TEEN: Good as Gold

[yudgefudge]

Welcome to my fanfiction, Good as Gold, which is a telling of the story of HeartGold and SoulSilver, but I added some stuff to make it more interesting.
Reason for Teen rating: Indecent language
Open to Criticism!
Prologue
“Oof, Ho-Oh’s one mighty beast.” Kris said, as she patted the Meganium she was flying up the tower with. Ethan’s Typhlosion grunted in agreement, Ethan nodding instead. He clicked on his Pokegear, to call Silver.

“Silver.” He whispered. “How’s it going in the Whirl Islands?” Ethan asked. “It’s completely fine.” Silver said, but a hint of worry was in his voice.

“Ethan, we’re at the top.” Kris said. They had been flying on the backs of their Pokemon, specifically Ethan’s Togekiss and Kris’ Noctowl.

“Alright.” Ethan said as he and Kris dropped onto the roof of the tower, Ho-Oh waiting for them.

Typhlosion pounded its fist into the other hand, electricity looming around it, clearly powering a move. Meganium’s antenna stood erect, as roots began to emerge from the roof of the tower.

“Ok Ho-Oh, let’s dance.” Ethan said as the battle began.

Chapter One: Pure as Gold Beginnings!
Ethan got up from the bed, wearing golden pyjamas, with a Rainbow Bird Pokemon displayed on it. (As Ethan would find out, it would be extremely symbolic in future) As he picked up the Pokegear on his table, he checked the time, 7.a.m., before proceeding to change out of his nightwear, into his seemingly iconic set of yellow shorts, red jacket, and yellow cap. He walked downstairs, greeting his mother, before walking outside to go see Uncle Elm, or as his mother repeatedly told him to call Uncle instead, Professor Elm.

He stepped in, as Elm rushed to him, gasping.

“What’s wrong Uncle Elm?” Ethan asked, worried.

“A person broke in and stole a Pokemon!” He said. “I’ll need someone to catch him! Ethan, are you willing to help me?” Elm asked him.

“I’ll catch that thief, if my name isn’t Ethan Gōrudo!” he proclaimed, before turning around to catch the thieving character.

“Wait! Ethan, he stole a super rare and powerful Starter Pokemon, so you’ll need one to defend yourself!” Elm said, which caught Ethan’s interest.

“Well golly Uncle!” Ethan said. “I can’t take down such an offer!” he said, walking towards the machine holding the starters. Expectedly, one was gone. The other two predictably escaped their Pokeballs. First, there was the Grass-type Chikorita, which was simple enough, it had a simple green body, and had a huge green leaf on its head. The other was the Fire-type Cyndaquil, which resembled some sort of echidna, and had a neck of pure fire.

Ethan observed both Pokemon for a few minutes, before picking the Fire-type.

“Welcome to the team Cyndaquil! My name’s Ethan!” he said. The Cyndaquil intensified its fire, which charred Ethan’s face funnily, but the Cyndaquil was “warming” up to him for sure.

“Let’s go find that thief!” Ethan said, as the Cyndaquil jumped up unto Ethan’s shoulder, diluting its fire so as to not burn Ethan’s clothes or hair.

“So let’s head to the next city. The kidnapper couldn’t have gotten too far.” Ethan said to his Cyndaquil.

“Cynda, quil quil!” it said in exciting response.

Ethan stepped onto the next route, which was averagely small. He kept walking, until he was interrupted by a wild unknown Pokemon, which was hiding in the trees. Then, suddenly it popped out. It was a chimp-like Pokemon, and Ethan was interested in catching this Pokemon, but realized he had no Pokeballs.

“Well, let’s hope I see him after I catch the thief.” Ethan said, as he continued to walk through the route.

He eventually made it to Cherrygrove City, but then saw a mysterious red haired boy, with an especially cheerful looking blue crocodilian Pokemon beside him.

“Isn’t that Uncle’s Totodile?” Ethan asked himself.

“Hey you, stop! Where did you get that Totodile?!” Ethan shouted, as he started walking towards him.

The mysterious boy picked up his pace, then Ethan knew something was up. He ran after him, before confronting him.

“Get the hell out of my way.” The red-haired boy muttered darkly.

“No, not until you return that stolen Pokemon!” Ethan said, putting his foot down.

“Why should I? No one misses it.” The boy laughed.

“Alright. Let’s have a battle. If I win, you return the Pokemon. If you win, you get to run away.” Ethan said, as Cyndaquil jumped on the ground to prepare for battle.

“Agreed.” The boy said, although both sides were sure to try to have their way no matter the outcome. “Totodile, it’s time for battle.” The boy said, which the Totodile responded to happily, jumping onto the makeshift battlefield.

“Alright Cyndaquil! Let’s give this our best shot! Now, Tackle attack!” he said.

“Now, Totodile, dodge it and use Water Gun!” the boy said calmly.

Cyndaquil jumped on all fours, running quickly at the Totodile which waited calmly. Once close enough, Cyndaquil went in for a Tackle, but was met by a cruel surprise. The Tackle went through, but a jet of water shot out of Totodile’s mouth, which hit the Cyndaquil for super effective damage.

“You OK Cyndaquil?” Ethan asked.

“Quil, quil-quil!” it said in response.

“Good! Now show him another Tackle attack, and follow it with an Ember!” Ethan said.

“Totodile, Water Gun! Follow it with a Scratch!” the boy exclaimed.

Totodile’s claws lengthened, glowing white, as it seemed to Scratch first. Cyndaquil repeated previous movements, hitting the Totodile which used the opportunity to Scratch Cyndaquil. Then the jet of water charged in Totodile’s mouth.

“Cyndaquil, now, get out of there!” Ethan said, which it did.

“Now, the Ember!” he shouted.

Cyndaquil’s fire intensified as it blasted a ball of fire at Totodile. Totodile shot the Water Gun at the same time, and they clashed mid-air, causing a small explosion, Totodile landed safely, but the same couldn’t be said for Cyndaquil, who had sadly fainted.

“Woohoo! I won!” the boy said, turning around to run away, but turning around as his trainer Card tumbled to the ground. Ethan on instinct jumped towards it and grabbed it from the dirty ground.

“Silver…” he said out loud, before the boy pushed him to the ground, before snatching his card back.

“Fuck you!” Silver said as he ran off.

Well, that was vulgar. Ethan said as he picked himself up from the ground, grabbing Cyndaquil in his hands, who was bruised and injured from the battle.

“Let’s get you to Professor Elm, he’ll help.” Ethan said to it.

“Cynd……” it said weakly.

Ethan ran towards the Lab, barging in during a police interrogation.

“UNCLE!!! I’VE GOT THE CRIMINAL’S NAME! AND YOU NEED TO HEAL CYNDAQUIL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” he shouted as he burst into the lab.

“What was that, young man?” The police man asked, turning towards him.

“I said Uncle needs to heal my friend here.” Ethan said, as he handed it over to the professor.

“No, before that.” The officer asked.

“Oh, his name? It’s Silver, Silver Bīkon.” Ethan said, as the officer wrote it down.

“Thank you very much.” The officer said before leaving the lab.

Elm handed the Cyndaquil back over to Ethan, along with a Pokedex and some Pokeballs.

“So, I guess I should go battle the gyms now.” Ethan said, as Cyndaquil jumped back to his shoulder.

“See you Uncle! When I come back, I’ll be the Johto League Champion!” he said as he walked out of the Town, with Cyndaquil sleeping against his head.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~​

Totodile jumped around in joy in the grimy alley, which made Silver chuckle.
"You're just a ball of fun, huh." Silver smiled, as Totodile walked around the alley in interest.
"I need to be the Champion, so Dad can take me back, and we can be happy again." Silver said, tears making him choke slightly.
"Come on, let's go." Silver said, as they both stepped out of the alley, to tackle their collective fate.

 

[Beth Pavell]

I don't recall seeing your name around the Workshop before, so welcome, since this seems to be your first story. Here's a first review to get you started. Before I get started, please bear in mind that everything I say here is intended to be constructive and helpful, not discouraging:

“Silver.” He whispered. “How’s it going in the Whirl Islands?” Ethan asked. “It’s completely fine.” Silver said, but a hint of worry was in his voice.

Couple of things to note about formatting dialogue. The first thing is that each speaker should be on a separate line, so Silver's dialogue should be on a separate line to Ethan's. The second is that, ordinarily, dialogue ends with a comma, not a full stop. So it should look like this (Changes highlighted in bold):

“Silver,” he whispered. “How’s it going in the Whirl Islands?” Ethan asked.

“It’s completely fine,” Silver said, but a hint of worry was in his voice.

A more in-depth explanation of how dialogue formatting works can be found here.

As a matter of aesthetics, it's always a good idea to pay attention to detail with how you format a story for the forum. Little things like separating the titles from the story with an extra line, tidying up the dialogue at the end with separate line breaks, all these smarten up the story and make it more attractive to read. Using a row of tildes for your breaker line is ok, if a bit overdone (I find an asterisk or three works just fine), just make sure that you use the same number each time.

In general this feels a little bit rushed. There's a temptation with a classic journeyfic/game retelling to rush your characters right out of the door onto the first beats of the plot as fast as possible. For a game that makes sense. In the game Ethan is the player's avatar and they generally won't want to be kept waiting before they can have the first battle. A written story is different. The readers have to be given a reason to care about Ethan, especially if you're going to be going over at least some plot points which are familiar from the game. Why does he want to be League Champion? Was he looking forward to this day? Is he going to miss home when he's on the road?

And finally, a lot of writing is really practice. The more you do it, the more you keep trying to be better, the better you do get at it. It also helps to read if you like to write.