is a nice twist. In a way it makes sense, though; Picasso doesn't take anything seriously, so of course the idea of Team Rocket doing bad things is pretty abstract to him, especially when lined up against the promise of getting to see these amazing legendary pokémon. He's also a kid, which means he's self-centered by default and probably doesn't really even have the capacity to understand the ways in which Team Rocket does harm, and he's probably going to be predisposed to assume that of course his dad would never be one of the bad guys... Sure, Team Rocket will do anything for money, but it's not just that they're greedy and want money, look at this awesome cause it's going towards! Or there's another angle on it, where sometimes "casual and carefree" can go hand in hand with "callous and aloof," because, well, perhaps the person isn't bothered by much, including the thought of other people potentially being hurt in the pursuit of getting what they want.
What I'm saying is I think the twist works on a number of levels, and it's great when something that comes as a surprise also makes sense from a character or thematic standpoint.
The portrayal of Petrel and Archer here is also interesting. They're very cordial and friendly, and I have to wonder how much of that is a show for Picasso and/or Eve's benefit, or whether they actually believe what they're saying to some extent. My memories of them from HGSS are not of them being particularly pleasant, but since they're just grunts here, perhaps they simply changed as they climbed the ranks. Or this is just a gentler, more anime-y Rocket portrayal; after all, we're introduced to them stealing a magnemite with a net, not mugging a kid at knifepoint or even selling amputated slowpoke tails. One way or another, I could almost buy Archer as a dad who has some villainous qualities but is actually working really hard to make his son's dream come true, and it's neat to have that ambiguity around his true intentions.
You do really sell the anime-esque tone throughout, which is appropriate, given the more anime-inspired Yellow base used for LGPE. I could see this little story being an anime special or spinoff or something like that; the concept and tone would definitely work well for a side-adventure in the animeverse. The only issue I could see with that is that the story as written here doesn't feel finshed to me.
What you have here is a nice set-up for a story where Eve has to come to terms with finding out that Picasso supports Team Rocket, but without seeing that actual coming-to-terms, it feels incomplete to me. Eve basically has her revelation, and then the story ends before she gets the chance to really process or react to it. It's really an abrupt ending, and I kind of wonder whether you had intended to write more but ran out of time. Assuming this was the entry you intended to turn in, though, I'll talk a bit about why this story felt lacking to me and suggest approaches to make it seem more finished.
Typically what makes a story seem complete is a sense of closure, that some sort of question or proposition is raised and by the end of the story it's been either answered or at least commented upon. This isn't a case of a story that just kind of meanders and goes nowhere; Eve obviously experiences a huge shock, an event that's probably going to have a big impact on her character going forward. It would be totally possible to end just where you did here, but I think you'd need to set the beginning of the story up a bit differently. Basically, you'd need to set up a scenario where "Picasso likes Team Rocket" feels like an answer to some question posed by the earlier part of the story. On the extreme end, maybe we see some of Eve's earlier encounters with Team Rocket and witness Picasso's reluctance/shiftiness for ourselves. Or perhaps Picasso talks a lot about how cool the legendary birds are but seems to be leaving something out or is otherwise evasive about it. In either of these cases, Picasso turning out to be a Rocket would resolve some tension raised earlier in the narrative. But there are plenty of other approaches, too.
Having Picasso turn out to support Team Rocket is, the way the story's set up, an event that really causes the reader to wonder what now? Is Eve going to become even more zealous about fighting Team Rocket? Is she going to decide she was too hasty about dropping Picasso and decide to go back and try to reason with him? Will she feel so disgusted with everything that she decides to give up training altogether? There are other elements that give the ending a very open-ended, beginning-of-something-bigger feel, too, like Picasso's pikachu going along with Eve. Is Pikachu deciding to join Eve now, after realizing her trainer supports Team Rocket? Does Pikachu want to try and convince Eve that Picasso's really not so bad? And so on. Again, you've set up a very interesting situation that could go any number of ways. Another way to make the story feel like it had a satisfying finish is some sense that Eve's processed what's happened and chosen a direction in response. Maybe Eve has a tearful heart-to-heart with Pikachu, and they agree to work together to stop Team Rocket, and by the end the reader discovers that we've actually read the origin story for one of Kanto's top hero trainers. Or maybe Eve takes a break from doing the gym challenge and realizes she loves pokémon but would enjoy working at a pokémon daycare or becoming a researcher would be more fun for her than being a trainer. Or perhaps she becomes bitter and untrusting of people in general and gives up fighting Team Rocket, deciding she can never make a difference... not a very happy ending, but one that feels like it would give some closure! One way or another, showing some sort of result from the scenario presented in this story, a sense of how Eve's been changed by the events she's gone through, would be another way to create closure. An answer to what now, basically!
So, again, I think you have a very good set-up here, but you're missing some follow-through. The story as it stands feels unfinished to me, which makes it an intriguing but somewhat frustrating read, since it kind of leaves me hanging. One way or another, the story would probably need to be a little longer in order for it to develop a proper arc... at least one more scene, I think, to bring the story home, whether at the beginning or the end.
That said, this is definitely the strongest contest entry I've read from you. You're doing worlds better with dialogue and making character traits clear through what people say and do rather than by explaining them to the reader with exposition. We get a good sense of who Eve and Picasso are (or who he seems to be!) even just from the first scene of the two of them in the pokémon center. And as I already mentioned, I loved the twist and the unexpected direction you decided to take the story. All in all, I think this is a great start towards a very solid one-shot. It leaves me wanting more, but unfortunately in a bit of a frustrated way. Unfortunately I think I'm probably going to have to rank this one low, simply because it's hard for a story that kind of cuts off to compete with ones that come to a nice and satisfying conclusion, but I didn't want you to think I thought that what you have here is bad by any means--again, definitely your strongest contest entry yet, I'd say. It's just that what you have here strikes me as unfinished, and without a solid ending, it doesn't strike me as ultimately very satisfying.
Rediamond
The good: We don’t actually see pokémon training happen very much in fan fic, largely due to that pesky law of conservation of detail. It’s nice to at least see a plan for it, even if we don’t actually /see/ much of it. Eve’s team is a nice mix of pokémon that mostly avoids the default Kanto pokémon, which makes it nice. Honestly not sure I’ve ever seen one of her pokémon used before. And the kids do come across as kids.
The bad: I think that the story suffers from two very big problems. The first and most troublesome for it is that, fundamentally, it is not a self-contained story. It is the end of Act I or II of a much longer arc, where two friends have their first real disagreement. But I don’t have context for this. Not really. And the story just isn’t long enough for me to get attached to the characters at all, since I could say… maybe three sentences about either of them. I get that it was built around a line, but the problem is that it doesn’t build well to that line.
The other one became clearer on a second read. The story has a big ‘tell, not show’ problem. Eve casually explains that she’s “competitive” and Picasso is laid back. Which feels unnecessary since it’s been established quite well by the subtext. [Side note: that name was distracting to me. I get Kanto and color puns, but… it’s kinda cumbersome and doesn’t sound like a real first name very much.] The history of the two characters is laid out very nicely in “as you know bits.” And the training sequence gets skimmed over with a few tell-y lines about how it went. I feel like this story desperately needed one real, emotional scene to make me care about the ending. And it just never provided one.
The verdict: One-shots are tricky creatures that require either a very good scene or a very compact-but-meaningful plot. While it has some interesting concepts going, and might be an above-average chapter in a journey fic, it just doesn’t feel like a complete or compelling story.