TEEN: Because You Were There

[Flaze]

Good day everyone...it's sure been a while since the last time I uploaded a story here. This is something I've been working on for the last month or so, it was originally posted as part of a contest in URPG and I decided that I couldn't let the workshop miss out on what I see as my best story yet (seriously).

So what's this supposedly best story about? Well, it's got a bit of all my favorite things. It's got high stakes action scenes, Pokemon beating each other up, people having a lot of feelings that aren't at all subtle, big aliens and best of all Mechas. Yes, this is at it's core a mecha story, but do give it a shot please >.<

A bit of a small summary if you want to know:

The story follows the point of view of an Umbreon who is involved in a war against beings from another world (that you might recognise). To fight in the war, Pokemon pilot giant mechas who are Pokemon shaped and they are supported by their trainers, who in turn give them energy through a Key Stone-like device.

Of course, war isn't easy and this Umbreon, as well as her trainer, have a lot of things to worry about.

Index
Part 1:Into the Void (Current)
Part 2: Struggle
Part 3: Meeting
Part 4: Request
Part 5: Choice

​

Now without further ado. Let's roll.

***​

I don’t remember when it first dawned on me, the fact that one day I would die.

It’s not like I was naïve enough to think I wouldn’t, but I always thought that when the time came I’ll be resting in my soft cushion, barely being able to breathe while giving my pups a wry, calm yet solemn smile. There would be other Pokemon crying for me I’m sure, or at least I hoped so.

But what I wanted most of all was to die before her. Maybe it was selfish and cruel of me…but I wanted her to live, I didn’t want to be the one to see her die.

But then, life changed, they appeared and changed everything as we knew it. I wasn’t just an Umbreon aiming to be the strongest alongside her stubborn, yet optimistic, Trainer. No, we were soldiers, soldiers whose fates were connected to the world. It was then that I realized that if I were to die I would probably die with her or…she would die before me.

Because You Were There

Part 1: Into the Void​

Year 0

I can still recall the day when it all started. I was sprawled out on my cushion, my legs felt sore. That only worked in making the feeling of the cushion even better. My ears perked up as I felt Sarah walk past me; she let out a loud yawn as she passed her hand over her long unkempt black hair, it always made me laugh how my fur was in a better state than her hair. “Morning Sombra,” she smiled at me as she turned, stretching her arms out. I stared at her dark brown eyes for a moment, giving her a simple nod as a greeting.

I stretched my own limbs and stood up; breakfast called. I made my way into the kitchen and was greeted by the sound of pokechow falling on my bowl, making a smile cross my face as I quickly glued myself to the bowl with delight.

“Calm down girl, it’s not going to go anywhere,” she laughed from behind me as she rummaged through the fridge. I felt sad for humans, having to cook their own food while Pokemon just had to eat a few pellet sized biscuits, but hey, she had opposing thumbs and I didn’t so it canceled out.

“Are you making me breakfast, how sweet.” I frowned to myself as I saw Sarah’s friend, Ashley, walk through the hall, her long blond hair waving around as she walked inside. “You really know what I like huh?” she teased as she walked over and hugged Sarah, who simply laughed back. She then turned to me, as if she had just remembered my presence, and smiled. “Morning Sombra, did you sleep well?”

I didn’t say or do anything, instead I just looked at her as I chewed my food, she caught the hint and went to sit down by the table while Sarah started up the frying pan, a pair of eggs in hand. “Don’t get your hopes up. If you want breakfast you’ll have to do it yourself,” she stated with a mocking frown, which just turned into a grin when she saw Ashley’s mood deflate.

“Not cool,” she replied dryly, resting her head on her hand before glancing back at me. “I was thinking. Why don’t we go out and take a look around the city? Maybe we can go to that nice restaurant you like.”

“Nah, Sombra and I wanted to try out some new combos,” she replied without turning her attention away from her eggs.

“Always hard at work, even after that victory you pulled off yesterday,” Ashley replied, a proud smile on her face as she stared at Sarah. “I wish I had that drive.”

“You certainly have drive for the things you like,” Sarah quipped back, causing Ashley to gasp and laugh. I didn’t understand what she meant, but I chose to ignore it. “But in all seriousness. I can’t slack now that I made it to the Pro League,” she added, her tone becoming more serious.

Sarah, and by extent I, had dreamed of forming part of the Pro League, the place where the strongest trainers and Pokemon battled. Our years of training and fighting had finally given us a place in the Pro League and gotten us our first win. Needless to say, we were riding on a high that we never wanted to get off of.

“Are you going to call your parents?” Ashley asked absentmindedly, making me snap out of my thought and causing Sarah to stiffen up. “I’m sure they’ll want to congratulate you.”

Sarah didn’t reply at first, instead she stared down at the pan, the sound of frying eggs filling the room. “I’ll think about it,” she stated, tone indifferent.

Sarah’s tone snapped Ashley out of her funk; instead she seemed regretful for what she had said. “I’m sorry,” she stated, her face falling. Sarah sighed at this and I could relate, Ashley became a hassle when sad.

“No, it’s okay,” she replied in a monotone voice. However, it seemed like Ashley had caught onto Sarah’s tone and instead she turned away from us. “Tell you what,” Sarah said, turning off the oven and walking over to her friend. “You’re right, we should celebrate. So I’ll make the training session short and we can go out after,” she suggested, making me roll my eyes. She’d never learn if she got spoiled like that.

“Only if you’re buying,” Ashley replied, her grin returning as she looked at Sarah. I rolled my eyes yet again at this exchange. It’s not that Ashley was a bad person, but I felt like she did more to sidetrack our plans than add to them.

That’s when I felt it for the first time, that jolt that made my ears perk up and my fur stand on itself. I could hear Sarah and Ashley talking in the background, but all I could focus on was this feeling of dread that had suddenly filled me.

I jumped up, startling the two women before running towards the living room window. “What’s wrong girl!?” I heard Sarah from behind, her footsteps following shortly after as she ran to me.

I didn’t turn back, instead my eyes stayed glued to what was beyond the apartment’s domain. Sarah and Ashley gasped behind me as they too looked upon the skies, or rather what should’ve been the sky.

Instead, a large gaping hole had opened a few miles away from our apartment, with many other holes opening up around the city. The horns of the cars below filled the air along with the chattering of the people, but none of that was enough to make me take my eyes away from the hole.

That’s when it appeared, what would later be known as Code 01, “Nihileo”. Eight transparent tendrils extended from the hole, followed by a white gelatinous creature. Its body, if you could call it that, was smaller than the Ultra Beasts we would come to know later and resembled that of a young human head. Unfortunately it was all juxtaposed with its transparent and glowing head which reminded me of a Tentacruel’s. It was a Pokemon, but it was different from any Pokemon I had seen before.

“What is that?” I heard Ashley ask from behind me.

After that…all I could see was black.

***​

Year 11

Humans were complicated beings, but I had to give them one thing, they were certainly smart. That’s what went through my head every time I flew through that dark, cold void. I say it very lightly though.

The metallic carcass protected me and Sarah from the power of the void…I think they called it a “gravitational pull” or some other complicated word like that. But even if it was protecting us or not, I could never get used to the feeling of being connected to It. Even though it looked like me and I could see through Its eyes as if they were my own, it still felt so artificial and metallic; as if I wasn’t there.

I hated flying in that void. My mind was never at ease.

“You okay there girl?” Her voice snapped me from my thoughts and making me realize where I was once more. Everything was dark, with the exception of the one panel I was standing on, my own island. “Sombra?” she spoke once more. I couldn’t see her, but her voice relieved that feeling of loneliness that had started to fill me.

I didn’t know what to say; instead I replied with a slight bark, ensuing a sigh from her. “Thank Arceus, I was afraid you had blacked out again,” she stated with relieve from her own cockpit.

A beeping noise filled the Umbra’s ears soon after before it was followed by a click coming from Sarah’s cockpit. “I hear you loud and clear Yumi.” She replied, the sound of her fidgeting with the controls in the background.

“Good to know Liutenant. I wanted to check how your journey into Ultra Space was proceeding,” a female voice replied, her voice sounding composed and respectful.

“We’re not too far off from checkpoint fifty. We still haven’t sighted any UBs however. Once we reach the checkpoint I’ll be giving Sombra control and we’ll start our exploration.” Sarah’s voice sounded monotonous, almost robotic. I couldn’t blame her for that, after all, it was already our twentieth expedition.

“Noted. Remember to report any anomalies you discover. Good luck” I heard Yumi answer, she too sounded like she was just going through the numbers, only for her voice to break a bit at the end.

I felt Sarah’s mood go down when she heard this. “Don’t worry, Yumi. I’ll be fine,” she lied

But even as I thought that I also couldn’t help but remember to stay on my toes.

I honestly didn’t know why we did all these expeditions. According to Sarah, we were supposed to search for…something, a core of some kind, or just something that would give us any indication what this void separate from our own realm was.

Of course, that didn’t make me feel any less uncomfortable every time we went in. Pokemon were territorial beings. When we are in the wild we stick to our designated turfs; when we’re with Trainers we don’t have a turf, but we have partners that make us feel like we’re part of something. But here? Here I felt as if I was not only out of my element but completely unwelcomed as well.

“We’re nearing the checkpoint. I’ll be giving you command of The Umbra once we get there.” her voice became stern and focused, bringing me back to reality. Even so, she couldn’t fool me; she was just as scared as I was.

I didn’t reply this time; instead I took my own stance; I knew she could feel I was ready. “All right, get ready to stir it, and please don’t spin around so much this time,” she advised embarrassingly, which caused me to smirk.

Unfortunately, my joy didn’t last long. A few seconds later I felt my body become heavier, another thing I could never get used to. I closed my eyes and then opened once more, willing my body forward and causing us to rise through the darkness as well.

Confident in my control of It, I began striding through the void as if I were flying, my legs moving rhythmically, rising and maneuvering through random debris. I glanced at the remains of buildings and vehicles that floated in the void, a grim reminder of the damage the Ultra Beasts had done.

“All right, we just passed the checkpoint,” Sarah stated, alarmed. “Propulsion engines are working fine, air dispensers are good to go as well,” she listed, mostly as a way to reassure herself rather than me. “Key Stone Engine is working at 100% as well.”

I nodded my head as I took us deeper into the void, scanning the area carefully. We were on our own, with the exception of the scattered debris at least, but I didn’t trust the silence.

That’s when I felt it, that tug in my head that caused my long ears, along with Its ears, to perk up. I yapped, Sarah was becoming more alert. I landed with a loud thud on the roof of a demolished building, lifting off some dust and broken concrete into the air with the impact. My body tensed and my legs spread out to cover the whole roof. I glared at the void with my deep red eyes…it was time to hunt.

“Code 02 at ten o’ clock!” she yelled out in that weird navigational language that humans liked to use. I wheeled around immediately, Its paws screeching like nails on a blackboard, not that I cared about being quiet.

But even that wasn’t enough, as soon as I turned around I was greeted by a red blur, its body coming down on me and forcing me to jump off the building in an attempt to avoid its attack. The giant creature’s strike echoed throughout the area and shattered the building in half, lifting off a cloud of dust and barrage of broken rubble that flew at me.

I pushed my paws forward, giving me a chance to throw myself back in order to avoid the debris. The Ultra Beast was ready for that though as a barrage of rubble was thrown through the smoke clouds and crashed with my frame. I groaned as a piece of rubble hit my eye, causing me to wince.

I had barely recovered my composure when I heard speeding sounds hidden in the smoke cloud around me. “Shit, it’s zooming around us!” I heard Sarah call out. “Throw it off with Dark Pulse!”

I knew I couldn’t waste any time. I let out a howl of dark energy that blew away the smoke in an instant and prayed that it would land. The being was cunning however and it punched me before I knew it, the sound of the punch ringing around me.

The Ultra Beast wrapped its large arms around Its frame and pulled me into a grapple, allowing me to catch a glimpse of that ugly stinger stuck to its face and its bulging muscles that would make a Machamp on steroids feel shy.

I began to push against it, trashing and bashing it as best I could until it finally let me go after receiving a hard kick to the chest. I floated back but was quickly hit by another punch straight to the gut, the metal ringing with the force of the punch.

I faltered and staggered as we flew back and crashed against another broken piece of building, my mechanical counterpart practically smashing through it. I tried to regain control but the sting and soreness was overtaking me.

“Shadow Ball, fast!” Sarah yelled out and I, staggeringly, responded by making It fire out a barrage of dark spheres.

The creature zoomed towards us, its body blurring and twisting as it avoided my attack, but that was just what I wanted. I bounced and pushed the building away with my legs as it neared me, making full use of mine and Its sturdy legs to avoid another punch that easily tore a hole through the mass of concrete. I saw it struggling to get its fist out of the building, but it was too late for it. I spun around, power coursing down my body and through my tail which was connected with It.

My tail landed square on its back and whipped him all the way through the building, throwing it off its course.

“Now!” I heard her scream, a scream that reminded me of our youth, when all that mattered was winning.

I was going to win.

My black fur stood on end and my eyes glowed as I let out a loud howl and a wave of black and red energy down on the red, musclebound alien just as it recovered. It was too late though; my attack landed square on and blasted it completely from my sight, its body vanishing and becoming one with the void.

We floated idly in the midst of Ultra Space, trying to regain our bearings. I glanced up at the direction the beast came from, noticing the large warp hole it had used was all but completely closed. Curiosity and fear filled me as I looked at it, making me feel drawn to it. However, the hole had closed before we made our move.

Then, as if on cue, the adrenaline left me. My body felt heavier once more and I was now panting. Sarah was panting as well, making me regret my actions immediately; I shouldn’t have pushed her.

“Calm down,” I heard her say in a soft yet tired laugh. “It’ll take more than a Z-Strike to take me out,” she added, her voice becoming confident and brave, the tone that always made me feel secure in the world. “Okay, let’s search a little more be-“

Sarah’s words were drowned out by a loud buzzing sound, alerting us once more. She let out a sigh in frustration soon after. “What is it Yumi?” she asked with exasperation

“We need you to come back quick Lieutenant Borges!” Yumi replied from the other end, her loud and troubled tone made us wary of what was coming. “A Code 03 showed up near Castelia. Darrel is trying his best to subdue it, but he and Flare are getting pushed back.”

“Shit.” Sarah gritted her teeth before slamming her hand against her cockpit, making me jump at the sensation. “What happened to Eric and Mareeha!?”

“Mareeha is in charge of evacuating the city, but Eric and Mac…”

My heart dropped, I didn’t need or want to hear more. I bit my lip as my and Sarah’s rage grew. Mac was the most annoying Bibarel I had ever met and he and Eric had certainly given us a lot of trouble at the academy but…but still!

“We’ll be right there,” Sarah answered, the confidence gone, all I could hear was suppressed rage and I couldn’t agree more. “Let’s go Sombra.”

 

[Flaze]

Part 2: Struggle​

Year 11

Having stepped out of the void we quickly made our way towards Castelia. I was actually sad that we were so close to the city, if there was one thing I enjoyed when I was plugged into It, it was running. As I sprinted across the field in its body I felt powerful, standing above so many other Pokemon and humans, especially as I felt my paws dig down into the ground loudly and saw how much distance I could cover with every stride.

However, I knew that I couldn’t enjoy myself in this situation; my connection with Sarah told me so through her fear and insecurity in our comrades’ conditions. I felt uneasy as well, but I was more worried about whether or not we’d be able to take on another Ultra Beast like that last one.

My connection with Sarah through the Key Stone Engine allowed me and It to receive more power and energy during battle. Because of this I could fire out attacks that allowed me to stand toe to toe with the Ultra Beasts.

The downside to this though was the toll that each subsequent attack took on Sarah. I honestly didn’t understand the gist of it myself, but I knew that I wasn’t advised to overuse it. Unfortunately for the both of us, I always did.

The other thing that worried me were the Ultra Beasts.

There was something that always creeped me out about those beings. They weren’t like normal Pokemon who usually fought on instinct while in the wild. No, these guys were cunning, every move had a purpose, almost like humans.

That uncertainty made me afraid, not just of being unable to defeat them but of what failing to do so would mean for Sarah. “Are you doing okay there girl?” I heard her speak through our link, her voice yanking me out of my thoughts.

I replied with a simple yap, but I knew it wasn’t convincing enough. Thankfully, the city began to appear on the horizon before she could pry any longer. I focused my eyes on the buildings of Castelia, or rather the ones that were left.

We passed through destroyed buildings, tanks and shelters the deeper we went into the wasteland of a city, I had to take special care of not stepping over any of them in fear of slipping or causing too much noise, all while glancing through the shattered windows of the buildings with prying eyes.

Once a bright example of the wonders of human construction, years of fighting had done away with its beauty and instead turned it into a desolate place filled with broken landmarks and dreams, with the only citizens being those sheltered by the International Army, our people.

This place was more than a city for Sarah and I as well. It was the city where we had decided to live our dream of challenging the Pro League, where we had met so many friends and rivals, including Ashley. But now, now those were just memories of a time gone by.

I couldn’t contain myself, not when I saw how it had all broken down and even less when I saw yet another explosion from afar, followed by an electrical current. “There they are!” Sarah yelled her voice as heartbroken and filled with rage as mine.

We ran through the city, being careful of not crashing into any of the buildings or making a wrong turn in the maze like city, I have to admit it was actually hard to keep track of the pesky run down vehicles while in a rush. Thankfully, we saw our comrade not too far away.

I came to a halt immediately, Its body sliding across the streets as we stopped in front a large Lilligant-like machine. The giant, mechanical flower turned towards us. “I’m so glad you got here quickly Sarah,” a female voice spoke, sounding loud and clear in my and Sarah’s heads.

“What’s the situation, Mareeha? Where’s Darrel?” Sarah asked while I looked around through the destroyed buildings, smoke and freshly melted debris was all around us and I could hear the sound of electricity and explosions not too far away. “I guess that answers my question,” Sarah replied, seething as we saw a skyscraper falling in the distance.

“The two of us were taking on that Code 03 but…I had to get them to safety,” Mareeha explained. I glanced down at her feet. A group of thirty people surrounded the Lilligant’s feet. They stuck close to it, hesitant to even glance at us. I felt my heart break when I saw a small child and her Espurr looking up at us, their eyes stained with tear marks and fear as they stared at the 60 feet tall machine.

I felt both my body and Sarah’s tense up; we had to make sure that Mareeha got these people to safety. “All right, I’ll go give Darrel back up.” Sarah reassured her, confidence radiating from her voice. “You make sure to get them to the shelter as fast as possible, okay, Maree?”

“I understand,” Mareeha answered as the Lilligant began to move past us, the survivors following right behind them. We turned our head a bit as they retreated, our eyes glued on their backs.

I couldn’t help but think back to that time when I was like them, when Sarah and I had that exact expression on our faces.

“Let’s go, girl.”

I leaned back upon hearing her command, putting as much force into Its hind legs as I could before leaping forward, easily flying above the broken skyscrapers and into the air. I looked down at the sight in front of us, burned and burning rubble was scattered all around the center of the city, many of its buildings fallen and smashed into the vehicles and establishments below.

As we landed I noticed something else though. Electric currents coursing along the area. That’s when I caught a glance of the source of the currents. In front of a destroyed building stood a tall wire-like alien, its wires interconnected by a sparking white star, which released electricity around itself, possibly as a defense mechanism.

“Darrel are you okay!?” Sarah’s call to our comrades made me shift my focus. A large machine much like my own laid in front of the creature, the only difference being that it was in the shape of a Charizard. The machine stood up upon hearing Sarah’s call, its metallic body moving slowly as its wings retracted.

“Yeah, Flare and I just received a little shock is all,” was the reply we received from the machine as it turned to us, giving us a thumb up that made Sarah sigh in relief, and enough for me to roll my eyes.

Our reunion couldn’t last long however, the Code 03 noticed our presence immediately and with a loud shriek fired out powerful jolt of electricity our way.

Thankfully, I reacted quickly and moved out of the way, causing the lightning bolt to fly past and slam against one of the buildings behind me, the sound of it crashing generating an explosion that shook the area. I ran forward as I saw Flare take to the skies, his wings still working properly.

I charged forward once more, side stepping another lightning bolt before firing a Dark Pulse straight towards the Ultra Beast. It countered it with its own attack; repelling mine and making me slide back to avoid a beam of electrical energy. It stretched its chord-like tendrils and wrapped them around one of the demolished building. The chords wrapped tightly around it before it threw its arm forward, sending the rubble flying towards us.

“Out of the way now!” Sarah screamed out, giving me enough time jump up, the broken down building flying past me and crashing against some cars behind me. I needed to focus here.

“Code 03’s can absorb the electricity in their surroundings, but they burn out quickly,” I heard Sarah speak, her tone pensive as she relayed her thoughts. “If we make it burn out then we’ll have a chance to attack it.”

“But won’t that just make it activate its defense mechanism again?” Darrel replied as Flare fired a jet of flames at the creature. It shielded itself with more pieces of broken buildings before flailing them at the mechanical Charizard, who did its best to avoid the strikes as best it could.

“Then we’ll take that time to plan a way to take it down even while it’s charged,” Sarah replied quickly. I wanted to protest; these things weren’t to be trifled with and getting close to it, especially in a machine that was still susceptible to electricity, was not only dangerous for me but for Sarah as well.

She seemed to notice my hesitation and immediately replied. “I know it’s risky, but it’s already caused enough destruction, if we don’t do something to stop it in its tracks then all of this would’ve been in vain,” she explained.

I didn’t reply to this, and I knew that even if I continued to feel frustrated she would just shrug off my protests. Instead I looked at Flare as he continued to maneuver around the electrical alien’s attacks.

They landed quickly and effortlessly, using the momentum from the landing to charge at the thing and slam at fiery fist at it. The attack landed and sent the creature flying back and crashing against a wall. “Got it!” Darrel called out.

He slipped up however. Before he could retreat the creature’s arms moved and wrapped itself around the left arm of Flare’s Umbra. Electricity coursed through it and its body, causing them to have to struggle and slam their foot against the creature.

I ran forward, fangs bared and filled with flames before biting down on its wire-like tendrils. The creature let out a hiss along with more electricity, making me grit my teeth as me and Sarah withstood the brunt of the attack.

It was to no avail though and before the Ultra Beast could attack again I had already managed to cut its arms with my teeth, giving Flare enough chance to fly behind some buildings for cover.

“Let’s follow them!” Sarah yelled, making me run back immediately. I thought the Ultra Beast would follow, but thankfully, it had become tired and entered its defensive state, letting out electric currents all around the area while charging up once more.

We took cover behind a series of destroyed buildings, allowing us to recharge and strategize. I glanced at Flare, noticing that his machine was clutching its left arm, probably as a reaction from Flare himself.

“This thing isn’t like the other Code 03’s,” the human known as Darrel said as he and Flare came to stand by our side.

“No shit, why didn’t you let Mareeha handle it? You’re not exactly in an advantageous point with Flare,” Sarah scolded.

“Eric and Mac were supposed to be the ones to take it down but…” Darrel’s voice trailed off for a moment and I could feel Sarah’s remorse at asking that question. “After they fell I told Mareeha to focus on getting survivors out since she could withstand its attacks more.”

“So you were planning on letting yourself get killed as well!” I heard her grit her teeth in frustration as she tried to push back her own tears.

I closed my eyes, making use of the one other useful feature that came with being connected to It. I felt my thoughts and feelings escape me for a moment before someone else came into them.

As I opened my eyes I could see him, Flare, the Charizard, stood right next to me, panting heavily as he held onto his left arm. “I couldn’t save him…I couldn’t save Mac,” he lamented, trying his best not to break down.

I didn’t say anything; instead I just let my head hang there for a moment as I closed my eyes once more. I couldn’t let it get to me, not after all this time. “It wasn’t your fault,” I replied, trying to sound as determined and neutral as possible even though I was as frustrated as he was. “But if you want to make it up to him, fight.”

He looked at me, eyes wide before he gazed down at his arm, slowly letting it go and clenching his eyes in an attempt to steel himself. “I know but…”

“No buts!” I yelled, I needed to snap him out of it, for all our sakes. Destroyed cities, lost comrades, civilian casualties; these were all things that we had to accept. “We have a duty, we have to protect our Trainers. If you don’t fight, Darrel dies, the same way that Eric and Mac did,” I said as bluntly as I could, noticing the look of realization that slowly washed over the dragon’s face.

“Sombra, are you ready?” I heard Sarah’s call from beyond my link with Flare, jolting me back into my own area, my own eyes steeled. “Let’s beat that thing down,” she stated, resolve in her voice.

I leapt out of our cover immediately and proceeded to run at the creature. It turned towards me instantly and fired another round of electricity, but I was prepared. I made It move like never before and jumped up to avoid the bolt, making use of my place in the air to fire a ball of darkness at it.

The sphere landed in front of it, raising a cloud of dust that gave me a chance to slam against it and push it back against one of the buildings behind it. I could hear glass breaking and the building being pushed aside along with the creature’s cries.

We weren’t done yet however. Its wire-like arms elongated and wrapped around us before we moved back, causing me and Sarah to curse under our breath before the alien fired out electrical currents throughout its body.

I clenched my teeth, feeling the searing pain of electricity run through my body and shock my senses. I heard and felt Sarah’s own pain as well and it along with her screams made me kick myself even more for not being fast enough to move back.

I raised my head to glare at the creature. Why were they doing this? Why did they have to come and attack us? Why did we have to fight? Why did she have to suffer?

I let out a loud, ear piercing howl into the sky, my fury no longer contained, before slamming my fangs down onto the creature’s neck, no longer caring whether it shocked me even more. I bit and bit around it’s body, pulling at the core that was attached to the head and relishing in its own shrieks of pain, knowing that it was suffering just as she was. It began to hiss loudly, its star blinking rapidly like a lightbulb about to blow out.

It wasn’t enough though as it quickly let us out of its grasp and slammed its electrified arms against us, the whip-like appendages strong enough to send us staggering back.

I tried my best to stay on my feet as it approached, wanting to make use of my burst of adrenaline, but I couldn’t, not with it constantly whipping me around. I felt my hind legs give out and fell on my behind, my panting audible even to myself as I saw smoke coming out of Its body. “Sombra…are…you okay?” I heard Sarah speak, her voice weak and frail.

Regret washed over me instantly when I heard her voice. I must’ve sucked out a lot of energy from her in my fit of rage. I was supposed to protect her and instead I hurt her even more. “Look…out!” she screamed, making me aware of the creature just as it hit us with a powerful beam of energy that sent us crashing against a building.

My body tensed, the pain numbing as we fell to the floor. Its limbs weren’t responding to me anymore, I wasn’t even able to listen to Sarah in my own fatigue, but I could see it, I could see it approaching us, its body sparking in a reddish white color to signify its anger against me.

Then, a little later than I would’ve preferred, the electrical alien was pushed down by Flare, his body surrounded in flames as he tried tackling it down, only for it to start fighting back against him. The dragon let out a jet of flames straight into the star-like core, even though it was suffering even more than I was from the electric shocks its opponent was sending out.

Was this as far as we got? All because I couldn’t move fast enough?

I heard Flare’s Umbra struggling to hold back the opponent as more and more electricity fired out. Eventually the flames stopped and it was pushed to the floor. I heard Flare and Darrel’s grunts, intermixed with Sarah’s own fading breath.

No, I couldn’t let it end here.

I closed my eyes and focused everything I had onto my legs, pushing myself up, slowly at first but eventually I stood, newfound energy in my body, but that could only mean one thing.

“Do it girl,”

I howled once more, catching the creature’s attention. Energy filled my body as those images flashed before my eyes once more. Sarah’s cries, Ashley’s corpse and the moment we gave up our dreams. I wasn’t going to let them become worthless.

I howled as loudly as I could, dark and red energy firing from my mouth as the Ultra Beast sent out its own lighting strike. Our attacks collided, the sound echoing throughout the destroyed battlefield as neither of us ceded our ground. “More…more…mo-“ I heard Sarah’s fading voice, realization crossing my eyes.

And then, black.

 

[chaos_Leader]

Here from the review game!

Chapter 1:

The first chapter is a pretty strong start. It opens with a proposition: that of Pokemon being soldiers in a dangerous conflict. The second part introduces us to the Mecha we were forewarned about, giving it to us In Medias Res right in the thick of things. Bold move, and potentially a very strong one. The only issue I can think of with this part is a bit of confusion on my part as to what exactly is happening. Ultra Space was mentioned, so I initually believed that's where we were, but then references to familiar things like cities thew my bearings for a bit of a loop. On the one hand, it may be that a bit of reader confusion is intentional on your part –that would be in-character for an In Medias Res opening– but it's a fine/murky line between piquing interest and losing the readers this way. That's really the only issue I can see with this In Medias Res opener, otherwise, starting the protagonist and trainer (handler?) in the middle of a mission in unfamiliar circumstances makes for a great hook.

The second part essentially whiplashes right out of the In Medias Res opening to a flashback scene of interrupted normalcy, showing how it first started. Not too much to comment on, but it's a great compliment to the scene before, reinforcing the opening.


Chapter 2:

Now we're getting into some heated action. I'm getting a distinct feeling of 'Pacific Rim', with powerful otherworldly creatures running amok, and us locals fighting back in big powerful war machines. I'dalso say I'm getting hints of 'Attack on Titan' on a conceptual level, but that particular series kicked off with a major training arc, rather than dropping us right in the thick of things immediately. It's somewhere around here that I really appreciate and consider it a smart choice to make Sombra the Umbreon our focus character. It gives the reader an excuse not to have all the technical details of the machines explained in-detail, since we figure a typical Umbreon doesn't concern itself with such things, while the story can focus on other things. In this case, it's a bit of the 'tragedy of war, and the perilous threat posed by the Ultra Beasts.

Since this story has already shown it's okay with Flashbacks though, I would be really, really interested to see the genesis of the use of these machines, including training and getting used to how it all works together. Doesn't have to be immediately, but say when there's a relative lull in the main story arc, I think it'd be an interesting thing to explore.

Overall. Well, definitely a far cry from the Academy 'school drama' work we've seen from you before. However, it is a different take on the whole Pokemon scene, and using Ultra Beasts as the deadly new threat to boot. Something like this very often puts up red flags in my mind that it might not be handled well. So far, apart from an occasional awkward twinge here and there, this is off to a pretty good start, and I'm interested to see where it goes from here.

 

[Beth Pavell]

Not quite first, oh well. Starting with Part 1

Technical Accuracy/Style
Your prose is better than I remember it to be. Still have a bit of a bad habit of using "though" where it's not needed, but it's not nearly so noticeable as in some chapters of Pokémon Academy that I recall.

Setting/Plot
Kind intertwined here, since most of the setting comes out of the initial action. A bit of mystery in the in medias res is fine, however. If I hadn't read the introduction I wouldn't have known that the characters are mecha pilots. There isn't anything in the text that tells the reader this. There's also, as chaos_Leader mentioned, the confusion with Ultra Space. At first I thought that they were in space, as in the vacuum, and then there's this talk of buildings, so that suggests cities in Ultra Space? I also presume that the mecha is in some way Umbreon-shaped based on the fact that Sombra is doing the fighting, but again, we're not really told this. The action sequence itself is actually ok, I just think it's let down by the problem that I have to work out the basics of the scene from the fight.

I've never been a huge fan of the Ultra Beasts, or Ultra Space for that matter, but it occurs to me that if you've got a silly setting you might as well up the silliness. And in any case, humans using their intelligence to figure out how to deal with dangerous pokémon is one of my favourite tropes - so I think the idea of a mecha story fits very well. Using the numeric designation as a kind of military jargon was a smart way to make it make sense.

Characters
Not an awful lot to say here. There's a lot about them which reminds me of the Academy characters. There's that same kind of teasing, buddy-buddy camaraderie, similar kind of voice and dialogue. Sombra's a bit of a change in that regard, apparently being generally calmer and less prone to excitement than I remember being usual for your pokémon characters.

Final Thoughts
It really mostly needs a tidy-up in scene one, to be honest. I say if you're going to go mecha, you might as well spend a hundred words focusing on the mecha

 

[Beth Pavell]

Looking at Chapter Two now, and it's different by the standards of Pokémon fanfiction, but the premise rather does remind me of a lot of standard anime settings - alien invaders from beyond, shattered cities, amalgamated nations, cast of heroes, etc.

I have to disagree with chaos_Leader on the level of detail being given. The really big problem with this chapter as a whole is that there's no sense of scale. There's no real indication of even how big these mechas are supposed to be in relation to either the Ultra Beasts or the city, for that matter. You end up with much the same situation as in chapter one - the actual writing of the action sequence is ok, even if it could do with a bit of polishing, but it loses a lot of the impact because it's missing some basic building blocks.

Like I said in the chapter one review, if you're going to write a mecha story, you might as well go for it. Give us the crunch and screech of the metal, the smell of the hot oil, the fizz and spark of the electrics. The best action scenes I've ever read invariably come from Dan Abnett, and whether he's writing a giant mecha battle (Titanicus), a dogfight (Double Eagle), or a trench war (Straight Silver), he always crams in the sensations. It's not so much writing hundreds of words describing the machines in crystal clear detail (Though with a mecha story I think there's room for tech porn), as trying to put the audience right in the middle of the action.

Another trick to steal from Abnett is being more specific about the backgrounds. It doesn't seem like it should make any difference to say what kind of building, but the fights do come across as realer, even when the combatants are shooting lasers at each other, when they're fighting in a downtown market place or between broken factories. You're going for the melancholy of the shattered city anyway, so that's a good excuse to give sad little details of the kind of lives Castelians used to have.

 

[Flaze]

The first chapter is a pretty strong start. It opens with a proposition: that of Pokemon being soldiers in a dangerous conflict. The second part introduces us to the Mecha we were forewarned about, giving it to us In Medias Res right in the thick of things. Bold move, and potentially a very strong one. The only issue I can think of with this part is a bit of confusion on my part as to what exactly is happening. Ultra Space was mentioned, so I initually believed that's where we were, but then references to familiar things like cities thew my bearings for a bit of a loop. On the one hand, it may be that a bit of reader confusion is intentional on your part –that would be in-character for an In Medias Res opening– but it's a fine/murky line between piquing interest and losing the readers this way. That's really the only issue I can see with this In Medias Res opener, otherwise, starting the protagonist and trainer (handler?) in the middle of a mission in unfamiliar circumstances makes for a great hook.

The second part essentially whiplashes right out of the In Medias Res opening to a flashback scene of interrupted normalcy, showing how it first started. Not too much to comment on, but it's a great compliment to the scene before, reinforcing the opening.

Well the thing I can tell you about the Ultra Space issue is that yes, it is Ultra Space, there's a reason why there's broken debris and buildings scattered on it and it kind of gets explained, or is supposed to be explained I still haven't written it out, later.

I'm getting a distinct feeling of 'Pacific Rim', with powerful otherworldly creatures running amok, and us locals fighting back in big powerful war machines. I'dalso say I'm getting hints of 'Attack on Titan' on a conceptual level, but that particular series kicked off with a major training arc, rather than dropping us right in the thick of things immediately.

You'd be half right. You see, I'm a huge mecha anime fan (Gundam and all that stuff) and that's what both Pacific Rim and Attack on Titan are kind of based on (AoT is basically a mecha story but the mechas are made of flesh instead). So you'd find a lot of similarities and stuff, it's kind of like my own homage to that genre in a way.

I would be really, really interested to see the genesis of the use of these machines, including training and getting used to how it all works together.

I'm debating on this, while I do want to show it I'm also kind of interested on exploring more stories based around this one and one of those ideas is on a group of new recruits, but we'll see.

Overall. Well, definitely a far cry from the Academy 'school drama' work we've seen from you before.

Hey, I still have an appreciation for the school life drama it's just I wanted to try and stretch my muscles a bit more. But yes there are things in this story that I wouldn't have been able to do with PA (or would have to wait a long time to be able to do them).

If I hadn't read the introduction I wouldn't have known that the characters are mecha pilots. There isn't anything in the text that tells the reader this. There's also, as chaos_Leader mentioned, the confusion with Ultra Space. At first I thought that they were in space, as in the vacuum, and then there's this talk of buildings, so that suggests cities in Ultra Space? I also presume that the mecha is in some way Umbreon-shaped based on the fact that Sombra is doing the fighting, but again, we're not really told this.

Yeah...you're not the first one to tell me about the mechas, I actually had a lot of trouble figuring out how you were supposed to go about describing mechas in literature. I'm not much of a mechanic and I didn't want to make the paragraphs drag on with a bunch of mechanical exposition so I went with enough to make it make sense without it getting overwhelming, but I guess it's still confusing.

here's that same kind of teasing, buddy-buddy camaraderie, similar kind of voice and dialogue.

Oh, you better enjoy that side of Sarah while you can. There's a lot more hiding underneath that confident exterior.

Looking at Chapter Two now, and it's different by the standards of Pokémon fanfiction, but the premise rather does remind me of a lot of standard anime settings - alien invaders from beyond, shattered cities, amalgamated nations, cast of heroes, etc.

Like I explained to Chaos above, I mostly based this story off of the mecha genre of anime, specificially the Real Robot genre which is more exploratory about the consequences of war and the like. The thing is, the mecha genre (and by extension real robot genre) are kind of the granddaddies of anime in a way.

Give us the crunch and screech of the metal, the smell of the hot oil, the fizz and spark of the electrics. The best action scenes I've ever read invariably come from Dan Abnett, and whether he's writing a giant mecha battle (Titanicus), a dogfight (Double Eagle), or a trench war (Straight Silver), he always crams in the sensations.

It might be a little bit rude, but I do feel bad you still couldn't gauge the scale of the mecha. It was an issue I had with the first draft and is why I added paragraphs about the effect that th efight had on the buildings and surroundings (like the one describing how Sombra can basically looking down at everything around her or smaller buildings getting crushed under the weight). The problem is, Sombra herself isn't in the mecha per se. She's in it but she's linked to it so what she's seeing is the outside and can't see the inside of it so she also can't hear any noise coming from around her. Though, she can hear what's outside now that I think about it. But I didn't want the description to weigh the action down.

Also I don't really know who Dan Abnett is so that explanation was completely lost on me xD;

You're going for the melancholy of the shattered city anyway, so that's a good excuse to give sad little details of the kind of lives Castelians used to have.

I did go into some detail about that but mostly on how it involved Sombra and Sarah (since they used to live in Castelia), but again, I didn't want the description to weigh the action down. I'm sorry if chapter 2 wasn't really that good though, I feel like it could've been better now.

All right, I was originally going to post chapter 3 today, but after thinking about it I realized that there was more I could add to it (both in content and description) so I'd be taking another week before adding that one in.

 

[diamondpearl876]

I'm going to forgo the mecha mechanical, worldbuilding stuff that chaos_Leader and Beth Pavell mentioned, since I agree and you don't really need a third person hitting you over the head with stuff you've probably already edited by now. I'll just say that I already knew beforehand you were writing a mecha story, so I could fit together the pieces well enough, but for someone unfamiliar with that fact, the confusion can take away from a lot of the impact you seem to be aiming for with your characters, namely Sombra and Sarah.

Speaking of Sombra and Sarah, they're a cute duo. Naturally, Sombra gets most of the focus, considering the fic's written in first person. Sombra pointing out things that humans do but not really understanding them subtly delves into how sapient/sentient Pokemon are in this world, as well as helps readers to focus on what Sombra is and isn't interested in. Sombra seems like the type of character who doesn't really care how or why things are happening. All she seems to care about is loyalty, or more specifically, her loyalty to Sarah. Everything she does and thinks and feels, it's all for Sarah. There are some moments where Sombra breaks away from that, like in the scene where Sarah slaps her and Sombra loses control + bites her. That really just highlights the animalistic traits I'd expect an umbreon to have, and it's heartbreaking to see, but realistic, so kudos there.

You do run into a few first person pitfalls occasionally. By that, I mean that Sombra relays some information that she really has no way of knowing unless she's omnipotent or something. When Sombra says she understands something someone else is feeling without that person explicitly saying so... Well, how does Sombra know that? If she's reading body language or something that tells her that, then it's best to just say so, but even then, there are human traits Sombra clearly doesn't understand. So it still might feel weird.

Anyway, like I said, Sombra and Sarah are super cute. All their dialogue makes my heart melt, pretty much. And with their Mind Link being pushed to the limits and being pushed to work back to back fights, I can't imagine the next chapter will go well. I did have a slight complaint before about how nonchalant everyone is about their friend Eric's death, but the more I thought about it, these are soldiers who witness people dying all the time, including friends. It'd be all too easy to let the concept of death consume them, so what can they do to help them keep moving on in life? Ignore the death, or try to numb the pain, which they do.

This is awkward, but I realize I read everything that was posted in the URPG, so I'm ahead of the game here and I'm not going to post for Review League. Woops.[/i]

 

[Flaze]

Could it be? Is Flaze finally updating this? Well yes, it actually is. Admittedly life got a bit in the way, which is sad cause this chapter has technically been ready for a month. As I stated at the start of this, these first three chapters were written as a oneshot for URPG and I've been dividing it and posting it in parts. However, chapter three was not only really short, but not much happened so I decided to add more to it...which took me a while.

With chapter three we take a closer look at Sarah and Sombra's relationship, especially how they came to meet. This chapter's purpose is mainly to contrast who they were (and how they related to each other) with who they are now, especially as we go furthe rinto the story.

Part 3: Meeting​

Year -9

Most of my life is a blur prior to meeting Sarah. Admittedly, when a Pokemon lives in the wild it doesn’t have much to think of. We live, we eat, we fight, we protect our kin and we sleep. Everything else we do on instinct. It’s a simple way to live, but one that makes sense, you avoid unnecessary pain.

I can certainly recall the moment I met her. How could I forget that barely fifteen years old, girl whose wide smile simply made my own distant gaze stronger?

Why I was against her back then I can’t remember either, I think it was because I had gotten used to my life with my kin even though we were raised in a farm and were all meant to be given to Trainers, it wasn’t something we had asked for.

“She’s beautiful,” she said, hands behind her back as she walked towards me, her long black hair waving behind her. I stared at her curiously and indignantly. What was wrong with humans? Their bodies looked nothing like Pokemon, with no fur, wings or any feature that would guarantee their survival in the Wild, just random limbs smashed together out of convenience. They also wore wear garments that didn’t seem to be a part of their bodies, which made me question their worth.

She knelt down in front of me, stretching her hand out slowly to try and pet my head. Of course, being the immature brat I was I jumped back and growled at her. She retracted her hand, staring at me with wide eyes. Her mother noticed this and immediately flashed a deadly glare towards me, only for Sarah to reassure her she was okay.

“I’m sorry, she can be a bit feisty,” I could hear the old ranch lady say from behind me, but I didn’t care, I didn’t want a human.

“Can we put her in the pokeball then?” I heard a woman speak from behind Sarah, the woman I would later come to know as her mother.

“No, it’s okay mom. She won’t get used to me if I don’t interact with her,” Sarah protested, looking at her mom with pleading eyes.

Her mom shook her head however, making Sarah’s expression fall more. “You can focus on that later. Please put her in the ball so that we can take her home,” she requested.

I looked back to the ranch lady; she seemed hesitant but quickly pulled out a spherical red and white object from her pocket and pointed it at me. I instinctively stepped back when I saw it, my tail sticking out and muscles tensing up as I glared at the device, wondering what it was for.

Sadly, before I could get the answer to my questions I was already gone.

I honestly don’t know how long I was gone, it wasn’t till later that I began to make out of what was inside the ball, at least for me. What I do know is how utterly furious I was when Sarah finally let me out. The only thing that stopped me from pouncing at her was my lack of familiarity with my surroundings.

“I’m sorry we forced you into the ball like that,” she said with remorse, the moonlight coming from her window casting a shadow over me. I looked around at her darkened room, noticing that nighttime had arrived while I was gone.

I stared back at her; she was holding her hands together in expectation, with pursed lips that marked a nervous smile on her face.

“Listen,” she said softly, kneeling down in front of me and making me retreat once more. “I know you’re probably not up for being my Pokemon. I mean, I’m sure you had your own mom and dad and siblings you were used to,” she explained, sounding sincere. “If you don’t want to be with me then I’ll understand, I’m already not sure if I’ll even be able to go out on my journey…dad’s been kind of an ass.”

I tilted my head, looking at her in confusion, I could sort of make out her feelings but I couldn’t understand her words, not yet at least. She seemed to notice this and looked away in embarrassment.

I don’t know why, but in that moment, for some reason, I saw her as something more than just another being. She certainly didn’t seem any more threatening than an Eevee her nervous expression and twitching hand.

She glanced at me once more, her face reluctant before she let out a sigh. “My name’s Sarah,” she said, stretching out her hand at me. I stared at it as I wondered what it meant but in an effort to try and make sense of it all I imitated her movements and connected my paw with her hand.

That’s when I felt it, the warmth of her hand around my paw and her cheerful smile casted on me. “You know, I can be pretty ‘feisty’ myself,” she added with a smirk and for that one moment I smiled, knowing that somehow I had met someone I could trust.

---​

The next few days after meeting Sarah were a blur to me, I couldn’t even properly get used to living at her house before we were out of it, walking through the forest around Nacrene City in the dead of night. The trees towered us, forming a roof that blocked out most of the moonlight shining down. It was all coupled with the moss covered trees on our sides and the sound of nocturnal Pokemon that added an air of unease to the night.

The sound of the wind whistling behind us took over the air as we walked, with Sarah walking in front of me holding only a flashlight close to her as she stared at some kind of device strapped to her wrist for directions. How the device worked was beyond me, but I was happy to have it with us if it could get us out of that forest.

“Ugh, I think we made a wrong turn.” Sarah groaned in annoyance, spinning around to face me and causing me to jump a bit at the sudden movement. My own fear seemed to lighten her mood as she let out a loud laugh. “At least I’m glad I’m not the only one scared. Though shouldn’t you be my brave protector?” she commented with a cheeky smile. I glared at her, ears spiking up as she glanced at her device once more. “I guess this is what we get for going out at night.”

While I still didn’t fully understand what Sarah was saying, I did get an inkling to her frustration. She had decided to leave the house in the dead of night, most likely to avoid having to deal with her father’s refusal.

I think that was the first time I realized that being a Pokemon was so much easier.

“Okay, let’s head back to the entrance for now and start from the-“ Sarah began speaking, only for a loud series of squawking noises to fill the dead of night. Leaves rustled around us as multiple dark spots appeared in the sky above us. “Oh crap,” she mouthed, the murder of Murkrows becoming highlighted by the moonlight as they descended upon us.

“Run away!” Sarah yelled out, quickly grabbing me from the floor before turning around and speeding back through the forest. I tried to gain my composure as I bounced against Sarah’s arm, my eyes staring at the group of Murkrow that were quickly gaining on us. I glanced at Sarah, then glared at the Murkrow.

Was this the kind of Eevee I was going to be? Just letting Sarah carry me and run away from challengers?

My ears perked up once more, resolve flashing in my eyes as I barked at Sarah. The girl turned to me, shock on her face. “You want to fight them?” She asked in shock, almost slipping on a branch due to her looking at me. “You’re crazy! There’s too many of them and…well, we still haven’t actually battled or made plans or anything!” she yelled out in a panic. She was right, we really should’ve trained up more before leaving.

But I didn’t care. With my front legs I quickly struggled my body out of her arms and jumped off her shoulder, making her lose her footing due to the force of my push. Thankfully my sudden movement was enough to halt the murder of Murkrow as I landed, with each one of them scanning my smaller frame expectantly.

I glared at them, moving my hind legs back and instinctively taking on a fighting stance. The Murkrows stared at me in turn, their expression blank as they exchanged looks with one another, only for a smirk to cross the leader of the pack. I barked loudly in an attempt to scare them off, but it was to no avail.

The Murkrow let out a loud calling, pushing his lackeys onward and making them fly around us, with four of them covering my and Sarah’s back and the other three flying above me. “See, I knew this would happen,” Sarah muttered, crawling back on the floor as she turned to me. “What do we do?”

I stood forward, attempting to reassure Sarah by willpower alone. Unfortunately my body didn’t seem to get the message, as I instinctively moved back, my ears and legs twitching in fear. Their beady eyes staring at us, waiting for a chance to pounce.

This was the chance the Murkrow were waiting for, and thus they pounced on us, wings outstretched as they dove down to claw at us with their talons. Sarah dove forward, grabbing me and putting me in her embrace almost immediately as the Murkrow clawed at her back.

I opened my eyes widely at this, staring up at her pained face as she tried to suppress her screams at being prodded by the Murkrow. Why was she protecting me like this? I was a Pokemon, we were made to take damage like this, weren’t we?

Sarah bit her lip in discomfort, glancing down at me, her eyes watering as she tried her best to make her expression soft and reassuring, even as a bit of blood ran down from her lip.

I gritted my teeth in frustration, the sounds of the Murkrow cawing filling the air in unison with the tightening of Sarah’s embrace.

Finally I had enough, I pushed my head against Sarah’s chest, throwing her body, and the Murkrow, back to allow myself room to escape. “Wait, Eevee!” she called out desperately as our assailants seized their chance to attack me.

I still can’t describe what came over me at that moment, all I know is that it was a feeling that, over the years, I had grown accustomed to. The surge of power coursing through my body, the confidence that I could triumph, it all pinnacled as I leaned my head back and, surprising everyone, fired a sphere of dark energy straight at the Murkrow.

Granted, as I would come to know later, using this attack wasn’t the best course of action when fighting Pokemon such as Murkrow. Nevertheless, the act of fighting back was enough to make the Murkrow do a double take, a chance that Sarah didn’t doubt in taking before scooping me up and beginning to run into the trees once more, the branches obscuring us from our attackers.

How far we ran was beyond me, but eventually Sarah stopped, either because we had managed to lose the Murkrow or because her body couldn’t hold on any longer. She fell to the floor, her body scratched up by branches and trunks from running downhill.

I stared at her panting face, my face falling and wears drooping over my eyes. She seemed to notice this as she shot me an awkward expression before gently petting my head. “It’s okay, girl, you were just trying to fend them off,” she stated, though even she herself didn’t sound confident in her words. “If I were a better a Trainer I’m sure we wouldn’t have had any trouble, you really have spunk.”

I just stared at her, still too ashamed to feel relieved. Sarah on the other hand stared at the sky, a look of wonder on her face. I stared as well, finally noticing the moon shining down on us. The moonlight spread throughout the clearing, completely lighting our way and giving us a clear view of the beautiful starry sky, twinkling lights shining above us and wiping away my earlier worries.

“Still, that Shadow Ball was amazing,” Sarah finally replied, tapping her chin in thought. “Shadow huh…oh, I got it!” she exclaimed, surprising me with her tone. “Sombra, that’s your new name!”

I stared at her, cocking my head to the side in confusion, which in turn seemed to confuse her. “I guess that’s a bit much…but it sounds so cool doesn’t it!”

Blinking, I licked her face, issuing a laugh from her. “I’ll take that as a yes,” she laughed, petting my head more.

At the time I didn’t fully understand what a name was, or even what my name meant. But even so, somehow I felt like I had gotten closer to this girl, like I had found a new home.

***​

Year 11

I awoke to the sound of frantic running and chattering from humans, the cold metallic floor of It lying beneath me. I tried to open my eyes, but all I could see was a bright light and a group of lab coats running around me, desperate to unplug me from It and talking about my vitals and all that other stuff.

I wasn’t dying. Somehow I knew that much.

Instead, what my mind went to as soon as it began working again was Sarah. I flailed around, making it hard for the scientists to get a proper hold of me as they carried me out of It. I had to find her, I had to make sure she was okay…I had to make up for my mistake.

They wouldn’t let me go though, so I began struggling more, even biting one of them in the hand as he tried to put a muzzle on me.

One of the scientists came running with a long syringe but I was fast enough, I kicked the one holding my hind legs as hard as I could, causing him to fall back as the one holding my front quickly let go and let me fall to the floor with a thud.

“Contain her! Her body has taken too much damage!” one of them yelled as they gathered around me. I didn’t care, I stood up and growled at them, glaring them like I did with Code 02 and 03, they’d get the same treatment for getting in my way.

“Will you dumbasses make way already!” I heard her voice and immediately turned around, my tail wagging unwillingly as my eyes opened wide with relief.

Sarah stood before me, having pushed her way through the workers while hoisting her arm around Darrel. The dark skinned Trainer laughed as Sarah scolded the workers for crowding around me.

In that moment I stared at her. Even if she was energetic, I knew that she had taken a lot of damage.She was dragging her right leg along with her, as if it was a hard for her to raise her up and her hand was holding a tight grip on Darrel’s shoulder, as if she would turn to dust if she did otherwise.

Then I stared at her deep brown eyes as she flashed me with that cheerful smile from my youth. But it was different now. There were bags under them and they had lost that shine they had back when I met her, life had done that. That wasn’t the only thing, her body had gotten taller and more toned from our years of training and she had cut her long black hair, which now had some white streaks as well. Why was I realizing that now? Was it because I had remembered what she was like when I first met her?

I whimpered when I looked at her, walking over and licking at her feet like a pup that had just upset her mother. Why did I lose control like that? Why did I put her life in jeopardy? For pride? Had I not learnt any better?

“Don’t feel bad, Sombra,” she replied, asking Darrel to help her kneel down so that she could pet me, her hand brushing soothingly against my body. “We won. That’s what matters isn’t it?” she said, her voice calm yet melancholic.

I looked at her, unconvinced by her words as I nuzzled my head onto her shoulder. If only I were stronger, younger and less reckless, maybe she wouldn’t have to suffer like this.

“Don’t be like that you idiot,” she laughed, her voice breaking a bit as she wrapped her arms around me. “I gave you everything I could, because we’re a team, because we’re family. I couldn’t lose you too.”

I stared at her eyes once more, her smile breaking me down as she pulled me in tighter. I rubbed my head against hers, taking in the warmth.

“You really do spoil her too much,” Darrel said from behind him as Flare walked behind him. The dragon seemed just as injured as I was and he was still clutching his left arm, but he still smiled at me in gratitude.

“What can I say? She’s the best,” Sarah replied, her smile wide as she rubbed my back.

The people around us began to spread out, getting down to work on It. That’s when I turned towards it a feeling of desperation and guilt overcoming me when I stared at that replica of myself. It looked like me and when I was connected to it I was It, but I knew that it was also the thing that chained, that chained her, to this life.

“Don’t think too much about it,” she advised, petting my head once more. “We survived, now let’s go, we both need our rest.” As she said that she stretched her hand out to Darrel so that he’d lift her once more, but I didn’t let her, instead I pushed myself against her even tighter, not wanting the embrace to end.

I don’t remember much of my life before her, but I do know one thing, that’s because of her that I’m here and that I love her.

She was going to survive. I was going to make sure of it, even if it killed me.

 

[Ghostsoul]

Most of my life is a blur prior to meeting Sarah.

I feel like there was a simpler way to to put this, or at least, a way that was a bit more interesting.

We live, we eat, we fight, we protect our kin and we sleep. Everything else we do on instinct.

This sentence would work better if it had a faster sense of pace to it.

Of course, being the immature brat I was I jumped back and growled at her.

The delivery of this line doesn't deliver much of an impact to me, for some reason.

. I instinctively stepped back when I saw it, my tail sticking out and muscles tensing up as I glared at the device, wondering what it was for.

Sadly, before I could get the answer to my questions I was already gone.

I like the way you described Sombra's physical reaction here!

I could sort of make out her feelings but I couldn’t understand her words

'I think she was feeling [emotion] but by her words, I wasn't sure' might work better.

more than just another being.

Odd and vague word usage. 'Another living being' you mean, right?

knowing that somehow I had met someone I could trust.

Too forward, and as a result a little old of voice for the characters.

blur

You've already used 'blur' something else would sound a lot better, and less repetitive.

twinkling lights shining above us and wiping away my earlier worries.

It seems pretty amazing that stars alone can do that.

in confusion, which in turn seemed to confuse her.

'confusion' and 'confuse' used here both in the same sentence, not really necessary, use another word.

I felt like I had gotten closer to this girl, like I had found a new home.

Despite the fact you outright stated you totally trusted her just a few paragraphs ago?

hat wasn’t the only thing

Not sure if you should leave this line here, it'll have a better flow and more mystery if you get rid of it.

Was it because I had remembered what she was like when I first met her?

It's kind of obvious that she did. Therefore, again, you don't need this line here.

She was going to survive. I was going to make sure of it, even if it killed me.

Something nice to end on, I'll say!

We get a nice bit of backstory here, something a bit early, but it gives us good insight into Sombra's character and her relationships. I imagine that another chapter consisting of backstory will also be the next chapter on the list? Looking forward to it.
Most of my comments are more nitpicks than anything else, but I think you should work on increasing the pace of emotion and action scenes, it seemed perhaps a bit slow in places, and the emotional scenes perhaps not 'deep' enough. These kind of seem like vague comments, but it's also the best way I can sum it up, sorry!

 

[Flaze]

And with this chapter we officially enter Part 2 of Because You Were There. After the battle against Xurkitree, Sarah and Sombra will have a lot of coming down to do as the events of the fight revive a lot of old wounds and may even lead to new ones down the line.

Part 4: Request​

Year 11

“What do you mean you’re suspending me!?” I heard Sarah scream at the top of her lungs, as if she wanted the whole base to hear her. I put my paws and slid my ears downwards to drown out the noise, but it was to no avail when compared to her enraged voice.

After our battle with the Xurkitree, Sarah and I were sent to see our supervisor, Commander Chariens.The man’s deep green eyes stared at us with expectancy, a hand brushing back a strand of his greyish black hair.

My eyes darted towards the array of badges and pictures lined across the shelves of his office, all polished to a fine, delicate degree that I seldom saw. Even Sarah eventually forgot to take care of the badges we obtained in our journey after a while.

I held no respect for this man, but Sarah, for some reason, did so I had to comply and sit quietly while she argued with him. It was just another normal day on the job if I’m being honest.

“I didn’t say suspension, Sergeant Villareal, I said ‘leave’,” the man she was speaking to replied, his eyes never leaving the clipboard he was holding on his left hand as he typed on his laptop with his right, I honestly don’t know how humans can do stuff like that. He turned back to Sarah, a stern expression on his face.

“According to the reports, your body’s motor responses have slowed down from Linking with Sombra. We don’t know how much damage that could spell for your body in the long run so we’re giving you the next two weeks off,” he stated matter-of-factly, his expression never wavering from his laptop.

I raised my head as the room was filled with a the sound of paper being printed, only for Commander Chariens to lean towards the printer on the side of his desk and pull out the notice that it spat out. “Here,” he said, holding the sheet of paper out to Sarah.

Sarah gritted her teeth at this. “This is crazy, Commander. We just lost Eric in that last battle, this is no time for rest!” she exclaimed, groaning for a bit as she put her hand to her head. Realizing this, she reluctantly stretched her hand out and grabbed the sheet.. “The Ultra Beasts strikes are becoming more regular too.”

“There’s nothing to worry about Sergeant.” He leaned back on his chair, crossing his arms. “We’ve estimated that the next strike shouldn’t be until two months from now, it’s enough time for you to recover and go back to your training.”

“Knowing when they were coming didn’t help us last time,” Sarah spat back, gritting her teeth and making me glance at the Commander. At this point I was just glancing back and forth between the two, amusement clear on my face.

Commander Chariens sighed, having now understood that nothing he said would be enough to dissuade Sarah’s argument. “I understand how you feel, Sarah,” he added, his tone becoming calmer and more understanding. “We’re all sad about what happened to Eric, I can assure you of that. But you and Sombra are among our best pilots and we can’t risk your health.” I scowled upon hearing this. I felt fine, I didn’t need him to guilt trip Sarah by using me. “Don’t think of it as being shoved away from the battlefield. Think of it as getting a chance to gain your bearings, relax and enjoy yourself before you go back to the fight.”

Sarah glanced at me as well, her expression wavering a bit as she thought of what the Commander was saying. Then it was her turn to sigh as she looked back at him.

“Fine, I guess I’ll pick up drawing or something.” She groaned in annoyance. Chariens noticed this and then turned back to a painting hung above his desk. Seeing this, I glanced at the painting myself, an oil painting depicting a large grassfield stretching over the mountains, a flurry of greens, orange and whites giving the sunset in the background a more prominent role.

“I recommend trying oil painting, it’s very relaxing,” the Commander replied, clearly attempting to lighten the mood by making his tone more familiar. “Once you’ll get back I’ll have you and Jonesy do some tests on the new upgrades to the Umbra.”

Sarah grunted in annoyance at hearing this. “So that asshole’s finally coming back huh? Fine.” She moved back a bit, straightening her posture before raising her hand up for a salute. “Thanks for your time commander,” she stated, her tone loud and respectful as she turned back to me. “Let’s go Sombra,” she said, a slight smile on her face. Then, before she turned to leave she looked back at Chariens, shock spreading on her face. “Wait, did you say Sergeant?”

“Yes,” The Commander replied, a slight smile on his face. “You and Sombra risked your lives to save those people, coupled with your other recent feats, the board decided to give you a promotion.”

Sarah didn’t reply, instead she just blinked as she tried to process what she was hearing. “Understood,” she finally said with a nod as she turned back to the door, trying to hide the smile on her face.

I stood up from where I was laying, leaning back as I stretched my limbs quickly, I was so comfortable too. I turned to glance at Commander Chariens and bowed my head, I guessed I owed it to him, as I followed Sarah out the door.

***​

I dutifully walked after Sarah as we made our way out of Charien’s office and through the halls of Castelia Cove’s International Defense Force Base, or just North Base as we liked to call it. Soldiers and scientists poured through the corridors, glancing at us and bowing their heads, thanking us for a job well done, though it’s not like thanking us was going to make things better.

Sarah stretched her arms out as we walked through a glass hallway connecting the two wings of the base, her eyes falling on the field below us, a pensive expression on her face. “Looks like they gathered all the survivors.” I heard her speak, her tone just as pensive.

I looked through the window at a large group of humans and Pokemon, they had been gathered around the field, which was filled with tents and trucks. Soldiers tended to the survivors, giving them blankets, water and food as well as guiding them through the procedures.

It wasn’t any new to me, I had already seen the same picture many times, Sarah and I even lived through it ourselves at some point. Yet I felt a stinging pain every time I saw them there, trying to collect what was left of their lives. It was a reminder of both what we were fighting for and what we had failed to accomplish.

My eyes lingered on the survivors, noticing the same little girl and Espurr that we had seen in Castelia. The girl was being looked at by a medic and seemed to be telling the soldier something, a hesintant expression on her face. “Think we should go check it out?” I heard Sarah say from my side. I hated when she read my mind like that.

***

Being in the middle of the field did not help remedy my anxiety. Sarah and I tried to make our way through the crowd of survivors in order to find the little girl, but there were so many and they were all walking around in a hurry that it was hard to even get a good look at anyone.

“Geez, guess we were better off staying back inside.” Sarah frowned, crossing her arms as she looked around.

I wasn’t about to give up though, we had already gone through the trouble of going down after all. And so I searched, closing my eyes to feel the presences of everyone around me, it was a trait that we Dark types could rely on even if most people didn’t know. I didn’t know how it worked, but I assumed it had to do with our link to Psychic and Ghost types.

Either way, I focused, blocking the sounds from all the bystanders and looking for my objective, a needle in a haystack if you will. That’s when I felt their presence, standing inside a medical tent not too far from us.

I turned to Sarah, biting at the edge of her jacket so that she’d paid attention to me. She nodded her head, understanding my intentions immediately and following me to the medical tent.

The girl practically jumped when she saw us walk towards her,going from fear to joy and then to hesitation, fidgeting with her Espurr’s hair and looking away when we walked over, Sarah laughed at this and beckoned me as well. “Everything alright over here doctor?” she asked, turning to the medical examiner.

“Thankfully, there’s no sign of heavy injury physically or mentally,” the doctor replied as he looked at the girl’s diagnoses through a screen, only to turn and give the Audino that was tending to her a thumbs up. “We can send her to a shelter by tomorrow.”

“Hear that?” she turned to the girl, smiling cheerfully and petting her head slightly. “You’ll get to be in a safe bed and eat delicious food by tomorrow.”

The girl looked down at the floor, her expression still hesitant even after Sarah’s words. I turned to the Espurr, its ears bunched over as it looked away from us nervously. “What’s wrong?” Sarah asked, noticing their condition.

“I can’t find my sister,” the girl replied, her voice breaking slightly. “We got separated during the attack. She’s all I have after our parents died.” Her voice broke even more with every word she said until she eventually began sobbing, her Espurr floating up to her to console her in turn.

I could see Sarah’s own expression breaking a bit and she was clearly trying hard not to let her chipper attitude vanish at the realization of the inevitable. “Listen,” she said, her voice calm and hopeful. “I’m sure we’ll find your sister, I promise.” She added.

She lied.

I honestly didn’t know if the girl noticed this or not, but she just nodded her head and wiped her tears away as she smiled at Sarah. “Thank you miss, it really means a lot that you saved me and Pina,” she said, petting her Espurr and causing it to purr in delight. “What’s your name, miss?”

Sarah’s smile returned when she saw the girl’s demeanor change. Even if she knew she’d face a terrible realization later. “I’m Sarah, Sarah Villareal,” she replied before glancing at me.

Then she abruptly leaned forward, grabbing onto me and making me fret around as she held my by my front paws in front of the girl. “This girl’s the one you should be thanking though.” She grinned. “Her name’s Sombra and she’s the one that pilots that awesome robot you saw fighting back there.

I looked away from the girl in embarrassment, it was so annoying to have to be held like some kind of...well, pet, it really didn’t make me come off well. She eventually had the decency to lower me. I huffed and turned away from her upon touching the floor.

“Well, we should go,” she spoke to the girl, turning around now. “Take care of yourself, okay kid?”

We walked a bit after that, taking in the sounds of the survivors and medics around us. However, not soon after we had left the medical tent Sarah stopped, her fists clenching. I looked up at her, my face turning into a frown as I looked at them, those mad resolute eyes that stared at the floor but in reality seemed to be staring at something even I couldn’t see.

“Hey Sombra, make me a promise,” she suddenly said, not turning away from the floor. I looked at her, my body tensing up, already feeling what she was going to say. “Next time, don’t hesitate,” she replied, her voice dry and emotionless as she looked at me with those eyes. “Next time forget about what happens to me and fight.”

I just looked into her eyes, my body tensed, the fur on my back standing up as I heard those words.

If only I could tell her I couldn’t keep that promise.

---​

Year 0

I can still remember that night, the night Sarah and I and all my comrades sat alone in that medical tent. The sound of screaming medics and survivors surrounded us, some yelling out orders, others looking for their friends and family and others suffering from wounds.

No one knew where the Ultra Beasts came from, they simply appeared through those glowing portals and attacked. Even Pokemon were confused, after all, in the Wild you wouldn’t just go and attack another Pokemon’s turf unless you had a reason to, and usually your reason for attacking was very clear to your target. But this? This was something completely different.

“What should we do now?” I turned towards Relina, Sarah’s Braviary and my second in command. She seemed hesitant to bring up the subject, what with everything that was going on. I glanced at the others, noticing that Ice Cream, the Vanilluxe and Pivot, Sarah’s Grumpig, were talking to one another or maybe just trying to cheer each other up. Then I looked at Mina and Kale, Sarah’s Floatzel and Roserade respectively, as they stood watch in front of the tent. We couldn’t actually be there by ourselves, but we needed to give Sarah room to breathe.

“Sombra,” Relina called, snapping my thoughts back to her. I stared at her, not knowing what to tell her as I looked at my fur.

Just that morning I was happily eating my breakfast, listening to Sarah and Ashley drone on about what they were going to do as always. And now? Now we were here, our home destroyed our dream in shambles and Ashley…

I closed my eyes and bit my lip at the thought. If only I had been fast enough. If only I had predicted what was about to happen.

“Som-“

“I don’t know Relina!” I snapped, tired of hearing her incessant calling. “I want to know just as much as you do okay?” I added, panting as I tried to calm down from my outburst.

“Well…” Mina said in a low voice, slowly making her way to us. “What should we do about Sarah?” the Floatzel asked, raising her paw and pointing it towards our Trainers.

Shame ran over me upon hearing those words. I hadn’t wanted to look at her from the moment we went in, not because I was mad at her, but because I was mad at myself.

But at that moment I had to look at her, at that woman who sat on the hard concrete at the edge of the medical tent. She was using her arms to keep her knees tight to her chest, her head buried in them to block out the sound of sobbing.

I scanned her body, staring at her beat up and dirtied skin, mostly from the early blast and smoke we had gone through, and her disheveled black hair which had surely seen better days.

What could I do to make her feel better? Sure she had her moments where she would break down, like when we lost the Unova League or when she realized she had failed the Pro League examination. But those times we were all together and we knew what we could do. Now I didn’t know, none of us did. I just wished I was back in that room with that young girl stretching her hand out, where it was me that had to open up to her.

Regardless, I had to try something; I was her ace after all.

I walked closer to her, her sobbing coming off a lot clearer to me as I neared. My eyes watered a bit as well when I saw her, but I got closer, slowly moving my snout against her arm, letting it touch her warm skin to let her know she had me there.

She sat still, ignoring me. I didn’t relent; instead I continued prodding her with my snout.

Then, almost without realizing it, I felt a stinging pain spreading through my cheek as my face and body were slapped aside. The sound spread through the tent, my comrades gasping in disbelief as they stared at Sarah’s hand hanging a few inches above my face.

I stood there, face outstretched, trying to process what had happened.

I slowly turned my head, my mind clear as I saw her heaving figure, tears and snot streaming down her face as she glared at me, arms trembling and eyes filled with madness and disdain. Her lip quivered slightly, as if she was having trouble processing her own thoughts.

And then, the realization of what happened hit me. I grit my teeth, turning my face back and before anyone else could react I lashed out.

My body thrust forward, my fangs clamping down on Sarah’s outstretched hand, ensuing a pained scream. Blood was drawn, gasps were issued and Sarah herself had to bite her other hand to try and hold back her screams.

I don’t know what came over me, maybe it was the stress, maybe it was the fact that Sarah hit me, disrespected me, for the first time since I met her. I bit down on instinct, letting the blood run past my mouth and down her arm.

Suddenly I snapped back, the iron taste in my tongue causing my senses to come back to me. My eyes opened wide as I let go of her hard and retreated, panting to try and get my bearings. My hairs stood on end, a chill running down my spine as I stared at Sarah, expecting her to lash out again, to scream and curse at me for what I had done.

But she didn’t. Instead the whole room went quiet for the first time since we had entered it. Sarah stared at me, ignoring the pain in her hand for a moment before she glanced at it and the blood running down it. It had to still hurt, so why wasn’t she screaming?

She kept her eyes glued to mine, tears beginning to well up in them once more before she threw herself at me and wrapped her arms around my frame, smearing blood on the fur on my back. She put her face against my neck, not even bothering to control herself as she bawled on my neck, her hands grabbing and pulling onto my fur. It all began to hurt after a bit, but it was a pain I welcomed..

The others watched, trying to hold back their own tears as the whole sequence of events dawned on us. We were all trying our best to deal with the situation; we had gotten so caught up in it that we had forgotten about each other.

I lowered my head to Sarah’s shoulder, closing my eyes as she let her cries of frustration, anger and sadness come out. In that moment I knew, I knew that if I stayed by her side there was always something I could do to help.

 

[Persephone]

Mechs and Pokemon are... an odd choice. Especially since we're never quite given a scale of why the Ultra Beasts need to have the mechs to beat them. Sure, Buzzwhole and Xurxitree shattered buildings but... I mean, any old pokemon in some fics can shatter buildings. Especially the strong ones. I think having some flashback to what it was like fighting them without the mechs or giving some idea of the scale involved (i.e. how big was Xurxitree? If he's ten feet tall and the mech is, idk, 40 feet that's a bit overkill.) How big are the mechs anyway? These are things that are far more easily shown in, idk, an unexpected blockbuster hollywood film about two partners teaming up to power a mech in order to fight alien invaders. Maybe call it Atlantic Border or something. Point is, doing it in literature presents some challenges that I never quite saw you overcome.

Especially since this is some mix of giant mech fights and a slow look at the end of the world. So far that balance has been shaky. Sure, Castelia is rekt and someone died off screen but I think it's still a rather tidy apocalypse. What is life actually like after the end? What happened to the rest of the globe? You mentioned that Castelia is basically evacuated so what's the point in fighting? Are there safe zones left or are the only people on Earth the army protected refugees. How futile is this thing anyway?

Because currently I've been told that the fight is going really, really badly but haven't been shown much of it. Especially since no one ever directly asks what the point of this even is if the odds are as bad as Sarah makes them out to be.

On the character side of the balance... idk. Sombra looks out for Sarah and pokemon narrated stuff in general is really cool if done well. You did it well in the flashbacks of Sombra meeting Sarah, even if I felt that the bond there was a little bit rushed. One second she's mad at being torn away from her life and held captive, and the next she decides (despite not understanding Sarah's words) that she is good people. I guess I would've liked to see her fight more and harder early on and then maybe start bonding when the Murkrow attack. Even if that's exactly how the anime opens and... ugh. The problems with avoiding blatant cliche in fan fiction.

Ultimately, Sarah is good people and you do a good job of showing that, especially in the flashbacks. She's also a tad bit suicidal, which Sombra is concerned about. That's sort of their main dynamic so far, Sombra worried about her trainer while simultaneously pushing her too far. And it works, mostly. But I think that it almost didn't work until you started fleshing things out in backstory.

So I think how this story might've benefited, and I think where you're taking it, is to do the first battle (albeit maybe a shorter one or cutting off after ending Ultra Space). Then start flashbacks of how they met through the end of the world, eventually ending up close to the present. You don't have to go through all of it, but it would give you a chance to show the power of the Ultra Beasts, how Sombra and Sarah got there and what the world is like now. And then you can pick up back at the "present" where they fight their battle, Sombra for her trainer and Sarah for... I don't actually quite get what she's fighting for. Part of why I think you really need more flashbacks, either now or in edits of early chapters.

Also do you have a beta? if not, you should probably get one. Some odd grammar throughout the work that betas are usually for.

tl;dr I'd actually really like to see you do a pokemon-narrated journey fic because that one flashback was great, you probably need to give a sense of scale and flesh out character motivations before you go back to mechs smashing each other.

 

[Ghostsoul]

I put my paws and slid my ears downwards to drown out the noise, but it was to no avail when compared to her enraged voice

This is some pretty cute emotional imagery! Although the fact she is enraged is a bit repetitive.

After our battle with the Xurkitree, Sarah and I were sent to see our supervisor, Commander Chariens.The man’s deep green eyes stared at us with expectancy, a hand brushing back a strand of his greyish black hair.

A concise character description containing what we need to know without going overboard, and well integrated into the story.

“According to the reports, your body’s motor responses have slowed down from Linking with Sombra. We don’t know how much damage that could spell for your body in the long run so we’re giving you the next two weeks off,

Sounds like this has some good worldbuilding potential for later on! In terms of the military agency and it's rules.

It wasn’t any new to me, I had already seen the same picture many times, Sarah and I even lived through it ourselves at some point. Yet I felt a stinging pain every time I saw them there, trying to collect what was left of their lives. It was a reminder of both what we were fighting for and what we had failed to accomplish.

This is a really good mood setting line!

I didn’t know how it worked, but I assumed it had to do with our link to Psychic and Ghost types.

Still thinks this needs expanding upon, just like a line or two would do to explain the connection.

walked closer to her, her sobbing coming off a lot clearer to me as I neared. My eyes watered a bit as well when I saw her, but I got closer, slowly moving my snout against her arm, letting it touch her warm skin to let her know she had me there.

She sat still, ignoring me. I didn’t relent; instead I continued prodding her with my snout.

Then, almost without realizing it, I felt a stinging pain spreading through my cheek as my face and body were slapped aside. The sound spread through the tent, my comrades gasping in disbelief as they stared at Sarah’s hand hanging a few inches above my face.

Again. good emotional build up, generally builds a tense atmosphere.

I slowly turned my head, my mind clear as I saw her heaving figure, tears and snot streaming down her face as she glared at me, arms trembling and eyes filled with madness and disdain. Her lip quivered slightly, as if she was having trouble processing her own thoughts.

And then, the realization of what happened hit me. I grit my teeth, turning my face back and before anyone else could react I lashed out.

Same as above!

I lowered my head to Sarah’s shoulder, closing my eyes as she let her cries of frustration, anger and sadness come out. In that moment I knew, I knew that if I stayed by her side there was always something I could do to help.

Nice choice of ending, it highlights what the fic is about. The connection these two characters at the end of the world.

This was good for an emotionally driven chapter away from the action, and was a good choice of follow up to the flashback chapter that came before it. I think some expansion on the worldbuilding here might be interesting, but then again, only go along with it if you think it'll help the genre (and not slow down the pace, for example). Sombra's Pokemon perspective is especially interesting, I would say that this is one of the chapters that highlights this.

 

[AceTrainer14]

Finally got around to finishing this. Let's get stuck in.

I do think this is an improvement on Pokemon Academy. A lot of my issues with that story was the size of the cast and the lack of description makes it quite hard to follow, plus there were a number of subplots and arcs that all just added up. I think the relatively smaller scale of this story, even if it involves robots and monsters fighting each other, is much better, and pulling the focus back to two characters was a smart idea, even if there are a number of supporting characters floating about.

There is some nice action in here, and I look forward to seeing how big you can take it. However, I was drawn out of the action quite regularly as you tended to use very similar phrasing in short spaces that got distracting quite quickly. For example, in the first chapter, you use variations of both "barrage of rubble" and "cloud of dust" twice in a four paragraph turn around. I think it would serve the story and your writing better if the vocabulary was a bit broader and more varied, to both make the battle sequences feel more colourful and so they come alive more than they do. When the descriptions all feel the same, it is quite easy to phase out and lose interest in what is happening if it feels like the author doesn't care.

I think it was a bold choice to do first person perspective from a Pokemon's point of view, and I applaud you for it. In saying that, I think it does tend to make things a little awkward with this particular story. There is a lot of reference to Sombra bending her legs and jumping in a certain way, and sometimes it just feels awkward to read. I also found that Sombra thinks and notices too much for a Pokemon. Given how much focus is given to Sarah, I think it would have been a lot easier to just put the story from her point of view as much of what we read is what Sombra thinks of her anyway. Outside of the sweet opening of the third chapter, Sombra has never really felt very Pokemon-like. She is not a bad character, and I like that she has been given a decent personality that is fitting for a Pokemon in her position, but there is too much of a human focus to make things work naturally.

One reason I may feel this way is because there are a lot of sentences that have too much in them. It feels ironic to praise you for more description and then go to this, but it is more about sentence structure. Some of your sentences sometimes feel like there have two or three or four sentences worth of content in them at once. This is never more noticeable than when you add some action on after "he said" or what have you. The quote believe is one of the better examples I could find while going through the chapters again, but it is far from the only one. Especially when the sentence involves Sombra doing something, having too much happening in one sentence just makes the whole sentence feel a tad clunky.

“I didn’t say suspension, Sergeant Villareal, I said ‘leave’,” the man she was speaking to replied, his eyes never leaving the clipboard he was holding on his left hand as he typed on his laptop with his right, I honestly don’t know how humans can do stuff like that.

Another thing I liked about the fic was the bond between Sarah and Sombra. There is rarely much focus on Poke-human bonds in stories, so it was nice to see that these two have a real relationship. While I thought the scene in the kitchen dragged on a bit too long in the first chapter, I like those looks at their past and I think having more of a balance between the present and the past could help create a firmer bond between them in the reader's eyes.

However, I must question why you put in the scene at the end of the fourth chapter. Maybe if there is some resolution to it in the next chapter, I can see a purpose, but right now it feels like drama for the sake of drama. It came entirely out of the blue and I cannot see what purpose it serves. After three and a half chapters establishing their bond, throwing in a bit of violence like that was very left field and very distracting.

Other things I wanted to note:
- I would recommend using Grammarly before publishing. There were a number of times where it felt like there were too many commas or not enough, and Grammarly is a better judge of that than most people are.
- I do think a Beta Reader would help. The stricter the better. Someone to tell you when a sentence is too long or when phrasing feels a bit awkward, and help push you even further towards greatness.
- Calling the mecha It makes whatever sentence It appears in feel very oddly worded and kind of clunky.

Overall, there is a lot of potential in the story, but it needs a bit of a tidy up to reach that potential. Focusing on some greater variety of descriptions and shorter, punchier sentences would help enormously. If Sombra is to remain the lead and focus, she should be more of a Pokemon and react in a less-human way - Dodger or Gwen in spectra and Iterations are good examples to get a feel for a more natural, animalistic character.

 

[Ghostsoul]

Because You Were There (Full Review)

General note

Add an index, take the summary out of spoilers but make the font smaller. Centre chapter titles and possibly bold or underline them as well. Presentation helps since a lot of readers, especially those new to the workshop will judge you fairly quickly on things such as basic neatness. Also, something that might help the text (this is very minor) is to go through and remove some instances of the word ‘that’ this goes for fiction in general, too many unnecessary uses of ‘that’ can cut the pace. I wouldn’t bother avoiding them on first and second drafts though.

Chapter 1

The opening is both rather fresh and a little cliché. It already goes over Sarah’s personality traits which the reader should kind of be finding out for themselves. Although Sombra’s views on death do appear solemn, and the last paragraph does manage to reference the general ‘feel’ of the Pokemon universe making it much more direct and light-hearted (albeit still feels a bit too direct, making it feel out of place). I’m also not sure if the ellipses are correctly used here.

Thing I generally notice at first, there are parts that could be cut, I agree with Ace in terms of the first chapter some things could be cut (or perhaps just altered in some way) to make the action punchier and increase the feeling of risk or tension in association with piloting mechs. Although the description actually does help this atmosphere. It’s certainly something to do with sentence length. The tension is there, you just need to be able to sustain it properly.

Here’s an example:

But even that wasn’t enough, as soon as I turned around I was greeted by a red blur, its body coming down on me and forcing me to jump off the building in an attempt to avoid its attack.

Could be.

But that wasn't enough. I turned around to a red blur. Its body was coming down on me! I was forced to jump from the building to avoid its attack.

or

I knew I couldn’t waste any time. I let out a howl of dark energy that blew away the smoke in an instant and prayed that it would land. The being was cunning however and it punched me before I knew it, the sound of the punch ringing around me.

To

I couldn’t waste any time. I let out a how of dark energy, blowing away the smoke. I prayed that it would land, but the beast was cunning and punched me before I knew it. The sound ringing around me.

I’m surprised Sombra is unaware completely of the navigational language, I thought she would have obtained some grasp of it by now?

Otherwise the action in this chapter seems mostly good and if you made the sentence structure a little more dramatic.

I’m not sure if the flashback would be more fitting in a separate chapter, since it kind of takes you out of the action somewhat. It might work as a separate, yet shorter chapter possibly. Although it is rightfully much more relaxed than the previous chapter. Here you might want to be using longer sentences to create a homelier atmosphere. Although the part where the ultra-beasts are unveiled isn’t really dramatized that much, and it does need a bit more tension


Chapter 2

Starts of with an even stronger highlight of Sombra and Sarah’s relationship, and allows us to implicitly learn about both of the characters. Although within the first few sentences there are a lot of things which are either kind of a given stated to us, or not vert well explained to us. What is the toll on Sarah exactly and it’s kinda obvious that the Ultra Beasts would be more of a threat than it, even if you don’t quite fully explain what it is.

I run into the same issue with the sentences being a bit too long to hold drama. (For example, you repeat the word ‘city’ within the same couple of sentences, even though it is clear you are talking about the city (still) and another time in regard to some electrical currents. I also think some more emphasis on the other senses such as taste, sound and smell would have helped immerse us in the pace of the drama.

The metaphors here and similes too, are rather rare, but this actually helps the fic, since they appear to be saved for the right moments.

I feel like part of the drama is given in a somewhat exposition-ish way, which is both helpful and a bit damaging. The reader needs this information, yet there are ways it could be blended into the text better while keep the action based atmosphere.

There are also a lot more characters in this chapter than the last, considering the main focus is on Sombra and Sarah these characters make the Chapter a tiny bit hard to follow, although they are also somewhat important for setting up the consequences of the mech battles and how deadly the fights really can be.

Both Chapter 1 and Chapter 2 end with ‘black screens’ come on now!


Chapter 3

Flashback Chapter! Not sure about it’s placement. But now I’m kind of feeling uncertain about the placement of the chapters in general. It’s a bit jarring in places, perhaps.

Although, like the opening, it starts with some good insight into Sombra’s psyche, one that isn’t too lavish and does have an impact. In general, the chapter does well at establishing Sombra’s perspective both as a Pokémon and as a character. She is still a sentient creature, but one with a vastly different perspective than that of the humans. The atmosphere it creates dosen’t aim to be intimidating, but serene.

The sentences aren’t too much of an issue here. Although I feel like the repetition of the word ‘blur’ in a few places could be switched for something else and the dialogue feels natural in most places, but younger Sarah’s dialogue appears a tad cheesy, perhaps.

It is a lot less action-ish than the previous ones, perhaps it’s what helps the writing style work better as it lends itself to reminiscence and introspection. The rhetorical questions going through the character’s head helps establish it.

Although the transition into the next scene could have done with a change of pace, to perhaps establish more a sense of panic, the latter part of the scene does better in this aspect however, and I feel as if you could have increased the emotional reactions between the two characters.


Chapter 4

Chapter 4 mostly has it’s pacing fine, although I would perhaps like some expansion on what happened to the world after the Ultra Beasts attacked. I feel like quite a bit of worldbuilding is drawn upon but not fully explored.

The emotions here are a lot stronger in the characters as well. There is a sense of both their physical reactions and internal reactions. There's a good sense of place, and generally enough description so that it's not too excessive.

This chapter was pretty good, but I get the feeling it could be a tad longer, in order to focus on everything that happened during it.


Other Thoughts:

You introduce a lot of characters, It’s kind of hard to keep track of some of them, I suggest you really do keep the focus on Sombra and Sarah for the most part.

I’m not sure about the use of in medias res in the placement of the chapters. The flashbacks are a good idea, although I feel as if the order of reading needs to be well integrated for them to work fully and keep the reader (especially archival ones) invested.

Character wise, I feel like Sombra’s character came through a lot more than Sarah’s did, but perhaps that’s just where I placed most of my attention. Sombra’s perspective is fresh, but also understandable. She’s not too naïve to be classified as an unreliable narrator, but she’s different enough to stand out against narrators from other fics I’ve read. Your perspective on Pokemon works here.

 

[Beth Pavell]

It's been a while, but what the hell, I finished work early.

Technical Accuracy/Style
I'm kind of reminded of how how different this is even to the likes of Childhood's End. Maybe it was all that RP'ing that did it, but I can tell you're not making silly mistakes from slapdash typing. I get the impression that you're taking your time with this in a way you never really did with Second Year Rhapsody. The flashback narrative does the job well, without frills but not so artless as to be bland. The action sequence this time round was better - in a flashback it's appropriate for the narrative to be a bit disassociated from the combat, but in any case there was a good balance of the practical descriptive details and the crunch and punch of the combat.

If you have a persistent weakness, it's that the commas always seem to be in the wrong place. Or at least, in the less effective place:

I can certainly recall the moment I met her. How could I forget that barely fifteen years old, girl whose wide smile simply made my own distant gaze stronger?

There the comma really needs to be after "girl"

The next few days after meeting Sarah were a blur to me, I couldn’t even properly get used to living at her house before we were out of it, walking through the forest around Nacrene City in the dead of night.

There simply turning the first comma into a full stop would instantly make the opening that much better. It's about thinking of what the pauses make the audience do. A short opening sentence before a longer bit of exposition or description gives that sentence that much more impact. You can foreground - to use the technical term - the information you want to stand out the most by essentially using punctuation to lift it out of the surrounding narrative.

Plot/Characters
This is a serviceable chapter. You're not trying to do too much with too few words here, and boy, it makes a world of difference. Chigon would never have had this level of attention paid to him - it ought to be said, come to that, that Sombra's story is on the right side of melodrama. Perhaps it's inevitable given that three chapters have been from Sombra's perspective, but I feel like there's not a lot to mark out Sarah as being much more than a usual Flaze-kun girl. She'd certainly appreciate some time in the spotlight before long.

Final Thoughts
"A serviceable chapter" sounds like it's being damned with faint praise, but in the world of fanfiction I often think there aren't enough of them. I think Ghostsoul's comment about the dialogue is fair - and given that you're writing a mecha story it would be smart to carefully pick where the cheese is going to be. I think the best kinds of stories like that season it well with some strategic seriousness.

 

[Beth Pavell]

A few comments on Chapter 4

Kids are ... tricky. From everything I've read war trauma tends to leak out of kids in ways you might not expect. The Espurr girl there sounds more like a teenager than a child, I think, particularly in the way she thanks Sarah. I'm not sure a child would really be able to articulate that kind of thought even though they might feel it.

From Laughter Under the Bombs, a diary written in wartime Beirut:

"I told them [the kids] to think of a magic suitcase ... in this magic suitcase they can put one or more things ... these are the most important and special things they have in their world ... these mean more to them than anything else.

[...]

One girl got up and said "I would put as many cell phones as I could in my suitcase." When I asked her why she said: "because I don't know where everyone is, I would give one to each one of my family and friends and that way I could call them and know where they are and how they are." She is 7 years old. When she said this everyone nodded and immediately added cell phones to their list.

Karim, reclusive 8 year old said: "I would put pictures of my dad and my brother." Karim lost his father in prior conflicts and his brother only 15 days ago ... He is surprisingly well adjusted and say that this is not the time to think about this - right now he needs to make sure the rest of his family and him are safe ... he says that "later" he would cry.

[...]

Jawad, an 11 year old, who say that what he put in his actual suitcase with his clothes was "rocks." He said it with such sadness and dread that I let it go ... I started to chat with him and I learnt that after his house got destroyed - he didn't want to be homeless or leave his room, so he took a couple of rocks from the ruins of his house before his family evacuated from their targeted village. He says they are from the wall of his room and that way his home is always with him and that no one can take that from him."

That's a few accounts of real kids, some of which you might well be sceptical of if you saw it in fiction. The old Reality is Unrealistic trope isn't an easy one to get round. I think I would probably avoid the subject of war kids altogether. When it comes to that scene, I think it would work just as well with a teenager of some sort, possibly a kid of Trainer age who hadn't had a chance to so much as run out of money on a trainer journey, something like that.

This post-apocalypse is perhaps a little bit tidy, but I rather feel that there's not been an appropriate time to show off much of the warzone yet. You could have hinted at some of it in the first couple of chapters, where the state of Castelia gives you some opportunity to hint at the likes of how long the warzone's been active and what it has in terms of strategic value.

 

[Flaze]

@Athena, @AceTrainer14 , @Ghostsoul, @Beth Pavell

Spoiler

These are things that are far more easily shown in, idk, an unexpected blockbuster hollywood film about two partners teaming up to power a mech in order to fight alien invaders. Maybe call it Atlantic Border or something. Point is, doing it in literature presents some challenges that I never quite saw you overcome.

Thanks for that jab, it's nice to know you care ;p

Sure, Castelia is rekt and someone died off screen but I think it's still a rather tidy apocalypse. What is life actually like after the end? What happened to the rest of the globe? You mentioned that Castelia is basically evacuated so what's the point in fighting?

I'll be exploring this a bit more. Truth be told part of the reason for the lack of focus on just how destroyed the city was is because the core of the story was always supposed to be on Sarah and Sombra and their lives there.

I wanted to expand more on everything else when I decided to turn this into a proper fic, but I guess the little description I gave Castelia isn't enough, so I'll expand more later. Just, you know, give me some time.

Even if that's exactly how the anime opens and... ugh. The problems with avoiding blatant cliche in fan fiction.

It actually was meant to be a parallel to what went on in the anime, so I'm glad you caught that even if it didn't come out as well as I had hoped.

hen start flashbacks of how they met through the end of the world, eventually ending up close to the present.

Saddle up then.

I don't actually quite get what she's fighting for. Part of why I think you really need more flashbacks, either now or in edits of early chapters.

Again, going into Sarah's motivation is something that I'm saving for later, you'll get hints in the coming chapters but it won't be explicitly clear until later.

I was drawn out of the action quite regularly as you tended to use very similar phrasing in short spaces that got distracting quite quickly.

Yeah...I do need to consult thesaurus more often, I tend to write out my action scenes as they come in my head and don't focus too much on changing the word choices after they're done.

There is a lot of reference to Sombra bending her legs and jumping in a certain way, and sometimes it just feels awkward to read. I also found that Sombra thinks and notices too much for a Pokemon.

Can you give me some examples of these references? Over DM would be fine. As for Sombra acting less than animalistic. It's mosly because of the way I'm taking it. I'm not going with the fully animalistic route or the animalistic but intelligent route of other stories.

Instead I'm borrowing more from PMD or Survival Project where Pokemon can become intelligent and even understand things on a human level with enough time. This is the case for a lot of the way Sombra acts as she's been living with Sarah for 20 years now and is why she can articulate her thoughts really well. Maybe it's not the best, but it's what I chose to focus on here.

Some of your sentences sometimes feel like there have two or three or four sentences worth of content in them at once.

I do hav etrouble figuring out when to divide my sentences some times. When I say them in my head I tend to think of them as coming out really quickly so I miss the point where they break up.

However, I must question why you put in the scene at the end of the fourth chapter

It was meant to showcase the way Sarah herself had acted back when she had been in the situation the girl was in. It wasn't there just for drama either, but to showcase a moment of weakness where Sarah had lost everything in her life and acted out because of it, which in turn caused Sombra to act out. It's also one of the moments Sombra feels ashamed of.

- I would recommend using Grammarly before publishing. There were a number of times where it felt like there were too many commas or not enough, and Grammarly is a better judge of that than most people are.

I'll start using it more often now I guess, my one issue with Grammarly is that I don't always agree with the changes it asks for and sometimes it changes things in a way that misses the point.

- Calling the mecha It makes whatever sentence It appears in feel very oddly worded and kind of clunky.

I mostly refer to the Umbra as It because Sombra doesn't really like to address it properly. It was meant to show how she prefers to detach herself from it even though it's got her shape and face on it.

but younger Sarah’s dialogue appears a tad cheesy, perhaps.

Welp, I guess it was part of rushing the scene through, but I was a bit worried about tha tmyself.

It is a lot less action-ish than the previous ones, perhaps it’s what helps the writing style work better as it lends itself to reminiscence and introspection.

Am I losing my edge in writing action scenes? ;(

The flashbacks are a good idea, although I feel as if the order of reading needs to be well integrated for them to work fully and keep the reader (especially archival ones) invested.

I took a cue from this and are going to be changing the way I do them starting with this chapter.

get the impression that you're taking your time with this in a way you never really did with Second Year Rhapsody.

Hey! I did take my time with SYR, but is true that I'm putting more thought into what I do with this fic than I did there. Mostly because it's a different kind of outing for me. I still could do a lot better though.

f you have a persistent weakness, it's that the commas always seem to be in the wrong place

Refer to the having trouble in structuring my sentences comment above.

She'd certainly appreciate some time in the spotlight before long.

I'll take note of that.

Kids are ... tricky. From everything I've read war trauma tends to leak out of kids in ways you might not expect. The Espurr girl there sounds more like a teenager than a child

I was actually thinking of this, not exactly because of what you just mentioned but that does add more to it, but because of something else I was thinking up where ageing her up would make things easier for me.

Anyways, I think that's all the responses. Suffice to say, I was actually a bit down the last couple of weeks in trying to process all of the critiques and seeing how I could incorporate them going forward. I'm not kidding when I say that I've restructured the way I was going with this story a lot to try and make the experience better; though excuse me if it's still not quite what you'd expect it to be.

I know the story is unusual and unconventional and that I may be in over my head, but I really do want to try and make this the best it can be. Mostly because I want to practice with more genres and themes that I wouldn't get to explore if I stuck to writing simple slice of life comedies with some actions mixed in.

But anyways, this chapter is a lot different than before and it's the official start of Part 2, we'll be going into a bit of an extended flashback arc and I think there'll be some surprises down the line so...I hope you enjoy it.

Part 5: Choice​

Year 2

Television had surprisingly become a good friend of mine throughout my life. It was a convenient way for me to learn more about human language and customs, that had always interested me. With time Sarah picked up on this and even let me watch stuff with her on her computer.

There was nothing better than those days when we were all huddled up and laughing together.

But television had taken a different meaning in the years after the Ultra Beast's first appearance. It wasn't any longer about watching cheesy romantic comedies or hearing Sarah complain about how “Everything had explosions now”. Instead, we stayed glued to it for the news, careful in case another attack rocked our worlds suddenly.

Or at least that's what I told myself as I focused on the newscast in front of that familiar, and dreaded flat screen. The coverage on the news was Aquacorde Town. The news lady walked through the field of fallen homes and buildings, with the camera continually focusing on the people and Pokemon that were still trying to pick their lives back up.

"…with the fall of Aquacorde's port after the Ultra Beasts second attack, the town, once recognized for its fishing and shipyard, has been unable to recover fully. The Kalos Government has issued multiple briefings in regards to funding for the town. Sadly these haven't amounted to anything," the newswoman droned on. My eyes didn't focus on her though. They fell on a small family that had gathered behind her a steaming bowl of soup in front of them. Their crestfallen faces shone through the light of the flame as they tried their best to turn away from the camera.

Frustration coursed through me,I lowered my gaze. Even after a year and a half there still wasn't much information on what those beings were. Even the name “Ultra Beasts” had started out as an insensitive joke that spread across the internet. It was a fitting name, but one that didn't express how destructive and monstrous they were, even to us Pokemon.

"Let's change this. It's getting depressing," I heard Mina call out from the sofa behind me, I saw her hand going for the remote from the corner of my eye. I turned my head, glaring at her and growling, which in turn caused the Floatzel to stop in her tracks. She retreated her hand, a guilt-ridden expression on her face. "Sorry boss…" she trailed off, turning away from me.

"That wasn't nice," Relena whispered beside me.

I turned towards her; a frown still etched on my face. "Ultra Beasts or not, she has to remember her place," I said. I was always the leader, I wasn't going to give up, no matter what.

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to go back to the newscast either way. The sound of Sarah's parents yelling in the background started seeping into my ear, I had to acknowledge what I was trying so hard to ignore.

"You're serving too much rice. If we don't save it, then we'll run out before week's end!" I heard Sarah's mother shout, her voice tired and desperate.

"I've been working my ass off behind a shelf so that we can have any food at all. I can damn well eat as much as I please," Sarah's father yelled back in a rage. The sound of a plate being slammed on the table echoed throughout the house shortly after.

"They're fighting again," I heard Ice Cream muttered.

Rolling my eyes was the best I could do. After all, Sarah's parents had taken us all in after the attack in Castelia. Sarah herself wasn't too happy about the ordeal and had vowed that we would get back on our feet soon enough.

But then the second attack happened, and the League suspended all activity, even prohibiting Trainer Journeys and suspending work at Pokeball factories until further notice. I don't know the specifics of why they took that choice, only that it killed our dreams of reaching the Pro League.

I wish I could say we things had improved. But, sadly, that wasn't the case.

"When do you guys think Sarah will get back?" Kale, Sarah's Roserade, asked. She had been sitting next to Mina and had chosen to stay quiet, but the sight of Sarah's parents arguing had brought on her curiosity about the topic we were all trying to avoid.

"Who knows at this point," Mina sighed in frustration and leaned against the sofa. "Last time she was gone for a week. Frankly, I'm starting to think our Trainer's reached the end of her road."

"Don't say that," Relena raised her beak, staring the Floatzel down. "Sarah will return like always. We just have to be here when she does. Right?"

Relena turned to face me. I couldn't back her up on it though. Even I had started to have my doubts about what Sarah was planning. She had grown so distant, yet indifferent to us and everyone around her and insisted on keeping us at a distance no matter what she did; whether it was leaving for days on end or staying holed up in her room.

As if on cue, the sound of the older humans arguing was silenced by a loud screeching. My teammates stood up, sticking their heads out towards the door. So did Sarah's parents.

"Wow, I didn't know I had a cavalry waiting for me," Sarah said, closing the door. She walked into the house, her body swinging as she kept her hand glued to whatever was beside her. "What? you guys look like you've seen a ghost," she chuckled.

We all stared at her as she sauntered in, trying her best to get her balance. Her father was the first one to step up, his face filled with disdain. "You were gone for three days."

"Yeah? So what?" Sarah replied with a smirk, sidestepping her dad. She turned back to him, a mocking expression on her face. "Excuse me, officer. Please don't throw me in jail for wanting to have some fun!" she called out. "Oh right. You're on desk duty now,"

"Sarah, stop it. We were really worried about you here," her mother warned, only for Sarah to push her aside as she passed.

"Oh, now you worry about me, that's rich," She turned back towards them, the tension in the air rising quickly as well gathered beside them. I raised my ears and took a pouncing position, ready to defuse the situation if it escalated too quickly.

My movements seemed to have alerted her. She turned to face me, her head leaning back in a daze. "Oh hey Sombra, what? Gonna bite me again?" her quiet laughter didn't help in alleviating the sting of her words. I remained ready anyway.

"Stop acting like a brat," her father yelled. He got so close to Sarah that I honestly thought he was about to punch him. He held back, but I could see the desire in his clenched fists. "At least your pets help your mother around the house and guard the place."

"So I'm useless now?" She laughed, holding her hand up to her forehead as she turned towards her bedroom.

"When you go off for days on end and only come back to stay locked up in your room in front of a screen, yes, you are a useless brat!"

"Gene!"

"Don't hold me back here Maurine. I've been patient with her. I can understand how she feels," he turned towards his wife for a moment, only to look back at Sarah. His face riddled with anger and pain. "You know I was never up for the whole Trainer schtick, especially after you decide that it was best to run away. But I accepted it; I supported you."

"But now that the League is done with it's time for you to stop playing games. If you don't, then you can just leave."

Sarah didn't say anything. She kept her gaze stuck on her bedroom door, the same room where we had exchanged our greetings. Then, she let out a sigh loud enough to calm me down. "I know."

Slowly she turned around, her face now turning tired and beaten down. "I hope this will be useful enough for you."

She took out her phone slowly and held it forward for us to see.

It was moments like these where I was proud of my eyesight, it was just enough for me to make out the phone's screen.

The screen showed a page adorned with flat shades of grey and white along with white letters that could jump out at anyone's eyes. At the top of the page was a large image showcasing a group of men and women, all lined up next to each other and saluting. They were dressed in overly formal clothing, with lots of medals donned on their chests.

I remembered seeing images like that on TV or Sarah's computer before. They were supposed to represent the groups humans used to fight against each other. Similar to how Pokemon packs had protectors that took care of safeguarding their specific clan.

Just that thought made me dread what Sarah was going to say, but none of it prepared me for what the page said right below the picture.

"The International Defense Force Needs You-It's Time to Take the World Back"

"What's this?" Sarah's father's eyebrow furrowed, his expression turning sceptical.

"Sarah, you can't seriously be thinking-" her mom interjected, only for Sarah to lower her phone and nod her head.

"I've been thinking it for a long time," her voice sounded resolute, confident. It was like the days before we went off to a tournament. "I tried getting back on my feet. I tried finding something else to do. But I just…I just can't."

She moved back, her voice breaking a little bit and causing my expression to fall with hers.

Looking at Sarah standing there, unsure, it made me regret the way I had acted with her before and after the tent.

That day had changed our dynamic, whether I wanted to or not. She wouldn't admit it, but it had. She had retreated and trusted less in us, not at first. In fact, at the start things went back to normal quickly.

Things changed once the second and third attacks happened and all League related events were put on indefinite hiatus. Then she just started drifting apart, focusing on the Ultra Beasts and the news as if it was the only thing she could do.

"So this is your choice?"

"Yeah."

Sarah's father retreated upon hearing this, closing his eyes before he began walking back to the table.

"Please reconsider this," his mom said, turning towards her daughter and slowly sliding her hands onto her shoulders. But Sarah wouldn't look back. "Going off on a journey is one thing. This-this is practically suicide."

"Not if I can do something. Those things just keep coming at us, and we're not even sure on how to take them down!" She lifted her hand up, gently sliding her mother's hands off of her shoulder. "I'd rather take that risk and feel like I'm doing something than just sit back and pretend that everything will go back to normal tomorrow."

Her mother's lip quivered a bit before she too rescinded. Her eyes tightened as she tried her best to hold back her words, or maybe they were tears.

I took that as my cue and walked towards Sarah, following behind her as she opened the door to her room. I turned back to the others and signalled for them to follow. We had to at least hear her out as a team.

I saw Pivot close the door behind him once we walked inside, leaving the room in complete darkness, save for the moonlight that shone through Sarah's window; the same window where the two us had first held hands. Now, on the spot where I had once stood where a bunch of dust-covered boxes. The shine of the moon reflected on the trophies that peeked through them, only for it to highlight the dust that they too had gathered and filled all of our hearts with regret.

Sarah let out a heavy sigh as she fell on the chair in front of her computer, the screen opened to show a bigger more expansive version of the page she had displayed on her device. She leaned back, her body flexing against the back of the chair as she let her arms fall back. She stuck her gaze to the roof, leaving us with expectation.

"Okay," she finally spoke. She pushed her body back forward and stared at all of us, retaking that confident look from before. "I know you guys probably think I've lost my mind too. I don't blame you, it's not like I've trained you to fight on a battlefield or something," she smiled slightly at this, petting Mina's fur a bit as she did. "But I'm sure that this is where I'm meant to go next. Unfortunately, I can't take all of you with me."

My eyes and ears shot up upon hearing her, staring at her in disbelief and discomfort. Was she going to leave us, me, behind? The thought of it was enough to make my footing slip a bit, prompting Relena to support me.

"You see, whatever these guys are cooking up, it seems like they're asking for candidates to bring a Pokemon of their choosing," she said, leaning back once more, except that this time she raised her left leg and rested it on the chair, wrapping her arms around her knee. "I've been doing some digging, and rumors say the government is building something meant to take down Ultra Beasts. I guess this relates to that."

"But either way. Whether I want to or not I can only take one of you with me," she frowned and continued to stare at us once more. She couldn't keep her gaze up for too long and instead rested her forehead on her knee. "I don't have the heart to choose one. So I'll let you guys pick amongst yourselves, it's the least I could do with the way I've acted lately."

She said that, but her decision only managed to make the weight that had fallen on us harder. Not only was Sarah leaving for something that could potentially kill her, but she also wanted us to choose the one that would accompany and watch it all happen.

Without saying anything more she stood up and walked out of the room. Her hand rested on the door's ledge for a moment, as if she wanted to add something else, but she eventually closed the door behind her.

Saying that we were all confused and hesitant to speak was an understatement, even I had trouble understanding what was going on. I glanced at everyone, and everyone glanced at me in what was a surprisingly comical moment amidst all the tension. Pivot played with his ear absentmindedly while Ice Cream just floated around, the eyes on both of his heads glancing around frantically.

"So what shall we do?" Kale was the first one to interject, crossing her rose-like arms together as she stared at Relena and me. "Our master has made up her mind, and I think we all know that we can't exactly change it."

"This-this is true," Relena nodded her head. She looked at me, expecting me to answer for her.

"Of course there's only one thing we can do!" Mina shouted. "We wanted her to be our Trainer again right? Might as well follow her wishes or whatever."

"Even if that means l-letting her d-die," Ice Cream argued nervously, his body shivering as his spoke and let out a cloud of powdered snow.

"Why do you guys have to assume she will die?" Mina's voice became a lot louder now, so much so that she made Ice Cream float back and almost hit the desk. "Whoever goes with her would have to do a pretty shitty job not to be able to come back," she glanced at me for a moment, as if challenging me. "Right leader?"

"Why are you looking at me?"

"Well. You're the leader right. Or are you saying you weren't planning on going?" She questioned a slight grin on her face. So she was challenging me. "All your posturing is worth Rattatta crap now huh?"

"Mina!"

"Leave her," I was oozing with contempt. "She's right; I'm the leader. I should be the one to go."

"You don't h-h-have. S-Sarah asked u-us all to c-c-c-choose."

"We would've all chosen Sombra anyway," Pivot spoke, letting go of his ear but keeping his gaze away from all of us.

I couldn't turn back now, not even if I wanted to. "If you're all okay with it," I glanced at Mina, half expecting her to add something. Instead, she stayed quiet and turned away from me. "I'm Sarah's starter. I can't let any of you take that burden."

"But-"

"It's okay Relena," I said reassuringly. I turned towards her, my face almost breaking when I saw her trying to contain tears. "You've been a great second in command. Now, I must go forward alone."

I stepped forward, now taking my place in the center of our makeshift circle as I basked in the moonlight. The memory of the night in the tent came flooding back to me, the expression in everyone's and especially Sarah's face still vibrant to me. Maybe things had already changed then. Perhaps they were never going to go back no matter what.

If so then, I had to move forward. Even if it meant throwing my own life away.

That was the vow I made that day as everyone, the comrades that I had grown to trust, watched in awe and fear.

That was the day I decided to walk alongside her. Alongside the person that gave me my name.

 

[diamondpearl876]

Okay, here we go. I'm going to separate this into two posts for clarity's sake.

THIS POST: A chapter 1 review as part of a review exchange, and then chapter 5. Since a lot of this is essentially a re-review, I apologize in advance for anything I repeat from previous reviews.

CHAPTER 1

It’s not like I was naïve enough to think I wouldn’t, but I always thought that when the time came I’ll be resting in my soft cushion, barely being able to breathe while giving my pups a wry, calm yet solemn smile.

I think a lot of what this fic is missing in the character department is details. They're there, but there's not much significance to many of them. For example, Sombra's cushion is mentioned a few times in this opening chapter, and even in this opening paragraph. I get the sense it's important to her, but I don't know why. While a cushion is not the most exciting thing in the world, if you can make the readers realize why it's important to Sombra, it suddenly feels a lot more exciting as we get to connect with Sombra.

I think I said this before, though, that Sombra's overall personality shines through well in the opening paragraphs here, and really, throughout the entire first chapter.

I can still recall the day when it all started. I was sprawled out on my cushion, my legs felt sore.

See, the parallelism here would've been perfect if we knew why this cushion meant something to Sombra.

My ears perked up as I felt Sarah walk past me;

Does Sombra have enhanced hearing or? I assume so, as I know she has enhanced eyesight from a later chapter. The mention of her advanced eyesight was good because you don't explicitly say that Sombra has said eyesight - she just admits she's glad for it and that she's able to see Sarah's phone from afar because otherwise, she'd have missed out on important information during the conversation with Sarah and her parents.

she let out a loud yawn as she passed her hand over her long unkempt black hair, it always made me laugh how my fur was in a better state than her hair.

This is the kind of detail I mean. Not only do you weave the color and length of Sarah's hair in naturally, but you add a little inside joke in the mix at the perfect time. That makes Sarah and Sombra's relationship feel unique. So! The details are there, just not everywhere, ya feel?

I made my way into the kitchen and was greeted by the sound of pokechow falling on my bowl, making a smile cross my face as I quickly glued myself to the bowl with delight.

I assumed someone else was pouring the pokechow, since there's no indication of Sarah moving with Sombra. The way it's worded, it kind of feels like Sarah teleported into the kitchen.

I felt sad for humans, having to cook their own food while Pokemon just had to eat a few pellet sized biscuits, but hey, she had opposing thumbs and I didn’t so it canceled out.

This is an interesting detail among many about how sentient and animalistic Sombra is. Here specifically, she's not really capable of making her own food or whatever in a domestic setting, but she understands opposable thumbs. I do have to say I think you've handled the balance really, really well without straying too far one way or the other, so kudos on that.

Also, those pellets must be packed with all kinds of nutrients, 'cause I'd think a creature with elemental/supernatural/magic/what have you powers would need a lot more energy from food and/or supplements than humans.

I frowned to myself as I saw Sarah’s friend, Ashley, walk through the hall, her long blond hair waving around as she walked inside.

Does Ashley live with Sarah as a roommate or something? It's kinda awkward how she just... appears.

“You certainly have drive for the things you like,” Sarah quipped back, causing Ashley to gasp and laugh. I didn’t understand what she meant, but I chose to ignore it.

I don't get it either, Sombra, but I think that's the point. A bit of human humor and Sombra not understanding it makes sense to me - another perfect detail you've got in here.

So I’ll make the training session short and we can go out after,” she suggested, making me roll my eyes. She’d never learn if she got spoiled like that.

“Only if you’re buying,” Ashley replied, her grin returning as she looked at Sarah. I rolled my eyes yet again at this exchange. It’s not that Ashley was a bad person, but I felt like she did more to sidetrack our plans than add to them.

Another good bit of detail - you do a good job going into why Sombra dislikes Ashley without explicitly saying it.

After that…all I could see was black.

This is pretty abrupt. Did the room spin? Did the Ultra Beasts appearing effect Sombra somehow on a physiological level? If Sombra's prone to blackouts like Sarah hints at later on, I'm not sure why Sombra is allowed to help her pilot the Umbra. That'd be kind of a little worldbuilding thing you go into, though - maybe Sombra has to have a lot of medical checkups or something to ensure she can continue piloting.

When we are in the wild we stick to our designated turfs; when we’re with Trainers we don’t have a turf, but we have partners that make us feel like we’re part of something. But here? Here I felt as if I was not only out of my element but completely unwelcomed as well.

This is a pretty well written part... I'm wondering when Sombra learned this, though? At some parts, I see that she was raised on a firm, and in other parts, the wild. I'm not sure I get the timeline too well.

“Propulsion engines are working fine, air dispensers are good to go as well,” she listed, mostly as a way to reassure herself rather than me.

How does Sombra know Sarah's saying it more for herself than for her pokemon? The wording suggests Sombra's reading Sarah's mind, which is... a pretty common, easy pitfall for first person, to be honest. But yeah, there are some details you can include in third person that just do not work in first for logical reasons.

“Now!” I heard her scream, a scream that reminded me of our youth, when all that mattered was winning.

Do pokemon and humans age similarly in your world?

CHAPTER 5

Television had surprisingly become a good friend of mine throughout my life.

The image of an umbreon watching television is pretty adorable, ngl.

It wasn't any longer about watching cheesy romantic comedies or hearing Sarah complain about how “Everything had explosions now”. Instead, we stayed glued to it for the news, careful in case another attack rocked our worlds suddenly.

Is this an 8ES reference? Nah, but for real, this is a subtle way to show Sombra's dedication to Sarah. Sombra gets involved with human things like television to learn about Sarah, and now is even watching news stories on the Ultra Beasts. Sarah's perspective in all this is shown, too: she slowly geared from indulging in hobbies like romantic comedies but now is totally focused on the Ultra Beasts. Basically, this is the kind of detail I'm talking about again.

But then the second attack happened, and the League suspended all activity, even prohibiting Trainer Journeys and suspending work at Pokeball factories until further notice. I don't know the specifics of why they took that choice, only that it killed our dreams of reaching the Pro League.

This brings the world in the fic a bit more to life, something that is pretty lacking in the fic, I agree. This is a character-driven story, though, so intense worldbuilding details aren't needed or even wanted, but little things like this can definitely help.

She had grown so distant, yet indifferent to us and everyone around her and insisted on keeping us at a distance no matter what she did; whether it was leaving for days on end or staying holed up in her room.

Poor Sarah... I mean, I can definitely see why this is taking a toll on her. She wants to do something, anything, but in reality, she's only one person up against god knows how many Ultra Beasts and whatever else. You've done a pretty good job depicting Sarah's slow drift into depression through Sombra's POV.

I raised my ears and took a pouncing position, ready to defuse the situation if it escalated too quickly.

I'm not sure what Sombra would do here. Would she attack Sarah's parents? That seems a little out of line, but since you're portraying some of Sombra's animalistic side, maybe not.

Not only was Sarah leaving for something that could potentially kill her, but she also wanted us to choose the one that would accompany and watch it all happen.

Damn. Shit's getting real, now. I expected Sombra to jump at the chance and to say she's going to protect Sarah, but... she doesn't. In fact, someone else nominates her, really, and only then does Sombra jump on board with the idea. That says a lot about how this whole ordeal is affecting her. You can tell how jaded she's gotten, so kudos on that!

 

[diamondpearl876]

CHAPTERS 3 AND 4

Most of my life is a blur prior to meeting Sarah. Admittedly, when a Pokemon lives in the wild it doesn’t have much to think of. We live, we eat, we fight, we protect our kin and we sleep. Everything else we do on instinct. It’s a simple way to live, but one that makes sense, you avoid unnecessary pain.

Again, I'm confused as to whether Sombra grew up in the wild or on the farm, as stated a couple paragraphs down. Now, if it was both, I'd suggest trying to clear up said timeline. How long did Sombra live in the wild, exactly, before she was taken in captivity to be given as a starter pokemon? You could also use that opportunity to explore the differences between, living in the wild, living on a farm, and then being a true domestic pokemon with a trainer.

I can certainly recall the moment I met her. How could I forget that barely fifteen years old, girl whose wide smile simply made my own distant gaze stronger?

Why I was against her back then I can’t remember either, I think it was because I had gotten used to my life with my kin even though we were raised in a farm and were all meant to be given to Trainers, it wasn’t something we had asked for.

“She’s beautiful,” she said, hands behind her back as she walked towards me, her long black hair waving behind her. I stared at her curiously and indignantly. What was wrong with humans?

The wording is kind of confusing here. You use phrases like "distant" and "walked towards" and "against her" both in reference to being opposed to Sarah as a person and in reference to the amount of physical space between Sarah and Sombra. I couldn't really get a good picture of the scene in my head as a result.

They also wore wear garments that didn’t seem to be a part of their bodies, which made me question their worth.

This seems a tad melodramatic, to be honest. The idea of pokemon questioning human clothing is interesting, but there's not much to go off here. Is it that Sombra thinks they're hiding something about their bodies? Is it that they're always changing clothes each day and that's kinda weird?

I honestly don’t know how long I was gone, it wasn’t till later that I began to make out of what was inside the ball, at least for me. What I do know is how utterly furious I was when Sarah finally let me out. The only thing that stopped me from pouncing at her was my lack of familiarity with my surroundings.

Definitely give details on the pokeball thing! What does Sombra see inside there? Does it makae her want to stay out of her pokeball? Or is Sombra okay with a pokeball now and is just out all the time 'cause Sarah wants her to be? I think that, with the Umbra and the mecha thing, too, maybe a new kind of pokeball could exist in your world for those connected with mechas. Or you could use Beast Balls somehow. Details, details, details!

I don’t know why, but in that moment, for some reason, I saw her as something more than just another being.

I find it believable and interesting that Sombra would be unsure why she keeps finding herself trusting Sarah more and more. I don't think that's something I can say about a lot of first-person pokemon POV fics, so kudos there. Sombra specifically saying "I don't know why" gets a bit repetitive at times, though, and since I imagine this will be a long running theme past what's been posted so far, I'd suggest rewording things like this and/or showing through body language! There's plenty you can do with an umbreon - tail wagging, cocking her head in confusion, etc.

While I still didn’t fully understand what Sarah was saying, I did get an inkling to her frustration. She had decided to leave the house in the dead of night, most likely to avoid having to deal with her father’s refusal.

Okay, so this starts a whole new scene you added, one I don't remember at all reading before. This does add a layer of depth to Sarah's relationship with her parents, which is nice, especially considering they show up again later. I'm really not sure how many fics go back and include parents in the future despite them being portrayed as a big deal in the beginning, so I'm glad to see you incorporating them in depth here.

I think that was the first time I realized that being a Pokemon was so much easier.

And it adds a layer to Sombra's past, which I'd say is definitely an important factor of the story at this point. Nice! Again, you don't stray too far in either direction in terms of sentience or animalistic traits - there's always a realistic balance, and for first person writing, that's pretty impressive.

But even so, somehow I felt like I had gotten closer to this girl, like I had found a new home.

I kinda expected Sombra to evolve in this scene, but it would've been too soon. The nighttime atmosphere made me think so. XD But! It was still a good scene overall that obviously strengthened their friendship while explaining how Sombra's personality was different when she was younger. Also, you can see Sarah's teenage stupidity really shining through here. : ' ) At any rate, I'm sure there'll be an evolution scene eventually, especially since umbreon evolve from eevee via friendship.

I tried to open my eyes, but all I could see was a bright light and a group of lab coats running around me, desperate to unplug me from It and talking about my vitals and all that other stuff.

Overall I think you have a pretty good grasp on first person, though "my vitals and all that other stuff" sounds a tad too informal for it. It sounds dismissive and unimportant, but this is clearly an important situation for Sombra. She's hurt, after all.

I wasn’t dying. Somehow I knew that much.

This is another "somehow I knew" thing I mentioned that could be replaced with something stronger. I'd expect her animalistic traits and her instincts related to survival to kick in here rather than an overall blase tone.

It looked like me and when I was connected to it I was It, but I knew that it was also the thing that chained, that chained her, to this life.

I mean, looking at a robot version of myself would creep me out too.

Nah, but I still wanna know more about Sombra's connection with the Umbra. I don't think it'd be believable for her to know all the ins and outs of it, but like, I get the impression that there's not a lot of information on the Ultra Beasts in your world right now. So... what was the Umbra, and other mechas, originally built for? If the Umbra was built to fight the Ultra Beasts, how did the people who built the Umbra know what features to put, what specs to put, or anything else? Also, what features does the Umbra even have? It seems like just one giant mecha that's powered by both pokemon and trainer right now and the pokemon can use their attacks like normal with added strength/power, which is interesting, but I'm not sure if there's much more to it at this point.

I held no respect for this man, but Sarah, for some reason, did so I had to comply and sit quietly while she argued with him. It was just another normal day on the job if I’m being honest.

It doesn't seem like everyday Sarah gets put on leave and/or promoted, though.

“I didn’t say suspension, Sergeant Villareal, I said ‘leave’,” the man she was speaking to replied,

Didn't Sarah have a different last name before?

“We need you to come back quick Lieutenant Borges!” Yumi replied from the other end, her loud and troubled tone made us wary of what was coming. “A Code 03 showed up near Castelia. Darrel is trying his best to subdue it, but he and Flare are getting pushed back.”

Here in chapter 1, her last name appears to be Borges. Any other mention of Sarah's last name is Villareal, though. Personally, I like Villareal better. XD

“According to the reports, your body’s motor responses have slowed down from Linking with Sombra.

I really like the concept of Sarah's body functioning differently as a result of her work (I'm not a sadist, I swear). This again begs the question of the history of the Umbra/other mechas. If their history extends long before the Ultra Beasts' arrival, then there should be much more information regarding how this effects Sarah's body in the long run. If not, this explanation makes sense but begs other questions I mentioned earlier.

“Knowing when they were coming didn’t help us last time,” Sarah spat back, gritting her teeth and making me glance at the Commander. At this point I was just glancing back and forth between the two, amusement clear on my face.

This is probably one of the only instances I don't buy Sombra's reaction. Surely she understands that Sarah is upset, and it doesn't go with Sombra's personality that she's amused by Sarah being upset or the argument she's having.

Commander Chariens sighed, having now understood that nothing he said would be enough to dissuade Sarah’s argument.

This doesn't work in first person for reasons I mentioned before. Unless Sombra can read Commander Chariens's mind, she cannot possibly know this. She can read body language and guess it, but with the way this is currently worded, it fits more in third person.

“We’re all sad about what happened to Eric, I can assure you of that. But you and Sombra are among our best pilots and we can’t risk your health.”

I think it's a given that things need to move on quickly in a situation like this. Deaths are sad, but common, and if you slow things done or freeze, more bad things can happen. That's not particularly elegantly worded, but I think you'll get what I mean. Anyway, it feels odd that he'd assure Sarah they care. I'd expect him to talk about Eric as a person - you know, give him some personality since he died and has no real screen time ever - and then, well, you've already got the part where he says he can't risk having Sarah get hurt, too, so that's good.

“Think we should go check it out?” I heard Sarah say from my side. I hated when she read my mind like that.

I like this bit. It's short and simply written but really emphasizes the bond between them.

And so I searched, closing my eyes to feel the presences of everyone around me, it was a trait that we Dark types could rely on even if most people didn’t know. I didn’t know how it worked, but I assumed it had to do with our link to Psychic and Ghost types.

This seems like something Sarah should know, at the very least, as a pilot working with a dark-type.

She lied.

These two simple words have a much bigger emotional impact on their own line and with the bluntness of it, so kudos there.

No one knew where the Ultra Beasts came from, they simply appeared through those glowing portals and attacked.

So is it safe to assume there's not much known about Ultra Wormholes at this time? I know I've said it before, but this could effect the mecha worldbuilding.

Even Pokemon were confused, after all, in the Wild you wouldn’t just go and attack another Pokemon’s turf unless you had a reason to, and usually your reason for attacking was very clear to your target.

What about instincts? Sometimes instincts make you act irrationally and there is no clear "reason."

But at that moment I had to look at her, at that woman who sat on the hard concrete at the edge of the medical tent. She was using her arms to keep her knees tight to her chest, her head buried in them to block out the sound of sobbing.

There's something really sad about pokemon - in this case, Sombra - being able to know someone is deeply hurting but not being able to understand the scope of the situation, then want to be able to help so badly anyway. Ugh.

We were all trying our best to deal with the situation; we had gotten so caught up in it that we had forgotten about each other.

I find it hard to believe Sombra would forget about Sarah ever. Sarah forgetting about Sombra and beign distant, though, is believable.

Overall comments on grammar: I maintain the thought that this is much easier to read than Academy. There's still lots of issues with commas and run ons, though. I didn't really go through them because... it'd be a lot, and I don't think that's what you wanted me to focus on when you asked me specifically to review. I'd suggest reading your work out loud because then, when a comma's in the wrong place or when a run on is there, you'll definitely know. Continuing to fix up the grammar errors in general will make your writing feel so, so much more stronger.

Let me know if you want clarification on anything. There's a lot here, I know.

 

[AceTrainer14]

I liked this chapter the most out of the five so far. It was nice to take a step backwards and focus on just one thing for a change, and it added a lot of background and intrigue to what was happening. Sarah got more of a scope and hints at a broader personality, and I liked seeing Sombra take more of an active role for once through her interactions with the other Pokémon.

I’ll be honest when I say that I had no idea this story was meant to be taking place 20 years after Sombra was caught/obtained. I am not sure if you added those dates in after my review or I just didn’t notice them, but it does clear up some of my confusion around the story. In the previous chapter, I assumed that all the other Pokémon belonged to other trainers and the segment was happening the night after the attack and that was why Sarah was on edge.

With the new context in mind, it does confuse me a bit further about the past actions. We see in this chapter the toll not being allowed to be an active trainer has taken on Sarah, and it was a good way to address how and why she signed up. In the previous chapter, it just felt like she was being a bit of a fuckwit for no reason and Sombra reacted accordingly. Perhaps putting some more backstory as to the devastating effects of the Ultra Beasts and the effect on both Sombra and Sarah would make that scene and perhaps the whole story make more sense. I also think some earlier mention that there are other Pokémon before they are all introduced at once would clarify that issue. Also, if Sarah is acting like a troll in public around scared strangers, some more hints of that fear and why Sombra needs to calm her down would add to the impact of that clash.

Some grammatical issues I noticed that also highlight other problems:

The Kalos Government has issued multiple briefings in regards to funding for the town. Sadly these haven't amounted to anything,"

As a journalist, this bit of dialogue bothered me a bit. It felt very robotic and unemotive for a report on a tragedy. ‘in regards’ is probably too formal of a phrase for something like this. I think it also highlights one problem I have sometimes with the story, in that your use of words can feel too formal or forced in for the type of story. I am not saying your dialogue should be completely and utterly dumbed down just because it is a story about monsters fighting monsters inside robots, but language needs some consistency across the board. When the language is more advanced than what surrounds it, it stands out and becomes distracting.


Also, I may be wrong but I feel as though there should be a comma between sadly and these. Particularly in terms of pronunciation, a newsreader would put emphasis between the two words. I also think newsreader/person/lady was an odd choice to take: Sombra has been pegged as intelligent enough, why can’t she just say reporter?

Or at least that's what I told myself as I focused on the newscast in front of that familiar, and dreaded flat screen.

I don’t think that comma is needed. Also, it sounds as though the report is happening in front of the screen.

Frustration coursed through me,I lowered my gaze.

The comma should be either a full stop or an and, unless you change the coursed to coursing.

"They're fighting again," I heard Ice Cream muttered.

Ice Cream muttered would be fine. I heard Ice Cream muttered makes no sense as is a weird way to structure that. Again, it feels like an attempt to spruce things up with some variety that doesn’t work in this context.

The sound of a plate being slammed on the table echoed throughout the house shortly after.

Shortly after is another example of an unnecessary formality plus that sentence reads very oddly to me. “His shout was followed by the sound…” would read better, personally.

But then the second attack happened, and the League suspended all activity, even prohibiting Trainer Journeys and suspending work at Pokeball factories until further notice.

She had grown so distant, yet indifferent to us and everyone around her and insisted on keeping us at a distance no matter what she did; whether it was leaving for days on end or staying holed up in her room.

Another example of the same two words close together making for awkward reading.

"Who knows at this point," Mina sighed in frustration and leaned against the sofa.

Full stop rather than comma.

"Sarah, stop it. We were really worried about you here," her mother warned

‘Her mother warned’ makes sense after ‘Sarah stop it’, but why is she warning her that they are concerned?

"Oh, now you worry about me, that's rich," She

I can understand how she feels," he

"I've been thinking it for a long time," her

Full stop in these places.

"Please reconsider this," his mom

His instead of her.

Now, on the spot where I had once stood where a bunch of dust-covered boxes.

Where instead of were. I also think it would read better if the two parts of this sentence were swapped around.

only for it to highlight the dust that they too had gathered and filled all of our hearts with regret.

Putting these two bits together reads very strangely. I am not even sure what you are trying to say here.

Sarah let out a heavy sigh as she fell on the chair in front of her computer,

This makes it sound like she fell onto it by accident rather than sat down normally.

"Okay," she finally spoke.

‘She finally spoke’ is a very weird to do this. I think if you said “Finally, she spoke” before any dialogue it would make more sense.

She pushed her body back forward and stared at all of us, retaking that confident look from before.

This was an unnecessarily wordy way to describe a relatively simple action. It relates back to what I said in my previous review about Sombra and her leaning backwards. You seem to have a fondness for describing this action, which is fine on its own, but you also describe it very regularly and it comes across as a little bizarre at times.

she said, leaning back once more, except that this time she raised her left leg and rested it on the chair, wrapping her arms around her knee.

Again, wordy.

she frowned and continued to stare at us once more.

“continued to stare at us once more” doesn’t make any sense to me.

She questioned a slight grin on her face.

Without a comma between questioned and a slight grin it makes it sound like she is confused why she is smiling. Again, questioned feels unnecessary – asked or thought would work just as well.

Separately, Sombra’s parents go undescribed and so do most of the Pokémon. It might be nice to frame Sombra’s Pokémon-isms around getting her to describe how they all look from her mind. On my note last time and your response, I appreciate this is a PMD-style version of handling a Pokémon, but that doesn’t change the fact that much of the first four chapters is Sombra reacting to everything and thinking it over rather than really doing much herself or viewing things from her unique perspective.

Overall, good chapter, a solid improvement and a nice change of pace. I think adding more detail to the wider world and the backstory as well as seeing more from Sombra will greatly help the story. Perhaps it might be good to slow down the next battles when they happen rather than having the same level of intensity of the second chapter: That was almost overwhelming due to the amount of chaos happening around Sombra and internally as she struggled with It, but this chapter shows you can handle a slow and steady pace excellently. I know you want to try new styles, but best to walk before you can run, and given the terror of these beasts, something a bit more horrific will help considerably.