TEEN: A Journey Of Different Heroes

[Deleted member 72389]

Note: - Hey everyone, so this is the Pokemon fanfic with superhero theme that I had been working on. It’s not like your usual superhero story. In fact, in the beginning it starts out more like a revenge story. The real superhero twist is going to be introduced a little later. ^^

Other warnings: - Action scenes, people getting injured, some deaths in later chapters, slight romance later on, mentions of abuse in later chapters, although nothing is explicit.

Chapter 1:- A Dream Coming True
​

Purple Powers was walking through the busy roads of Goldenrod City, towards a restaurant she knew by heart by now, ‘Majestic Meals’. She briskly entered the restaurant and sat down at the first empty table she could spot. Honestly, she thought, today was supposed to be like any other normal day in her life. Her meeting her best friend in their usual meeting place, nothing fishy about that obviously.

Except that she knew today was going to be different. She had asked her friend to do something which still made her feel guilty. She was sure her friend would lose her job if anyone at her workplace found out that she was going to share such crucial information with Purple.

Purple. Oh, how she hated her name! Her last name Powers was kinda cool, but her first name took away all the fun from it. Purple was actually her least favorite color and it was just her luck that she happened to be named after that color. She had sworn never to wear anything of the color purple in her life ever! She knew why she was named after that color but that didn't made her dislike for that color any lesser.

Purple glanced at her red jacket and the yellow t-shirt peeping from underneath it. She usually wore bright colors these days to cheer herself up.

She looked up and saw the waiter walking in her direction. She was just about to come up with a long speech on how she is meeting a friend and will only order stuff when her friend arrives, when she saw her. Jenny opened the door of Majestic Meals and stepped inside, in her new, clean and ironed police officer’s uniform. The moment she noticed Purple, she gave her a bright smile, quite unlike what you’d expect from an Officer Jenny, and rushed towards her table. In her hurry, she almost knocked over a couple of chairs. Purple couldn’t help smiling fondly at that, she knew her best friend was a little clumsy.

Yep. That was her best friend, since childhood actually. Jenny, the daughter of the local officer Jenny, who also wanted to join the police force like, well, everyone in her family.

“Hey there! How’s your new job coming up?” Purple asked her, the moment she sat opposite her and beamed widely.

“It’s coming up excellently! Mom says I’ll become an even better officer than her! I am so excited about all of this!” Jenny exclaimed proudly.

Purple smiled, feeling a little guilty. She couldn’t imagine Jenny losing her job, especially when she was so good at it, just because she was helping her bestie at something.

“I am happy for you,” she said honestly.

“Well, thank you! But enough about me. Tell me, what you have been up to?” Jenny asked her, and Purple became a little tensed as she noticed that the smile on Jenny’s face got replaced with a nervous look, full of worry.

She leaned forward and whispered, “I have been following your tournament results Purple. And like everyone else, I am worried too. You had won the previous two leagues you had entered in, but then you entered the Kalos league and like, you got thrown out in the first round! Whatever went wrong over there, girl? I am really concerned about you, you know?”

Purple nodded and slowly said, “I know Jen. But I really don’t want to talk about it. I’ll explain it to you some other time, I hope you understand?”

Jenny nodded slowly and said, “I understand of course. I had a feeling you wouldn’t want to talk about it. But as your best friend, it’s my duty to ask you. If there’s anything you need help with, you know you can always ask me, right?”

Purple nodded again, not knowing what to say in response. Random images flashed in front of her eyes. Of an avalanche, people getting trapped, some people dying, and then finally her. It took all of her restraint not to start shaking, trembling and crying in front of her friend.

Jenny seemed to have sensed her nervousness, because she gently reached across the table and took her hand in hers, then she said in a cheery tone, “Well, let’s talk about something you would be definitely interested in talking about! I managed to get what you wanted from me!”

Purple’s ears perked up. She glanced at Jenny with wide eyes and asked, “Really? You got the information I wanted? You took so much risk for me?”

Jenny reached inside her bag and took out a stack of papers, and handed them over to Purple, whispering, “What are friends for again? Just promise me you won’t do anything dangerous with this information please. I feel worried for you.”

Purple gingerly picked up the stack of papers and went through the information in it. She couldn’t believe it! She finally had what she had always wanted. Now she could pursue her dream. Okay, her second favorite dream, considering that she had lost all of her confidence of becoming a successful Pokemon trainer after what had happened in Kalos.

“Hey Purps,” Jenny whispered gently, “You are thinking of joining them, aren’t you?”

“Yes, I mean, they aren’t exactly doing anything wrong, irrespective of what your police department might think. And they have saved innocent people and Pokemon countless number of times,” Purple pointed out.

“At what cost though? Have you ever paid a thought to the collateral damage that the police department has to clean up? Honestly, I think they should be stopped as soon as possible. But if joining them is what you want to do, then I won’t stop you,” Jenny said, playing the role of the ever-encouraging friend.

“I want to join them for a reason Jen. I mean, think about it. Ever since those super-powered monsters have started causing destruction everywhere, has a single Officer Jenny been able to capture them? I am not saying your family is incompetent, but I think working within the rules is really stopping you guys from reaching your full potential. I want to work with those vigilantes because I am sick of living under the fear that tomorrow those super-powered people will attack me or my Pokemon, and I’ll be useless and weak against them all alone. But if I am a part of a group that is actively working against them, then I’ll have a chance. A chance to survive,” Purple argued.

Jenny narrowed her eyes and stared at her friend with a look of ever-growing-concern on her face.

“Purps, what’s gotten into you? You sound positively paranoid! Why would those super-humans come after you or your Pokemon? They are only targeting legendaries for Arceus’s sake!” she exclaimed.

‘That’s not what had happened in Kalos’, Purple thought to herself. But she was in no mood to retell that one story to Jenny. Not now. So, just to distract herself, she went through those papers again and realized that the group of vigilantes were going to have another secret meeting in the evening.

“Do the other Officer Jennys know about today’s meeting?” she asked Jenny.

“Nah, I changed the information in our database a little bit. So that when you go to meet your new friends my new friends won’t spoil all the fun. Just be careful, kay?” Jenny asked of her.

At that Purple had to smile. She knew her friend was always supportive of her despite her crazy ideas. But she also knew that Jenny really cared about her, and when someone cared about you it became your responsibility not to do something stupid and reckless.

They discussed a bit more about the vigilantes and the super-powered people who were roaming about Goldenrod City and other places in the Pokemon World freely, until finally both of them felt really hungry and ordered two large sandwiches and chocolate milkshakes for themselves.

After she had eaten her fill, and paid the bill, Purple said goodbye to her friend and left Majestic Meals in a hurry. If she had to get herself admitted in the group of vigilantes by tonight, then there was a lot of work to do.

First, she made a list of all the Pokemon that she owned. She had captured a ton of Pokemon over her long journeys over several regions. Out of all these, she short-listed six Pokemon. Four of them were currently with Professor Elm, so she contacted his laboratory and got the four Pokemon transferred to her immediately.

Next she went through her outfit. She was pretty sure that the bright red and yellow would sure as hell not work for a vigilante. Especially if they were to take down those monstrous people at nighttime. So she chose a pair of black jeans, green t-shirt, black jacket and a dark blue cap. Hoping it would be a good enough camouflage.

There were still three hours left till the time for the secret meeting of the vigilantes to start. She spent these three hours training with her Pokemon. Practicing every single move that had helped them to win the Sinnoh and Hoenn leagues.

When the time for the secret meeting finally came up, she once again went through those papers. What she found really confused her. It made her feel that she really should have paid more attention to the location of the meeting mentioned in the papers. Because all it said was- Visit the Burger Shop in the Goldenrod Galleria.

“Well if that’s not cryptic and creepy at the same time,” Purple mused to herself.

But she decided to go anyways. She was not going to let this go after having come this close to her dream. Besides, if everything else failed, she could always grab a burger or two to eat!

So she made her way towards the Goldenrod Galleria, which she knew by heart, as this was the city where she had been born and brought up. Although today, she was quite nervous. Every few steps, she glanced behind herself and her hand happened to touch the Pokeballs on her belt a bit too much.

Just as she was about to enter the first Burger shop that she saw in the Galleria, a hopeless thought crossed her mind. The Goldenrod Galleria was a huge place, with over twenty burger shops in it. How was she ever going to find the right one?

Of course she wouldn’t know! The information in the papers was specifically coded in a way which only the vigilantes would understand. For all that she knew, the Galleria meant something else entirely, and the Burger shop also stood for something else.

Shaking her head, she was just about to turn around and return back home, feeling extremely dejected, when she heard a loud commotion in the distance. Now, every bit of her common sense was yelling at her to run away from the commotion as it could be something dangerous, but she still ran towards it like the curious reckless fool that she oftentimes became. Two times league winner, who said common sense and wisdom came with that huh?

She kept running for a few minutes in the direction of the noise and against all the people who were actually being sensible and running away from the commotion.

When she finally arrived near a clearing, her heart did a double-take at the scene in front of her. A group of vigilantes (she recognized them instantly, thanks to their cloaks and masks) were fighting against a group of humans, who, she realized with an increasing feeling of nausea, weren’t using Pokemon to battle, but were actually fighting themselves.

She wanted to scream as she saw one of the humans throw a fistful of fire from his hand as though he were a human form of a Charmander or a Cyndaquil. The fire hurt one of the vigilante’s Sunflora and it shouted in agony.

Another human used double-team, creating multiple copies or illusions of herself. Purple was disgusted by this. She just wanted to turn away and wipe these memories from her mind.

But she was also worried about the vigilantes, and wanted to see how they were faring against the super-humans. So far, the result wasn’t that great. They and their Pokemon were clearly losing the battle.

All of a sudden, Purple felt someone punch her hard on the face. She landed roughly on her back. Purple, who had experience training fighting-type Pokemon almost felt like she was working with a Hitmonchan or a Primeape all over again. But when she looked up, she saw a human girl, slightly younger and much thinner than her. She had no idea, from where the girl had summoned so much strength to hit her so hard? Then again, it was difficult to tell anything with these super-humans.

The girl raised her fist again to hit Purple, when Purple quickly dug into the belt on her waist and tossed a Pokeball in the air.

There was a flash of light and out came her trusted fairy-type partner, Sylveon.

The super-human girl merely sneered at her, “So, this is the weakling you are going to use against me? You do realize, don’t you, that Pokemon can’t really hurt us?”

“We’ll see that,” Purple said, “Sylveon use Moonblast!” she commanded.

Sylveon gracefully spread her feelers wide open, and a beautiful, dazzling image of the moon appeared behind her. She then created an orb of pink energy in front of her mouth and shot it at the girl.

The girl seemed to use some kind of defensive shield but it didn’t work too well. She still got hurt by the moonblast.

“Now Sylveon, use fairy wind!” Purple instructed her Pokemon.

Almost instantly, Sylveon pulled her feelers together, and the air surrounding them started to shine in a light bluish color. Then spreading her feelers wide open, Sylveon hurled a strong gust of wind towards the girl.

The girl got thrown back harshly by the sudden impact of the wind.

Before she could get up again, Purple and Sylveon ran towards the vigilantes, who were thankfully in a much better shape now, and seemed to have taken a better control of the battle.

The fire-user boy and the double-team attack-user girl were both captured and would most likely be handed over to Officer Jenny, Purple’s friend’s mother.

“Two down, one to go. That fighting-type girl was causing a lot of damage earlier-“ one of the masked vigilantes was telling his friend, when suddenly his attention went to the girl who lay crumpled on the ground.

“Okay, who did that?” he asked, sounding impressed.

“Actually sir, I guess, the credit for that goes to me,” Purple mumbled, somewhat flustered. She couldn’t believe herself. She was seeing these heroes in person for the first time in her life. She wondered whether she might faint from the excitement or something.

“I’ll go and tie her up too. Officer Jenny likes it better when we hand them over all tied up,” one of the vigilantes spoke up and rushed towards the girl. Purple guessed that she was a woman by her voice.

Then her attention went back to the man whom she had told that she was the one to defeat the fighting-type girl. She couldn’t see his face, because of the stupid Blastoise-mask that he was wearing, but his eyes made it clear that he was impressed.

He walked up to Purple and handed her a Pokeball.

“Here, one of my trusted friends is inside this Pokeball. He oftentimes enjoys going on walks with strangers. But be sure to return him to me by nine p.m. And don’t worry about the address, this one is very smart, he can teleport actually,” the vigilante laughed.

Then before Purple could say anything else, the three vigilantes disappeared in thin air as though they were made of smoke.

“That’s so sneaky, and impressive,” she muttered to herself.

“What do you say Sylvie, should we have a look at our new friend?” she asked her Sylveon, who was still out of her Pokeball.

The fairy-type nodded eagerly.

Purple pressed a button on the Pokeball and tossed it in the air. She almost let out a yelp of surprise, when out came an Abra.

“So, uh, Abra, you like to walk around Goldenrod City eh?” she asked the Pokemon nervously.

Abra nodded.

“Okay then, we’ll take a nice long walk. I know this city very well. You are gonna have a lot of fun with us!” Purple exclaimed.

Purple and Sylveon gave Abra a good tour of the city for a few hours. They also stopped by Majestic Meals yet again and grabbed a bite to eat.

Purple pushed a strand of red hair behind her ear and glanced at the large clock that hung on the opposite building, which said that it was eight-thirty p.m. She almost felt a wave of nostalgia wash over her. She remembered how she and her grandma used to make dinner together at this time. And how supportive her grandma had been of her decision to become a Pokemon trainer. She idly wondered whether her grandma would have supported her decision of joining the vigilantes or not. A part inside her suddenly sadly realized that none of it mattered now, because her grandma was no more in this world, and there was no real way for Purple to know whether she would've supported her decision or not.

“Abra!” the Pokemon exclaimed after about half an hour, pulling her out of her thoughts. Sylveon too pointed at the clock with her feelers. It was nine p.m. sharp.

“Okay then, time to go and see what the vigilantes want from me,” Purple muttered and grabbed one of Abra’s hands. Sylveon held its other hand with her feelers.

Abra at once teleported, as though this was everyday work for him.

When Purple opened her eyes, all she could see was darkness. That is until her eyes adjusted to the dim light, and she finally saw a small lamp set on a table, a few feet away from her.

Sitting behind the table were three people in high-backed chairs. There was a similar chair in front of the table as well.

All the three people still had their masks on, which reminded Purple with a jerk that they obviously didn’t trusted her yet.

“Sit down Miss. We are extremely grateful for your help today, and we want to talk to you about something important,” the man sitting in the middle spoke.

Purple sat on the empty chair in front of them a little nervously, she had to keep on reminding herself that she had a full team of well-trained Pokemon with her just in case.

“What were you doing in Goldenrod Galleria miss?” the woman in the group asked her.

“I- I was just out for a walk,” Purple stammered feeling nervous than ever.

“Then why were you carrying these with you?” the man sitting on the furthest left asked her in a cold tone. He threw a stack of papers on the table between them which Purple realized with a dawning horror were the same papers which Jenny had handed her in the morning.

“You dropped these while battling that girl,” the woman explained to her.

Purple decided on the spot that it would be best to be honest. Not that she had any other option, and it wasn’t as if she could see them believing her. But she had to try. At least for her Pokemon’s sake. A small part inside her wondered if these people made her feel so intimidated could they really be heroes? But she decided to ignore that part for now.

“I just- I just wanted to- wanted to join you. I have always been in awe of you. And I thought I had what it takes to be a vigilante. So I got that information from a friend and started searching for you lot,” Purple tried to explain.

“Your friend must have really good contacts in the police department I guess?” the man with the Blastoise-mask remarked.

“She is Officer Jenny’s daughter,” Purple almost wanted to kick herself the moment she said that aloud. She had sold out her best friend in a moment of fear. Why was she such a hopeless coward again?

“I see. And what is your name young lady?” the man asked her.

“Purple Powers,” she mumbled.

“Well Purple, your papers did gave us a good idea as to what the Jennys know about us. So thanks for that, I guess. And you certainly seem to have good battling skills based on your display with your Sylveon earlier. But… the thing is that, we are not sure whether we can trust you or not. You could be secretly working for the Police Department for all we know,” the man with the Blastoise-mask said to her.

“But I am not working for them! I just really want to join you!” Purple exclaimed.

“You are a two-time league winner, aren’t you?” the other man, who wore a Snorlax-mask asked her, “So why don’t you just continue with the league thing? You might even become a Champion someday.”

“I… did badly in the Kalos league. Lost in the first round itself. Because I was going through a trauma. The super-humans had caused a massive avalanche which had killed lots of people, including my close friend and travelling companion. That’s one of the reasons why I hate those super-humans so much,” Purple spilled out her story.

“Revenge is never a good motivator to become a vigilante. Now if it was justice you were seeking, I would’ve understood. But revenge, it never really works,” the woman wearing the Rapidash-mask spoke.

“I just want to feel like I am doing something to stop the super-humans. I am a two-time league winner, I can be useful for Arceus’s sake! Please let me join,” Purple spoke in an almost begging tone by now.

The three people before her looked at each other and exchanged glances, well as much as you can exchange glances in masks anyways.

"Sorry, but we really can't-" the man wearing the Blastoise-mask began, but Purple interrupted him.

"I am Magenta Powers' granddaughter!" Purple finally blurted out. She had wanted to keep it a secret. She didn't wanted to get this new job using her grandmother's name, but she really couldn't see any other option.

"Really? You do realize that we have our own sources and we'll know if you are lying?" the woman asked her curiously.

"I am telling the truth," Purple said firmly. She hoped they would realize what being Magenta Powers's granddaughter could possibly mean. She hoped they would realize how useful she could be.

“Well if you are that eager to join, I guess we can give you a chance. But remember, this is the only chance you’ll ever get. Use it wisely,” the man wearing Blastoise-mask spoke after a pause.

“I will! I promise!” Purple exclaimed enthusiastically. She couldn’t believe it that they were finally agreeing to let her in. Maybe using her grandmother's name had been a good idea.

“You can leave for now, but just give us your address before leaving. Abra will come to collect you in the morning for your training,” the woman wearing the Rapidash-mask spoke.

“Oh, okay,” Purple said. She hurriedly wrote her address on a piece of paper and handed it to the woman. The woman showed that address to Abra, after which, Abra teleported her and Sylveon right in front of her house. He left soon after that.

Purple almost squealed in delight the moment Abra had left.

“Can you believe this Sylvie? My dream is finally coming true! I am going to become a vigilante!” she exclaimed with joy.

Sylveon smiled, looking happy for her trainer.

After the long and happening day, Purple was tired. She recalled Sylveon in her Pokeball, sent a quick text message to Jenny and started walking towards her home. Anyone who would have bothered to notice that night, would have noted that there was a new enthusiasm in every step she took towards her home. She was tired, but her heart was already ready for all the new adventures that would come after joining the vigilantes.

Note: - So that was it. Hope you all enjoyed it! Also, this story is going to have two main characters. The next chapter would be from the point of view of the other main character.

​

 

[Deleted member 72389]

Note: - So, like I had mentioned at the end of the last chapter, this story is going to have two main characters. And this chapter is from the point of view of the second main character.

Warning:- Mentions of past abuse

Chapter 2:- A Hero's Journey Begins​

Luke Heartstone was standing in the balcony of the tall and massive mansion that was home to him and his family. With a sigh, he stared at the long line of people standing outside the mansion. They were carefully and thoroughly checked by the guards and then slowly let inside one by one.

‘To their doom’, Luke thought to himself. He hated knowing what was going to happen to these people. And he hated the fact that he couldn’t do anything about it.

Well, not exactly. He did have a plan of his own after all. But it still hurt his insides like anything to see these carefree, and happy faces walk gleefully inside the mansion, thinking that what they were going to experience would change their lives for the better. When the truth in fact, was far from it.

Luke glanced once at the small black bag sitting on his bed inside his room. He had packed it for a day like this. Just in case he felt like he could no longer be a helpless and passive doormat anymore, and actually decided to stand up for himself and help the people around him.

But a small part inside him told him, ‘They are still your family.’ And he knew that part may not be right, but it was very persuasive. For it definitely managed to get him away from the balcony and out of his room and made him walk towards his dad’s room.

“I’ll just see if I can convince him about this. If he doesn’t listen to me though, then I have no option. I’ll have to do what I think is the right thing to do,” Luke muttered to himself.

As he walked towards his father’s room, he could hear loud voices coming out of the room.

“This year’s haul is beyond excellent sir, we have a total of five hundred people volunteering for the experiment,” someone spoke in an excited voice. Luke recognized it to be the voice of his father’s trusted Secretary Arnold.

“That sounds perfect!” his father exclaimed, not bothering to keep his voice low either. Why would he bother anyways? They were in the private section of the mansion, where only the family and their trusted servants lived. And all of them knew the truth behind those experiments.

“And the changes you did in the machines are giving very high quality results,” Arnold further told him.

“Of course I knew that they would. See, the thing that had gone wrong on all previous occasions was that we weren’t taking the feelings of the humans who were subjected to these experiments into account. Which Pokemon did they felt most attached to? Obviously it would be the easiest for them to inherit the powers of that Pokemon, instead of us forcing the powers of some random Pokemon on them,” Luke’s father told Arnold eagerly. He always had this eager and passionate tone when he talked about his experiments, like a true researcher should.

Sadly, that’s where his good qualities started and ended, according to Luke, who gently knocked on the door of his father’s room, and politely waited for a response.

“Come in,” his father said in a slightly terse tone, like he already had an inclination as to who it might be.

Luke slowly opened the door and stepped inside. The first person he noticed was Arnold, the old man with a balding head, who was currently looking so excited and happy Luke was actually surprised that Arnold wasn’t already hopping around the room like an eager Hoppip.

Then he noticed his older brother sitting on his father’s bed quietly pretending to read a book. This scene made Luke want to almost laugh out loud. He knew his brother Theodore very well. Blond, with grey eyes, and perfect features, he was probably the most handsome guy in the entirety of Johto. But that didn’t change the fact that he was quite a bit of an idiot who was allergic to books to begin with. Luke was pretty positive that Theo’s current act of being interested in reading a book was just that, an act to impress their dad. And he knew he could be quite sure of this fact, because Theo was holding the book upside-down.

And at last he noticed him, his dad, a tall and menacing looking figure, with sharp and cold features. He was blond just like Theo, but Theo seemed to have taken his grey eyes from their mother, because his father had blue eyes. Sharp blue eyes, which were currently glaring daggers at Luke.

“What brings you here Luke?” he asked him in a cold and formal tone. Quite unlike how parents normally spoke to their children.

“I want to talk to you about the experiments,” Luke said with as much confidence as he could muster. Even as he spoke, he could feel a nervous tingle in his arms, legs and back. As his brain tried to remind him of the pain he had to endure the last time he had dared to broach this topic.

“Have you changed your mind about them, then?” his dad asked, staring him down with those icy blue eyes. His question made it clear; he was only interested in talking with Luke about the experiments, as long as Luke changed his opinion about them.

“No, but I have came to give a warning to you. If you don’t stop these experiments as soon as possible, I’ll go and tell Officer Jenny about them,” Luke said, wishing heartily that his voice hadn’t come out as a squeak. How he hated feeling so scared!

His father considered him for a moment. Luke wondered whether he was going to ask Arnold to fetch a whip or a cane yet again.

But surprisingly, his dad said, “Arnold, can you please go outside for a moment? I wish to talk privately with my sons.”

“As you wish sir,” Arnold said politely and left. Luke seriously wished he hadn’t closed the door behind him while leaving the room. Now he felt trapped between his father and older brother. And he knew from experience that this was never a good thing.

His dad walked closer to him and whispered, “What did you said again? You’ll go and tell Officer Jenny about us? Do you think this is that easy Luke? Do you think I won’t have my own back-up plan to make sure that a teenager like you doesn’t ruin my plan?”

“I am nineteen, an adult,” Luke retorted.

“Yet you behave like a kid. Do you seriously think Officer Jenny would believe you? What’s the guarantee that she won’t throw you in the prison as well?” his dad asked him tauntingly.

“Why would she throw me in the prison? I haven’t done anything wrong!” Luke exclaimed.

His father swiftly moved a little away from him and said, “Point your finger towards the opposite wall and concentrate Luke. I want you to know the truth today.”

Luke didn’t understood what his father meant by that at all, but he raised a shaking finger and pointed it at the opposite wall.

“Now concentrate. It will happen soon. Maybe think of your Glaceon, that would help,” his dad suggested.

Luke was nervously sweating as he kept his finger pointed at the opposite wall. Then all of a sudden, he felt his hand go very cold, as though someone had thrust it into a freezer, and a sharp spike of ice shot out of his hand and stuck in the wall opposite to him.

Luke was shocked. He felt like he would faint from the shock of it. He stole a glance at Theodore, who was looking quite impressed by the performance.

“What was that?” Luke whispered.

“You were my very first experiment Luke,” his father confessed slowly, “When you were a baby, I injected the potion in you. Although back then the potion was just in its initial stages and that’s why you might not be as much powerful as the current lot of super-humans. But the point is that, you have these abilities too. If you go and tell Jenny, and she finds out that you are one of us too, you will also be behind the bars,” his father warned him.

“Which- which Pokemon?” Luke asked slowly, his mind still refusing to believe this new development. He knew that the powers of every super-human were based on a certain Pokemon, he wondered which one his powers were based on.

“A Glaceon. I wasn’t really surprised when I found out that you wanted to evolve your Eevee into one of those. I always knew you would grow up to become quite attached to the species,” his father answered.

Luke collapsed into a chair next to him. Slowly, he looked up at his father and said, “You are a monster. You turned your own son into one of those things! Why?”

“No one was volunteering for my experiments and babies are the most easiest test subjects. They never say ‘no’,” his father said with a laugh.

Luke felt disgusted towards him. Even more than that, he felt disgusted towards himself. All these years he had thought of the super-humans as evil. He had thought that he would fight them one day. And now he was realizing that he was in fact one of them. That hurt, badly. He could feel tears threatening to spill from his eyes. But he didn’t want to cry in front of these people, so he got up to leave the room. That’s when he heard Theo say the most outrageous thing ever.

“Dad, can you make me a super-human too? If Luke is one, it’s only fair that I should get a chance too,” he said simply.

“Of course son, why not,” his father said, sounding amused.

“Theo no!” Luke exclaimed, before he could stop himself, “These powers aren’t normal! There is something very dangerous about them. Almost everyone, except me, who has these powers is out there doing evil things. I don’t want you to become one of them. Please try to understand!”

“You are just being selfish. You want these powers only for yourself,” Theo complained.

“That’s not true! I-“ but before Luke could speak any more, his father roughly grabbed him by his arm and dragged him out of the room.

“You will NOT change Theo’s mind! If he wants these powers, that’s a good thing, understood?” he said furiously to Luke.

“These powers are the most disgusting thing ever,” Luke spat back at him.

“Enough!” his father said, “Arnold!” he called his Secretary. The old man came hurrying down a long corridor.

“What is it sir?” he asked, staring at Luke. He and Luke didn’t exactly got on well together. And Luke could see the glee in his eyes at the thought of getting an opportunity to punish him.

“Lock him up in his room. He’ll have all of his meals over there for the next whole week. I am not planning on letting him out unless he gets some sense knocked into himself,” his father said angrily.

He handed over Luke to Arnold, who started dragging him towards his room.

“I can walk,” Luke said through gritted teeth.

“And one more thing Arnold, I am sending all of my super-humans based on water-type Pokemon to cause a huge flood in Ecruteak city. I am not going to leave that city alone, unless the gym-leader over there caves in and tells me how to capture Ho-Oh,” his father spoke. Luke had a feeling that he could have just told this information to Arnold later on, but he was telling this to him right now because he wanted to hurt Luke’s feelings even more.

After a couple of minutes, when Luke was safely locked in his room, and Arnold had walked away gloating with pride, Luke started to come up with a plan to stop his father somehow.

His first problem was that none of his Pokemon were with him currently. They all were kept locked down in a room in the basement, and if Luke knew his father any well at all, he was pretty sure the room would be guarded by a few guards at least.

But what his father didn’t know was that he had himself given Luke a brand new weapon. Yes, it was a weapon that Luke would perhaps always find disgusting but right now he needed it to get out of his imprisonment and save the lives of innocent people.

Luke waited until it was midnight, then he slowly picked up his black bag from where he had left it on the bed, slung it across his shoulder, and went to his balcony. He looked down, there was no one over there. His room was just on the second floor of the mansion, so he wasn’t too scared to do this. Although, that didn’t changed the fact that he was still shaking from head to toe.

He thrust his hand down the railing of the balcony and concentrated with all his might. He remembered how his Glaceon looked when she used ice attacks. He was trying to do something similar here.

Slowly, a beam of ice radiated out of his hand and fell down the balcony in a gentle slope. He waited till it was long enough and touching all the way up to the ground. Then he braced himself as he climbed over the railing. He remembered playing on slides in amusement parks as a kid. This was slightly similar to that. Except, if he lost his balance, the consequences could be disastrous.

Slowly he let himself slide down the ice-slope that he had created. About a quarter way down, he realized that he had no control over his speed and his momentum was increasing in a way that made him feel beyond scared. He closed his eyes and just thought about his Pokemon. He needed to be with them right now. They had a job to do. The people of Ecruteak city were going to be in serious trouble, and they could do with all the help that they could get.

And then somehow, he reached the bottom of the slide safely. He opened his eyes and found himself sitting on the grassy plains just where the slide ended.

“Thank Arceus,” he muttered and got up.

Then very slowly he made his way around the house towards the basement area where he knew his Pokemon were kept locked. He knew it, because well, this wasn’t the first time exactly. His Pokemon had been locked like this plenty of times before, and he had once even asked his Glaceon to show him the place where all of them were kept locked up every time Luke did something to upset his father.

He didn’t make a single noise as he climbed down the staircase that led to the basement of the mansion. Luke was about to take the familiar turn down the right corridor, where he knew three rooms down his Pokemon would be locked up, when all of a sudden he heard the most devastating, hair-splitting, scream coming from the left side of the basement.

‘Probably the experiment’, Luke thought to himself. But he couldn’t help but wonder. Had he screamed in a similar manner when he had been a baby and had been subjected to these horrible experiments? Did the people who underwent these experiments even remained themselves after that, or did they just turned into a robotic super-powered creature who would do everything that his father asked them to do?

A few more screams came and Luke wondered whether he should go and help those people. But he knew there would be literally an army of guards surrounding the experiments. He would have no chance against all of them. It would be much better if he followed his original plan of how to stop them.

So he turned around and walked towards the right side of the basement. As he had guessed there were three guards standing in front of the room that he knew contained his Pokemon. He knew what he was doing wasn’t exactly right but he was too desperate to think of any other way.

He concentrated hard and immediately a beam of ice shot out of his hand, he directed it at all the three guards one by one. They fell on the ground, lying frozen and unmoving. Luke knew a simple Ice Heal would heal them, so it wasn’t like he had done anything too serious. His powers were based on Glaceon after all, and he owned a Glaceon, he knew how their powers worked very well.

He went inside his room and there lying on a table were six Pokeballs. Luke gingerly picked up one of them and tossed it in the air. His Golem came out of it.

“Hey Golem, you alright buddy?” he asked his rock-type.

“Go-lem!” the Pokemon grunted.

“Are the others inside the other Pokeballs?” Luke asked him.

Golem glanced at the balls on the table and nodded. That was enough for Luke. He recalled Golem, collected his other Pokeballs and exited the room.

He was just about to leave the basement, when he heard his scream. Theodore’s.

Every bit of common sense and logic left Luke’s mind as he dashed down the steps and towards the left side corridor of the basement. He froze whichever guard came in his way. The only thought going through his mind was, ‘I won’t let them hurt my brother!’

He pushed the large wooden doors in front of him and took in the scene. It… didn’t really looked like people were getting hurt. They were just feeding the potion to the people. But Luke guessed that the internal changes that the potion did to your body must be painful, and that’s why all the screaming was happening.

In a hurry, his eyes searched for Theodore. Finally, he spotted him. Sitting in a chair, surrounded by a researcher and two guards, and of course, Arnold. Theo was slowly drinking the potion, but with every sip of it, he was letting out loud screams as though his insides were on fire.

Luke rushed over to him. Whichever guard tried to stop him quickly got themselves frozen.

“What are you doing over here? If your father finds out-“ Arnold began, but Luke cut him off,

“Shut up. I am not here to talk to you. Theo get up. We are leaving this place now. I can’t see you in so much pain,” Luke said to him. But Theodore’s response surprised him.

“Who are you to boss me around? I chose to do this. Father had warned me that it could be painful. I know what I am doing Luke, so just back-off,” Theo spat at him.

“I- I was just trying to help you-“ Luke began.

“I am not some baby to need your help. I know exactly what you think of me. That you are the brains in the family and I am some dumb person. But not anymore! Once I become stronger with this potion you’ll get to see the real me,” Theo snarled at him.

Luke couldn’t believe it. He was actually considering getting out Golem and trying to take Theo with him by force. Because he knew if he left Theo over here, he would soon turn into a monster with no emotions as well.

“Theo, just listen to me-“ Luke began again, but this time Arnold interrupted him.

“Maybe, you would like to have a look around yourself Master Luke,” he said.

Luke didn’t understand whatever he meant by that. But when he looked around himself, he gulped nervously. Surrounding him from all the sides were dozens of guards, and Luke was pretty positive that no amount of ice beams that he summoned on his own would be enough to defeat the guards. He realized he was trapped rather badly.

But before any of the guards could make a single move, all six of his Pokemon jumped out of their Pokeballs, as though they had sensed that their trainer was in danger. Forming a protective circle around him were Glaceon, Golem, Banette, Garchomp, Bastiodon and Froslass.

Luke wondered whether the guards were going to bring out their own Pokemon and battle him, when it struck him. Pokemon weren’t exactly allowed inside the mansion. He and Theo had been given special permission by their father but everyone else was supposed to carry weapons not Pokemon with them.

This just made the situation even worse, because a few guards took out their guns and warningly pointed them at Luke and his Pokemon. That was enough to scare Luke to death and freeze him on the spot. Thankfully, it was his Garchomp who showed presence of mind and rescued them all.

He created a massive sandstorm that took all the guards by surprise and gave Luke and his Pokemon enough time to run towards the door. Then he went into a full-on dragon rage attack mode and managed to shoot beams of blue energy at anyone who tried to stop him or his friends.

Thanks to Garchomp’s power display, Luke and his friends were out of the basement and were running towards the gates of the mansion in no time. All of a sudden, Luke realized that Banette and Froslass were missing. He wanted to halt and search for them, but he knew from his experience that they must have gone ahead and were probably currently trying to make the path clear for the rest of them.

Sure enough, when Luke and his Pokemon reached the gates of the mansion, they found all the guards at the gates lying crumpled down on the ground. Banette and Froslass stood proudly over them.

“Did you two used Shadowball?” Luke asked his Pokemon. Both of them nodded.

“Good. I thought so,” he said.

He glanced once at all of his Pokemon and then checked back at the mansion grounds to make sure that nobody was following them. He could hear some shouting in the distance, but couldn’t see anyone, so he guessed that they were safe for now. But just to be safer, he beckoned his Pokemon to follow him for some more distance. They ran a little further, until they reached a thick cluster of trees, which was when Luke finally decided that it was safe to stop and tell his Pokemon what was going on in his mind.

“Okay guys, I want you all to know something very important. I am running away from this place, to stop my dad’s evil work as fast as I can. I don’t know whether I’ll succeed or not, but I need to try. There’s a very good chance that everyone in the outside world would hate me once they find out what I am. But that’s not going to stop me,” Luke paused, and stared at his Pokemon. They all were listening to him keenly. Glaceon seemed unable to stare away from him.

Luke continued, “But this mission could be very dangerous. I could get hurt or worse even killed. I’ll have to keep my identity a secret. Now the thing is that, I don’t want any of you to get into any danger. I want you all to be safe. So if you don’t want to join me on this mission, you are free to leave. I won’t hold it against any of you.”

Tears stung his eyes as he gave his Pokemon the choice of leaving him forever. He couldn’t believe that after everything they had been through together, he was setting them free now. He wondered if any of them decided to leave, would he even see them again anyday?

“Gla! Glaceon!” Glaceon shook her head, affectionately rubbed her head against his leg and entered her Pokeball at once.

Luke let out a sigh of relief. At least, his longest companion wasn’t leaving him. He would have hated it if he’d had to say goodbye to Glaceon, especially now that he knew what he was.

“Gar-chomp,” his biggest powerhouse Pokemon slowly growled and shook his head too. Then he entered his Pokeball as well.

Garchomp was followed by Banette and Froslass who each gave a wink to Luke before entering their respective Pokeballs.

Now that his hopes had risen up a little, Luke glanced at Golem and Bastiodon expectantly. But both of them seemed to be in some sort of deep thought.

Finally, Golem turned his back on him and began to leave. Bastiodon followed him as well.

Luke couldn’t believe it! He had raised that Bastiodon from a tiny Shieldon, when he had gotten his very first Pokemon fossil in Sinnoh.

And Golem? He had raised him from a small Geodude that he had found in Kanto. They had always been really close to each other.

He really couldn’t believe that the two of them were leaving him. But didn’t he wanted his Pokemon to remain safe? Could he really hold it against them if they made the choice to choose their safety when he had himself made that offer to them?

Luke slowly wiped the tears flowing down from his eyes, and with his remaining four Pokemon, he made his way towards Ecruteak city to stop his father’s deadly act and to start his own series of heroic acts.

 

[kintsugi]

SUPERHERO X POKEMON SIGN ME UP.
this is just for chapter one -- sorry if I miss things that get brought up in later chapters!

Not that she could ask them anyways, since both of them were dead. They had died when she was a little kid in fact.

Wow this is some heavy stuff to drop in the same paragraph as figuring out why our protagonist is called Purple. I don't quite think it works here -- there's a lot of emotional impact in the protagonist casually revealing that her parents are in fact superdead and she's been an orphan for a while, and I'm not sure if that's something you can just drop in two sentences and then not really unpack. This is one of those details that probably needs a bit more fluffing out and shouldn't just be tossed in like a shirt color.

pivoting into way the opposite direction for some grammar stuff:

I want to join them for a reason Jen

So this is a good example of the "let's eat Grandma" comma. Basically, when you're addressing/talking to someone, you should have a comma in front of their name. The sentence "let's eat, Grandma" is inviting your grandmother to eat, while the sentence "let's eat Grandma" is... eating your grandmother. So this should be punctuated as:

I want to join them for a reason, Jen

It's a really tiny thing but it makes a ton of a difference, and you do drop this a few times.

I like your description in this -- we get a really good sense of your characters and their world. The dialogue between Jenny and Purple feels pretty natural, like it's two friends talking for a while, and you do a good job of building tension during the fight against the humans by keeping the sentences short and terse.

You also have a ton of really interesting ideas floating around here, and unpacking the ramifications of having pokemon training in a world where a random guy can "throw a fistful of fire from his hand as though he were a Charmander/Cyndaquil" -- are people okay beating the shit out of other people now? There's a lot of cool layers to unpack here and that's interesting.

One thing that threw me for a loop here was your pacing. The beginning has a lot of background information thrown at us at once (Purple Powers, her backstory, the superpower thing) told in a relatively calm setting (people sitting at a table), so their dialogue feels largely like exposition. Exposition that, given how it's followed up by a battle that pretty much details those things out for us, feels unnecessary and bulky in the length of this chapter.

There's kind of a pressure in writing that you need to lay everything out on the table -- "this is my main character, this is her life, this is the world she's in, now be invested in my story, goshdarnit". That's kind of not entirely true. People don't get invested in characters just because the characters have trauma or a cool name or are at odds with some force in their world; what really gets people excited about characters/stories is when they can see potential for growth in that character that resonates with themselves -- to match your superhero theme, for example, the opening scene of Iron Man shows us that Tony Stark has a lot to learn about the world that he's been massively influencing (his blase comments about the war that he's definitely fueling), caring about people (Rhodey and the cool tank or whatever), and there's some hints that he's got a knack for technology that will either help/hurt him on this journey. Yeah, there's a lot of stuff blowing up and a baller soundtrack, but the deep-rooted engagement that gave the movie enough momentum to start an entire cinematic universe comes from the potential for character growth that we get presented with.

And there's a lot of background details that we don't need to get right away! Tony also has orphan parents and hates certain groups that wronged him and has cool friends and lives in a nice house, but we don't need to know that stuff all at once. It gets in the way of the story, so it's not presented to us until it becomes relevant.

I hope this makes sense with how this translates to your story opening: there's simultaneously so much happening (the main character is joining a team of vigilante people-hunters (!!!)), but it's hard to get any sense of weight because there's equal narrative focus to that development as there is to why Purple doesn't like her last name.

Anyway! This is still really engagingly written and about a premise that I'm a huge fan of, and I think you've got a strong start here! Thanks for writing this!

 

[Deleted member 72389]

SUPERHERO X POKEMON SIGN ME UP.
this is just for chapter one -- sorry if I miss things that get brought up in later chapters!

No problem! And thanks for reviewing this!

Wow this is some heavy stuff to drop in the same paragraph as figuring out why our protagonist is called Purple. I don't quite think it works here -- there's a lot of emotional impact in the protagonist casually revealing that her parents are in fact superdead and she's been an orphan for a while, and I'm not sure if that's something you can just drop in two sentences and then not really unpack. This is one of those details that probably needs a bit more fluffing out and shouldn't just be tossed in like a shirt color.

I was thinking of dropping it suddenly like that for a surprise or shock factor. And then expanding on it in later chapters. But looking back, it seems a little tactless. I think I'll edit that one.

pivoting into way the opposite direction for some grammar stuff:

So this is a good example of the "let's eat Grandma" comma. Basically, when you're addressing/talking to someone, you should have a comma in front of their name. The sentence "let's eat, Grandma" is inviting your grandmother to eat, while the sentence "let's eat Grandma" is... eating your grandmother. So this should be punctuated as:

It's a really tiny thing but it makes a ton of a difference, and you do drop this a few times.

I'll look into this!

I like your description in this -- we get a really good sense of your characters and their world. The dialogue between Jenny and Purple feels pretty natural, like it's two friends talking for a while, and you do a good job of building tension during the fight against the humans by keeping the sentences short and terse.

You also have a ton of really interesting ideas floating around here, and unpacking the ramifications of having pokemon training in a world where a random guy can "throw a fistful of fire from his hand as though he were a Charmander/Cyndaquil" -- are people okay beating the shit out of other people now? There's a lot of cool layers to unpack here and that's interesting.

Thanks! The reason for people being okay with beating others will be revealed later on though.

One thing that threw me for a loop here was your pacing. The beginning has a lot of background information thrown at us at once (Purple Powers, her backstory, the superpower thing) told in a relatively calm setting (people sitting at a table), so their dialogue feels largely like exposition. Exposition that, given how it's followed up by a battle that pretty much details those things out for us, feels unnecessary and bulky in the length of this chapter.

Yes, now that I think of it, it does feel like exposition. I should've found a better way to start the introduction.

There's kind of a pressure in writing that you need to lay everything out on the table -- "this is my main character, this is her life, this is the world she's in, now be invested in my story, goshdarnit". That's kind of not entirely true. People don't get invested in characters just because the characters have trauma or a cool name or are at odds with some force in their world; what really gets people excited about characters/stories is when they can see potential for growth in that character that resonates with themselves -- to match your superhero theme, for example, the opening scene of Iron Man shows us that Tony Stark has a lot to learn about the world that he's been massively influencing (his blase comments about the war that he's definitely fueling), caring about people (Rhodey and the cool tank or whatever), and there's some hints that he's got a knack for technology that will either help/hurt him on this journey. Yeah, there's a lot of stuff blowing up and a baller soundtrack, but the deep-rooted engagement that gave the movie enough momentum to start an entire cinematic universe comes from the potential for character growth that we get presented with.

And there's a lot of background details that we don't need to get right away! Tony also has orphan parents and hates certain groups that wronged him and has cool friends and lives in a nice house, but we don't need to know that stuff all at once. It gets in the way of the story, so it's not presented to us until it becomes relevant.

Tony Stark is one of my favorite superheroes! It's great that you used him as an example!

And about Purple I think, the problem was that we first saw her talking to her best friend and then to the people whom she wanted to impress. So there was no scope to show her flaws or where her character needs growth. She was on her best behavior the entire time. I think that will change in later chapters.

I hope this makes sense with how this translates to your story opening: there's simultaneously so much happening (the main character is joining a team of vigilante people-hunters (!!!)), but it's hard to get any sense of weight because there's equal narrative focus to that development as there is to why Purple doesn't like her last name.

When I get back to editing the first chapter I'll add some more seriousness and weightage to the vigilante situation.

Anyway! This is still really engagingly written and about a premise that I'm a huge fan of, and I think you've got a strong start here! Thanks for writing this!

Thank you so much!

 

[Deleted member 72389]

Chapter 3:- Training
​

Purple yawned widely as she got out of her bed and walked towards her kitchen, all the while looking like a sleep-deprived zombie. She had stayed awake till late last night because she was too excited about her upcoming new job to even think of falling asleep.

She started making some coffee for herself and let out a gloomy sigh. Life was like this for her from now onwards. All alone. Nobody to look after her. It was a good thing that she was eighteen now, so she didn’t have to worry a lot about living on her own.

She didn’t even had any friends except for Jenny, although she often times wondered whether that had something to do with the faults in her personality. And then she remembered her. Her very first travelling companion and close friend, Kyla. She had looked past Purple’s faults and accepted her as a friend.

And what had Purple done in return? Left her to die in some snowy mountain?

Purple could feel herself weeping as angry, hot tears cascaded down her face. She rubbed her eyes hastily, and poured the coffee in a mug. She added lots of milk and sugar to it. The taste of pure black coffee always made her want to throw up.

It was around eight a.m., when she had just finished taking a shower and was currently sitting in her living room nicely dressed, and with all six of her Pokemon ready for action inside their Pokeballs.

That’s when, a Pokemon suddenly teleported into her living room out of nowhere, startling her alright.

“Oh, Abra, it’s you,” she said, immediately standing up and attaching all of her Pokeballs on her belt. Her bag was already packed, and she now slung it over her shoulder.

“Let’s get going!” she said cheerfully to the psychic-type Pokemon.

Abra immediately teleported them, and Purple, who had been expecting to see the dimly-lit room from yesterday, let out a gasp of surprise when she saw the scene in front of her.

They were in what looked like a large and spacious training area. Around twenty or so candidates were already standing against a wall, there were instruments and machines to train Pokemon everywhere in sight, there were some fighting arenas as well where currently a few Pokemon were fighting each other, some vigilantes were practicing some mysterious stuff with equally mysterious looking gadgets. All of this made Purple nervous and excited at the same time. She was finally here. She was finally going to do this.

“Ah, Purple Powers,” the man from yesterday, with the Blastoise mask, walked up to her and shook hands with her.

“You are the last of the candidates to be brought here by Abra. Please stand in the line with the other candidates. I’ll soon tell you all how your training will proceed,” he said to her.

Purple immediately went and stood in the line of the candidates who were standing against a wall, patiently waiting to have their training started.

The moment she joined the group, there were gasps of recognition and surprise.

“Is that Purple Powers?”

“Isn’t she the one who had won the Hoenn and Sinnoh leagues?”

“She also managed to beat half of Sinnoh’s Elite Four!”

“Wonder what happened in Kalos?”

Purple gulped nervously as she heard the last question. She was definitely not in any mood to answer it to a bunch of strangers. She pretended being suddenly very interested in her fingernails, so that she wouldn’t have to make eye-contact with any of her new colleagues.

But just then, she heard a very polite voice speak to her, “Hey, it’s Purple, isn’t it?”

Purple glanced up. A young girl, who looked like she was of Purple’s age, was smiling at her. She had shiny black hair and dark brown eyes. But she seemed a little scared of making direct eye-contact with Purple, as though she was either scared of her or just feeling too shy.

“Yeah, it’s me,” Purple answered with a smile.

“My name is Amy. I have watched all of your battles. I am a huge fan of yours! I hope to become a successful trainer like you one day,” Amy said excitedly.

Now Purple realized what Amy’s problem was. She was just nervous about meeting someone whom she was a fan of. To be perfectly honest, even Purple had started to feel a little shy and awkward because of this conversation. She had still not gotten used to all the fame that came with winning the leagues and beating a few Elite Four members.

Just then, she heard someone laughing in a rather taunting manner from the far end of the line. Curious, Purple craned her head, and found a rather handsome looking boy snorting at the scene in front of him.

“Seriously?” he asked Amy, “You think you can become as good as her just by watching her matches? It’s not that easy you fool. You actually need to get out there and work hard.”

“I am working hard! And I am not a fool!” Amy exclaimed, she sounded like she was on the verge of tears.

“Well, it seems like you are not just a fool but also a very ignorant person. Because there is no other reason for you to not have recognized me yet. Forget about Purple, she is history. If you want a strong trainer to inspire you, look at me,” the guy spoke in an over-confident tone.

Purple glared at him but otherwise chose to ignore him. She decided that she knew better than engaging in fights with some third-rate wannabe trainer. Just the tone of his voice was enough to tell her that he was feeling quite insecure and jealous of her, and that was enough to make her day.

Then again, hadn’t she been just like that in the past. She remembered her early journeys through Johto and Kanto. She had been insufferably annoying back then! Maybe that’s why she could tell the psychology of this guy’s behavior so well. Because she had been there and behaved in exactly the same manner.

Just then, she was pulled out of her thoughts, as the man with the Blastoise-mask came to call all of them and gestured them to follow him. At once, all the candidates started following him across the training center.

Purple realized that she wasn’t the only one who was staring around the place with wonder in her eyes. Literally, everyone else was doing the same thing. One of the guys was in fact so busy staring at a scene of some Tauros training that he accidentally stumbled and fell flat on his face. Not exactly a good impression to make on the first day, Purple thought to herself.

But even she couldn’t stop staring at a Snorlax and Slaking wrestling in a ring, a group of vigilantes practicing swinging in the air with ropes attached to them, some practicing flying on their flying-type Pokemon, and a few were even becoming invisible with the help of advanced gadgets,

“This is wonderful,” Purple said to herself.

“Yeah, definitely better than your Kalos league performance,” the handsome looking guy from earlier taunted her from behind.

Purple once again chose not to rise to the bait. ‘I need to be mature’, she said to herself. Because she knew it very well how she became once she let go off her calm and mature side.

They finally stopped next to a mini-stadium, at the center of which was a battlefield. Purple wondered whether they were going to practice Pokemon battles.

The Blastoise-masked man turned to face them all and started speaking, “Well, hello everyone! I guess it’s still too early for me to remove my mask in front of you all. But the least I can do, is tell you my name. I am Stuart Johnson, the Head of Goldenrod City’s PokeVigilante division. And from today onwards, I am also your training supervisor. So, any guesses why I brought you all to this stadium?”

A girl raised her hand in the air and said, “We are going to battle each other?”

“Yes and no. The battles we are going to have over here will have a different format. One of you will volunteer to battle first. Everyone else, will battle this person one by one, until one of you finally defeats him or her. Then the winner will have to face the remaining challengers until one of them beats the winner and becomes the new winner, who will then face the remaining challengers, and so on. Is that clear? Any questions?” he asked.

Nobody asked any questions. Everyone seemed to have understood what Stuart had explained.

“So, who will go first?” he asked.

Purple knew that she must be the best battler in this group, so she was about to raise her hand, when all of a sudden, the arrogant boy from earlier, raised his hand.

“Can I go first?” he asked Stuart.

“Oh okay, sure. Do you have a Pokemon that would last really long in battles?” Stuart asked him.

“I have many such Pokemon, but if you want only one, yes I have it,” the boy replied.

Purple watched with narrowed eyes as he went and took his place inside the battlefield at one end of it.

“Okay, so who wants to challenge Grass Type?” Stuart asked the group at large.

Grass Type. She was almost going to chuckle aloud after hearing the name, but once again decided to be a little mature. It’s not like her name was much better either. But she did felt like she had heard this odd name somewhere before. But she couldn’t place it right now.

Amy raised her hand, and said, “I’ll battle him first. And I’ll also be the last one to battle him.”

“I like your confidence,” Stuart praised her. But behind him, Grass Type merely rolled his eyes.

Once Amy had taken her place in the battlefield, opposite Grass, Stuart asked, “Are you two ready for the battle?”

Both of them nodded.

“Okay, let the battle begin!” he announced.

“Unfezant go!” Amy shouted.

A dark grey bird-like Pokemon, with yellow beak and eyes flew out of her Pokeball. It had a pinkish-red wattle around its head, from which grew long ribbon-like extensions. That immediately confirmed it for Purple that it was a male Unfezant.

“Go Goodra,” Grass said calmly.

Out came a Pokemon that Purple had seen numerous times in Kalos. It looked like a tall dragon dripping with goo. Purple knew many people found it to be cute. She personally though, found it a little icky.

“Goodra, go slam yourself into the Unfezant!” Grass called out.

“Dodge it!” Amy yelled.

But Purple noticed that unfortunately Amy’s Unfezant was too slow, and couldn’t dodge Goodra’s body slam attack in time. The flying-type screeched loudly in pain.

“Don’t get discouraged by it Unfezant, use Air Cutter,” Amy instructed her Pokemon.

“Let’s show them what dodging means, right Goodra?” Grass asked his Pokemon.

Goodra moved at a swift pace that one wouldn’t usually expect from such a bulky Pokemon and ducked successfully as Unfezant launched a series of glowing blue discs of energy at him. Unfezant looked slightly frustrated at having missed his mark, catching his opponent distracted, Goodra easily lifted him up and slammed him against the ground.

“Excellent Goodra! Now use dragon pulse!” Grass commanded his Pokemon.

Goodra towered over Unfezant, opened his mouth wide, and launched a multi-colored dragon-shaped beam of energy at him. Unfezant got hit pretty badly.

“That was a pretty strong dragon pulse attack,” a boy next to Purple commented.

Purple had to admit it was indeed true. That Goodra was definitely well-trained. She wondered for a moment whether Grass Type was actually as skilled of a trainer as he claimed to be.

“Unfezant is unable to battle anymore. Goodra wins!” Stuart declared, after closely observing Unfezant for some time.

Purple watched Amy. She silently called back her Pokemon and exited the battlefield. Her eyes met Purple’s and Purple gave her an encouraging smile. She desperately hoped that Amy wouldn’t start crying or something. She never really knew how to handle situations where people suddenly started to cry.

As if reading her mind, Amy said, “Don’t worry, I won’t start crying. I know he is going to get badly beaten by you anyways.”

Purple had to smile at that. People still had faith in her despite her poor performance at the Kalos league. She needed to prove to Amy that she was right to still believe in her.

Purple slowly formulated a strategy in her mind. She realized that the more matches Grass and Goodra fight, the more tired they’ll get. And she’ll be at an advantage if she challenges them as late as possible. Plus, she’ll be able to memorize all of Goodra’s moves by then.

She watched Grass battle his next opponent. A guy named Simon, who used a Jigglypuff. Goodra defeated the cute pink Pokemon in five minutes despite the type advantage it had due to being part-fairy.

Next was a guy named Sean who specialized in water-type Pokemon. And after that, a girl named Rose who specialized in grass Pokemon. Goodra and Grass defeated both of them easily.

“Seriously, he is named after my favorite type? And he still uses a dragon-type Pokemon? I don’t understand what’s his deal!” the girl named Rose could be heard complaining later on to other people.

Next was someone named Carter who used only Pokemon resurrected from fossils. And after that was a girl named Rachel, who looked like she was a painter, and used a Smeargle in the battle.

But the two of them lost as well. Grass and Goodra were pretty much unstoppable.

The last three people were a girl named Lucy who used a Houndoom, a normal-type specialist named Aidan, and a Ghost-type specialist named Garnet. But all three of them lost against the Goodra.

Had she not caught herself in time, Purple would have almost yawned widely, and very rudely, when the second-last challenger lost against Grass as well. It had become so predictable by now, that she was bored beyond her limits.

At long last, it was her turn. She calmly walked towards the battle-stadium and took her place, sizing up her opponent. Grass did look tired, and so did his Goodra. But she did notice the fierce determination in both of their eyes. They were clearly not going to go down easily, or so they thought.

“Are both of you ready?” Stuart asked them. They both nodded.

“This one will be an interesting match. The Hoenn and Sinnoh league winner of past years vs the Kalos league winner of this year,” someone commented from the stands.

That was it. Purple lost all her sense of calmness at that moment instantly. Grass Type was the Kalos league winner of this year? The same year which had gone so badly for her? The same year when she had lost Kyla? The same year when she had lost in the first round of Kalos league itself?

That’s it, she decided. Now she wasn’t just going to beat him, but was going to beat him in a rather humiliating manner. That was going to be her way of extracting revenge from life for throwing terrible things at her.

“Okay, let the battle begin!” Stuart announced.

“Blaziken, I choose you!” Purple shouted.

A tall, chicken-like Pokemon, with a small, red face, and a V-shaped crest on his head, jumped out of the Pokeball, and stood before Goodra in a menacing manner.

“Blaziken eh? This one should be easy,” Grass commented.

“You are going to find out exactly how much easy it is to beat him,” she answered as coolly as she could manage.

“Fine, why don’t you start first then?” he asked, still sounding completely over-confident.

“Oh, I was going to start first anyways. It’s not like I need your permission for that or anything,” Purple retorted back.

She thought for a few seconds and then decided to use her and Blaziken’s favorite strategy.

“Okay Blaziken,” she said in her most serious tone, “Use Shadow Claw!”

Blaziken casually raised his left arm and it started to glow in black color, surrounded by a purple outline. It then took the form of a claw.

“You have taught it a ghost-type move, I see? Dodge its attack, Goodra!” Grass shouted at his Goodra.

Purple mischievously smirked to herself.

The moment Goodra moved aside to dodge Blaziken’s Shadow Claw attack, Blaziken raised his right hand which was also glowing brightly and was ready to strike the attack on Goodra. The black aura immediately took the form of a giant claw and struck Goodra at a lightning-fast speed.

The moment it hit Goodra, the Pokemon got thrown off-balance and fell down. But he wasn’t knocked out, much to Purple’s dismay. She had wanted to win this one with one hit.

“Goodra get up and use dragon pulse!” Grass ordered his Pokemon.

“Dodge, then Nightslash,” Purple instructed her Blaziken.

Blaziken dodged the weakened Goodra’s attack with ease and then his claws slowly started glowing purple. Blaziken and Purple used the same trick from earlier.

First Blaziken raised his right hand, driving all of Goodra’s attention to the brightly glowing claws on his right hand. He then made a fake move and pretended to do a slash attack, Goodra immediately dodged, thinking this was the real deal.

“Watch out, his left claws are also glowing!” Grass yelled at Goodra.

But it was too late. Blaziken had already raised his left hand and slashed it across Goodra’s face harshly.

Goodra roared in pain.

“Does that thing knows any fire/fighting moves at all?” Grass asked, sounding irritated.

Almost everyone sitting in the stands burst out laughing upon hearing his comment.

Purple was observing Goodra very carefully. He looked extremely exhausted. She had realized that he was an extremely strong Pokemon and shouldn’t be given any time to get back his strength, or else he could turn the tide in his and Grass’s favor.

“Now Blaziken, let’s do the special combination move that we had practiced!” Purple instructed her Pokemon.

Blaziken’s one hand glowed bright blue, while the claws of his other hand glowed purple again. Goodra staggered upright and tried to dodge the upcoming attacks, but Blaziken was too quick. With his right hand, he delivered a strong uppercut to Goodra, followed by yet another slash from his left hand’s claws.

He finished the combination attack by starting to glow in reddish-orange flames, and slamming into Goodra at a top speed.

That was it, for the powerful dragon-type. He collapsed on the ground with a loud thud.

Stuart stared at him for a few seconds, before declaring, “Goodra is unable to battle anymore. Blaziken wins!”

Purple smiled upon hearing that. She gave her Blaziken a triumphant high-five. She then glanced at Grass. He wasn’t looking at her or Blaziken. He just quietly recalled his Goodra and left the battlefield.

“This was an excellent battle! I think these two deserve a big applause!” Stuart announced sounding pleased with them.

Everyone clapped. Purple felt happy. It had been a long time since she had received such applause; she had almost forgotten how hungry she had been for some praise.

She was brought out of this pleasant feeling when Stuart announced, “Okay, now let’s proceed to the next training program. Follow me!”

Purple quickly recalled her Blaziken and walked besides the other candidates as they all followed Stuart in another part of the training center.

“That was an excellent battle! You taught him a good lesson!” Amy, who was walking besides Purple, whispered to her.

“Oh, that was nothing. I am used to beating such weak opponents,” Purple answered.

“Weak? Puh-lease! We all saw that Grass and Goodra were really strong. The only reason you won was because you were battling him when Goodra was already exhausted by battling everyone else,” the girl named Rachel said to her.

“Says the girl who looks more like a painter and less like a battler. How do you even expect to survive against those super-humans?” Purple asked her in a taunting manner. She had forgotten everything about her earlier strategy of remaining mature and calm in the face of insults. Thanks, to finding out that Grass had won this year’s Kalos league, and then immediately managing to defeat him had brought back some of her past bratty behavior in full swing.

“Yes I am a painter, but I am really skilled at battling too,” Rachel defended herself.

“Yes, I saw during your fight with Goodra exactly how skilled you are. The same Goodra who, mind you, was getting exhausted with each battle,” Purple reminded her.

Rachel glared at her angrily but it looked like she didn’t had anything to say in her defense on that one. That just made Purple feel even more victorious.

Stuart finally stopped walking, and the candidates halted behind him. What they all saw in front of them was a wide enough space with no roof above them. Purple wondered why only this particular area of the training center lacked a roof. But when she saw a bunch of neatly folded artificial detachable wings arranged on a table besides them, she realized with a horrorstruck realization what their next part of training was going to include.

“So,” Stuart, started cheerfully, “First we trained the Pokemon, now it’s time for the humans to train a little bit! This is one of my favorite exercises. Each one of you is going to get a pair of wings attached to you and are going to practice flying in the air. I’ll teach you how to use these wings, so there’s no need to worry about anything at all,” he reassured them.

“But I have a flying Pokemon!” Purple exclaimed before she could stop herself.

“That’s a good thing Purple, but what if your flying-type Pokemon gets injured in a battle and you need to make a hasty retreat? These wings are useful for everyone,” Stuart told her.

Purple sighed. She couldn’t see any way out of this situation. She couldn’t see how she could refuse to fly without others finding out about her phobia. And she was worried that if the Vigilantes found out about her fear of heights then they wouldn’t allow her to be a part of their team anymore.

With a feeling of increased nervousness and a look of dejection on her face, Purple followed the other candidates as they all selected a pair of wings each for themselves. Stuart showed them how to attach those wings firmly to themselves, what were the functions of the different buttons on the wings, and other such things.

“So, the green button launches you in the air, and the red button is for landing. And you can increase or decrease the speed using the blue buttons. We also provide you with special goggles which can give you a microscopic view of the land, so that it’ll help you to know which direction to fly in when you are up in the air. There is also a parachute attached for emergency landing in case you have been flying for too long and the power levels of the wings suddenly go down,” Stuart explained to them.

Purple glanced back at the wings on her back. They were secured in place with shoulder-straps made of some strong material that she had never seen before. There was also a belt attached to her waist, on which all the aforementioned buttons were. She was so nervous that she had already forgotten which colored button was for what.

A big problem according to her was that this new belt directly lay on top of her normal belt to which all the Pokeballs were attached. She wondered whether that would make it difficult to extract her Pokeball from the belt, in case she needed to use her Pokemon.

She closed her eyes and thought of her Charizard. Currently, the only flying-type that she was carrying. Her fear of heights was the reason that she had decided to carry Charizard with her, even though she already had a part-fire-type in Blaziken. It was because Charizard was her most reliable flyer. She had been a part of Purple’s team ever since Purple had journeyed through Kanto, and raised her as a baby Charmander. Purple seriously wished she could just let out her Charizard out of her Pokeball and fly on top of her instead of going through this stupid wings nonsense.

“So, are you all ready? Let’s start then!” Stuart said enthusiastically.

Purple had been so busy thinking about Charizard that she had completely missed what Stuart had spoken later on. Maybe he had given some important instructions for all she knew.

She saw Stuart press the green button on his belt and launch himself into the blue sky. He flew expertly, looking like he was in complete control of which direction he wanted to go in, at what angle he wanted to turn, etc.

Slowly, the other candidates started following him. Purple was pleasantly surprised to see that Amy was the first one to launch herself in the air, she started a little clumsily, but soon looked like she was getting a hang of how to fly. Many of the other candidates followed after her.

Purple realized that if she didn’t hurried, she would be the last one left, and she didn’t wanted that to happen. That would ruin her reputation and make her look like a coward. But when she looked around, she realized that she needn’t have worried about being the last one left. Because Grass was still standing with his feet firmly on the ground, and looking like he didn’t wanted to fly anytime soon.

“Afraid of flying?” Purple asked him, trying to sound brave.

“Probably not as much as you are,” he muttered and turned to look away.

“I am not scared of flying!” Purple exclaimed, her temper rising.

“Well, then why are you still here?” he asked her.

“I love taunting cowards like you,” Purple lied the first thing that came to her mind. At that moment she felt like literally any lie was better than admitting her phobia.

“That does sound a lot like what I had heard about you. Arrogant, narcissistic and full of herself. That’s literally how people used to describe you. I wonder what happened to change your reputation in everyone’s eyes? Was it your crushing defeat at the Kanto league that finally taught you a much needed lesson in humbleness?” Grass asked her scathingly.

“Don’t know about me, but one of these days you are going to learn a nice little lesson in humbleness,” Purple muttered. Why had she even bothered talking to this idiot? She seriously felt like he didn’t deserve to be named after her second-favorite Pokemon type. Grass-type Pokemon were complete cuties in her opinion, and this guy was ruining their reputation.

“Hey you two! Why are you still down there? We don’t have all day!” Stuart shouted from above. Amy and some of the other candidates stared at them from above.

Purple felt worried that Stuart would find out about her phobia, and hence she hastily pressed the green button on her belt without thinking, and before she knew it she felt herself being shot into the air at a high speed. She felt herself gaining height but had no idea how to stop herself, her speed was way too fast. She had tightly shut her eyes, she dared not open them, in case she accidentally looked down and saw how far she had come from the land.

“The blue button! Use it for slowing down!” she heard Stuart shout from somewhere to her left side. But for pressing the right button she would have to open her eyes, and that was something she didn’t had the courage to do.

She could feel herself flying at a top speed in random directions, completely out of control. A part inside her wanted to scream in fear but she knew that would be embarrassing. She tried to get Charizard’s Pokeball out of her belt, but just as she had predicted, it was extremely difficult to extract the Pokeball due to the second belt.

“Wait Purple, I am coming to help you!” she heard Amy’s voice from somewhere. And just a few moments later, she felt someone hold her tightly, and press the right button on the belt.

The insane speed of the artificial wings finally slowed down and Purple felt herself hover in midair. She slowly opened her eyes and saw Amy staring at her.

“Why didn’t you told me you were scared of heights?” Amy asked in a low whisper, so that nobody else could hear, “I could have helped you from much earlier itself, and then this whole mess wouldn’t have happened.”

“Sorry,” Purple mumbled, “What are we going to say to Stuart though?”

“Leave that to me,” Amy said, and turning towards Stuart she said, “Actually, the buttons on Purple’s belt aren’t working properly. Even I had to press it a few times to get it working. That’s why she was flying like crazy.”

“Oh, I see. I thought, we had gotten all the gadgets checked from our tech-experts. But if it is faulty then it is best not to use it anymore. I am sorry about that Purple. But you’ll have to sit for the rest of the day because we don’t have extra flying-gear for training right now,” Stuart told her apologetically.

“Oh, that’s alright,” Purple said, trying to look unhappy about having to miss the flying-session, although, she was secretly glad about it.

Once she had safely landed with Amy’s help, she went to sit on an empty bench and decided to watch the others training.

“That was really entertaining. Someone should give you an award for managing not to scream,” Grass was laughing from a nearby bench.

“At least I tried. Can’t say the same about you,” Purple said to him.

“I show my courage in different ways,” he replied.

Purple wondered whatever that meant, but just then, Stuart shouted once again from above, “Hey Grass! Are you going to sit down there all day?”

“Sorry sir. But I have a bad case of acrophobia! So I can’t fly!” Grass yelled back, looking quite relaxed as he said that. He didn’t seemed worried in the least about being kicked out of the vigilantes’ group due to his fear of heights.

“Oh, I see! Don’t worry I’ll try to find some solution for it!” Stuart replied not sounding annoyed in the slightest.

“See?” Grass, turned towards Purple and smirked, “That’s my way of being brave. Just be straightforward about your problems. In most cases people would be understanding about it.”

Purple sighed. She seriously wondered whether she should have done that too. She also wondered whether Stuart would think that she is faking it if she tells him now that she too is acrophobic. Maybe it was too late to tell him about her problem.

“How long do you think you can hide that? Better tell him sooner, than have him find out later on. That way he won’t be angry at you,” Grass commented.

“I guess I’ll try,” Purple muttered.

They sat in silence for some time. Purple was watching everyone flying above them quite intently. From down here, it looked like some really fun and cool activity. But she knew how badly it affected her once she was up in the air.

“I am a big fan of your grandmother,” Grass spoke all of a sudden.

“Oh, yeah, a lot of people are. She was really great,” Purple said with a smile.

“I had read about how she had won every single Pokemon league and beaten every Elite Four and all the Champions back in her day. I used to read books about her adventures during my entire childhood, you can even say that she was my childhood hero. I think it was a huge loss to the world that she died,” Grass said.

Purple didn’t know what to say in response to that. She usually preferred avoiding topics about her grandmother because she still felt that in some way she was responsible for her death.

“Is everyone in your family named after colors?” he asked Purple suddenly.

Purple burst out laughing upon hearing that question. It was something that a lot of people often asked her.

“Yeah, I mean, you obviously must be knowing that my grandma was named Magenta Powers. And her daughter, I mean my mom, was named Lavender. And then there’s me, Purple,” she answered.

“I had heard a rumor regarding your grandmother. That there is a reason why you all are named after specific colors. I was thinking about that- “Grass stopped mid-sentence, as both he and Purple heard it at the same time.

Stuart was flying right above them, and apparently he was talking to someone very loudly on the phone.

“Ecruteak City did you say?!” he shouted, “Is that the place the super-humans are now targeting? Very well, I and the other vigilantes will reach there as soon as possible. And I would also ask my new candidates if they want to come and help us, some of them are really talented.”

Purple glanced at Grass and noticed that he had a very grave expression on his face.

“Ecruteak City,” he muttered.

“Yeah, apparently we are all going to go there too. And stop those evil people from doing more evil things,” Purple replied in a determined tone.

Note:- The unusual names of some of the characters are going to be explained in later chapters.

 

[Beth Pavell]

Guess what, I'm your Secret Santa. Secret reviewer, anyway.

First, some context. I'm not really a huge fan of superhero stories. I'm the kind of person who tends to pick holes in the sort of things other people suspend disbelief over. So while I'm going to try and approach this story like a superhero fan, bear that in mind when you look at this review.

As far as your prose is concerned, it's not bad. I don't think I noticed any technical errors, barring a comma that should have been a full stop, somewhere (Obviously a typo). Your comma usage could use some work. Now, it's not incorrect - the difficulty with using commas is that it really is an art. As a rule of thumb I always say (Especially for dialogue) that where you pause for breath mid-sentence, put a comma. In summary, your prose is serviceable, it's readable, and that's the main thing.

The plot is where the most work is needed, I think. The premise is fine - people with pokémon powers makes sense for a superhero story in the pokémon world. I think though, that the story is somewhat muddled. Kintsugi mentioned that there's a pressure to get to the story, so to speak, and grab the reader. The temptation, understandably, is to tell the reader as soon as possible "Care about this story!". As a result you've ended up throwing a lot out in three chapters - dead friends, supervillains, torture-experiments, super-technology, etc.

The result is that I don't think it has much emotional weight. We don't really get to know Purple, so it's not that big of a deal to hear about her desire to join these vigilantes. We don't see or hear about what the supervillains are doing, so we have to take it largely on faith that they're evil ... till chapter two comes round, and we're told, rather than shown, that they lose their moral compass. Caveat - a fan of superhero stories may feel differently. I prefer more moral grey areas, and I tend to resent stories that treat even the mooks like robots. But that might not be the kind of story you're aiming to write.

I realise this review is full of me hedging my bets. That's me trying to be fair, as much as I can. If you've got any questions, or would like advice or opinions on something, please feel free to ask. I'll do my best to help

 

[Deleted member 72389]

@Beth Pavell Wow, I can't believe you were my secret santa! I have always admired your reviews and reviewing style.

It's okay, I understand. Not everyone likes the superhero stories. That's fine!

I'll pay more attention on the comma usage during editing the previous chapters and updating future chapters. Actually, I didn't wanted any chapter to feel like a filler chapter, so I guess I ended up adding a lot of stuff in every chapter. I am thinking of either trimming down the chapters during editing or breaking them into two separate chapters.

Actually I like morally grey characters too. But in this story, one of the main characters is going to become morally grey later on, so I thought it would be repetitive if the villains were made morally grey too.

And thanks for reviewing the story!