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MATURE: How to Conquer Kanto in Eight Easy Steps - Chapter 100

Interlude Twelve: Motivational Speaking
Re: How to Conquer Kanto in Eight Easy Steps - Blog 12

Interlude Twelve: Motivational Speaking

Four days after he had been found unconscious and bleeding in the lower basements of Silph Co., Buzz Bolton finally had to answer for his crimes.

He had put it off for the past several days. Whenever Mr Silph had arrived at his room in the Saffron City Hospital and Medical Centre, Buzz had pretended to be asleep, or had urgently requested treatment that prevented his most senior boss from harassing him. However, on his fourth night in the tiny, bland and overly sterilized room, Samson Silph arrived right after Buzz had finished having his wounded groin checked and was unable to escape from this latest visit.

His nerves, his fears at what may have been revealed, held Buzz back at first, but it was fortunate for him that Mr Silph only cared about his reputation and money, and was otherwise as thick and useless as Snorlax shit. The producer talked up how his memory was hazy and he had forgotten most of that day: he claimed he had no idea why Zapdos had attacked them, and said he had headed down to the basement as he believed that was the safe thing to do.

"But what about all of those robots in the basement?" Mr Silph huffed, and this was what Buzz was afraid of; how much did the foolish man know, and could he stand in the way of his final goal now that it had been exposed so publicly?

"They are part of Indigo Dreams, sir, and we have been storing them down there until they are needed," Buzz explained cautiously. "Anyway, when I got down to the basement that was when I saw that Alaska Avocado girl and several of her associates clashing with these armed men. I have no idea how the girl got down there or why she was there, but I do know she has it out for my show – I only learnt recently that she auditioned and was cut after the first round of interviews. Anyway, I was attacked moments after I stepped into the room, and that is all I remember until I woke up here."

There were several tense seconds when Mr Silph did not reply, staring beadily at his producer as he dwelled over the story. Buzz Bolton rarely got nervous or intimidated, but he felt weak and exposed here, dressed in a flimsy hospital gown, and he had no idea what Silph did or did not know.

"Okay, that helps clarify a few things," Samson said finally a minute later. "Thank you for sparing some time to talk to me, your statement fills in a lot of blanks. I must go chase up the Champion and find out why his Pokemon destroyed my building."

"I hope he tells you why it targeted it my office!" Buzz added. "Now, if you don't mind, I need to get some sleep."

"Oh yes, of course, of course – good luck with your recovery," Mr Silph said, nodding absently, and he left the room without another word. Buzz watched his superior go with a smirk growing across his face. It had been stupid to be so concerned about the rich idiot. Samson had no idea how to run a company and relied on whatever his senior staff told him to make a living. He had sapped up everything Buzz had said without a second thought, even the garbage about Alaska auditioning, a fact that could be easily disproved if he bothered to check, but Samson was far too gullible to do that.

Buzz laughed to himself as he rolled over in his bed, tenderly keeping his legs apart as to not upset the fresh stitches in his groin. This latest loss had been the most painful and humiliating yet, and his strive to ruin Alaska was more powerful than ever, but he could not help but laugh at how easily he had gotten away with things. Silph would have no idea that Buzz had kidnapped the two girls, that the robots were not simply for the show, and that all the dead bodies Looker had left in the basement were all tied to the company. Buzz roared with laughter as he imagined Silph's reaction when his plan came to fruition, and the daft fool realised how easily he had been played.

"My, my, Miss Samson really did stab you in the groin – and here I thought our mutual enemy had simply embellished."

Buzz's laughter died instantly, and instead cold fear spread through his body. He remained frozen on his side for a moment, eyes bulged, the hairs on his arms and legs standing on end. He had suspected for weeks that this day would come, but in all the pain and confusion of the past few days he had not stopped to think for a second that it would happen here, where he was most exposed, the most unprotected…

"You really should have killed her when you had the chance; I, of course, tried, but we all know Charlotte likes to make sure things go her way. Rest assured, once I am finished, the ghost will quite literally be a thing of the past, but for once she is merely a background character in the latest drama engulfing Kanto. As you can imagine, that is what I am here to discuss with you today Bolton, if you and your genitals are up to it."

Buzz could not put it off any longer; full of dread at what he may find, he rolled onto his back and stared up into Gideon's cold, pale face looming over him from the end of the bed. The scientist flashed a yellow toothed smile as he put down the clipboard detailing Buzz's status and moved to a cushy armchair beside the bed.

"Do you plan on staying long then?" Buzz asked coldly as Gideon sat down, the producer doing his best to stay calm, but it was unsettling to lay eyes on a man he had last seen five years ago in a burning building.

"Oh no, not really, but it is much easier to see people entering when you can actually face them," Gideon replied with a gentle smile, pulling a black pistol out from his pocket as he spoke and aiming it at the door. Buzz knew that any chances of him gaining control of this unexpected meeting had evaporated with that one move and he sat in silence, waiting for his former colleague to speak, wondering if he would survive this little chat.

"It has been so long since that last day on Chrono Island, hasn't it?" Gideon purred, his smile thin and sadistic. "Five years, yet I still remember it as though it was yesterday. The searing pain, the suffocating heat, watching as years of research and planning went up in smoke. It's hard to imagine that the Charmander I defeated in Mt Moon would end up destroying my life…"

"How did you survive?" Buzz asked quickly. The question had been inside his head for the past few weeks, and it slipped out before he could stop it.

"Easily enough," Gideon replied, shrugging. "After you and Amanda abandoned me, I knew I would not be able to escape the building without greatly risking my life in the blaze. Instead, I retreated further into the warehouse and reached a bomb shelter I had had built in years ago." Gideon explained all this with an almost misty expression in his eyes.

"I will admit it was painful to leave my life's work to burn, but by chance I was able to find one of the key components from one of my riskier projects, and I have spent the past five years rebuilding my scientific empire with the limited resources I had left." Buzz nodded, intrigued and further frightened by what Gideon may mean, and startled to think that this scientist could have lived inside a tiny room for five years. Gideon had never been the most stable man in the first place, but what would half a decade of isolation have done to that mind?

"Well, I am so relieved to know you survived," Buzz said with his broadest grin, the one he usually slapped on whenever he wanted something from someone. "Amanda and I felt terrible once we realized we had left you behind, and –"

"Oh, do not insult me with your lies Buzz," Gideon interrupted, his eyes narrowing as he spat out each word, and Buzz sank deeper into his mattress. "You and Amanda are afraid of me, afraid because you left me to burn, and you have been terrified since the moment you learnt I was back about what I may do to enact my revenge! We both know that you two fled to save your own skins, abandoning your posts as at the first hurdle we came across. You would have been Admins under my rule, you could have been better than even Archer and Arianna, but instead you ran, ran like little children, and right now you are probably wishing Zapdos had killed you instead of leaving you to face me!" The words echoed inside the tiny room, and Buzz's shivered in fear and revulsion, feeling as though there were a hundred Gideon's surrounding him, hissing at him, spreading their evil words.

"Well, if you are going to kill me, get it over with and don't draw out my misery!" He snapped. He looked across at Gideon and saw the scientists face had gone blank, and then the mad man began to laugh. It sounded worse than his hate filled words: high, shrill and cruel, and Buzz felt weak and pathetic as his question was so openly mocked.

"Kill you, kill you? Oh dear Buzz, if I wanted to kill you I would have put this gun against your temples and decorated the walls the second I arrived. I have had countless opportunities to kill you over the past weeks – you have remarkably low protection for someone planning on murdering the Champion – but instead I have decided to bide my time until I was sure we could be alone and talk undisturbed. You see, I am quite curious about what you are planning on doing, and I do not want you dead until I know for certain what your grand scheme is."

"Same here," Buzz said quickly, not wanting Gideon to have all the control. "The museum, attacking Vermilion, Lavender Town – I have no idea how any of those connect, but I certainly have wondered why." Gideon flashed another vicious smile at this, and Buzz suppressed his own grin, his confidence slowly returning. .

"Shall we take it in turns then? You tell me what you and Miss Anderson have planned for our Champion, and I will tell you what I have planned, revealing as much as you see fit. Agreed?"

"Agreed," Buzz said. He had not prepared for things to go this way, but there was no denying that behind his fear for Gideon there was an insatiable curiosity for what his former comrade had planned, and he was willing to sacrifice a few details if it meant putting them on even ground.

"Very good – the reality show: it is just a front, I take it," Gideon asked quickly.

"Yes," Buzz replied. "Amanda and I needed to hide after everything that happened to Rocket, so we decided to emerge ourselves into a new career, one where no one would think to look. Silph TV was only just beginning then, part of the re-branding after what we did," Buzz added, winking at Gideon, "So we created a fake CV, said I had come from a great career in Unova, knowing no one will bother calling them up, and Samson Silph hired me as soon as we met.

"At first, we just planned on working stably and trying to build a normal life. Making TV shows was actually fun, and for a while it seemed we could forget about everything that had happened. But everyone else saw Red as this great hero, this saviour of Kanto, and the more I heard about him the more my resentment towards him grew," Buzz explained bitterly. "He and Leaf ruined our lives, stole the glory and power that Rocket deserved. Every time I saw his face on TV, my desire to embarrass him, to humiliate him the way he humiliated Rocket all those years ago grew, and I knew I had to do something."

"So you want revenge against him – fair enough reasoning, if a tad simple," Gideon chastised. "Now tell me, how do those wonderful robots fall into all of this?"

"I began work on a reality show concept where the end destination would be the League, something that would bring me easily into Red's home, but I needed a way to properly defeat him," Buzz continued. "I learnt that the Research and Development Department were creating realistic Pokemon robots, things they could test on without having to harm real Pokemon. I wondered what would happen if you modified them and added weaponry, and then wondered how you could use that power…

"I pitched the idea of Indigo Dreams and it was picked up immediately, and we were given a huge budget because Silph wanted it to be big, but he has no idea more than half of that money has gone into building our own take on the robots. The reality show was going to give us an opportunity to test them on real Pokemon, to find weaknesses so we could keep improving and make them indestructible. Unfortunately, that bitch Alaska got in the way, posting about the robots on her blogs and ruining any chance we had of working them into the show without drawing comparisons or suspicions."

"But I suppose you planned on making them a key part of your show, and once you reached the Indigo League it would be perfectly acceptable to bring your army in with you?" Gideon asked with a smirk, and Buzz nodded, dismayed at how easily his plan had been cracked.

"We'd bring the best robots in with all of our crew and equipment, and then have them defeat and destroy Red's team live on camera before killing him and destroying the stadium." Buzz had lost every sense of fear he had had felt earlier, all the concerns and nerves Gideon's appearance had generated: he had not been able to speak so openly about his mission for months now, not to anyone new, and now that he had started Buzz could barely stop. "We are not doing this for power or glory or anything like that: I simply want to murder Red and have him die embarrassed and humiliated like he left Rocket! He needs to pay for what he did, and Amanda and I are the only ones left to do anything about it, and I will not rest until I see him suffer!"

Buzz stopped as he heard a rapid beeping noise ring out through the room. He turned and realised it was his heart monitor, the leads attached to his chest feeding his excitement into the machine. Buzz leaned back into his tower of pillows and breathed deeply, trying to steady himself, but his fingers and toes felt jittery with excitement and pride.

Gideon did not say a word. He sat calmly in his seat, eyes focussed on Buzz, the gun lying carelessly across his lap. Buzz watched him, waiting for some kind of reaction, hoping for positive and dreading the negative, but Gideon gave away nothing, his face as empty as a blank piece of paper. There was a brief second where Buzz thought he saw something light up in Gideon's eyes – was it amusement, scorn, or perhaps something more knowledgeable than that – but it was gone a second later.

"Aren't you going to say anything?" Buzz snapped before he could help himself, but his irritation at the situation was beginning to boil over: what right did Gideon have to come here when Buzz was at his weakest and question him about his plans, only to offer nothing in response? This is supposed to be my chance to be powerful, Buzz thought angrily. I will not let him or Alaskatake my shot at glory and revenge away from me!

"I did not realise you were so petty that you need the commendations of others to gain satisfaction," Gideon replied in a tone that was both cold and bored. "You want feedback, Mr Bolton? Well, your plan is… interesting, to say the least." He paused there, and Buzz waited several moments for him to continue, but Gideon gave his interviewee a look that implied he was finished. And that was when Buzz snapped.

"Interesting? Interesting? Is that all you have to say?" He hissed, hands angrily clutching the side of his bed. "This plan has been in development for years now, and the only thing you can think to say is interesting? Fuck you Gideon: fuck you and fuck your fucking opinion! You have always been a self indulgent dickhead; one of those people that thinks being smart and being able to invent things makes you the most important person in the room, when really everyone thinks you're a great big fucking idiot! How about you tell me your plan, let's see if the mad shit you've planned this time is any better, eh?" Buzz was breathing deeply again, and he was well aware Gideon could kill him at any moment if he really wanted to, but it felt good to unleash these built up feelings. The wound to mark where Sandy had emasculated him felt like a constant presence in the room, something that perhaps showed Buzz to be weak, but he was not going to let Gideon think he could still control him, still get the better of him.

Gideon did not respond straight away, simply sitting in silence as the outburst echoed around them. Buzz thought the scientist looked uncomfortable, and his beating heart swelled with pride at the thought of bringing a once superior down to his level. But then, moving as rapidly as an Ekans through grass, Gideon stood and lunged for the bed. All of his confidence faded, and Buzz reached for the button that would summon a nurse, but before he could reach it Gideon had swatted back his hands. The scientist climbed onto the bed, making the old springs creak and the thin frame judder, and he sat so his legs were either side of Buzz, his knees resting firmly on the producer's hands. For a brief second, Buzz was reminded of Amanda, the way she had done this back in his office after a long days planning, but that thought escaped him as Gideon grabbed hold of his lower jaw and forced it open with one hand, while the other aimed the rich black gun inside.

"My goals, Mr Bolton, are the same as they have always been: to gain power through the use of my own intelligence and the skills I have developed in the fields of science," Gideon whispered coolly to his prisoner. "Everything I have done, all the research and projects I did before, during and after the rise and fall of Rocket, have been to fulfil my own science based curiosities and wonderments. I never originally cared for power before I met Giovanni, but after I saw the things his money and his protection did for me, I realised what power can do for a person. Humans are nothing unless they can feel dominance, unless they can assert their natural authority. We thought we had power when we tamed the beasts that live among us, but I am not satisfied with the simple, repetitive control of Pokemon. There are far greater things to worship out there, and I intend to show this region a thing or two about what really power is."

"How does everything you've done fit into this?" Buzz managed to gurgle. "Blowing up Five Island, attacking Vermilion, what was the point of all of that?"

"Oh, that was just me having fun," Gideon purred back with relish. "I don't want to reveal my end goal until the eleventh hour, so I am having fun confusing my opponents. I had to cover my tracks with Five Island anyway, and I thought Giovanni's safety supply of nuclear material would be sufficient to obliterate the last five years of my life and perplex the authorities. And with Vermilion, I decided some random terrorism would help spice things up after Alaska interfered…" Gideon trailed off, apparently lost in thought, the joy dying from his face and being replaced with something cold.

"Alaska… yet another teenager meddling where she does not belong…," the scientist mumbled, the power and gravity of his voice all but gone. He turned and looked directly into Buzz's eyes, his eyes manic and mournful at the same time, a stare that sent fresh shivers through Buzz's body. "I did have ideas about causing some wide spread destruction to further befuddle everyone, but it may have been another city at another time, I may have never attacked Vermilion if it was not for her. I just happened to be in Vermilion that day, taking some time to appreciate the chaos and horror my latest actions had caused, when I saw Alaska walk past, wandering around with Steven Stone… another teenager, another opponent being moulded and trained to defeat me… I had to send her a lesson, to show her how powerful I am, how far I am willing to go to achieve my goal, the goals I have had for decades.

"You see, one place where you have failed Buzz is that you have made Alaska hate you. Hate makes her vengeful, hate makes her want to defeat you, to crush you – it was Giovanni's greatest mistake, the thing that cost us the war. Alaska undoubtedly hates me too, but I can tell she fears me above anything else. She knows what you want to do, but she has no idea what I want, why I have acted how I have, and what I plan on doing next, and that scares her more than she will ever realize. When the girl sees me next, she will remember Vermilion, she will pause and think back to the fear she felt when my Pokemon attacked, and she will pause just long enough for me to finally bring her down. I do not care if Oak, Bill, Stone, if any of those old fools try to stop me, but I will burn everything to the ground before I let another child steal my glory…" and fear makes people pause, fear makes people think, fear makes people wait until it is too late.

Gideon seemed to have finished his rant, and Buzz lay unmoving beneath him, waiting for this ordeal to end. The scientist had not actually revealed anything about his plans, but Buzz no longer had the courage to ask, his attention falling on the gun still aimed towards his mouth. He wished now that he had been given a room with other patients, some witnesses to try and hold Gideon back. But would a man who used a nuclear bomb to clear his tracks really be stopped by a few more pairs of eyes?

"So, are you going to kill me now?" He asked finally. Buzz heard his voice, heard how high and weak it was, and felt ashamed, feeling like the Grunt he had been all those years ago. Gideon, who had been lost in thought, looked down at his former colleague, and his smirk appeared once again. He wrenched open Buzz's mouth once more, and this time shoved the gun inside: it was cold, hard, the metallic taste quickly overpowering all of Buzz's sense. He wanted to gag, the barrel edging towards his throat, but Buzz forced himself to stay focussed on Gideon, the scientist now leaning forwards.

"Maybe one day, dear," the madman whispered, leaning right in so his warm breath brushed Buzz's ear. "Perhaps, but not now… I need you, for the foreseeable future… for once, you can do something useful." And then Gideon began to laugh, his cackle filling the room and bouncing off the walls. Buzz opened his eyes in fearful curiosity, and stared up at Gideon's wide, evil, sadistic, laughing smile. He laughed as he pressed something that looked like a watch, and continued laughing as he finger tensed across the trigger, pulling on it like he was going to fire…

And then, he was gone. Buzz had blinked at the moment of teleportation: one second, Gideon was sitting on him, the gun rubbing against his lips and teeth, the next he had vanished in a flash of light, the weight disappearing from the producers body, his mouth empty though the metallic taste lingered. The second he realised he was alone, Buzz began to gag, finally free, finally able to react: he took deep and rapid breaths as he felt bile crawl up his throat, his chest heaving up and down while the rest of his body remained frozen, locked up in fear. How could he have been overpowered like this, torn down, humiliated, made to feel so, so weak? Why had he let Gideon take advantage of him, and reduce him back to the pathetic Grunt he had been all those years ago?

Rapid footsteps echoed from down the hallway, and Buzz's head snapped forwards as a doctor, two nurses and a security guard came racing breathlessly into his room.

"Is everything alright in here, Mr Bolton?" The doctor, a strapping, middle aged blonde man, shouted the second he stopped. "We heard shouting and laughter from down the hallway; we thought someone else might have been in here." Buzz looked up at them, the urge to vomit lingering, the rapid beep of his out of control heart filling the silence. For a moment, he wanted to tell them what had happened, he wanted them to move him to a new suite, to call Amanda and have her come immediately, to comfort him, to discuss this latest threat, to pleasure him…

But that moment quickly passed. Buzz looked at the medical staff waiting impatiently for an answer, and he felt sick with himself. He had been pushed around by people his entire life: his family, schoolmates, his superiors at Team Rocket. This new life, this new career path, this new mission, they were all meant to be Buzz's way of regaining control. But in the past week, he had let Sandy wound him in the most embarrassing way possible, he had let Alaska and Red expose parts of his plans, and he had just let Gideon walk all over him. If he wanted to win, he had to ensure none of them would ever interfere with him again, that no one else would ever stare down at his master plan.

Buzz turned and looked at the empty chair, thinking of the weight that had just left his hands. He had been wondering what Gideon's plan was, but had been too focussed on his own plans to care: yet it was the scientist who had come to see him, to come and see what his adversary was planning, his opponent in this race to destroy Red was planning.

He's the one that is really concerned, Buzz told himself. He wants to know what my plan is so he can eliminate us, eliminate a new threat. Warmth filled Buzz's body as this realization washed over him, and a smile filled his face as he stared up at the doctor.

He was trying to scare me, but I am not that easily beaten, because he knows we can stop him, we can beat whatever it is he has planned. Nothing can stop my robots, not Gideon, not that bitch Alaska, not our glorious Champion. All of them are afraid, and all of them will fall when my plan truly begins.

"Everything's fine, doctor… everything's perfectly fine…"




A bit of insight into how Buzz and Gideon both think, and some revelations behind what they are both planning and why they have acted how they have - some have been asking why Gideon attacked Vermilion especially, so I thought I would clarify his reasonings here. If anything else is unclear please let me know. Next time, Alaska takes her fifth step forwards...

Also note that the Prologue has been rewritten slightly to fix old typos and expand on the plot and characters a bit. Will hopefully update and edit more old chapters before the end of the year
 
Re: How to Conquer Kanto in Eight Easy Steps - Interlude 12

Hooooo boy. Saving the most extensive for last. Post-Awards review, commence.

Overall fic:

For starters, I did read the whole thing. I had to skim over the last few chapters for deadline purposes, but I read it.

Plotty Things: There's a good deal more than just collect all eight MacGuffins to conquer Kanto, and I appreciate that (although I'm not sure where the tie-in is between obtaining gym badges and conquering Kanto). The whole war-is-brewing-(again) plot works out decently well and serves as a good source of tension even in the early chapters. Also, your main character has a Pidgey as a starter, so mega bonus points for originality.

I also enjoyed the cameos and references regarding your other works, although I think they were wasted on me and/or terrible spoilers (Blue dies?!). While entertaining because I had some backstory via The First Warriors, a lot of the cameos were hard to place if I didn't read the work, such as with Jericho and apparently fighting a Dragonite. Also, Charlotte.

One thing that I felt was really forced is the character development and its integration to the plot. You seem to be a major fan of people shouting at each other in the rain/while falling off bridges/while escaping collapsing caves/while drowning in the ocean, but the whole "let's shout it out during perilous situations" is both cliche and really damaging to the action. The whole question of "is Buzz going to kill us?!" gets hidden away in "let's talk about Mitchell's dad and robots!", for example, and a lot of the Alaska/Sandy arguments seem really contrived (such as the one regarding innuendos).

Character-y Things: Again, mixed feelings here. Sandy acts like a more timid version of Alaska for at least forty chapters before she strikes out on her own, and Alaska herself is often immature, overly violent, and difficult to sympathize with when she's constantly blowing up things because she can't get her way. Her attempts at sarcasm aren't particularly side-cracking to me, and a lot of events in the story seem contrived to make Alaska look better, such as the villain set-up and some of the dialogue exchanges that end with Alaska saying something clever (while Sandy cheers her on, for bonus points). People gravitate toward Alaska because plot (such as Buzz and Gideon marking her for death because reasons), and it gets difficult to read after a while.

A lot of your side characters like Red and Kris are pretty cool and well-developed for being secondary supports, and the idea that everyone is playing chess to control Alaska is a pretty interesting concept.

I wish, however, that your characters were affected by the massive events of the plot. Sandy gets shot, for example, and it's dramatic for a chapter and then two chapters later it's basically forgotten, except to make jokes. You mentioned being angry at a reviewer for demanding that Alaska be dead or have PTSD at this point, but I did wish that you let her troubles influence who she is now beyond some lampshaded "wow we are so paranoid now" and anger at anyone who tries to help her.

Stylish Things: The blogs are cool, but they also don't have Alaska's tone at all. I was hoping you'd have some sort of demonstration of character development through the way in which she personally recounts her experiences, but no cigar (the penultimate one was a lot more serious than the previous ones, but the final one went back to poorly crafted sarcasm and snark).

Also, you seem to be in love with the "[synonym for said] [adverb]" structure, which got borderline ridiculous at some points. "Sandy boomed noisily" or something is where I draw the line.

I'm also not a fan of the blatant hitting of the head with the symbolism stick. There was a cool section where Alaska and Sandy are terrified of a Snorlax that wakes up, and it's a really great way of demonstrating how they have become so paranoid, and in the next paragraph you're like "oh and by the way isn't it amazing to see how we are so paranoid now" when you just showed that off perfectly well two sentences earlier.

The chapter puns for the titles are pretty funny, but the fourth wall breaking ("if we had a creator, I wish he would write stories where we drink tea") is not and comes across as pretty trying-to-be-clever.

Technical Things: Especially in the early chapters, this is kind of a mess. You have then/than, your/you're, it's/its, their/there, comma, punctuation, and spacing errors everywhere. Early on is the wiser, but even some of the new chapters have some pretty blatant typos that some editing could easily fix. Proofread. Proofread everything.

Also, when you're addressing someone, there is a comma offsetting the addressee from the rest of the sentence, ala:
"Let's eat, Grandma!" (bonding with family)
Rather than
"Let's eat Grandma!" (cannibalism)

Setting Things: It's some pretty average Kanto with some nice world building thrown in. The prophecies, Charlotte, Rocket plots, and tie-ins to the rest of your fictional verse all were really interesting, but Kanto is flat-out difficult to make unique in a journey fic. I do like how you expanded on some mostly-useless locations, such as Pokemon Mansion, and I'm going to pretend that ABC Cafe stands for AmandaBuzzChloe, or is an expy from Les Miserables.

The gyms got a lot of love, though, and this was cool.

Overall Thoughts:

My problems mostly stem from the treatment of Alaska's actions and the lack of repercussions that important plot events have on your main character. However, you started this story forever ago, be you've definitely gone uphill in all categories; the narmy aspects of your beginning are still unedited, though. Also, you're quite heavy-handed with the "THIS IS DEVELOPMENT, DAMMIT" aspects, and yet the characters themselves don't seem to move on.

Not sure where else to put it, but you have awesome non-cliche choices for Pokemon. Bellsprout and Shellder in general, Butterfree as a powerhouse (<3), and Parasect doing anything ever is really neat.



Speaking of Alaska:

Deepness: Yup, it's there alright. For a generic chosen one plot, Alaska has surprisingly good levels of depth to her, although she drifts into hyperactive teenager mode far too often for my liking. Her blogs in particular annoyed me, because we'd have this stoic, borderline-sociopath burning down buildings in one chapter followed by "hi guys I'm so hyper haha references!"

Also, not entirely sure where this goes, but Alaska is extremely destructive. You play this off as humor, as in "haha she just blew up a power plant and caused a blackout for half of a country!" and I found this to be jarring and kind of weird. Most importantly, Alaska never faces any real consequences for her destructive nature and the plot bends itself in such a way that I think we're meant to see this deutero-terrorism as okay?--Surge's gym gets handwaved, as does Alexis's gym, the Power Plant, and some of the casino shenanigans that Alaska actually caused. Most of the time the explosions aren't her fault, but I draw the line for acceptable human being when she starts burning things down because she can't get her way. This is, to me, writing a character who is just as destructive as her enemies, except she seems to think it's okay when she does it and not okay when they do, and the narration of the story seems to agree with that idea.

Originality: Trainer in Kanto; you have to work really hard to break the mold here. In this case, you at least have Alaska acting like a thirteen year-old about half of the time (my digression about willful destruction of public property still stands), which is nice, and her depth does make her different from a normal Kanto journey fic lead. I can't quite follow some of the gymnastics the plot does to paint Alaska as the good guy against the nefarious straw men who collapse mountains for shiggles (when Alaska herself will do the same thing to at least three buildings on purpose because she's not getting her way), and her interactions with Chloe bother me because that's not even how thirteen year-old girls act.

Regarding the Chloe point and acting her age, Alaska fluctuates between being critically immature about some things and stoically blowing up shit, and I'm not entirely happy with that aspect of her character.

Entertainment Value: I'm not entirely on board with a lot of what the story passes off as her humor or attempts at badassery. This may be a personal thing, but I'm also not okay with "whore" being used as your insult of choice.

Back on subject, though, there are moments in the story where I feel like you want us to be all "hell yeah! You show them, Alaska!", and I'm just not feeling them. For instance, her entire interaction with Jericho/Evelyn, culminating with Alaska's physically assaulting Jericho and knocking him out, felt like the temper tantrum of a spoilt teenager, and yet the narration passes this off as if Alaska is in the right for deciding to throw what is basically a rock in her benefactor's face and storming away, all because reasons.

Plot Contribution Alaska is the main character, yes, but there's a significant feeling that there are events far beyond her control trying to manipulate her into doing things. You even blatantly point this out several times.

That being said, I'm still unsure why Alaska is apparently the chosen one for this round of the war. There's an old stone tablet that shows a person on a Pidgeot, but aren't there oodles of other potential candidates there?

Overall Thoughts:

I'm especially not a fan of how wildly the story tries to paint Alaska as better than her foes even when she does the same things or worse. For the most part, she is either a complaining teenager with no sense of forethought or a cold sociopath who blows up things with no sense of forethought, and the only unifying factor here is that she's really not that great at planning ahead. Her enemies are typically ftevulz straw men who are there so Alaska can point and say "well I just blew up a power plant but at least I'm not killing Clefairy!", and the plot seems a-okay in regard to not calling her out for this. There's also a jarring disconnect between Alaska as narrated on her blogs and Alaska as narrated in the story, and while some of that may be attributed to unreliable narrator, it happens too often for my taste.

Still, she's enjoyable enough to keep me entertained for ninety+ chapters, and her depth does improve with the story. I do wish that the plot affected her more, though.



Sandy!

Does everyone in this series have alliterative names.

Depth: Egad! She starts off as a pretty random ditz who falls out of trees and runs around in a dress, but Sandy does start to shine in later chapters. She gets some nice backstory about running away from home and having no friends to speak of before Alaska, and all of this ends up becoming important to the plot and to her relationship with Alaska.

Looking over the fic as a whole, I wish she had some actual growth, though, instead of just revelations of her backstory. She's had a little development, but she kind of remains stagnant for the bulk of the story. In some of the middle chapters, she actually does nothing at all besides act as Alaska's cheerleader, although you did manage to lampshade that in her later dialogue and gave her an arc of her own to compensate. However, switching the narration focus to her after sixty chapters of Alaska (and then switching back to Alaska five chapters later) felt a little weird stylistically, since your narration at this point had been well-established to be third person limited.

Also, she fucking shot someone in one of the most recent chapters in cold blood. There absolutely needs to be some form of repurchasing about this, although I doubt there will be and it'll go against how she calmly talked to the man before shooting him in the chest and then joked with his friends afterward. This was, to me, the primary example of uncharacteristic Sandy that irked me, although some minor ones include suddenly being angry at Chloe and suddenly being angry at Amanda and also she is a thirteen year-old girl who shot a man with intent to kill I cannot emphasize how badly this perplexes me.

Originality: There's no real archetype I could slot her into, although she kind of falls under the ditz-ish-Ace. Not sure. Her cutesy side seems played up a bit too much and never hinders her when it's needed, and I found her sudden fits of anger/violence to be uncharacteristic rather than exciting.

Still, it's refreshing to see a side character who doesn't want badges/contests/breeding/anything, although this mostly means that Sandy gets sidelined during all of the badge quest arcs/chapters.

Contribution to the Plot: Probably the most for any side character I've seen. It's still obviously Alaska's story, and Sandy does get sidelined in some of the middle chapters, but she's surprisingly good at being relevant. I wish that the times when the story focuses on her weren't so blatantly devoted to focusing on her, though--the Sandy arc, for example, was jarring to read albeit helpful, and I have mixed feelings about its execution.

Entertainment Value: To me, she reads as a miniature version of Alaska and walks around as Alaska's personal cheerleader for far too long. The moments where she gets some love of her own are great but don't happen until thirty-ish chapters in, and before that she's mostly a timid girl who will randomly GO APESHIT FOR NO REASON LIKE THIS and then go back to being a timid side character again. The zig-zagging was kind of weird to me.

Overall Thoughts:

Most of the good things for Sandy come in the later chapters, which is nice, but also means that she's basically shafted in favor of Alaska early on. I found her to be wildly out of character sometime (not necessarily an accurate description, but this is the closest word I can find) when the plot demanded it, especially regarding standing up for Alaska. Most of her depth comes from her past rather than her present, though, and while she's got some borderline-fourth-wall breaking anger at Alaska for being so important, I think some reactions to major events, such as getting near- fatally shot, would've helped demonstrate some actual growth here, but the focus goes back to Alaska instead.




Aaaaand, Buzz.

Depth: He actually spends a good deal of time out of the limelight, and the majority of the character interactions between the protagonists and his side of the villains is really between Alaska and Amanda, so Buzz is out of the spotlight for most of the story. As such, his depth is kind of there, and there are hints of a Rocket past and some nefarious world-conquering plans, but he's kind of a generic, cartoonish guy with some vague plans and some very, very stupid ideas. He kind of has a kill-them-all mantra and a preoccupation with murdering the protagonist because reasons, but that's about it.

Also, although he tries to lampshade villain monologues and stuff, he's still stupid enough to keep the girl he's been trying to kill for sixty chapters alive and in the location of his public alter-ego because reasons. I mentioned this last time, but now that I've read the entire story I still don't understand why the hell he and Amanda are so dead-set on murdering Alaska. The brutality I could factor in to the ex-Rocket stuff, but until later chapters, Buzz seems glad to murder a teenager just because. In earlier chapters, this serves to make him look fake-nefarious and strawmannish; later, he looks stupid because he's trying to "secretly" kill off someone who is apparently protected by seven different super-influential parties and doesn't think to take any precautions.

Originality: Points for having an evil television show producer with an army of robots; that's definitely a first. Minus points for having an ex-Rocket in a classy suit who wants to kill the protagonist for maybe-messing up his plans. In aware that you blatantly spell out his stuff in the most recent interlude, but to my knowledge I wasn't supposed to read that because of it was posted on July 6; furthermore, ninety chapters until even getting a hint at why the villain is doing what he is doing is far too delayed for my taste.

Entertainment Value: Mentioned earlier, but Buzz hardly appears. He gets some screen time in the most recent chapters, but he's still fairly flat and cliched there. I cannot for the life of me understand why he didn't just kill Alaska and Sandy when he has the chance, or at least destroy their stuff/Pokemon in the interim--that, at least, would've had an actual impact on the protagonists rather than some more somewhat-major injuries that'll heal off eventually.

Contribution to the Plot: He does set up most of the Indigo Dreams stuff, but, again, Amanda still has the bulk of the appearances with that while Buzz is designated offscreen and such. Also, there's a whole slew of forces going around, and Gideon ends up doing his fair share of stuff.

That being said, I don't find it bad that Buzz is not the only villain, and I frankly enjoyed reading Gideon more because we at least got some semblance of motives.

Overall Thoughts:

Buzz mostly suffers because of how little screen time he has. During the instances in which he does appear, he spends most of his time doing cliche villainous things while claiming not to be a cliche villain. He makes stupid mistakes and does evil things that, at least at the moment, seem solely for the purpose of making the reader dislike him, which I think is a cheap tactic. The extent of his depth is a burning desire to do something nefarious with his television show, but his destroy-at-all-costs attitude simply doesn't execute as well as it could in my opinion, and Buzz comes off as oafish and ineffective rather than uncaring and efficient.

Also, not sure how the bartender didn't spike Sandy's drink as well and she had like ninety of them?




[gonna edit this for general overall advice in a bit!]
 
Re: How to Conquer Kanto in Eight Easy Steps - Interlude 12

@kintsugi:

About time I replied to this. Apologises in advance for any response that comes across a bit rude or anything.

Firstly, the extended universe thing is mostly because I don't want to have to reboot and create new places with every story, and that having one stable universe throughout my stories allows me to build upon certain things and have only a certain set of people to deal with. The stuff with Jericho is not a vital part of this story: I simply had a character from another story who lives in Celadon Mansion, and it made sense to draw him out rather than have entirely new people for Alaska to interact with.

The arguments: I feel tensions can be pushed to their limits in times of peril (my family got very short at each other when we were having a stressful move, for example, and I generally write from experience.) I will admit that I perhaps used that a bit often, though rest assured any arguments coming up will have normal-ish settings. The Sandy/Alaska innuendo argument was more about Sandy feeling bullied and undermined by Alaska, and that her feelings were at a level that anything set them off. I also quite liked the Alaska and Alistair scene: it was meant to be a break from the otherwise endless action of that arc, and what else were they meant to do walking through a secret tunnel?

With regards to the characters, the story mainly is about Alaska, and having brought Sandy into things earlier would not have worked IMO. I could have built her up a bit more, I will admit that, and I will try and rectify when I do rewrites. However, I do not think you have read the story properly if you do not think the plot has affected them. They may not blatantly state it (which you also wouldn't want), but I have gone to the extremes to show how it has affected them - the entire Celadon Arc, parts of the Coastal Route Arc and half the chapters of the Saffron Arc were about how things have affected them. I also am a bit astounded you do not find Alaska's tone in the blogs. The tone in the blogs is very much the her in real life, but the 'her' in the story is who she is being written/presented by me/third person, while the tone of the blogs is how Alaska is presenting herself.

On the matter of the story favouring Alaska... I will admit some of that has been a mistake on my part and I have perhaps done it more than I should have. Part of my motivation with her was the fact a lot of the heroes I read were generally outsmarted or condescended to by the villains, so I felt like writing who was not afraid to actually stand up to them. I think in rewrites I will perhaps make it more even: I do not feel Chloe and Amanda are as awful or believable as I intended them to be.

Typos, yes, I am beginning to fix those now. Thank you pointing out that comma bit, I always forget that. With regards to Kanto, I have tried to make it interesting by diversifying the cities a bit, but it is the blandest of all the regions stylistically. Glad you like the gyms though.

*christ, this is a really hard review to reply to - sooooo much!!!!*

Alaska:
After reading your comments on Janine, I think you have a thing about my teenage girls :p I think it has been explained enough times in text when Alaska did the damage she did, and that it is enough justification when looking at things from Alaska's perspective. I do not see why she cannot be angry and destructive (when provoked and within reason) and still be sarcastic and catty. I admit that jokes are really only as funny as the person receiving them finds them: not everything will work for everybody and I am fine with that, we all have different senses of humour after all.

Her lack of control over the plot and the stone tablet and such will be addressed and there is a reason for them and a theme: I have intended for the story to be more about her trying to overthrow the plot than sticking to what has been set out for her. I was recently inspired by the Alice in Wonderland Honest Trailer to change parts of the (eventual) ending.

Ultimately, I am not trying to make you agree that she has made the right decisions. I like to look at what would actually happen if you put a teenager going through puberty and what not and gave them a team of monsters and expected them to fight a team of criminals and see what would really happen. You may not find her attitude enjoyable, but I have done my best to keep it consistent (and, yes, have it adapt to the situation), and I think it can be justified.

Sandy, like I said above, is not perfect for the first half of the story, and I will do my best to remedy that fact. With regards to beign shot, the fact she was saved and basically was not harmed by it makes it easier to forget over the course of the story, but it will come up eventually. As will her shooting at Silph Co., which I would not have written if I had thought it would be out of character.

And Buzz is stupid, he is meant to be, he is not meant to be an intelligent villain. Not every criminal who has ever lived is intelligent, and I wanted his stupidity and cluelessness (and blindness to reality, if the last chapter was read between the lines) to counteract with Gideon and his cleverness and mystery. His reasons have been made clear in the past for why he is wanting to eliminate Alaska, but they will be clarified in the next next chapter anyway (most likely, if it fits in - in fact, most of your problems, or at least some, will get some attention over the next arc.)
Also, Sandy's drink was spiked, though it was alcohol, not poison.


I probably havent replied to everything here - its taken me about an hour to get this done in between doing other things, so if you want me to clarify something else I will respond. I do appreciate feedback, believe me, but I also am not going to sit placcidly if I have a counterpoint to make :p
 
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Re: How to Conquer Kanto in Eight Easy Steps - Interlude 12

I never managed to edit in additional/concluing concrit; sorry. Got a bit wrapped up with some irl stuff and also intimidating. There's probably enough here to keep us occupied forever, though, so unless you're dying for more thoughts from me to start making counterpoints for, I can just hold off on that.

About time I replied to this. Apologises in advance for any response that comes across a bit rude or anything.

Firstly, the extended universe thing is mostly because I don't want to have to reboot and create new places with every story, and that having one stable universe throughout my stories allows me to build upon certain things and have only a certain set of people to deal with. The stuff with Jericho is not a vital part of this story: I simply had a character from another story who lives in Celadon Mansion, and it made sense to draw him out rather than have entirely new people for Alaska to interact with.

I think the EU is clever and all, but I did find a couple of points where it seemed like your side characters (ie Jericho and friends, as you addressed) were talking about their exploits. Again, not bad, but I thought it crossed the line of "vaguely undefined backstory" and "backstory that the author knows really well that the readers don't;" a quick skim over the concepts of Left Behind told me that the latter was the case. As a head-nod to the rest of your canons, I found it clever, especially after familiarizing myself wit Left Behind; however, as a first-time reader, I honestly thought I was missing something from earlier chapters of 8ES. You can blame that on me if you'd prefer.

The arguments: I feel tensions can be pushed to their limits in times of peril (my family got very short at each other when we were having a stressful move, for example, and I generally write from experience.) I will admit that I perhaps used that a bit often, though rest assured any arguments coming up will have normal-ish settings. The Sandy/Alaska innuendo argument was more about Sandy feeling bullied and undermined by Alaska, and that her feelings were at a level that anything set them off. I also quite liked the Alaska and Alistair scene: it was meant to be a break from the otherwise endless action of that arc, and what else were they meant to do walking through a secret tunnel?

The first few arguments-during-shit-situations were great and tension-filled; don't get me wrong. However, when it kept happening over and over again that there would be a shit situation and a major argument, and there was rarely a major argument outside of a shit situation or a shit situation without an argument, that it kind of got inevitable. It got to the point that whenever people were about to fall off a bridge/drown/blow up already, I was prepared for someone to start slinging character-building insults around, and lo and behold, and argument sparked.

With regards to the characters, the story mainly is about Alaska, and having brought Sandy into things earlier would not have worked IMO. I could have built her up a bit more, I will admit that, and I will try and rectify when I do rewrites. However, I do not think you have read the story properly if you do not think the plot has affected them. They may not blatantly state it (which you also wouldn't want), but I have gone to the extremes to show how it has affected them - the entire Celadon Arc, parts of the Coastal Route Arc and half the chapters of the Saffron Arc were about how things have affected them. I also am a bit astounded you do not find Alaska's tone in the blogs. The tone in the blogs is very much the her in real life, but the 'her' in the story is who she is being written/presented by me/third person, while the tone of the blogs is how Alaska is presenting herself.

I don't mean to suggest that Sandy needs to have a more prominent role in the story; what I thought would be more useful would be if she had a more independent role--early on, yes, the story is very much focused on Alaska. That is not wrong. What I disagree with, however, is how all of Sandy's actions become based around Alaska, and she basically becomes a surrogate/mouthpiece for Alaska for a lot of the early story. A bit of the agency that she demonstrates in the later chapters would've been appreciated, even if the spotlight that she gets doesn't come until later.

In regards to Alaska's tone, I think you misunderstand. Her tone is very much there in the blogs, especially in the early ones. Her tone is incredibly evident throughout the blogs, but it never changes--it remains petulant, whiny, and kind of pseudo-snark, even though Alaska has ostensibly grown up a lot during the story itself. When you do the scenes you mentioned in Celadon/Coastal (Saffron and her reactions to Sabrina felt very much like early-Alaska again, though), there's growth there, and I see change in her; when we get back to her blog, though, she's the exact same person in the first blog and the last, and that was where I took issues with the tone. I thought the blogs were a clever idea and made the story a lot more interesting, but I think their execution in the later parts, especially in regard to tone, fell short a little and failed to show off Alaska's actual development. The later blogs feel like a bit of a missed opportunity--it would've been a perfect time to show just how much Alaska has changed, but instead they tend to fall into the same "guess what readers my life sux lol!!" pattern that the earlier ones did.


On the matter of the story favouring Alaska... I will admit some of that has been a mistake on my part and I have perhaps done it more than I should have. Part of my motivation with her was the fact a lot of the heroes I read were generally outsmarted or condescended to by the villains, so I felt like writing who was not afraid to actually stand up to them. I think in rewrites I will perhaps make it more even: I do not feel Chloe and Amanda are as awful or believable as I intended them to be.

Glad we kind of agree here, at least. Common ground is nice. ^^

I do think it's possible to have a hero not be afraid to stand up to her demons while still being outsmarted by them, so I'm not sure where the bifurcation in that sentence is.


Typos, yes, I am beginning to fix those now. Thank you pointing out that comma bit, I always forget that. With regards to Kanto, I have tried to make it interesting by diversifying the cities a bit, but it is the blandest of all the regions stylistically. Glad you like the gyms though.

*christ, this is a really hard review to reply to - sooooo much!!!!*

Sorry.

Alaska:
After reading your comments on Janine, I think you have a thing about my teenage girls :p I think it has been explained enough times in text when Alaska did the damage she did, and that it is enough justification when looking at things from Alaska's perspective. I do not see why she cannot be angry and destructive (when provoked and within reason) and still be sarcastic and catty. I admit that jokes are really only as funny as the person receiving them finds them: not everything will work for everybody and I am fine with that, we all have different senses of humour after all.

As someone who was/(is?) a teenage girl and spent a lot of time growing up with all different kinds of teenage girls and going into a bunch of teenage girl circles and basically interacting with nearly every kind of teenage girl imaginable (exaggeration, but I digress), I do feel like you fall into a bit of a caricature. My opinion, however, is not universal, and you are perfectly free to do whatever you wish.

I think, however, that there needs to be a clearer difference between what Alaska thinks is okay and what the story thinks is okay. Alaska has motivations for things she's doing, and I get that, but that doesn't mean that what she's doing is objectively right (for a more black/white example, and Godwin's law because I don't know what other beliefs are fair ground to attack, the Nazis had motivations for what they were doing, and I get that, but that doesn't mean that anything they did was good. Also, I do not mean to compare your protagonist to Nazis. Metaphors. Sorry).

Perhaps this is me, but anger and destruction seem to require a certain degree of brokenness that does not intersect with sarcasm and cattiness. Perhaps a person can be catty, which makes them childishly want to destroy, but then sarcasm doesn't fit; perhaps a person is sarcastic and casually angry, but then the cattiness doesn't seem to fit. This has been a very basic comparison that doesn't begin to capture the scope of your character, but I see too many archetypes here. Personal preference I guess.


Her lack of control over the plot and the stone tablet and such will be addressed and there is a reason for them and a theme: I have intended for the story to be more about her trying to overthrow the plot than sticking to what has been set out for her. I was recently inspired by the Alice in Wonderland Honest Trailer to change parts of the (eventual) ending.

Ultimately, I am not trying to make you agree that she has made the right decisions. I like to look at what would actually happen if you put a teenager going through puberty and what not and gave them a team of monsters and expected them to fight a team of criminals and see what would really happen. You may not find her attitude enjoyable, but I have done my best to keep it consistent (and, yes, have it adapt to the situation), and I think it can be justified.

You don't have to make us agree that Alaska is trying to make the right decisions (not sure if I'm reading this sentence right nor not); honestly, I don't think you'd be able to for some situations. Also, your characters don't need to be enjoyable; I think that's kind of a weird perception in writing that's been circulate lately. However, if you go for a character who's unlikeable, it doesn't make sense for them to be unlikeable to the audience and still adored by a bunch of people in the text. That's where the disconnect happens, and that's where I get kind of confused.

Sandy, like I said above, is not perfect for the first half of the story, and I will do my best to remedy that fact. With regards to beign shot, the fact she was saved and basically was not harmed by it makes it easier to forget over the course of the story, but it will come up eventually. As will her shooting at Silph Co., which I would not have written if I had thought it would be out of character.

This contradicts the whole "young kids getting thrown into awful situations and being screwed over vibe" that I think you said you were going for in the previous paragraph. Perhaps you grew up differently than I, or perhaps Sandy grew up differently than both of us, but she is a thirteen year-old girl who got shot. That is scary. She nearly died. "Basically" "not harmed" does not mean that she gets away mentally unscathed.

And Buzz is stupid, he is meant to be, he is not meant to be an intelligent villain. Not every criminal who has ever lived is intelligent, and I wanted his stupidity and cluelessness (and blindness to reality, if the last chapter was read between the lines) to counteract with Gideon and his cleverness and mystery. His reasons have been made clear in the past for why he is wanting to eliminate Alaska, but they will be clarified in the next next chapter anyway (most likely, if it fits in - in fact, most of your problems, or at least some, will get some attention over the next arc.)
Also, Sandy's drink was spiked, though it was alcohol, not poison.

I got more of that in the most recent Interlude, which was not included in my Awards judging. Should've updated that and was planning to in the final thoughts, but I didn't get around it. Sorry.

I still hold that the ninety+ chapters of barely knowing anything about Buzz's motivations doesn't particularly help with his depth/credibility as a villain.



I probably havent replied to everything here - its taken me about an hour to get this done in between doing other things, so if you want me to clarify something else I will respond. I do appreciate feedback, believe me, but I also am not going to sit placcidly if I have a counterpoint to make :p

I don't expect you to sit placidly. I hope you understand that my intent in writing critical reviews is not to bash people into submission and into agreeing with what I say and writing what I suggest. That would be stupid. I also don't claim that all of the criticism I say is universal; you can take it or leave it as you please (I believe the reversed argument of this is "don't like it; don't read," but that sounds like a really dickish thing to say in response to responses to my reviews lol). I don't write reviews as attacks on people's characters (both fictional and just people) and stories, and I honestly hope you don't see them as such.

Hopefully something I suggested was mildly useful.
 
Re: How to Conquer Kanto in Eight Easy Steps - Interlude 12

@kintsugi

I do think that 8ES has the more extreme examples of the EU than other stories, as it takes place after all the other ones. You dont need to read the other stories, but I can understand the confusion and apologise for that.

Alaska and Sandy have only argued about twice in life-threatening circumstances. Like I said, it won't really be happening again.

Fair points about Sandy. When I do the rewrites, I will work on her role more. And I think you are not getting the fact that, at the end of the day, Alaska does not want to be changed by the story: after her talk with Sandy, things were rawer than they had been and a bit emotional. In her latest blog, I think you are over-exaggerating the amount of sass evident in it, but the fundamentally part of the story is that Alaska is not satisfied with being a character in a plot she does not have control over and does not want to be lead down that path. Part of the original idea with her was to have a character who found out they are part of a story and rebels against the plot that has been lain down for them. She, and bringing Sandy and the shooting into this, does not need to sit down and make deep and meaningfuls about how shitty their situation is in order to show growth or a reaction to what is going on. I am letting it come naturally, I am not going to force the conversation when the plot dictates other things need to happen.

Don't worry, I get the Nazi example was an extreme. However, has anyone asides from Sandy ever actually said "You go girl, that blowing up stuff was cool?" There have been off-screen reactions that are mentioned, but this is a mystery, not everything is quite that black or white. The story would show what Alaska did as being in the right because this is Alaska's story and the narrator or whatever aint going to randomly start berating her. And I think Alaska's angry reactions and sarcasm can click together.

And I have read plenty of stories where the villains have had nothing revealed until the very last chapters, or what was revealed turned out to be Red Herrings. Again, in rewrites I will probably improve all of the villains personas and roles, but I feel that there is enough in the earlier interludes to fuel Buzz's persona, and I would not have introduced the whole "the reality show is a fake/the robots are all him" earlier as that, i feel, would have done more harm to the ultimate threat of the robots than good.


And I do not see your reviews as an attack or anyone (though some more positives might have been nice - I have been working on this for four/five years now :p). And some of what you said has been helpful and has helped set the scene for the next arc post gym battle (spoiler? Idk). I just also think that other parts are potentially being read the wrong way.
 
Chapter Sixty Seven: A Game of Strategy
Re: How to Conquer Kanto in Eight Easy Steps - Interlude 12

Chapter Sixty Seven: A Game of Strategy

So, this is what I have been waiting a week for, Alaska thought as she walked slowly towards the Saffron Gym battlefield. She had noticed that the gyms seemed to get grander and bigger with each one she visited, and part of her had been hoping for something exciting and unique from someone as bizarre as Sabrina. However, as she stepped towards the challenger's area, Alaska was disappointed by how identical the battle field was to rest of the gym: it had the same glowing walls and floors with the same swirling pattern, with only a fluorescent green outline marking both the pitch and the area as being any different to the dozens of other rooms in the building.

"I see you chose to save money on the decorations," she called out to her opponent, and the gym leader turned towards her, their eyes meeting for the first time in a week. Sabrina looked same as she had in their first and only meeting, wearing a similar purple shirt and black trousers combo and her face was plastered with the same look that Alaska could only describe as blank judgement.

"We gym leaders design our arenas to play to the strengths of our Pokemon and further test our opponents: a pool for Misty, sand for Brock, flowers for Alexis and Erika before her. With Psychic Pokemon, there is nothing physically I can create that will enhance their skills, so we battle differently to everyone else, while still having the necessary upper hand to defeat those who grace our battlefield."

It seemed clear to Alaska that there was a hidden meaning behind Sabrina's words, but she instantly stopped herself before she began over-analysing the statement, knowing doing so would only throw her off rather than help her win. She had been doing a lot of that over the past week: dwelling on what Sabrina had said during their sole meeting, wondering about what the gym leader had said, her warnings and her threats, and her parting message that had kept Alaska awake at night. Yet after a week of thinking about things, Alaska had had to put the information aside, knowing that if she focussed solely on Sabrina's apparent message, than there was no chance she would ever win the match, not when her mind was too distracted deciphering the warnings of a crazy girl.

Alaska snapped out of her thoughts as a referee stepped up to the middle of the field, one of countless, nameless gym attendants wearing the burgundy uniform. Behind him, Sandy, Looker and Alistair Melton sat on a long glowing bench, but there was no buzz of excitement coming from them. Even Sandy was worn out and bored after a week stuck inside the walls of the Saffron Gym, and Alaska knew they while they were watching to support her, they also wanted to ensure they too would be able to finally leave.

"This is a Saffron Gym battle between the gym leader Sabrina and the challenger Alaska Acevedo. The match will be four on four," the referee announced. Alaska had been expecting this, but it was no less annoying to know she may require all her Pokemon no matter who Sabrina sent out. "The first trainer to successfully knock out all of the opposing trainers Pokemon will be declared the winner. It should be noted that, in this case, should the challenger not win, they will be required to remain inside the gym until they do win. For the sake of transparency, the challenger will be given a headband embedded with the ruby of a Sableye, which will prevent the gym leader Sabrina from reading your mind."

"Not that I would do something so underhanded and petty, but we find it reassures the more unstable and imaginative trainers," Sabrina added as a second attendant suddenly appeared behind Alaska, a leather headband clasped in their hands.

"Well, thanks a lot; having a dead Pokemon's jewels on my head is really going to be reassuring," Alaska retorted. Sabrina merely smirked but otherwise ignored the jibe, and Alaska put the headband on, the ruby glittering as it reflected the glowing patterns.

"Is the challenger ready to begin the battle?" The referee asked. Alaska opened her mouth to say 'yes', ready to get this over and done with. However, despite her desperation to win and be done with this gym, she paused. Instead, Alaska turned and stared across the pitch at her opponent. Sabrina looked disinterested by the whole thing, her expression neutral hindering on bored, but Alaska had a feeling the Psychic trainer was as interested in the outcome as she was. Of all the gym leaders she had met so far, Sabrina was the most difficult one to work out, and it made her the most dangerous and unpredictable opponent Alaska had faced in this arena.

It was not just the unreadable personality that had Alaska worried. The past week had been one of the strangest experiences of this entire journey. Staying within the gym was meant to protect them, but Alaska instead felt like she was being watched every minute of the day, as if the glowing walls were hiding something sinister. After a long day of training, Alaska wanted nothing more than to sleep and forget about life, but instead she lay awake, unable to shake the feeling that someone was watching her every movement. And it was in those moments that her debate with Sabrina came crawling back, the questions and truths the gym leader had cast into the universe. It was in those moments that Alaska had to ask herself if Sabrina was right, if she had really let her early wins get to her, if she had caused herself to hit this streak of depression and fear…

Standing opposite her enemy now, Alaska knew now what that feeling had been: it had been the look in Sabrina's eyes while she psycho-analysed every aspect of Alaska's personality. The way the gym leader had stared at her, the way she delivered all her opinions like fact, it had been cold and unnerving, and Alaska was not surprised she was unable to sleep properly where everything that made her who she was had been torn apart.

Now, as she looked Sabrina in the eye, Alaska knew she had to win this battle. She had to prove to Sabrina that she was not afraid, prove that the psychic had not worked her out just yet, and prove that she could handle anything that came her way. Alaska was not going to let Sabrina control the battle; she was not going to let her change her, manipulate her, become just another person out to rule her life. Alaska wanted out of the gym, and she would do everything in her power to defeat Sabrina and win the badge.

"I'm ready," Alaska purred, and Sabrina nodded in approval. The referee raised his hands, both trainers grabbed hold of the PokeBall they send out first, and a quiet, tenser atmosphere took over the arena: there had rarely been a gym battle that had so much riding on it, and Alaska was prepared to ensure things ended her way.

"Let the battle begin!"

"Frances, let's win this!" Alaska yelled, and threw a Great Ball forwards. As blue light poured onto the field, a similar red glow shone on the opposite side. Alaska watched as a humanoid Pokemon formed opposite Frances, though this creature looked more like a caricature than anything else, with curled blue shoes, pink spots across its body and a wide, clown-like face.

"Mime Mime Mime!" The pink and white Pokemon chimed, grinning brightly at Alaska. She raised an eyebrow and exchanged surprised looks with Frances.

"I take it this is a Mr Mime?" She asked, receiving a brief nod in response. Alaska tried to look nonplussed, but Sabrina's use of such an unusual first Pokemon had her worried: Mr Mime were generally used in circus or street performances, and were not seen as the greatest battlers. There was obviously a strategy going on here, but Alaska did not have time to dwell on it.

"Hit him with X-Scissor!" She yelled. Frances nodded and scuttled across the field, her large pincers glowing with a magnificent green. She raised them in an X formation and let out a cry, but before she could get near Mr Mime, the Psychic type began waving his hands about in midair. The tips of fingers, which were usually pink, flashed yellow, and the glow extended like a wall in front of him. Alaska feared for a moment Frances would crash into the translucent barrier, but the Parasect managed to scuttle through and slam her claws into Mr Mime's legs.

"Mime!" The Psychic type wailed, stumbling to his knees, and Alaska managed a smirk at getting in the first blow.

"Again!" She ordered. Frances nodded and raised her claws, but before she could get in a close range hit, Mr Mime jumped to his feet and leapt backwards. Frances' pincers flailed wildly as her target disappeared, the yellow wall moving with him. The Parasect steadied herself and chased after, but Mr Mime ignored his attacker: instead, he waved his hands in front of him once more, this time his fingers glowing white, and a second wall erupted in mid air. While the first was a murky yellow like a stained window, the new one was clear but reflective, showing a faint version of Frances rushing across the field.

What the hell is going on, Alaska thought, and she stared curiously at Sabrina, certain the trainer had not uttered a single word so far in the battle.

"PARA!" Frances yelled as she jumped through the two walls and made for Mr Mime. Her X-Scissor hit, green striking white, but this time Mr Mime flinched but remained standing. Alaska was left stunned and wondering what had happened to suddenly weaken the power of X-Scissor like that.

"Hang in there, Frances, don't lose any confidence!" She called to Frances, fearful that the only Pokemon she had with a type advantage could revert to the fearful state they had worked so hard to snap her out of. "Try another X-Scissor, aim for his chest!"

"Parasect Para!" Frances cried, and rushed forwards once again, her beady eyes burning with determination. But she had barely made it a metre before Mr Mime suddenly disappeared into red energy, sucked back towards Sabrina. Alaska seized up in shock as the gym leader quickly swapped PokeBalls, throwing the second one towards the middle of the field. The two walls shifted across the field as a second Pokemon formed, this one covered in golden fur with a sparkling spoon clasped in one hand.

"A Kadabra…," Alaska mumbled, unable to think of anything more intelligent to say as the speed and surprise of the battle overwhelmed her. She had been expecting Sabrina to be a tough opponent, but her strategy so far was the sneakiest and most mysterious Alaska had ever come up against. She watched as Frances ran back across the field, moving quickly despite the confusion that covered her face, and struck Kadabra with her X-Scissor, but the Psychic type simply looked down at the Parasect as if she was a small Caterpie getting in his way.

This is impossible, Alaska thought angrily. X-Scissor is about the only move I have that can bring down her Pokemon, yet it isn't doing a thing.

"What exactly did Mr Mime do?"

"I don't have to tell you that," Sabrina answered blankly, a sudden twinkle in her eyes, and Alaska felt like she had just been punched in the head, her mind spinning as the confusing battle took shape.

"Excuse me? What does that mean? Surely the rules state –"

"There is nothing in the official Pokemon League rulebook that states a trainer has to audibly give their commands," the referee interrupted, the tone of his voice giving off the air that he had been prepared to say this. Alaska felt a strong urge to punch something, but knew that would only prove some sort of point to Sabrina, and repressed her rage as she accepted that she had walked into a trap: the gym leader wanted to make Alaska win in a challenge she had no chance of predicting, and what better way to achieve that than by giving commands that Alaska could not hear?

"This is fucking ridiculous," she hissed.

"In your eyes it may be, but I am the one that has set the challenge, so you must play by my rules and find a way to defeat me," Sabrina responded simply. Alaska clenched her fists tight, wanting to run across the field and knock every ounce of quiet superiority out of Sabrina's system.

However, Alaska knew she was stuck in this battle, that the only way to free herself was to play Sabrina's little game and come out victorious on the other side. If she wanted to win, she needed to set aside her rage for now and concentrate on winning the battle.

"Stun Spore!" Alaska ordered, and she saw Sabrina nod , the gym leader clearly satisfied they were playing this game. Frances was right beside Kadabra and it would be an easy hit, one Alaska was certain the two strange barriers would not be able to stop. However, as Frances breathed in and readied to fire the cloud of yellow particles, Kadabra's spoon glowed white. Alaska tensed up, certain this would not be good, but she was not expecting the Psi Pokemon to shine a glorious white and disappear. Her jaw dropped, and a stunned Frances released the Stun Spore onto nothing in shock.

"Was that Teleport?" Alaska asked aloud, but Sabrina did not answer, purposefully avoiding eye contact. Infuriated, Alaska looked around the field, waiting for Kadabra to reappear, but the Pokemon seemed to have disappeared for the time being. It was unsettling, facing an opponent that could vanish like this, and Alaska could see Frances was becoming unsettled.

"Stay focussed, Frances, use Stun Spore again as soon as he reappears!" The Mushroom Pokemon timidly nodded in reply, but barely had time to prepare herself before something white flashed behind her. Alaska watched as Kadabra formed less than an inch behind her Pokemon, and she gasped as the Psychic type lunged with his spoon.

"Kadab," he whispered, and the spoon flashed blue as it touched Frances' head. The Parasect stumbled backwards, and Alaska feared confusion or something similar that would force Frances out of the battle. However, the Mushroom Pokemon steadied herself and looked up at Kadabra, her face screwed in concentration as she tried to release the pores, yet nothing seemed to be coming out.

"It must have used Disable, Alaska!" Sandy yelled from the sidelines. "He's prevented Frances from using Stun Spore aga –"

"Quiet in the stands!" The referee yelled. "This match is between the two people on the field, the challenger must work things out for herself." Sandy looked like she had been slapped, and another spat of rage rose up inside Alaska.

"You know, when I battle in the real world, I do tend to have help from Sandy: if you're trying to teach me a lesson, you really should tailor it to suit how I do things," she snarled bitterly.

"Getting help from others is not the lesson I am trying to teach you. Besides, I thought you were so desperate for independence that you would not let anyone tell you what to do: surely that extends to your friend as well?" Sabrina replied, and Alaska grunted and turned back to the battle. Frances was fearfully moving away from Kadabra, still trying to use Stun Spore despite the mental blockade placed upon her.

If she becomes afraid again I am done for, Alaska thought. "Slash, quickly!" Frances frantically turned to face Kadabra, her right claw turning white, yet she had barely moved before Kadabra flashed white again, and Alaska swore as the Psi Pokemon disappeared a second time. However, she hardly had time to be angry, as while Frances looked frantically about, Kadabra suddenly appeared behind her, left fist glowing red with fire.

"Behind you!" Alaska shouted, but Kadabra had already swung his fist. Frances yelled out as the Fire Punch squarely struck her mushroom, and she was sent rolling across the pitch.

"I must say Alaska, if this is how you normally battle, I am surprised you have managed to survive for so long," Sabrina said calmly. "I intended for this match to be difficult, but any attentive trainer surely would have realised my tricks by now." Alaska literally bit her tongue in order to stop the onslaught of insults that longed to burst from her mouth. She instead surveyed the two Pokemon standing on the field: Kadabra to her left looming over the weakened Frances to her right, who was struggling to get back to her feet with a fearful look in her eye.

I am never going to win if Frances becomes scared again, and I can't shift her out either: she is the only one with the type advantage… if only those skills would actually work. Alaska thought back to the first move of the match, when Frances had managed to cause serious damage to Mr Mime before his second attack came up. Staring at the pitch, she could see the translucent and reflective barriers were in front of Kadabra, who simply looked straight through them as though they weren't even there.

X-Scissor was effective when it was just the one barrier, but when the second one went up it hardly did a thing…, Alaska thought, staring quickly between the two Pokemon. Whatever Mr Mimes first attack was, it did nothing to stop X-Scissor, but the second one did, which means Sabrina's strategy was to simply put both up as protection. Think Alaska, think…

THAT'S IT! Alaska's face lit up as inspiration suddenly struck. X-Scissor is a physical attack, meaning the second wall weakens those moves – it must be Reflect or something like that… and that means the first wall probably stops special attacks… Light Screen, maybe? Whatever it is, those moves both fade after a while, but Light Screen will probably fade first…

"Frances, charge for Solarbeam!" Alaska shouted. Sabrina raised an eyebrow but said nothing, and Alaska ignored her to focus on Frances. However, when she looked across to her Pokemon, she was dismayed to see the Parasect was shaking, fearfully staring up at Kadabra as he prepared to Teleport once again. Alaska knew her plan wouldn't work if Frances was terrified, and the success of this battle rested on her pulling off this strategy.

"I know you are afraid, Frances, but you have to get past it!" Alaska shouted, and Frances half opened one eye and looked towards her. "They are using mind games in order to defeat us, and if we let those games get to us then we are bound to lose! You are a strong Pokemon and you have the ability to win, but you have to believe in yourself!" As she let those words settle in, a white flash signalled Kadabra's reappearance, and Frances squealed in terror as a second Fire Punch collided. It looked painful, and Alaska could almost feel the blow herself. However, she finally noticed something she probably should have a while ago: the barriers were once again in front of Kadabra, when they had been shimmering before him in his previous position.

They Teleport with him… maybe I can then… yes! Alaska thought quickly, and looked back at Frances. "Don't give up yet, you need to keep charging, you need to put all your energy into this Solarbeam and then double it!" Frances looked at her shaking, her legs and claws and even her giant mushroom quivering with fear, and she looked as though she wanted to run behind Alaska's legs. But Alaska was not going to let her give up.

"Remember the day you evolved, when you learnt Solarbeam and helped defeat Gideon? I was so, so, sooo proud of you that day! It was amazing the way you defeated his Pokemon and saved our lives, one of the greatest things I have ever seen!" Frances suddenly stopped shaking, and looked at Alaska with an almost disbelieving look. "It's true, Frances! You have been with me for so long now, we have been through so much, and there is no denying the bond we have or how big your role is you on my team! I just need you to prove that you still have that fighting spirit in you!" Frances didn't look very confident, but she gave a tiny nod with her whole body, and the top of her mushroom began to glow.

There was a flash behind her, but Alaska was not afraid. "Watch out!" She called, and Frances briefly turned as the glow got brighter. Alaska watched carefully, and smirked as the two barriers suddenly shifted across the field a moment before Kadabra formed. She hardly even cared that another Fire Punch got in considering her theory was proven now: all she had to do was make sure the next hit was theirs.

"Run across the field, Frances, and keep charging!" Frances nodded, and she quickly scuttled away from Kadabra towards the middle of the pitch. Kadabra silently watched her go and began to glow white for a fourth time, and as he disappeared, Alaska intently watched the two barriers: the reflective one that Mr Mime had created second remained, but as she watched, the first one, the yellow one, began to fade away.

"Watch the Reflect, see where it goes!" Alaska yelled, pointing towards the remaining wall, and Frances nodded intently. Sabrina showed no emotion at her strategy being cracked, and Alaska held back her joy, waiting to see what happened next…

"You need to strike the moment Kadabra reappears; we cannot let him get another hit in! Focus on the wall, watch where it goes, find out where Kadabra is landing. You grew up inside a cave; put your… cave senses, if that is even a thing, to the test! Just concentrate and ready your attack!" Frances nodded, and she looked the most confident she had all battle. A tense silence fell across the arena as everyone waited, all eyes flickering between Frances and the Reflect, watching to see what happened next… You can do this, Frances… just focus… you can do this…

With the blink of an eye, the wall suddenly moved, sweeping across the field, over Frances, and coming to a stop right behind her, a white glow erupting in the middle.

"GRAB HIM!" Alaska roared, and Frances, her beady eyes having already seen the move, turned around with her claws raised and clasped onto Kadabra's legs the moment he had formed. The Psychic type looked stunned, pausing briefly with a flaming fist, and it was in that moment Alaska knew she had won this match up.

"NOW!"

"PARAAAAAAAAAA!" Frances screamed, and a brilliant beam of green exploded from the top of her bulb. The column of light and energy slammed into Kadabra from close range, and the Psi Pokemon roared as the attack washed over him. Yet he could not escape, Frances holding onto him too tightly, and everyone watched transfixed as the attack pulsated throughout the room. Alaska wanted to cheer, but as the attack died down she knew the hit would not be enough, and she stared through the glare, trying to see if her final obstacle remained standing, but if she waited too long it would be too late…

"X-SCISSOR!" She shouted. Frances did not even stop to take a breath, leaping up the moment Solarbeam had faded, and with a second yell she swiped her glowing green claws across the frazzled Kadabra's chest. The Psychic type merely grunted, his eyes wide and his fur on end, and he toppled to the field at the same moment Frances landed triumphantly beside him.

"Kadabra is unable to battle," the referee announced, and Sandy let out an explosive cheer from the sidelines. Alaska briefly smiled at her before looking down at her tired Parasect, giving her a broad grin as she swelled with pride.

"That was amazing, I am so proud of you! I have never seen anything like that be – what the hell?" Alaska came to a stop mid sentence as Frances suddenly cried out and tumbled forwards. Confused, she looked around for the source of the attack, and was startled to find something small and green flying directly in front of her. For a second, she wasn't even sure if it was a Pokemon or not, but than the tiny tennis ball-esque creature looked at her and flew away with wings the size of sticking plasters.

"You could have waited a moment, I had not idea you had even released a Pokemon!" Alaska called out angrily.

"This is a battle, these are my rules, I do not have to wait for you to give your Pokemon compliments before sending out my next one," Sabrina replied plainly. "In war, your opponent would not kindly wait like that before putting a bullet in your head."

"You never know, they might be having an off day," Alaska replied caustically, frustrated that once again Sabrina's lesson was ruling the battle. She was even further dismayed to see Frances was struggling to get back up, all confidence gained from defeating Kadabra evaporated in one moment. Alaska looked around at the Pokemon zipping around the room, barely staying in one place longer than a few seconds, and knew this was going to be a challenge.

"Is that a Natu, by any chance?" Sabrina nodded, and Alaska sighed with annoyance, guessing it would have at least one Flying type attack to defeat any Bug types that came up in battle. She could always swap Frances out and bring her back later, but there was no telling who Sabrina would send out next, the chances high it would be something that would wipe the glowing floor with the Parasect before she even got one hit in.

"Slash." The single syllable echoed, the depression and anger behind it clear to everyone, and Alaska had to avoid Frances' gaze as she looked fretfully up at her trainer. What sort of trainer have I become when I disappoint my own Pokemon with my lack of skills?

Alaska didn't watch as Natu flew down, wings outstretched and glowing, likely an Aerial Ace, and cut across Frances before she could even move. She caught out of the corner of her eye something orange fall, and then the referee announced the loss to her side. Wearily, Alaska withdrew Frances and put the Great Ball away with a heavy heart: her best chance of winning was lost, and now she would have to defeat Natu, Mr Mime and a mysterious fourth Pokemon with no type advantage.

"Have you taken my lesson to heart yet?" Sabrina's voice called across the pitch, and Alaska cast her her deadliest side eye. "If you had trained this past week with my warning in mind, you would easily be able to win the battle. It appears, however, you have not focussed on it, and have instead gone blindly into battle with no hope of finding your way out." Alaska looked up as Sabrina finished her tirade, a dull feeling of pain and annoyance rising up. The gym leaders words echoed inside her head, all her warnings and judgements from a week ago sounding on top of one another, and Alaska decided than and there she was not going to take another second of Sabrina.

"You can take your bloody lesson and shove it up your ass," Alaska snapped, and she threw her second PokeBall onto the field, only the thinnest glimmer of a strategy in mind. She briefly caught Sabrina's empty but judging eyes look down at Shelley, who seemed to be positively brimming with joy at being chosen to fight. "I have fought hard to make it to the previous four gyms, and I fought hard to win all four badges, and I did it based on my own strategies. I do not need to be judged by you in order to win this match. All my strategies have paid off in the past, and I am not changing that for your benefit. You think you know me, but you have no idea who I am or what I have been through. I have every right to feel the way I feel after that, and I do not care what you or the league or anyone else expects me to do, but if I am going to keep fighting people like Buzz and Gideon, I am going to fight them MY WAY!" Silence followed her words, and Alaska only realised now how deeply and heavily she was breathing, her anger tiring her out. She glanced across at the trio on the sideline, hoping for support, but none of them met her gaze, all three looking either at the field or down to avoid eye contact.

"Do as you wish, Alaska, but be warned that this aimless strategy of yours will not work in the long run, no matter what you believe," Sabrina said after a few moments, and there was a cold rage behind her words that brought Alaska back to attention. Despite her annoyance at this charade, the words managed to sting, and Alaska had to literally shake her head to clear away the dark thoughts settling into place. This is just a mind game, I am not going to let her get to me, I am not letting her win like this, I can't be distracted, she told herself, but the way everyone had avoided her eyes lingered at the back of her mind.

"Icicle Spear!"

"Shell Shell!" Shelley cried happily, and the Shellder bounced about on the spot as she tried to find her opponent. Natu, however, was sitting still for once, its eyes glowing a faint white as a transparent ball appeared in the air above. Shelley opened her mouth wide, her tongue turning light blue, and five long, sharp icicles rocketed into the air. The tiny Natu winced as they slammed one after the other into her, shattering and sending the Little Bird rolling backwards. Alaska was pleased to get such a direct hit early on, but then she noticed the ball: it was simply floating in mid air doing nothing, like an ominous moon.

That can't be good, she thought grimly, but tried not to let it get under her skin. The Icicle Spear had been successful, but Alaska knew she could not rely on it again, not when Natu was normally so speedy.

"Bubblebeam!" She ordered, and her suspicions were instantly proved right: the command was barely through her lips when Natu shot forwards, becoming a green blur, and Shelley yelled as the tiny body slammed into her shell. It was clearly Quick Attack, and Alaska could see what Sabrina wanted: while it was not a powerful move, the speed allowed Natu to score a hit and then get away before getting attacked up close. Alaska had sent out Shelley on a whim, thinking her small size would be a nice counter to the minuteness of Natu, but she realised now what she needed was a Pokemon capable of taking up the chase, or one with an arsenal of long distance moves, something her Shellder could not do.

Don't tell me she was right after all… Alaska thought bitterly, and shook her head, trying to think of a way around her problem. She needed to give Natu less room to move around in and increase the chance of Shelley hitting her. Alaska watched as the BubbleBeam floated through the air, and while several hit the zipping Natu, most missed their miniscule target.

They sure do spread out though… Alaska thought, trying to think of something. She stared around, trying to look for inspiration in the glowing walls and getting nothing. However, after a few moments, she realised the glowing pattern reminded her of something…

"Shelley, BubbleBeam again, and then use Aurora Beam!" Alaska looked across the pitch as she gave the command and saw something like rage briefly cross Sabrina's face, and she smiled to herself in victory.

"Shell!" Shelley exclaimed happily, and she unleashed her barrage of bubbles once again. As soon as they were unleashed, the Bivalve Pokemon opened her mouth wider and fired a shimmering, rainbow coloured beam towards the attack. It looked as though the two attacks would collide, which was what Alaska wanted, but before they did, Natu swooped down, eyes narrowed and shining pink. Her mouth opened wide, and a ball of pink energy shot out, sparks flying and spinning about inside. Alaska tensed up as the attack soared past the bubbles and headed straight towards Shelley, unsure how effective the move would be. The Shellder saw the attack coming, and at the last moment turned, firing the Aurora Beam towards the ball rather than the bubbles.

A rainbow explosion illuminated the field as the two attacks collided, and Alaska threw her hands in front of her face as a cold shockwave washed over her. Through her outstretched fingers she saw endless flashes of colour, like a light show gone wrong, but did not get a proper look until the energy from the explosion had died away. When she lowered her arms, Alaska expected to find the worst, and she was taken aback to discover what had truly happened.

The collision of Aurora Beam and the Psychic attack had had an unprecedented effect: glittering chunks of ice now covered the field, walls and ceiling. It was what Alaska had been trying to do, but the collision of Psychic and Ice had doubled her desire outcome. She looked up at where the BubbleBeam had been, and saw a huge pack of jagged, misshapen ice across the ceiling: it was ten times better than what Alaska had anticipated, and when she gleefully looked across at Sabrina, the look of undisguised horror on her face made Alaska whoop in celebration.

"Oh, this is too good!" She exclaimed, clapping her hands and resisting the urge to dance on the spot. "I never expected this to happen – this is just perfect! Thank you, Sabrina, thank you so, so much!" The gym leader did not say anything in response, but her lips had thinned in annoyance, a look replicated by Natu. I probably shouldn't be pissing her off, since she can keep me here forever if she wants to, but I am not letting anyone push me around, not anymore, Alaska told herself, smirking back to Sabrina.

"Aurora Beam again!" Shelley had been staring in awe of the frozen landscape that had appeared around her, and as such did not pay attention as Natu came hurtling towards her again. The speed of the Quick Attack was strengthened by Natu's rage, and the force of the attack sent Shelley hurtling across the pitch, skidding over patches of ice. Shelley cried out as she spun wildly, and she aimlessly fired off the Aurora Beam. However, the ice barrier had worked, forcing Natu to change path several times, and Alaska cheered as the attack struck the smaller Pokemon.

"I would not celebrate so quickly if I was you," Sabrina purred. Alaska paused, wondering what the gym leader meant, and then saw it: the hovering orb had suddenly shot forwards, having doubled in size and brightness since she had last looked at it, and the trainer gasped as a white beam like a spotlight was fired at the spinning Shelley.

"SHELL!" She cried, the attack exploding against her shell and sending her flying into the air. Alaska seized up, knowing that when Shelley landed it would not end well, and knew she had to improvise.

"Use Clamp on one the icicles!" She shouted, and Shelley responded just in time, stretching out and grabbing onto a jagged bit of the frozen ceiling formation. Now she was several metres above the field, Natu hovering weakly about underneath. Alaska was pleased to see her opponent was moving slower now, knowing one last move would be enough to wipe her out, but she had no idea what to do with Shelley now.

"You should have heeded my advice, Alaska, rather than trying to turn things to your favour," Sabrina called out. "Freezing the field was a clever move, but you need a better strategy than that if you want to win the battle." Alaska opened her mouth to reply, but Natu did not give her the chance: the Flying type was soaring towards Shelley with her wings outstretched, going in with Aerial Ace to ensure the attack hit. However, that was not the only part of Sabrina's plan, as Natu's eyes were glowing pink once again, and Alaska knew that the mysterious Psychic attack would hit this time unless she did something to stop it.

Shelley is not strong enough to survive two attacks at once… I have to do something, anything to help her survive, as Aerial Ace will hit no matter what… actually…

"Push yourself off the ice as hard as you can!" Alaska yelled. Shelley did not respond immediately, likely weary of falling so far, but with Natu coming in hot she had no choice: using her tongue, Shelley launched herself away from the ice, falling at an angle and forcing Natu to divert courser. Shelley fell faster than the minute Psychic type could fly, and Alaska watched attentively as her Shellder soared towards a curved bit of ice.

"Come on, come on, come on…. YES!" She cheered, watching as Shelley slid down the ice and rocketed off the other side. Natu turned a second time and sped after the flying Shellder, and Alaska knew it was time to initiate an attack. "Icicle Spear, GO!"

"Sheeellllllll!" Shelley wailed as she flew above the field, but she still managed to fire, shooting out five deadly looking icicles that raced to meet Natu.

"Tu Tu!" The Psychic was not willing to go down so easily, and it fired the pink blob to meet the ice. Alaska tensed as the attacks came towards each other, and winced as ice and energy met above the field. A shockwave of psychic energy was unleashed across the arena: Alaska shielded herself, Sandy yelled out from the sidelines, and both Pokemon shouted as chunks of ice began battering everyone. A white cloud of frost hung above the pitch, and Alaska stepped forwards and stared forwards, trying to see the outcome.

Come on Shelley, hang in there. We can't lose, I am not letting her win this battle. I have come too far, I have lost so much already that I cannot lose my freedom, I cannot let these people control my life anymore. We have to win this, Sabrina can't think she knows me, we can't let what she said be the truth… I am not like that, I am not afraid… I am not giving up my freedom… I am NOT LOSING THIS BATTLE



Yes, we have a two part gym battle on our hands! It was going to be far too long for people to read in one setting had I done it in one, and taken far too long to write, so I have split it up. The next part will see things carry on and the mind game carries on. And if you found Alaska a bit annoying this chapter, then don't worry, that was intentional - this Arc will really explore her psychology and why she acts the way she does. Expect a lot of home truths over the coming chapters.
 
Chapter Sixty Eight: That Psychic Feeling
Re: How to Conquer Kanto in Eight Easy Steps - Chapter 67

Chapter Sixty Eight: That Psychic Feeling

"Natu is unable to battle. The challenger is now in the lead."

The words seemed to come from nowhere, as the white fog still hovered over the field and throughout the gym, preventing Alaska from seeing anything more than a few metres away. She wasn't sure whether she had imagined the statement or not, but as the haze disappeared and revealed a scowling Sabrina, Alaska had to crack a smile. Shelley did it, she actually won!

The fog lifted, revealing the conscious Shelley resting a few metres from her fallen opponent; Natu was so tiny it was hard to see it amongst the shattered ice, but when Alaska did spot her, the Psychic type clearly wasn't moving. Alaska quickly smiled at Shelley, who seemed tired but was otherwise shaking with excitement at her first big defeat.

"That was excellent!" Alaska called out. "Don't get too cocky though; there are still two more Pokemon we need to defeat first! Though I have the advantage: I am doing it, I am actually beating her…

"I must admit I am impressed," Sabrina said coldly across the field as she withdrew Natu. "You have done better than I expected, which is admirable. I am not pleased though with the fact you continue to ignore the meaning of my lesson."

"Well, I haven't really had the need to do so. My usual strategies seem to be kicking your ass pretty efficiently so far."

"We shall see," Sabrina purred, and her next PokeBall shot out across the field. Alaska had a feeling she knew who was coming, and as soon as the red light began to take a humanoid shape, she grinned to herself.

"Clamp, now!" She shouted. Shelley swivelled about on the ice and sprayed water out of her back, launching herself towards Mr Mime. The Shellder opened her body wide and then closed it tightly onto her opponent's right knee. The Barrier Pokemon had barely been out for a second before he was under attack, and now appeared perplexed and stunned to find his opponent had clamped onto him already.

"You should be proud, Sabrina," Alaska called out with a sly grin. "I have adapted things to suit you: you want Mr Mime to set things up again for your final Pokemon, I could see that coming from a mile away. Maybe your words are finally settling in? Aurora Beam, close contact!"

"SHHHHHHHAAAA!" Shelley replied with her voice muffled but the close range working perfectly. Mr Mime cried out as light shone from Shelley and the Psychic type stumbled forwards as his leg began to freeze. He raised his hands, causing the translucent yellow wall to appear once again, but it did nothing to free himself of the Pokemon causing him pain.

"Icicle Spear!" Alaska shouted. She knew Sabrina was aware of what would happen to her Pokemon, but the gym leader did not change her strategy. Instead, Mr Mime produced the clear Reflect, the mirroring wall shooting up right in front of him. It seemed like an odd decision to Alaska, Sabrina sacrificing Mr Mime to help her final Pokemon, and she had to wonder what the gym leader was planning.

"MIME!" The Barrier Pokemon wailed, and suddenly toppled backwards, flailing his limbs in pain as Shelley fell to the ground. The force of the Icicle Spear had forced her to let go, but Alaska did not care as the attack seemed to have worked: Mr Mime continued to spasm for a moment, but then he fell still and silent. Alaska was stunned the Icicle Spear had done so much damage, but then she remembered Frances' earlier X-Scissors, and smiled, pleased to see they had dome more damage than first thought.

"Mr Mime is unable to battle. The gym leader now has only one Pokemon left against the challenger's three." Alaska beamed brightly and widely as Sabrina quickly withdrew the unconscious Mr Mime: the battle was actually going in her favour, and she had three Pokemon left to face off against Sabrina's one. It was incredible to think she had spent the last week fretting about the battle, wondering what Sabrina's message meant and getting worked up about being trapped here. That all seemed so pointless now, now that Alaska was actually facing her: Sabrina was simply another puffed up gym leader, just like all the rest, and Alaska wanted to laugh, her victory basically secure.

A red flash appeared behind Shelley. Alaska looked up and was surprised to see a green and white Pokemon form behind the barriers, the creature seeming to float above the field, the end of her flowing skin shimmering like a dress caught in the wind, while watchful eyes peered out across the field.

Alaska had been expecting a powerhouse Pokemon like Gardevoir all along, and it was surprising and worrying that Sabrina had only saved it for now. She presumed it was the same one who had helped treat her last week, but Alaska was not going to hold back on that account.

Yet, as she opened her mouth, ready to give her command to a still smiling Shelley, who was slowly pivoting back to her enemy, it happened. One second, Gardevoir's eyes flashed a brilliant yellow. The next, lightning so strong it made Alaska's hair stand up was flowing throughout the field. The harsh yellow and white light forced Alaska to shield her eyes, everything around her turning yellow as Shelley cried out in pain amongst the onslaught.

The attack ended as soon as it began, steam rising from where the electricity had hit melted patches of ice. Alaska lowered her arms and looked down to her feet, bile again rising up her throat: Shelley lay unconscious a metre in front of her, the Electric attack so powerful it had blasted the tiny Pokemon right across the field. Smoke rose from burnt patches on her shell, and her tongue stuck out comically, but Shelley had a look as though she had endured a lot before finally succumbing.

"You should not have gotten so cocky." Sabrina's voice emerged from the other side of the pitch, but when Alaska looked up she could only see Gardevoir, the Psychic type calmly watching her as though she had not just defeat her Pokemon. "Mr Mime and Natu were always pawns, intended to weaken your side and improve my own. Everything I have done in this battle has paved the way for Gardevoir. I set up barriers to weaken your attacks and eliminate your one Bug type, and I allowed Natu to fall in order to get your hopes up. I spent the last week devising this strategy, and had you actually adapted to the situation like I warned, you would not have walked into every trap. Instead, you simply came charging head first into battle and hoping I would fall as easily as Brock or Misty."

Her words were like a fist ramming repeatedly into her head. Alaska felt angry and sick and disappointed all at once, stunned that she had been manipulated and fooled so easily. Her elation at Mr Mime's defeat had vanished. She could see now Sabrina had trapped her: she may still be in the lead, but with a powerful Electric move at her disposal, Gardevoir could defeat Paige as easily as her Psychic moves would eliminate Nadia. Alaska was stuck between a rock and a hard place, and it pained her to admit she had put herself in this position.

The only way to end this nightmare is to win and play Sabrina at her own game, Alaska thought bitterly. She wants to see what I do when someone else sets the rules, so I need to adapt to field around me and kick this bitch all the way back to the loony bin.

"Nadia, let's crush this bitch!" She threw the PokeBall forwards, and a second later Nadia formed on the glowing field, the gruff Poison type sneering at Gardevoir while she took in her surroundings. Alaska knew Nadia was at more of a disadvantage than Paige, but she would rather get at least one solid Crunch in before falling back on her starter.

"Interesting choice," Sabrina purred behind her Pokemon. "Have you not realised that I am aware of what Pokemon you own, which is why I chose the Pokemon I did? Did it not occur to you that Thunderbolt may have been a simple ruse to ensure you sent out your Nidorina?"

"Of course," Alaska snapped back, though really it hadn't, and she was bitter and frustrated once again.

"The tables have certainly turned," Sabrina added after a few moments of silence. "Freezing the field probably seemed like a good idea at the time, and it certainly worked, but Nidorina must now run across the ice you created, while Gardevoir can simply float over it." Alaska swore loudly, having not considered this either, and Sabrina fell silent, clearly knowing the battle was basically won. Nadia's rough, war-ready face slipped as she examined the ice, and the last thing Alaska needed was her toughest fighter to lose confidence.

There are ways around this; we are not going to lose this easily. Alaska knew her options were extremely limited at this point, with Reflect and Light Screen weakening her attacks and Gardevoir would likely know Psychic, hampering any attempt at Crunch. What she needed was to make it easier for Nadia to get in close and score one strong attack.

"Fire Ice Beam and build on what is already there!" Nadia hesitated for a moment, confused by the order, but eventually fired the light blue Ice Beam at the formations Shelley had created. Instantly ice began to grow over what was already there, the misshapen fragments generated by Shelley and Natu's battle growing and solidifying.

"Freezing the field will not help you in the long run."

"You have no idea what my long run is!"

"I can guess," Sabrina retorted, and Alaska directed a hand gesture at her before looking across at Gardevoir. The Psychic type was not even looking at her opponent, and was instead staring intently at Alaska as if trying to read her thoughts. Alaska watched unnervingly as Gardevoir's emotionless eyes flashed pink, then a pale light spread across her, briefly lighting her up before fading.

That isn't going to be good, Alaska thought, presuming it would be some type of status move designed to further increase Sabrina's control over the situation. She forced herself not to fret though, instead watching as Nadia built up the ice around her. The Nidorina had created a chest height wall of ice across the pitch, right up against the two barriers, and was exactly what Alaska wanted.

"Now, ready Skull Bash!" Nadia stopped firing the beam and sat squatly down on the pitch, staring intently through the ice barrier at her waiting opponent. Alaska wondered if Gardevoir would attack now that Nadia was held up for a turn, but the Psychic type did not move, her eyes and skin merely glowing again. Alaska cautiously bit her lip, but put aside her worry and focussed on her own Pokemon.

"NIDA!" Nadia shouted, and she suddenly sprinted forwards, forehead glowing white. It was going to be tricky to pull this off, and Alaska watched intently, heart hammering against her chest, taking slight solace in the fact Gardevoir had not moved yet either.

Nadia ran towards the wall of ice she had created, and Alaska did not tell her to move: instead, she ran straight into it, and the wall shattered, sending huge chunks of ice hurtling towards Gardevoir.

"CRUNCH!" Alaska roared, and Nadia leapt up, jumping past flying ice and through the barriers, and came up right in front of her opponent. She clamped down hard on the horn in Gardevoir's chest, and the speed from Skull Bash saw her slam into Gardevoir and send her stumbling backwards. Alaska wanted to cheer, her complicated plan paying off, but a voice in the back of her head held her back from celebrating, the voice whispering Why didn't Gardevoir defend herself?

"Get away from there, Nadia!" Alaska shouted, a feeling of fear rising in her chest. She saw Nadia look back at her, glowing black teeth still biting down on Gardevoir's midriff, her eyes questioning why she was being denied this treat.

And then it was too late to move: Gardevoir looked down at the Nidorina as if only just noticing her, and her eyes flashed a brilliant, violent pink. Broken ice rose up from the field, and like missiles they began to bombard Nadia. Alaska could hear her grunt in pain, refusing to let go of Gardevoir despite being throttled by the frozen ammunition, but the ice was coming in thick and fast. Alaska knew that with the Dark move enclosing her chest, Gardevoir could not force Nadia off her body just yet, and the ice would continue until the Nidorina did.

She is going to faint one way or another… I might as well get another shot in before that happens…

"Let go and use Ice Beam!" Through the translucent barriers, Alaska saw Nadia look at her again, disappointment clear in her eyes, well aware of what her trainer was asking her to do. This was the second time in one battle Alaska had failed her own Pokemon, and she was not sure whether to be angry with Sabrina for putting her in this position, or frustrated with herself for falling for these traps.

With an air of reluctance, Nadia released her grip of Gardevoir and blasted the Embrace Pokemon with the frozen beam. Gardevoir flinched but her eyes continued to glow: with a casual flick of her arms, the ice fell to the ground and Nadia was sent flying backwards, the Ice Beam petering out as she slammed head-first into the floor. Alaska watched as Nadia rolled towards her, hoping that her Nidorina was merely dazed and would leap back to her feet any second now. Yet it became clear once Nadia fell to her feet, eyes shut and limbs comic spread out, that the battle was now at its lowest point yet for Alaska.

"Nidorina is unable to battle. Both trainers have only one Pokemon left."

Alaska stared wordlessly at Nadia for several moments before the silence combined with the sight of her crushed Pokemon became too much, and she withdrew her without another glance. She gazed across the pitch before her: large chunks of ice lay across the field, distorted and magnified by the swirling glow of the floor; the formation remained on the ceiling, half a set of threatening frozen teeth waiting to fall down on whoever fought next; the two barriers that were still standing, and behind them stood Gardevoir, who had not moved since she began battling and seemed to have barely broken a sweat.

"If you want your Pidgeotto to last more than one move, you will need to change your strategy," Sabrina's voice called across the eerily silent battlefield. "I do not want you to lose, Alaska, you must understand that, but I also refuse to let you win using your current methods. This is not a cruel or elaborate test designed to infuriate you: this is a lesson you need to learn, and a lesson you must learn before you can leave this gym."

"Stop going on about the fucking lesson!" Alaska snapped. "I am so sick of hearing about what I have to do to change. Why, Sabrina, why do I need to change? Is there someone telling you teach me this, is that what's going on? You mentioned Red last week – is this the League, the bloody Kanto Elites, is this just them telling you I have to fight for them but I'm not doing a good enough job?"

"I have very little to do with the League, and I am not the type to teach lessons on the behalf of others," Sabrina replied coldly. "Is that what you took out of our discussion? If my mention of the League distracted you and prevented you from accepting what I am trying to teach you then I apologise, I did not realise –"

"What has stopped me accepting your bloody lesson is that it is a lesson I don't actually want," Alaska interrupted. "The League stuff, I hardly even thought about it, I only just remembered… but that isn't the problem here! The problem is that you read my mind and made your own assumptions about me, and you think that it gives you permission to lock me in your gym for a week until I meet your damn standards! You have decided that I need to be taught how to fight Buzz and Gideon properly, but I don't want to keep battling them, I made that perfectly clear last week! I made a decision in Celadon of what I path to focus on, and I chose to put my gym battles, but thanks to you, those paths have now crossed over and… URGH, I just can't fucking win!"

"Everything you say highlights the gravity of what I am trying to teach you," Sabrina said, a slight hiss of anger slipping into her words. "You are frustrated because the choices you have made have been altered by outside sources, and that has made you angry and has weakened your abilities as a battler. You complain that everyone has altered your plans and how much it has annoyed you, and what I am trying to teach you is to accept those outside influences and learn to adapt with them.

"Change is a natural part of aging and maturing, it is one of the fundamental parts of society. I could argue that the ability to change is what makes us human, but even the Pokemon world has changed: barely a century ago, if you had tried to walk through Viridian Forest, the Rattata and Beedrill likely would have killed you, or if they were in a good mood, merely maimed and poisoned you so that you would die slightly later on. But they have adapted and have accepted to living alongside us, and now their descendants choose to kill and maim and poison at our command. Everyone has to change, Alaska; everyone has to grow up and accept that their fate does not lie entirely in their hands, and that choosing a path does not automatically mean they will be able to stick to it!

"I think the true problem lies with the decision you made last week, back in the basement of Silph Tower. You were willing to die rather than face changing how you battle, and you have spent the last week grappling with that moment of weakness instead of focussing on this battle, letting yourself get angry and annoyed by what I revealed to you about yourself so that you do not have to reflect on what drove you to succumbing to your injuries and seeing dying as the easiest option."

"I chose to die because I wanted to die!" Alaska shouted back. "I explained this all last week, I told you more than I have ever told any other stranger, and then you trapped me here and have tried to change my very being! That is the only reason why I am annoyed with you and why I am ignoring your blasted message, so stop trying to analyse me and stop trying to change me! You're the fucking gym leader here, you're the one who can read minds and manipulate people, so why don't you go out there and see how you fare against Buzz and his robot army and leave me to get on with my journey?!"

The silence that followed instantly felt stifling, and Alaska found herself breathing rapidly, her chest heaving as air entered and left with such rapidity that she began to feel faint. The only sound in the entire gym was her heavy breathing, no one else saying a single thing. Alaska turned and looked to Sandy for support, but for perhaps the first time in one of her gym battles, her friend was staring intensely at her feet and not at the battle field. Alaska let all the air escape her, the lack of support winding her, and she quickly grappled for her one remaining PokeBall, needing support, needing someone on her side, needing to know she was in the right.

"All you have to do is defeat me, and then you may leave," Sabrina replied after what felt like hours, her voice quiet and emotionless once again. It was as frustrating if not more then everything that had come before, and Alaska let out a short, sharp scream before hurtling Paige's PokeBall onto the pitch, the capsule hitting the glowing ground so hard that she thought for a second it might have cracked.

The Pidgeotto formed without issue though, and she rose into the air before Alaska and stared beadily between her and Gardevoir: the tension must have been obvious, the heated exchange still hovering in the air. Sabrina made no further comment, and Gardevoir did not move to strike down Paige.

Your waiting for me to move first, aren't you? Alaska clenched her fists and looked around the field, taking in the ice, the barriers, Gardevoir and her powerful Thunderbolt. I really have no choice in this, do I? Very well then… if I have to win your way, I will play your little game. You keep telling me to adapt to the situation, adapt to what my opponents throw at me… you said last week about how it would be your rules, so what are your rules exactly? The only thing you do differently is make me wear this stupid headband because of the psychic… psychic… psychic energy…

The thought was mad, insane, perhaps the stupidest thing she had come up with all day. But Alaska was running out of options for defeating Sabrina, not just through strength but in a way to counter her strategy, and it was almost as idiotic that she had never considered this earlier.

She did not pause to evaluate her options; instead, Alaska grabbed the headband and pulled it off in one fast movement. She threw it towards the referee, and then shut her eyes and concentrated.

I know you can hear me… you always have been able to hear me, at least for the past few months, so I know you are listening to me now, wherever you are. I want you to know this is a last resort talking to you, but I need your help, and I think you are going to give it to me. You seem to want to protect me, and I am willing to let you, but you cannot help me if I stay trapped inside this gym, and I will stay trapped if I don't win this gym battle. If you are prepared to help, then tell Paige to land on the ice… do it… please, I am begging you, help me!

She opened her eyes, catching a vague glimpse of the referee watching her quizzically but ignored him, her attention falling on Paige. The Pidgeotto was still hovering in mid air, likely examining the field and all the ice that surrounded her, and showed no sign of receiving Alaska's command. Land on it, Alaska thought. He says he wants to help me, so if he wants to help us, then he will tell you to land on the ice… come on, Paige, land on the ice… land on it… land on it… LAND ON IT LAND ON IT LAND ON IT!

Paige's head swivelled; she looked at Alaska in fear, confusion and worry clear in her eyes. Desperately, Alaska gave her a reassuring nod, heart beating so loudly she thought she was going to die, but then Paige floated down towards the nearest shard and perched on it, tucking her wings in and looking at her trainer in complete confusion.

Victory exploded inside Alaska's head, and for the first time since Mr Mime had fainted, she cracked a smile: the battle was not lost yet.

Thank you… now, let's battle…

"Pidgeeeey!" Paige squawked, casting Alaska another strange look before suddenly shooting up into the air. Gardevoir's eyes followed the Pidgeotto, and Alaska was certain she could see a yellow glint in them.

NOW!

"PIDGE!" Paige cried, tucking her wings in as her body turned orange, and as Gardevoir began to glow yellow, the Bird Pokemon unleashed her Heat Wave upon the gym. The air turned a dark red, and Alaska smiled as the blast of warmth brushed her skin. She watched as the broken ice chunks began to melt, forming a giant puddle on the floor, but more importantly, Alaska could see Gardevoir stumbling as the attack washed over her.

Let's see how you like surprises, Alaska thought bitterly, and saw Paige dive rapidly down, chasing her attack as it dissipated.

"Gah!" The soft cry escaped the silent Gardevoir, the Quick Attack hitting her right in the middle: it was not a powerful move, but she had been caught off guard, letting Paige strike her before she could prepare herself.

"How did you do that?" Sabrina's voice was like thunder crackling through the gym, so angry it made Alaska smile. "You do not possess psychic abilities, I would have been able to sense them if you had!"

"I don't know what you're on about, Sabrina," Alaska replied, shrugging her shoulders. "You wanted me to play by your rules, so that is exactly what I am doing. You made it very clear that a trainer does not have to audibly give commands, so I am simply following your rules." Sabrina did not respond, but the air in the gym was tense again. Part of Alaska was concerned about what the gym leader would do to ensure her message sunk in, but the other part was over this whole experience: she simply wanted to win, get the gym badge and move on.

Let's keep things going, shall we?

Paige was circling the field while Alaska and Sabrina had their exchange, but as soon as the next order was given, she stopped and dived down once more, her wings outstretched and shining a brilliant lilac.

"Gar," Gardevoir said quietly, and her eyes flashed pink. It was like an invisible fist had punched Paige in the stomach: the Psychic sent her spiralling upwards until she crashed into the melting ice on the ceiling. It was fast and powerful, and Alaska remembered the mysterious move Gardevoir had used earlier.

"Let me guess, that was something like Cosmic Power, what you had her use earlier? Am I right?"

"Calm Mind, actually," Sabrina replied, a hint of annoyance still there in her tone. Alaska simply nodded and digested the information: a boosted Special Attack explained how easily Nadia had fallen, and it meant that a single hit from any move could be enough to bring Paige down.

Speed is going to be the key here… if we can do things quickly, then we might just stand a shot…

"OTTO!" Paige cried, shaking the water off her feathers before rocketing back to her opponent. There was nothing Gardevoir could do to stop the Quick Attack, but this time, Paige made sure to hit her right in the face: the Psychic type nearly fell to the ground this time, briefly giving Alaska a glimpse of Sabrina's thunderous face before her attention turned back to Paige.

"GAAAAAAAR!" Gardevoir cried, her tone calm but ominous, and electricity flew out of her body. Paige soared around the entire gym, yellow lightning chasing after her, and by sheer luck she managed to avoid getting fried. The Pidgeotto now rocketed back towards the field, tucking her wings in and spinning about, and Gardevoir floated forwards, body already crackling as she readied the next Thunderbolt.

"NOW!" Alaska shouted, and Paige shouted as the purple energy swirling around her grew, and a Twister quickly engulfed her body. She was flying inches above the battlefield, and Alaska nearly whooped as the melted water was whipped by the spinning Twister, and a wave washed over Gardevoir.

"NO!" Sabrina cried out, but it was too late. The Twister did nothing, type advantage, Calm Mind and Reflect working wonders, but that had not been Alaska's plan. Gardevoir screamed painfully as her attacked backfired, the charging Thunderbolt reacting to the water and electrocuting her rather than Paige. Her body lit up, and her graceful demeanour faded as she began to spasm, trying to shake off the water.

Alaska hoped the water would stop her, but despite her pain, Gardevoir managed to blindly fire off the Thunderbolt. The attack soared through the gym, forcing Alaska to step backwards as the giant puddle of melted ice began to crackle. Yet while Gardevoir continued to torture herself, Paige used the momentum of Twister to fly to safety: she flew up and clung to one of the larger roof icicles, and the electricity harmlessly bounced off the frozen surface.

"Am I meeting your requirements yet?" Alaska called out teasingly, but Sabrina did not respond to her jeer. Instead, a frazzled Gardevoir stared up at the ice with a look that must have been emulating the rage her trainer felt, and the pink hairy in chest began to glow, shining and sparkling a mix of pale pink and hot white.

"VOIR!" She shouted, and she fired off a beam that shone as white and brightly as a full moon. Paige launched herself backwards as the shimmering attack struck the ice, shattering it in a explosion of sparkles and ice and sending the chunks soaring across the field. A huge piece landed right in front of Gardevoir, and the Psychic type was forced to hover backwards as the piece showered her in flakes. Alaska raised her arms to shield herself, but through the gap she saw something that made her heart jump: both Reflect and Light Screen had fallen during the last few rounds, going unnoticed during her Thunderbolt strategy, and there was now a clear path to Gardevoir.

DO IT, HIT HER, AERIAL ACE!

"PIDGEOTTOOOOO!" Paige screamed, and she soared through the falling ice, her wings shining such a brilliant shade of purple that Alaska knew all her strength was going into this attack. Gardevoir looked away from the fallen ice and up to her rapidly incoming opponent, and suddenly her eyes glowed pink. Paige froze as though she had hit an invisible barrier, and Alaska could see her starter quivering all over, fighting back against the Psychic attack trying to defeat her.

"You can fight this, Paige; don't let it get a hold of you!" Alaska roared. She could not see Paige's eyes, but her red and yellow head feathers bobbed as she nodded, and suddenly, miraculously, she began to move forwards: her wings only flapped slightly, but Paige forced herself onwards, fighting back against the mental grip on her body. Alaska grinned determinedly, and she looked to see Gardevoir was shaking as well, eyes narrowed and burning pink, doing everything to stop the Aerial Ace hitting.

"Your Pokemon is just like you, Alaska," Sabrina yelled, "trying too hard to fight a losing battle. You both need to give up: you cannot defeat me, not in the way I have set things up for you."

"I can win! I can win, I will win, and I will win on MY OWN TERMS!" Alaska shouted furiously enough. "It has been enough to get me this far."

"You can keep telling yourself that, but you are the one that was willing to die in Silph's basement, you were the one who was ready to give up, and you were willing to die because you know you cannot defeat Buzz. But you will stand a chance if you just let other people help you, and if you simply learn to fight on other people's terms!"

"This is MY journey, Sabrina, and I am going to win this on my own terms!" Alaska snapped furiously back. "Everyone I have met since I left Viridian has tried to control some aspect of my journey. I have been waiting years to do this, to go out and prove myself to the world, and I am not letting anyone else dictate how I live my life! Now COME ON, PAIGE, SHOW HER WHAT WE ARE MADE OF!"

"OTTOOOOO!" Paige screeched, and with her face screwed up in pain, the Pidgeotto suddenly flashed a violent orange. Alaska was startled, but Paige knew what she was doing: the Heat Wave wafted across the pitch and blasted Gardevoir in the face, the burning air enough to make her stumble. Her eyes returned to normal, and Paige shot forwards, a brown and lilac blur ready to end the battle.

Everything happened in a flash.

Gardevoir waved her arms and the Heat Wave vanished, giving Paige a clear line of sight towards her opponent. She was like a speeding bullet, and she managed to cut across her opponent, the Aerial Ace a purple flash as it struck Gardevoir. Alaska thought it was over, but it seemed Sabrina was refusing to go down without a fight, and despite the fact Gardevoir was still covered in water, she began to glow yellow and turned towards the retreating Paige.

Everything faded from view as a brilliant yellow flash like lightning lit up the gym. Paige and Gardevoir both yelled as the Thunderbolt electrocuted them both, steam rising from the giant pool of melted water that acted like a conductor around them. Alaska cried out, her hair standing on end, but it was not the pain of the exploding, ricocheting attack that hurt her: she had come so close, the battle had been won. Was she really about to lose so late in the game?

The flash quickly faded, but the sparking water and a cloud of steam made it hard to see anything. The cloud began to disperse though, and Alaska saw Paige lying slumped on a piece of ice. She was breathing slowly and looked in pain, and Alaska's heart nearly stopped. Quickly, fearfully, she looked across the field, and saw Gardevoir had collapsed to her knees, chest heaving and arms shaking as she tried to hold herself up. Smoke rose from both Pokemon, joining that which shrouded the field, and silence fell as trainers, referee and spectators alike watched to see who fell first.

"Gah," Gardevoir whispered simply, and her arms gave way, a soft splash sounding as she face planted into the water. Paige made a gurgled noise of relief, and she let herself slump backwards, no longer needing to hold on.

"Gardevoir fainted first. By the rules dictated by the Pokemon League, this means that the winner of this gym battle is the challenger, Alaska!" The referee announced, though his gusto felt forced, and only silence greeted his words. Alaska smiled weakly, knowing she should be happy; that she had beaten Sabrina and guaranteed her future. However, the tense, uncomfortable silence before and after the announcement was uncomfortable, sucking away all feeling of joy.

"That was the most appalling battle I have ever had." Alaska looked around to find Sabrina standing before her. The gym leader had walked silently through the water, her face as stoic and blank as always, but her eyes burnt with an undeniable rage. She pulled something out of her pocket and briefly showed Alaska the yellow, perfectly round Marsh Badge before dropping it to the floor.

"Sore loser much?"

"Do not try and insult me with words, Alaska, I am over it," Sabrina replied coldly. "The rules state that I cannot deny you this badge when you have won fairly, but that does not mean I think you deserve it. You ignored my advice, you fought in the same arrogant, attention seeking way you have done so in all your previous battles, and then had the audacity to play tricks and manipulate the situation to win. I do not know how you managed to psychically give Paige your orders, but there is something dirty about what you did, and I cannot forgive you for that."

"Fuck, what is your problem?" Alaska snapped, stepping forwards so their faces were only inches apart. "You wanted me to win playing by your rules, so I played by your rules and won. If you were expecting me to bend over and just do whatever you told me to do, than you and the League should have found someone more co-operative!"

"Oh, Alaska, you have learnt nothing from this whole experience," Sabrina snapped, her face flashing with anger. "You resisted the restrictions I put on you up to the final minute, and you still relied on cheap tricks to win. When you face Buzz or Gideon in a real life or death situation, there won't be convenient ice structures to melt or psychic energy to use against them – you will have to learn how to adapt to the situation and fight properly, without the time to set up elaborate schemes."

"Judge me all you want, but I won fair and square, so you cannot keep me hear any longer!" Alaska hissed.

"I wouldn't dream of it," Sabrina replied coldly. "I hope we meet again one day, Alaska Acevedo, I truly do – in fact, I believe we will see each other again sometime very soon, with all that is happening in our region at the moment. And I hope that when that day comes, you would have finally learnt the error of your ways. Right now, it disgusts and saddens me that the future of our region lies in the hands of someone so incapable of understanding the consequences of her actions." And with one last empty glare, Sabrina turned and walked away.

"Hey, you can't just insult me and walk off like that!" Alaska shouted. She made to follow after, but the crunch of her badge beneath her feet and quickly bent down to retrieve it. When she stood back up, the entire gym was gone.

"What the fuck…," Alaska muttered, taking a step back in her confusion. The glowing walls and floor had disappeared, and she found herself standing in the middle of a run down wooden building, with broken floorboards and the smell of mould in the air. Alaska looked fearfully around and saw Sandy, Looker and Mr Melton standing near a wall with all their bags, while an unconscious Paige lay in a puddle.

"We have to move on, quickly now," Looker said, his voice echoing inside the empty hall. "We are no longer protected by Sabrina, it is not safe for us in Saffron City anymore." Alaska nodded dimly, not sure what to make of her situation, and she looked to her travelling companions for guidance. However, all three ignored her, talking amongst themselves as they gathered up their gear. Sandy briefly looked up from the trio, and Alaska smiled towards her, but then her friend flushed and turned away, unable to meet her friend's eyes.

Shaking slightly, Alaska looked down at the Marsh Badge in her palm: she wanted to be happy, she should be happy; she had finally completed the fifth step in her journey, the one thing that had kept her going during their week by the ocean. Yet Sabrina's words and Sandy's inability to even look at her made Alaska feel guilty of something, and that feeling grew the longer she looked at the badge.

I didn't do anything wrong: I won, fair and square; they cannot hold it against me.

You tell yourself that if it makes you feel better, a voice whispered in the back of her head. Alaska jumped and looked fearfully around, as though she expected Latios to suddenly be there. She waited, wondering if her guardian would say anything else, if he would comment on what the two of them had done to win the battle, but his words lingered without response, and Alaska wondered how she meant to carry on if even the Pokemon destined to protect her couldn't support her decisions.




The revelations keep coming next chapter as we return to an old location. The arc will continue to develop the argument between Alaska and Sabrina through other parties, so while Sabrina may not reappear anytime soon, Alaska will still ramifications of her decisions during this battle. I have also updated Chapters 63 and 66 with new or heavily revised scenes.
 
Re: How to Conquer Kanto in Eight Easy Steps - Chapter 68

Disclaimer: a lot of this review is very much opinion based.

Really sorry about how long it's been since my last review. The past few chapters have been a pretty wild ride. I can definitely tell that you're attempting to address the concerns of myself and others regarding characterization, pacing, etc. That said, I think your primary weakness remains the same: the impact that events have on characters does not seem proportional with the size and scope of the event in question. I noticed you saying that the repercussions of Sabrina's advice to Alaska will continue to be elaborated on, so we'll see how it goes but for now I'm a little iffy. There are a couple quotes here that really illustrate my problem, but this one in particular gave me significant pause:

"I don't need to sit here and listen to this crap," Alaska hissed, and Sabrina's eyes widened. "You have probably just read my blog and read between the lines: I bet you are just some big fucking phony, just another person who thinks they know me and thinks they can control me. Well guess what, you blue haired bitch, I'M MY OWN PERSON AND NO ONE CAN TELL ME WHAT TO DO!"

I'm going to be honest. Alaska sounds like a petulant child here (or this). I really hope that this is stuff you're going to deal with in coming chapters, because her character is really starting to get on my nerves. She's not a bad character per se, I just found myself rooting against her recently. Stubborn characters are tough to write, I know, but it's important to find some kind of balance between staunchness and development. Looking back, I realize how little the spectacular, epic, and life threatening events that have happened so far in this story have changed Alaska's character. The introduction of Sabrina and the various points she made were a great start, but I was kind of confused by Alaska's reaction, or should I say reactions. She seemed to go quickly from "Sabrina's right" to "Fuck her" back to "I should probably listen" and then straight back again to "YOU CAN'T TELL ME WHAT TO DOOOWOWOWOW." I'm honestly at a loss for what kind of state Alaska's in. The blog made it seem like she was beginning to take Sabrina's lesson to heart and consider making some changes in how she fights and what she's going to do next, but then her attitude during the battle was completely opposite that.

Funnily enough, despite all of that I kind of dispute Sabrina's lesson. I've always felt like one of Alaska's biggest flaws was that she refuses to accept the advice and help of other people because she's obsessed with not being controlled by them. I figured that would be what Sabrina would talk to her about. And although I admit that a lot of Alaska's victories are thanks to the timely assistance of others, she's certainly not helpless. I would argue that her trickery and use of the environment is a sign of resourcefulness. A battle against Buzz or Gideon isn't going to be a fair fight, so why does she need to learn to fight fair? Sure, the villains will attempt to fight her on their own terms, but Alaska's ability to tell them to fuck off and fight on her terms instead is a very good thing. Case in point: Sabrina attempted to dictate the terms of the battle just like the antagonists would do, but Alaska did her own thing anyway.

That said, I don't think Alaska should turn out as right all along. She needs to lose. She has yet to have a real loss that has required some kind of change. Everything seems to work out for her. She "lost" to Alexis and simply came back with a vengeance. Sandy got shot, which turned out to not be that big of a deal and has been barely mentioned since. The only true loss she's had was releasing Darwin, which was a great scene and possible turning point, but it didn't really seem to change Alaska's character. She needs to get beaten and thrown down to a lower low than she's ever been at before. And then she needs to emerge from that low a different, better person (or worse if that's the turn you want to take). Take it from a guy who's been told this same thing for quite some time. I know sometimes it doesn't work in to the story properly and we have different views of our own characters than the readers do, but you can definitely paint these last few chapters as a defeat and use that. It kind of seems like that's what you're going to do though, so I won't go on any longer about that.

/rant

Anyway, unrelated:

You're the fucking gym leader here, you're the one who can read minds and manipulate people, so why don't you go out there and see how you fare against Buzz and his robot army and leave me to get on with my journey?!

That's a valid question. Maybe I missed something, but why is Alaska Kanto's only hope? Has this not been mentioned yet, or am I failing to read between the lines properly? I mean, there's the Latios thing and that's cool. But what about, you know, Red? Why does Alaska apparently have a better chance against the robot horde than him?

Also, some quick advice: don't cut corners with proofreading. Read it. Multiple times. Don't skim. Read. I caught several typos that should have been pretty apparent. You're still doing that "the ... Pokemon" thing. Just Ctrl+F "..." and fix those every time you finish a chapter. And some of the typos were even the kind of thing that would be caught by a spellchecker. Don't ignore the red lines (or the green ones for that matter). I've gotten in the habit of adding character, Pokemon, and location names to my word processor's dictionary so that I know that wherever there's a red line, something's definitely wrong. I'd suggest doing the same. You're much too good of a writer to be still making these mistakes ;)

On the topic of technical stuff, a table of contents would be rad.

Sorry about the negative vibe in this review, that wasn't my intention :p I liked these chapters overall, besides being frustrated with Alaska. Sabrina was really well done and the arguing in the middle of the battle was done just fine. You tend to separate individual match-ups anyway, so doing the dialogue in between those worked out well. The discourse between Buzz and Gideon was sweet. I love me some baddie drama, and this really highlighted that Gideon's much better at this villainy thing than Buzz. Let me know if you have any questions. I'm looking forward to the coming chapters.
 
Re: How to Conquer Kanto in Eight Easy Steps - Chapter 68

@AetherX

Thank you for the feedback. I haven't gotten as much as normal over the recent lot of chapters so any feedback is welcome :)

It is a bit difficult to respond to this review, as a lot of what you addressed is going to be addressed during the next few chapters: why Alaska is seen as being the mighty hero, why she reacted to Sabrina the way she did, why Sabrina put that challenge to her and such. Reading back, I do agree the blog does not directly match up with the argument during the battle, so I will probably go back and make it a bit less sympathetic to Sabrina's cause. I think, though, that being trapped for a week in the gym irritated Alaska and made her less willing to accept Sabrina's message, and the fact it forced her to be alone with her thoughts, which will also be addressed.

Admittedly, I do not think the whole lesson plotline has worked as well as I would have liked, and I am sorely tempted to rewrite things significantly. Part of the lesson though is trying to teach Alaska to accept others advice, and also that she relies too much on convenience and trickery: as it was a gym battle, she was able to set up the complicated ice plan that then worked in her favour, and when Sabrina revealed she had been leading her along in order to weaken her, Alaska then tricked her by using her connection with Latios. Her tricks are not going to help her defeat an army of robots, and that is what Sabrina is trying to get across, and the fact Alaska ignored the lesson and used an elaborate scheme to defeat her shows her unwillingness to change.

I think one thing you will see addressed is that her character is changing: I am not making a big song and dance about it, which is why I think it is not as noticeable, and she probably on a surface level seems the same. However, the fact she was willing to die in the basement will come back into play again (I had to put a bit back into the scene in lift shaft I originally cut in order to ensure this has more of an impact later on), and I think she is being pushed to a turning point. This is a bit of the 'lowest of the low' moment, as Alaska has been pushed to a point that she sees death as the only option to solving her issues. This will be addressed, and we will see her begin to adapt and move on. The key part of her character and the story itself is the idea of a character in a novel deciding they don't want to follow the path the author/world has lain out for them. Its sort of like the Pokemon equivalent of your parents deciding your future for you and you not liking it, but instead of them telling you you have to go to uni, they are telling you you have to save the world.

And yes, I have had it pointed out I am making mistakes like that. I assure you that I do read over it a few times before posting, but I still manage to escape errors like this. I also think that as I use quite an older version of Word (2003) that it is not as wonderful at picking up errors as some of the newer programmes I have used on other computers. And all the Pokemon names and stuff are in my dictionary on my computer: not trying to pass the blame or anything, but I think FF.net, where I copy and paste the doco from so it is double spaced when I post here, makes little changes. It has squished together city names in the past (i.e Saffron City will become SaffronCity for some weird reason), but I will try harder to work these issues out. I almost wouldn't mind being told direct problems to fix.

Thank you for the advice. I think now that I am on break I will probably go back and refine the arguments and the message of the last few chapters/the Silph Arc and make everything flow better and ensure the message works as a whole. With my writing style, I feel as though people sitting down and being like "Well, that cataclysmic event has really changed me!" (not saying thats what your suggesting, just making a hyperbole), so it takes a longer time for change to really become apparent. But hopefully this arc will be able to rectify some of the niggling issues in the series as a whole, and some editing will help fix the problem as well.

(This review probably made little sense: if you want me to elaborate on anything further, or if you want to rebute anything I said, feel free)
 
Re: How to Conquer Kanto in Eight Easy Steps - Chapter 68

I don't think I've reviewed the Sabrina arc properly? I think I alluded to it a few times in the awards threads, or at least the early part of it, so here we go on that front.

I quite liked this arc. I'm reading a web serial novel based on classical mythology now and amusingly enough your portrayal of Sabrina is a lot like that story's Athena. She might actually be one of my favorite characters in the story at this point. She's too smart and arrogant for her own good, but mostly can back it up. Mostly. It's kind of how I imagine a psychic would be like in real life. They would just assume that they had an advantage over everyone and not really understand autonomy or privacy or what not because it's an alien concept to them.

Her first conversation with Alaska might be my favorite conversation in this story. After that it was pretty great to watch her devolve during the battle, especially when her absolute control was ultimately shattered. The action scenes were pretty good by 8ES standards and also probably rank towards my favorite comparable scenes in the story thus far. No Sandy for the arc was kind of disappointing but ultimately understandable. As others have noted Alaska's immaturity has kind of reached a new low, which is sort of understandable but also pretty irritating and kind of getting repetitive. There are only so many times the girl can angrily blow things up and insist on her autonomy without learning lessons before it gets a little boring. I'm not sure you've reached that threshold, but I'm worried the story eventually will.

Granted, after having to plot out a journey fic that will probably end up at a comparable length I fully understand the issues of balancing development between immediate change and a few dozen chapters left to go, and in a fic pushing 70 chapters some things are going to get repetitive. Just saying that her lack of development, beyond being more paranoid and some things with Sandy, will increasingly get less realistic with time.

Anyway, I'm going to give my full fic review for this story later on tonight in my blog. But for now, I'm off.
 
Re: How to Conquer Kanto in Eight Easy Steps - Chapter 68

@Rediamond

Cheers for the feedback. As I have alluded to, Alaska's annoyingness is largely on purposr: everyone talks about the characters needing to develop. Well, we are getting to that :p She has been pushed to her limits and was threatened and nearly tortured by Buzz, and then just when she thought she had left it all behind, she gets saved and forced into her next battle. 8ES is partially about the control we have over our own lives and fates, and this arc will address the wider issues of Alaska's fate and the real impact that these events are having on her. I also, at the same time, don't believe in miraculous overnight personality changes that some stories portray, or that some reviewers (not you) seem to think Alaska needs to have. It has been a slow building change since around the time Sandy was shot, and it will come to a head over the next five chapters in this arc.

Glad you liked Sabrina. I enjoyed writing her and her cold, methodical approach, and will probably bring her back in the future. And I am glad you enjoyed the battle as well: it took a while to craft things so that it actually worked, and it is nice that it got appreciated.

And the Sandy issues will be rectified in the remainder of the arc, and in a big way in the next chapter ;) BTW, do you mind if I reply to your review in your blog?
 
Re: How to Conquer Kanto in Eight Easy Steps - Chapter 68

Nope. It's kind of a public blog. If you wanted to you could comment on any and all of the posts I make there.

And if it looks like there were differences between my thoughts on the arc review and the fic review, there were. I kind of rethought some things when I tried to put the whole fic in context.
 
Re: How to Conquer Kanto in Eight Easy Steps - Chapter 68

I'll be reading this fic for a while, since it's long. But I feel like I owe it to you since you reviewed my fic. Plus, I like OT journey fics as much as I like cake. Which is a lot.

The prologue was a little scattered, as you were trying to cover a lot of topics in a short span of time. I wasn't surprised to see Team Rocket, but I digress. It seems interestng nevertheless.

I also won't be pointing out grammar/spelling/punctuation mistakes. I assume other reviewers have pointed them out already.

Alaska Acevedo,

Sounds like avacado...

Her cousin, this guy called Blue, had it for a few years, but than this big thing happened over in Cerulean Cave, and he ended up dying…. Awkward…

I'm horrible, but I laughed at this. Sounds exactly what a 13-year-old would say.

Alaska looked around her cramped room as she stood up, while Pidgey fluttered overhead. The walls were a simple white, with nothing attached to them. Her single bed was in a corner, with her green and blue sheets in a mess. A home-made bookshelf was in the corner, but Alaska had grown out of most of the books on the shelf. Her desk was also homemade, and the chair she sat on had to be borrowed from the dining table. The Acevedo’s were, quite frankly, poor. Alaska’s father, William, used to be a technician at the Pokemon Center, but had been laid off due to budget cuts. Alaska’s mother, Robin, now had to work as manager of the PokeMart and a nurse at the Pokemon Center to help ends meet, as William spent all day on the coach, watching whatever was on TV. He hadn’t said a word in over seven months, and his health was deteriorating as he put on weight. Alaska worried what would happen to her family while she was gone, but decided not to let that put her off.

For some reason I thought about poverty in the pokemon world just the other day. I'm a nerd, and then I run into this story? Coincidence. Anyway, I'll be interested to see if it has an effect on Alaska or not. Either way, I like the little details you put into this paragraph.

These patches of green that needed a good mow were the homes of numerous Pokemon.

Yeah, I lol'd.

It only took ten minutes for the nurse to fully heal Paige and Darwin at the Pokemon Center,

It just hit me. The monkey's name is Darwin. Does this have anything to do with the concept of real-life human evolution?

“Pidgey Pidge Pid!” Paige chirped, looking between Alaska, Chloe and the Bulbasaur. But than she caught on and winked at Alaska, making her laugh.

Paige is the most adorable pidgey. I love birds in general though, so I may be biased.

“Come on then Paige,” Alaska said, wiping away a tear. “It’s time to say our goodbyes.”

I'll give you kudos for not rushing the beginning of the journey. Parents/siblings can't be easy to say goodbye to when you're leaving for a long period of time, but most fic writers just skip right over it... I'm included in that, but oh well.

I couldn’t help wonder about the future of reproduction, and the boys who classified themselves as “Bug Catchers” had such huge nets sticking out of their camouflage bags that they must have been overcompensating for something…. ;)

I will never look at bug catchers the same way again.
 
Re: How to Conquer Kanto in Eight Easy Steps - Chapter 68

"If that wasn’t bad enough, there were only bug types to battle in battles as well: Alaska had defeated about a dozen Bug Catchers over the past three days, and had gone from getting a sadistic pleasure out of winning to wishing she could jab a tree branch through her eyeball. Alaska wasn’t a boastful, proud person, but she just wanted to lose at least one battle: she probably shouldn’t have started her journey with a flying Pokemon when she was in Bug Central.

Weird grammar things going on, but I like Alaska's characterization here. Never seen a trainer that actually admitted to wanting to lose a battle.
I’m a new trainer as well: I only started my journey last week!” Sandy replied nervously, trying to force a smile upon her face. “I’m not use to being out on my own, and I let my Butterfree out to stretch her wings, not knowing what was in here. There was a strong gust of wind, and she disappeared up in those branches. I couldn’t bring her back into her PokeBall, so I decided to climb the tree to investigate.” Sandy finished explaining, and she smiled rather nervously.
Dialogue works well here to show off Sandy's nervous personality.
“I still haven’t gotten over that loss,” Chloe replied, her voice fill with acid despite her smile, and pulled a PokeBall out of her pocket. “I hope your Raticate with wings hasn’t had too much of a hard time: I want my revenge, and I want it now!”
Oh, no. This can't go well.
 
Chapter Sixty Nine: The Least Sexy Chapter
Re: How to Conquer Kanto in Eight Easy Steps - Chapter 68

Thanks for the feedback @diamondpearl876. Enjoy the long journey through this story!


Chapter Sixty Nine: The Least Sexy Chapter

Eevee's delighted squeals sounded throughout the entire garden. Sandy watched maternally as the Normal type danced around, being chased frantically by an eager Pichu. Evelyn the Flareon watched contently from the shade of a large rose bush, while Vinnie the Tangrowth stood in the middle, his eyes showing the smile his face could not, as the two Pokemon chased each other around him.

"They look like they're having fun, don't they?" Sandy turned around to see Daisy beaming at the running Pokemon.

"They definitely seem to be," Sandy replied, smiling back. If only the humans were as well…. Daisy continued to smile, and Sandy reluctantly grinned back, pushing the thought to the back of her mind, glancing once more at her delighted Pokemon before emerging herself back into the world she could not escape from.

She had never expected to return to the Celadon Mansion garden, not after how Alaska had left things last time. To be back, sitting at the long outside table, having breakfast again; it almost made Sandy want to laugh, that the world was in such dire straits that they all had to resort to being pleasant to each other simply to survive.

That was not to say things were not without tension. Alaska sat silently to Sandy's left at one end of the table, barely touching her food and glaring down at the human Evelyn opposite. In between, Sandy, Daisy and Alexis sat on one side, Looker, Trevor and Jericho opposite. Enough food to last Sandy for days was spread out in between: giant bowls of fruits and berries of every colour and flavour, piles of toast amongst an array of spreads, pancakes, waffles, muffins, bagels, jugs of juice so big you could drown in them.

It's all so much, she thought, gazing at the seemingly endless piles of food, wondering where to begin. It would almost be exciting if you couldn't cut the tension with a knife. Last time she had been here, Sandy had still been nursing her bullet wound. Yet things felt worse this time, and it disturbed her how having to be saved from a gunshot to the chest by a ghost was not the worst or strangest thing to have happened to her on this journey: things were simply getting bleaker and bleaker, and her delight a few weeks ago at being seated at such a luxurious table, eating such rich and heavenly food, celebrating simply being alive, that had all vanished, the true horror of what she and Alaska had found themselves in beginning to settle in.

"Does anyone know how Alistair is going?" Daisy said, throwing the question out to the table at another attempt of conversation.

"I spoke to the nurse girl before, she said that his wounds appear to be healing well," Evelyn replied, gesticulating with a fork laden with fat red berries. "The doctor will be coming around this afternoon; he will be able to –"

"Her name is Amelia." Sandy tensed up, a deeper, more anxious silence fell across the table Alaska looked past her fellow diners, seemingly ignorant to the effect her words had had, and she stared down at a slack jawed Evelyn.

"The little nurse girl, her name is Amelia. It must be nice, having so many staff you can't even remember their names." Evelyn did not reply for a moment, mulling the words over, though everyone knew her reaction would not be good. Finally, after a minute of everyone (except Looker, who continued to crunch away on dry toast like nothing was wrong) waiting, as though a firecracker was about to explode, Evelyn tutted and laid down her fork.

"Right then, Miss Acevedo, it seems we cannot even have a nice meal without making a scene anymore."

"The food may be pleasant, but this was never going to be a nice meal, not while there are so many questions to be answered," Alaska snapped back.

He should have known this, he should have been prepared for this, Sandy thought, briefly looking at Looker, wanting to be annoyed but too worried about what was about to go down. Alaska had been too shaken by her battle with Sabrina to protest when Looker had Gallade teleport them here, but once she realised they were at the mansion, surrounded by the faces of those they had encountered along the way, something seemed to snap inside of her. Alaska had quickly retreated to the room set aside for her, leaving Sandy alone to reconnect with their old allies. She had laughed and joked all night long, but deep down, fear and worry threatened to bubble to the surface, and Sandy had eventually gone to bed early, too busy wondering just what had annoyed Alaska so much.

And now it was all about to come out. On one side, Sandy was relieved that Alaska was getting it over with sooner rather than later, instead of letting her anger stew for days and days, seeping throughout the house until everyone hated them. But on the other hand, Sandy knew that there would be no coming back from this: she glanced briefly at the other faces around the table, and everyone around her age seemed to be as on edge as her. It felt like Sandy had shown up to a fancy dinner party with a violent drunk as her date, and she knew that whatever Alaska said would have an impact on her as well.

"I do not want to spend all morning exchanging insults with you," Evelyn said, pushing her plate aside and placing her elbows on the table. She leaned forwards, resting her chin on her cupped hands, and stared inquisitively at the teenager opposite her. "If I am going to be brutally honest, I think you are a nasty little bitch who clearly wasn't controlled at all as a child, and I quite frankly would rather kick you in the face then sit here spending money feeding and housing and protecting you. However, there are bigger things at play in our region right now than my feelings, so I am prepared to wave those aside for the benefit of solving the crisis at hand."

"How very big of you," Alaska snarked, and Evelyn smirked.

"I received an email report from Sabrina last night, with attached footage courtesy of Clyde. Coupled with Looker's take on the matter, it is clear that your personality is more of a danger to Kanto's future than it has been before." Evelyn paused, her eyes looking Alaska up and down, and Sandy wondered where this was leading. "It is troubling, given how much faith everyone has put in you. So I believe the best course of action is to give you some of the answers you so clearly desire. Note that I may be giving you free reign, but prove volatile and I will not hesitate to cease this conversation. Are we understood?" All eyes flickered to Alaska. Sandy watched her, waiting for the sign things would be alright. Say yes, Alaska, just say yes, maybe then we can move on.

Alaska nodded after what seemed like a lifetime, and Evelyn cracked a smile. "Excellent, now you may begin." Alaska leaned forwards, her eyes flickering around the table, and Sandy noticed Looker put down a crust of bread, the spy finally beginning to pay attention.

"Firstly, who exactly are you all? Gym leader, elderly housewife, friends," she said, looking at Daisy on that one, and the brunette ashamedly looked away. "What exactly do you all have to do with me?"

"My husband was always involved in politics and the inner workings of Kanto – being rich, those looking for control generally tend to come to you for help," Evelyn said, winking slightly at Jericho. "He would be told little snippets of what was happening from time to time, and moved in certain circles to be seen by the right people. It was not until Jericho here stopped a rampaging Dragonite several years ago that our family was seen as potentially being more useful in the wider scheme of things."

"The International Police regularly looks for civilian assets who can be of help in whatever field," Trevor explained. "Wealthy individuals are highly sought after as they see and hear a lot, associate with people with the money to fund dangerous projects, and… and they tend to enjoy the importance that comes with the role. No offence," he added, but Evelyn waved a hand.

"No worries, dear boy, I will be the first to admit that the rich have a significant array of faults that comes with the lifestyle," she said, shaking her head and laughing slightly.

"As a gym leader, I have certain responsibilities and I am pertain to a great deal of information about the safety and protection of the region," Alexis continued. "After I was appointed as Erika's replacement, Trevor suggested creating a small group to monitor the goings-on in Celadon and the surrounding routes, using the Mansion as base and a potential safe house."

"I was assigned to the case of monitoring Silph Co., and that led me to crossing paths with you two." Alaska looked towards Trevor as he spoke, her eyes twitching slightly, and Sandy got the impression that a number of puzzle pieces were flying around in her head.

"You two brought us here to try and keep us safe," she said. "That wasn't just to protect us after Lavender Town, was it?" She turned towards Daisy now, and the brunette tensed up under her gaze. "Back in Sandy's hospital room, you were reluctant to go into much detail about what would happen. Are we part of some secret operation that no one has told us about?" Alaska stared intently at Daisy, not blinking, not looking away; Daisy shook slightly, trying not to look at her, but then a sob escaped her lips.

"I am sorry, Alaska – you too, Sandy! I wanted to tell you, I have never been good at this whole spying thing, but Trevor told me not to say anything, so I had to keep quiet, even though you were both so lovely, and I…" Daisy stopped there, her eyes watering slightly, and Sandy reached out and held onto her hand, smiling softly back at her. It seemed to calm her down, but Alaska did not pay attention, instead turning back to Trevor, eyebrows raised. The spy briefly glanced at Looker before sighing.

"The Indigo League wants you to stay out in the open and to continue fighting against Buzz and Gideon for them, but the International Police does not share that viewpoint. I was tasked with bringing you in before you were harmed, and the idea was to keep you out of this war for as long as possible. The attack on the casino ruined that plan, and it would be foolish now to try and keep you here, but that was the original intention."

"Why? Why did you want to bring us in, why were you and the League monitoring us anyway?" Alaska snapped. "Does everyone with a blog that runs into a homicidal maniac automatically get marked as being the saviour of the region, or am I just special?"

"Everyone with a blog that may have a connection to a legendary Pokemon gets marked, yes," Evelyn purred, and Alaska looked like she had been slapped. Sandy watched her friend sink back into her chair, the anger fading from her face to be replaced with confusion.

"Not long after your first encounter with the Beedrill robot and Gideon, the legendary Pokemon Latios broke out from the Dragon's Den in Blackthorn City," Trevor said. "Do you know about Latios? He is not native to this region, but –"

"I know him," Alaska whispered back. How? Sandy asked herself, staring quizzically at her friend, but Alaska did not meet her gaze. Is there something you're not telling me?

"That makes things easier," Trevor said, quickly looking at his comrades before carrying on. "There are a number of stories over what role these two play in our world – I know that some believe they are the embodiment or creators of our souls, but that is not important right now.

"What is important is that the two Pokemon have long since been connected with these rocks called the Enigma Crystals. There are two, each with a bit of what is called the Soul Dew inside that has something to do with Latios and Latias' powers. Latias roamed freely for many years before Kris Soul was given possession of her Enigma Crystal, but Latios has not been seen for decades. His crystal has been held by the Dragon's Den for protection up until his rightful trainer made them known. Shortly after you faced Gideon at the Pewter Museum, Latios somehow appeared through his Enigma Crystal and then disappeared again."

"Through the crystal? Like he was trapped inside there?" Sandy asked.

"That is a possibility," Alexis answered with a nod. "I happened to be at the Dragon's Den at the time they explained to Kris the significance of the crystal, and they spoke about how Latios was known to be moodier and more withdrawn than Latias, and that he regularly released energy from the crystal during times of peril. However, I cannot remember them making any definite remark that he was actually inside the crystal."

"What does Latios have to do with me?" Alaska snapped suddenly, and all eyes turned back towards her. "So a Legendary broke out around the time I started my journey, big whoop! That doesn't prove anything." Silence fell again, and Sandy watched the others at the table, their bodies collectively tensing, looks being exchanged as though they were having a psychic conversation, and there was a feeling of nervousness amongst them, as though they had come across a problem they couldn't solve.

"Well, it looks like they won't tell you, so I will." Looker pushed his plate aside and turned to face Alaska, an obvious weariness in his expression. "Two thousand years ago, when the hell beast we today call Charlotte was created, the prophetic abilities she was cursed with drove her insane. In order to relieve the madness and while she adapted to her powers, Charlotte carved a number of her visions into different caves, mountains, lake beds and cliff faces around the world. The International Police, the various Pokemon Leagues, researchers, private organisations, and even crime syndicates like Team Rocket have spent decades searching for these since the first one was discovered after a train crash in a Hoenn valley back in 1910. There is no telling how many of them are out there, as Charlotte both doesn't remember and is highly uncooperative, but a vast number have been documented by various sources. And, as it so happens, there is one carving that we believe is particularly relevant today."

Sandy had been expecting it from the moment Looker began talking. In fact, part of her had been wondering if something like this would come out eventually: some big ancient secret, a thousand year old conspiracy that she and Alaska had stumbled across, just like in the adventure movies she had watched as a child. However, as Looker placed what looked like a smart phone on the table, Sandy realised her heart was beating rapidly, her entire being focussing on what had been said and what would come next, her past, her present, her future all hanging on this moment.

Looker pressed a button: the screen flickered on, and a projection rose into the air. Everyone looked at the generated holograph, which showed a large chunk of rock that had been removed from its origins. The image carved into the surface had been damaged by time, but the central figure was as clear as day: a person with long hair, presumably female riding on top of a Pidgeot, with what resembled a war raging on beneath them.

"Fuck off." Sandy had been transfixed, mesmerized and amazed by what had been produced, but the two words Alaska spat out pulled her out of her trance. Her friend had gotten to her feet, staring not at the image of a thousand year old carving of her, but instead glaring down at Looker. The spy looked up at the teenager with an air of amusement, nothing like the concerned glances their fellow diners were exchanging.

"I take it you do not see the resemblance?" Looker asked a smile on his face but Sandy could hear the exasperation in his voice. "I understand the scepticism; if you thought Charlotte was vague now, these pictures really show how undetailed she can –"

"Are you telling me that I am embroiled in some stupid war between the league, an insane scientist and a sociopath television producer because of a two thousand year old carving by a ghost?"

"You can't make this stuff up," Looker replied, his glass and raising it in a mock toast. Alaska looked the angriest Sandy had ever seen her, her face seeming to meet in the middle as it twisted with rage. Her hands were going white as she clenched the table, and veins seemed to pop out of her skin.

I have to do something; I can't let her scream at them all, not before we have all the answers. "Does the League know about this?" Sandy asked quickly, and Trevor and Alexis nodded simultaneously. "Well, why haven't they been trying to help us?"

"Trust me, they want to, they don't want another war destroying Kanto. But… it just isn't the right time." Alexis sighed, rubbing her temple for a moment and sinking back into her chair. "I really didn't sign up for this when I agreed to be a gym leader. I thought it would just be battling a few trainers every week, training Pokemon, training protégées, promoting things… if I had known what was really involved…"

"None of us expected this," Jericho replied, reaching out and grabbing her hand. "We just need to move past that and put a stop to this all, and then things will go back to normal." Alexis smiled at him, and Sandy's heart fluttered slightly, softening at the sight of compassion and warmth between them, imagining what it must be like to have someone by your side during these difficult times…

"All of the Pokemon Leagues in every region have been dealt massive publicity blows over the past few years," Alexis explained, turning back to face Alaska and Sandy. "They all received a lot of criticism for what happened with Rocket, Galactic, the turf war in Hoenn – everything made training Pokemon look dangerous and the Leagues suffered as a result. We have had peace for a few years now, and before the attack on Vermilion we were seeing pre-Rocket levels of trainers signing up."

"So the Indigo League sees Gideon as bad publicity?" Sandy asked, and everyone nodded, a shudder of irritation flickering through the table. Perplexed and unnerved, she turned to Looker, who had returned to his breakfast as though nothing was wrong. "When we were fleeing Silph Co., you told me that the International Police tried to warn the League about Buzz. Why didn't they listen?"

"Indigo Dreams is the best thing to happen to the league for years," Alexis answered "The League does not want to harm their brand any further, so they have chosen to continue to build the partnership and let the promotion carry on. With Gideon posing a bigger threat at the moment, having the show on provides a distraction and offers the ideal to everyone that there aren't any problems and to continue going on gym challenges."

That… that's messed up, Sandy thought. She couldn't look at anyone, the words simply washing over her. I was shot, I could have died… and if they hadn't ignored the threat, if they had offered us protection, if they had tried to stop it sooner, instead of relying on two teenage girls just trying to get away from their homes… this is… this is revolting…

"Sandy, are you alright?" Sandy snapped out of her thoughts. Daisy was holding her hand again, smiling softly but with concern obvious in her eyes. Sandy forced a smile on and briefly looked at Alaska, who still towered over them all, looking ready to scream. One of us has to carry on; there are still things we need answers to.

"Sorry, I'm fine, that was… that was just a bit much to hear," Sandy replied, trying to phrase her rage and disgust as eloquently and neutrally as possible. "If the League does not want to get involved though, why has Red sent Zapdos and Suicune after us?"

"Oh, please!" Daisy snorted, letting out an echoing laugh. "I have known Red since he was born, and trust me, no one, not even the Pokemon League, is going to put to tell him what to do!"

"He is concerned for you, all of us gym leaders are," Alexis added. "He doesn't want the same thing to happen to you like what the League did to him, so he is trying to help you from afar. The League has expressly forbidden us from getting involved, especially after Surge nearly got killed alongside you two during Gideon's attack. The death of a gym leader would be terrible publicity, just like it was when Blue di – … oh, Daisy, I am so sorry, I didn't mean –."

"It's fine," Daisy replied automatically, though she blinked rapidly to disperse the tears. "It has been four years; I don't let it bother me anymore." She turned to face Alaska. "Every gym leader wants to help you, but if they go against the League's wishes, they face significant punishments. The League has a plan, and they want to stick to it as much as they can, no matter what the costs are." Sandy noticed everyone exchange looks again, and even Looker glanced up from his toast, eyes furrowed and looking at Daisy as though she had just sworn.

"Plan?" She asked tentatively, not liking the feeling they were all giving her. "What plan?" The six all looked at each other at once, flickering eyes seeming to dare each other to be the one to say it, drop the terrible secret Sandy realised had been hovering above them this entire time. A sigh of complete exasperation sounded from the top of the table, and Evelyn looked past her guests, ignoring their stunned gazes, and she locked eyes with Alaska, a grimness settling into her face.

"They are grooming you."

The five words were like a slap: Alaska stumbled backwards, her rage disappearing to be replaced with confusion. She appeared flummoxed for a moment, and then began to laugh. Sandy knew her well enough to know that laughter was not genuine; it felt forced, unnatural, a strangled noise like someone pretending they weren't in pain. Alaska looked at everyone as though expecting them to find it funny, but no one else laughed, and her smile quickly died.

"Groomed? Groomed? Am I a Furfrou all of a sudden? What the fucking hell do you mean by groomed?" Alaska hissed, spitting the words out, her anger returning with a force. Evelyn opened her mouth to speak, but Looker raised a hand, silencing her with a single finger.

"Red is going to be murdered in a few weeks time," he said, throwing the words so bluntly into the universe that Sandy barely had time to react. "Buzz, the reality show, the robot army, all of it is part of some grand scheme to get revenge on him for destroying Team Rocket. We do not know the full details or the scope of Buzz's plan, but one can presume he plans to use the show to gain access to the stadium, and then will pull his army out as a surprise and publicly destroy Red. It would have worked perfectly if we had not received the tip off and if you had not ruined the unveiling of the first robot."

"Beedrill?" Sandy asked, and Looker nodded.

"We believe the robots were going to be part of the reality show, be involved in the challenges and such – it would explain why Silph would willingly fund an army of killer metal Pokemon, and why people like Alistair were unwittingly brought in to work on the project. But anyway, that isn't the important part. The important part is that there is a very significant chance that Buzz is going to succeed, leaving Kanto without a Champion and a homicidal maniac taking over."

"Unless I stop him," Alaska murmured, and Looker nodded.

"The League does not want to fight in the war, but lo and behold, the perfect candidate for future Champion just happened to stumble across the wannabe dictator!" The spy boomed dramatically while rolling his eyes obviously. "Fighting with a Pidgey, writing your blog, going up against the villains so early – you have the perfect back story, plus you're pre-destined to capture yourself a legendary, an added bonus! The League has ordered for you to be guided by the gym leaders but not helped; while they wait for absolute proof that they are ignorant wankers and that they have basically welcomed an army into their backyard, they want you to defeat the villains for them. If you win, you save Kanto and will earn yourself a gym, an Elite Four spot or get a battle with Red he is told to lose. If you die, then that proves they are wrong, they send Red, the Elite Four, the gym leaders, Kris, Alder, everyone to storm Silph Co. and wherever Gideon is holding up, becoming the heroes who avenged your death. And if you and Red both die, well, then, Lance gets to be Champion again. Either way, should you fail to defeat everyone for us, high profile trainers from across the regions will be called upon to take them down."

Alaska did not reply immediately at this; instead, she tapped her fingers against the glass surface of the table, chewing on her lips, staring intently at the toast rack as though imagining it catching on fire. Sandy struggled to keep her face calm, her head spinning and her stomach churning in rage; in just over a minute, Looker had torn down everything she still believed in, everything she thought she had been fighting for. Were she and Alaska really so disposable, that they could die and be replaced straight away without anyone caring, simply becoming figureheads for trainers much more powerful and famous than them to take over the fight?

"And what is the International Police's take on all of this?" Alaska hissed eventually.

"We think that the League is certainly going to doom all of us with this plan of theirs. Our plan was to bring you here for your protection and wait until we had more information, or Latios showed up, before letting you go out there. You did resist our attempts at help, though, and the attack on the casino forced us to take you away."

"If you wanted to protect me, why didn't you find us after the attack?" Alaska snarled, and it was now that Looker's face truly faltered. Sandy sensed another uncomfortable truth, and Alaska did as well, tensing up besides her.

"You are the only person that has been able to gather solid intelligence on Buzz and Gideon, and real world experiences will teach you more than you can learn inside a mansion, especially if you are the person meant to end this war. We decided it was for the best that you continued on your own and matured under your own steam."

"Gideon has only appeared where you have been so far," Trevor added sheepishly. "We have no idea what he is doing, so…"

"You expect us to fight him for you so you can gather more evidence?" Alaska snapped, and she grabbed her plate and threw it on the ground. Pichu and Eevee cried out in shock, and Vinnie and Evelyn the Flareon stepped forwards, cautiously watching Alaska. Everyone at the table jolted, including Sandy, who was fearfully clutching at her chair.

"Alaska, now isn't the time," she whispered, carefully watching Looker and Evelyn.

"If now isn't the time, then when is?" Alaska snapped back, and she grabbed a glass and threw it across the garden. Sandy winced as it shattered, but Alaska didn't notice, her rage exploding. "So I have just been a pawn this entire time? The second I walked out my front door, I have been marked as either being the hero of the region or some martyr that will force the League to action?"

"Well, in all fairness, you were only marked after Pewter City," Looker retorted, and Alaska snatched his plate from beneath him and hurled it backwards. Vinnie's long arms shot out and grabbed hold of it before it broke.

"What about you lot?" Alaska yelled, pointing between Daisy, Trevor, Alexis and Jericho. "Why did none of you tell me about this back when you first met me?"

"That was not what we were ordered to do," Trevor replied. Sandy could tell he was keeping his voice calm, but that would do nothing to stop Alaska. "As Looker just said, Daisy and I were assigned to bring you back here for your own safety while we investigated what was going on. When the tunnel collapsed on us, I used the opportunity to split from you three and find out if the carving really was of you, and when we confirmed it was, it became clear the only thing to do was –"

"Let me fight two maniacs on my own?" Alaska screamed, and she grabbed another plate.

"Put the fine china down, madam!" Evelyn roared, rising to her feet and emitting such a presence that Alaska froze. "You can destroy as many of my dinnerware as you want, but that is not going to change anything! There is a war going on out there; two men have plans to ruin our region and the powers that be have made it so that there is little hope of stopping them except for you. We have told you the truth now, and it is up to you to decide what we do next. Like it or not, you were born to fight in this battle. You need to accept that and help us find a solution before you get yourself killed." There was fierceness in Evelyn's voice that reverberated throughout the garden, powerful enough to send chills down Sandy's spine. Alaska stared angrily back at the matriarch for a moment, and then she threw the plate back onto the table and stepped away.

"I never asked for this, any of this!" She yelled, and Sandy could see she was on the verge of tears. "If I had known what was being expected of me…" Alaska trailed off, looking between everyone with her face flickering between pain and anger. Sandy reached out for her hand, but Alaska stepped further back, casting a final look across all of them before turning and storming inside the house.

"Well, that went well," Evelyn sighed as Alaska slammed a door shut behind her. "Honestly, I wasn't expecting any better, but still… we have well and truly screwed that girl over."

"She can fume for the rest of the day if she has to, but we need to pull her out of this rage," Looker said, brushing shards of broken plate off the table. "Meeting Buzz and seeing his army seems to have thrown her, but as the League refuses to pull their heads out of the sand, Alaska is the only hope we have. We know what Buzz is after now; we need to start planning for it."

"It won't be easy talking her around, Alaska knows how to hold a grudge," Sandy said, staring at the chair her friend had vacated.

"Then you need to talk to her for us." Looker leaned into her line of sight, forcing Sandy to look at him, even though the sight of all of them was sickening. "Can you do that, Sandy? We need you and Alaska in on this if we have any hope of stopping Buzz."

Why didn't you tell us this months ago? Sandy thought, trying to stay calm but was struggling not to grab a chair and throw it right though the table. We could have helped you, we could have done more to stop Buzz if we had known who he was and what was being expected of her. I was shot in the chest; I nearly died because we were left to fight this battle on our own. Why didn't you tell us, why didn't you try and save us from this earlier?

"I will do my best," Sandy replied, forcing a smile back, and Looker nodded in approval. Everyone smiled weakly back at her, and then their attention fell back to the abandoned breakfast. Sandy simply sat in silence, watching them all with a smile plastered across her face. She knew how to keep up appearances, how to pretend things were fine when they were anything but. Sandy knew now was the time for smiles and laughter, to be like Eevee and Pichu and focus on the good things in life, but no matter how wide her smile got, there was no denying the crippling pain of knowing that despite everything she had done in defence of Kanto, her life meant less than a reality show.



Hopefully this chapter cleared up things about some of the wider goings-on in the story. The fallout from this will seep through the remainder of the arc. If there is something you want expanded on from this chapter, let me know.
 
Re: How to Conquer Kanto in Eight Easy Steps - Chapter 69

Starting with sentences that didn't quite make sense, or could have made more sense if reworded:

“in order to relieve the madness and while Charlotte adjusted to her powers”

“is going to put to tell him what to do” is also odd

“he doesn’t want the same thing to happen to you like what the gym league did to him” could also be reworded, even if I can’t tell if it’s technically wrong.

“or get to battle with Red he is told to lose”

Another thing I probably should have brought up by now. "Focussing" is technically correct. But, the vast majority of the English speaking world uses "focusing" to the point where quite a few spell-checking devices don't even recognize the two 's' variant. There's technically nothing wrong with your spelling, but it can be a tad jarring to English nuts.

And ugh the chapter title isn't a misnomer. Ugh. So much potential...

This was nice enough for bring in the wider Galactic-verse, explain a little more about Charlotte, and bring up what the various parties around her want in more detail. While Interpol's plan is still more defined by what it is not than what it is, that's still more than we knew previously. With the League's plan and Buzz's now in the light of day, only Gideon and Alaska remain as entirely unpredictable actors.

In other words, this probably marks the start of Act Three, or at least the second half of Act Two, in the three act structure. With Alaska volatile as she is, I highly doubt that the League's plan works exactly as they intended, but it's also hard to see a clear way around it. Quitting wouldn't cause any of the problems to go away. Getting the rest of the badges and facing the League are already things she has to do, which will draw in Buzz and Red inevitably. Only Gideon lurking in the shadows to raise Lord Helix could seriously derail things and I kind of doubt you would do that until close to the very end.

At least the general structure of the story until endgame is now clear. While your specific take on Koga/Blaine/Leaf(?) and the Seafoam Islands/Cinnabar Isle/The Safari Zone are unclear, those are all short-term things and details in the larger scheme of things. As is the inevitable next chapter of Sandy and Alaska arguing. Then something will probably explode because it's been a few chapters and that's how all arguments end or begin, and then they end up on Cycling Road.

Alaska herself was kind of an obnoxious kid in this section, but to be fair I'd be kind of pissed if I found out that an organization that believed itself to be capable of curb-stomping all of her threats even if its leader and savior were dead wasn't helping me at all, however lethal the situation got. So she's not entirely unjustified here.

Overall, the exposition was handled pretty well and for the first time in the fic all but two or three (forgot Red was a thing) cards are on the table. Now it's just a matter of seeing how Alaska evolves before she takes the final three steps and Buzz, Gideon, and Red await at the endgame.

But seriously, you're grammar slipped a little here. Might want to get a beta.
 
Re: How to Conquer Kanto in Eight Easy Steps - Chapter 69

@Rediamond

Thank you for the feedback, as usual. I felt quite rushed for time this chapter as it had been a while since the last so I wanted to get it up, which meant I didn't proofread as well as I usually do. And good thing I've begun bothering you about beta/review exchanging :p And apologises about the focusing thing.

I'm quite sure what you mean by the chapter title comment?

I have never really viewed it in a three-act way, as I have preferred to focus on what each individual arc is adding to the story. But if you wanted to view it this way, this arc more so than the next is about moving towards the end game and preparing Alaska and Sandy for what is to come. Pre-Vermilion/Lavender was about the set up and laying the groundwork, while things since original Celadon have been bout pushing Alaska out of her comfort zone, her finding herself in this changed world and now laying the groundwork. The last chapter in this arc and the blog will hopefully tie things up and ready her character, and the interlude (which is the 100th overall chapter/interlude/blog) will really ready things for the impending showdowns, so the Fuchsia arc could definitely be seen as the start of the third act. Nice way of thinking about it.

This chapter wasn't really about Charlotte or the G-Verse, it was more about setting things up and explaining some of the over arching questions and actions that have gone unresolved in the story. There was a lot more I could have included, but I am saving that for another chapter/arc, as I wanted this chapter to focus on the revelation and look at a different side to Sandy's persona and her relationship with Alaska. I was not aware it had come across G-Versey, that wasn't really my intention, but since this had a lot of GVerse characters I can understand why it seemed like that.

Hopefully there will be another chapter or two before the end of the year - I certainly hope so.
 
Chapter Seventy: A Neighbourly Chat
Re: How to Conquer Kanto in Eight Easy Steps - Chapter 69

Chapter Seventy: A Neighbourly Chat

"Your battle back in Saffron, I had never seen anything quite like it. The way you set up all those moves, paving the way for Pidgeotto's final assault, it was… breathtaking, there is no other adjective for it!"

"Well, it was wrong, wasn't it, in the end? I won the battle but failed the test. So that really took the joy out of things."

Alistair did not respond to this. Part of Alaska felt guilty, remembering what her old neighbour had done to save her, knowing that he was simply trying to distract her. But Alaska didn't want or need reminding about what had gone down in Sabrina's gym. She shut her eyes, slowly breathing in and out for a minute. She grabbed hold of those thoughts, those memories, everything that had happened, and she pushed them away to the back of the head, back with all the other bad things she didn't want to remember.

Alaska breathed out and opened her eyes, feeling clear once more.

"Again."

"Pidgeeey!"

"Nidooo!"

Alaska stepped backwards, and Paige and Nadia charged for each other again. Aerial Ace collided with Poison Jab, soft and rich purples brushing against each other. Paige became unbalanced and swerved to the right, allowing Nadia to jump back up and score a second strike against her breast.

Paige is faster, but Nadia puts more strength into her attacks, Alaska thought. Her mind was racing with analysis, her eyes darting around taking in every detail. She watched as Paige soared around a potted tree, briefly flying out over the roof, before turning and rocketing back forwards. She shone white for a moment, and Nadia's strength was not enough to stop the Quick Attack from knocking her backwards.

"Nido!" Nadia snarled as she rolled back onto her feet and quickly blasted an Ice Beam, but Paige dropped down so that the attack struck a plant box, coating two sides in thick blue ice.

"Careful!" Alaska hissed, stepping quickly between the two. "We may be allowed to train here, but let's try not to destroy anything, okay?" God knows they would have a field day with that, she thought bitterly, but resisted the urge to say it aloud. Paige and Nadia nodded, the latter with the air of reluctance, and Alaska stepped back to let them continue.

"Funny; from what everyone has said of you, I thought you would have loved the opportunity to destroy something like this."

Oh, how I would love to burn this house to the ground, Alaska thought, but she held her tongue. "Occasionally, but doing in a rooftop vegetable garden doesn't give you the same rush as taking out half of Kanto's power." Alistair chuckled for a moment, and then quickly began wheezing. Alaska turned away from the battle and lunged for the jug of water, but before she could pour Alistair was waving his hands.

"I am fine, please do not worry about me," he coughed. Alaska stared uncertainly at him, but the coughing quickly died down and Alistair sank back into his chair, sighing with his eyes shut.

"I am going to pour it anyway." Alistair merely grunted, and the rooftop fell silent as Alaska filled a glass, the soft tinkling of cascading water a pleasant break from the sounds of battle.

"Sit, have some with me," Alistair said as the glass was thrust into his hands.

"I should really keep battling –"

"You mean distracting yourself?" Alaska glared at her neighbour, but Alistair opened a tired eye and smirked. "Don't think I don't know your game! Sit and have some water, it will do better for your health than barking orders at those tired creatures." Alaska knew there would be no arguing, especially not when she knew he was right, so she signaled for Paige and Nadia to join them and collapsed into a seat herself.

As she poured herself a drink, Alaska stared around the garden, remembering the conversation she had had the last time she was here; it had been powerful and emotive, and she had walked away from her meeting with her mystery man thinking that all her problems had solved. It was strange to think she had been naïve then despite all that had happened already, yet each day that passed her innocence was broken just a bit more and her old view of humanity faded even further into darkness. After everything that had been thrown at her at breakfast, all the secrets revealed and lies finally exposed… it was too much to process. Alaska felt like she was deflating as the chat came back to her, her initial rage disappearing to be replaced with an almighty and overwhelming feeling of defeat.

"Has anyone ever told you you're an old soul?" Alistair said, snapping her out of her thoughts. Alaska shook her head and the scientist smiled. "I have always thought that about you. Even when you were a little girl, I use to tell your parents that you were far too wise for someone of your age. You always saw things differently, you always spoke up when other kids were not even paying attention, you always managed to command attention by doing very little." He turned and smiled softly at her, but there was sadness in his eyes, and Alaska suddenly felt a bit colder. "What happened to that little girl?"

"This happened," she replied quietly and said nothing more. Alistair merely nodded and slowly refilled his glass, eyes transfixed on the pouring water.

"I have read your blogs while I have been bedridden. All the things that's have happened to you… I cannot even fathom. It is like all my worst fears come true."

"I am sorry that Mitchell got caught up in some of my problems, I never asked for that."

"You never asked for any of this," Alistair replied kindly. "Do not worry; I don't blame you in any way. If anything, so much of this is my fault. If I had not built those bloody machines…" A sob escaped his lips, and suddenly Alistair was weeping, hands clutched to his face. Alaska was taken aback, having never experienced an adult break down before her, certainly not someone she hardly knew. She looked blankly at Paige and Nadia; the former shrugged her wings, while the latter stared at Alistair with a mixture of horror and disgust. Alaska turned back to him and reached out, patting him on the shoulder.

"You cannot blame yourself, you had no idea what you were making and you had no choice in it anyway!"

"I know, I know, I have told myself that every night this past week, but that still does not dull the fact that someone I invented could have killed you… could have killed my son…" He continued to weep, and Alaska knew there was nothing she could do but let him get it out. She knew that was how she felt sometimes, so she sat back and let his tears flow undisturbed.

As she did, the memories continued to surface of that stormy night. Everything over the past months had happened so quickly and so rapidly that they were beginning to blur into one long nightmare, but Alaska could easily recall that night; the pain of abandoning Darwin, her own tears as they mingled with the rain on her face, the heated words she and her shadowed watcher had exchanged. It was that night she had decided to face the gyms and become the best trainer and person she could possibly be in order to defeat Gideon and Buzz, yet that dream had only lasted a few days. Now she was tasked with defeating an enemy far stronger than herself, while another lived in the shadows waiting to pounce, and her dreams of league championship were tarnished, the battle with Sabrina likely to have sent ripples of repercussions further down the last of her journey. All those promises she had made to herself, ruined…

"That girl disappeared a long time ago," Alaska said suddenly, and Alistair looked up, eyes red and puffy but quickly attentive. The cynical side of her brain wondered if it had been a trick, showing his own emotions to get her to show hers. But Alaska could see the hurt in his face, and remembered their talk from the tunnel, and knew his pain was genuine.

"I started this journey because I wanted to prove that you didn't need a Charmander or Squirtle or Bulbasaur to defeat the League," she began. "That was the main reason why I left home – well, that and because home was becoming quite unbearable. Dad being unemployed and the house falling apart wasn't the best environment to grow up in, but it was the reality show that actually gave me something to strive for and gave me a reason to leave. I wanted to travel around, get some money, make my point, maybe win in the end, but I wanted to live life and prove something to myself.

"But then the robots appeared, I met Gideon, and I learned that basically nothing in my life since I signed up for this challenge has actually been in my control. So I couldn't afford to be inquisitive or attentive or funny anymore, not when every day I seem to be fighting for my life or for Sandy's or in order to save the world. I have left this journey take control of me rather than taking control of it myself, and it is just really difficult to accept that everything I do now will be out of my hands."

A moment passed. Paige and Nadia sat quietly by her feet, and Alaska appreciated their comfort, though their presence did little to numb the pain she felt. She had held her feeling and these memories back for a reason, because all she had been through was too much to bare thinking about. Alistair coughed quietly and took another sip of water, his eyes still focused on her but without the warmth they have possessed earlier.

"If I may ask, is that why you were willing to die when that brutish man attacked you?" The question was barely whispered, yet it resonated all around Alaska. She paused, letting in sink in, before slowly nodding.

"I don't want to live a life that I have no control over. What is the point of that? I may have been born to fill some role in history, and I seem to be destined to fight in some glorious battle, but that isn't what I want. What I want is to just battle and do my best at the League, yet that is never going to happen, so why carry on?" More silence followed. Letting her words linger without response made Alaska feel awkward; why exactly was she spilling her soul like this? Maybe seeing her neighbour so distraught and broken made her feel the need to reciprocate to lessen his embarrassment of weeping before a child. Or maybe Alistair's tears had merely torn down the barriers of age between them; for once, there was someone wanting answers from her that was actually on her level.

"You have been through a lot, my dear, too much for any one person to go through. But I do not think that dying is the right answer. What will happen to Sandy and your Pokémon, your family, all of us if you die?"

"And what happens to me if I keep going? I asked for death in that basement knowing that it would either happen then or drag on until the very end, and I just don't think I can really last the rest of this stupid conflict. And it seems I literally have no choice about doing this, thanks to the League and that bloody ghost."

She isn't the only one that predicted this though, Alaska reminded herself, casting her gaze down to Paige. She was suddenly back in that tent in Lavender Town, a series of cards being placed before her, the old woman with the perfect face sitting smiling across from her: And she shall be a Pidgeot by the time you ride her into your final battle. Did this woman also see a future where Alaska and Paige rode into war together? Just how set in stone was her future? She felt angry just remembering everything she had been told earlier, and the spiteful, vicious side of her still wanted to attack. Yet, and it annoyed her how mature this seemed, doing that would do little to change the future or fix anything that had already happened. Her fate had been dished out, and now Alaska had to work out what to do with it.

"Sabrina thinks I am scared on the unknown. We spoke for some time and with some ferocity after I woke up in her gym, and she told me all about how she thinks the future scares me because I cannot control it. Part of me thinks she may be right, and I probably would have accepted her lesson had I not been further controlled. The way I was used and manipulated, my gym battle being turned into some test where I needed to prove myself, only confirmed my thoughts about the League. Breakfast this morning was just the cherry on top confirming every dread and fear and concern I have about my life."

"So is that why Sabrina battled you that way?" Alistair asked. "I got the impression there was some sort of lesson being imparted, but it all seemed a bit jumbled up if I do say so myself. Do you know exactly what she wanted you to learn?"

"Honestly… not really." Alaska had dwelled on this a lot over the past twenty four hours: the anger and disappointment in Sabrina's voice, the way her supposed allies had nearly shunned her, and the final words from their conversation last week: Then you will never be able to defeat them, our Champion will die and Kanto shall fall alongside him. She had felt proud at the time, rebelling against the constraints of the League and the situation she was in, making a point that no one told her what to do. When she had done this weeks ago, Alaska had felt happy afterwards, proud that she had prevented herself from becoming a further pawn in a game she wanted no part in. But yesterday, after all was said and done, she simply felt empty. As soon as the joy of battle had ended, Alaska felt as though she had done something terribly wrong, botched an opportunity that may never come again. There definitely was a reason why she had done what she had, but at the same time, there was clearly a lesson Sabrina was trying to impart on her; Alaska thought she had worked it all out, but it had quickly become clear she had behaved terribly.

She and Alistair sat in silence, both dwelling in their own thoughts. Paige sat dozily by her trainer's feet, while Nadia was beadily staring around as though attackers were waiting for them at every corner. Alaska looked at the two in her contemplation and wondered what they made of the situation, what they would say to her if they could talk.

"I wish I could give you advice, Alaska, but I am afraid I have nothing to give." Alaska could hear the sadness in Alistair's voice, and knew it pained him to be unable to help her, the memories of his role in her nightmare likely resting on his mind. "There is a difference between being intelligent and being wise. Intelligent people are capable of analysing situations and answering problems in whatever area they are most intelligent in, whereas wise men and women simply know the best thing to say no matter what the problem is. I am so sorry Alaska; it is actually painful to see someone in a situation like this but be perfectly incapable of helping them through it."

"You are not the one that needs to apologise," Alaska replied quietly, but as the words passed her lips, she wondered, as she had often this past week, who really was to blame for the chaos she found herself in; Buzz and Gideon for playing the antagonists in this war, the League and the International Police for being supporting players only from afar, or did the protagonist herself need to answer for all that had happened?

"Mr Melton, the doctor has arrived for you." Alaska nearly jumped out of her seat, the sudden third voice sending a jolt through her body. She turned fretfully to find Amelia the maid standing awkwardly between two plant boxes. "I'm sorry; I didn't mean to startle you. You are both just so lost in thought, and –"

"It's fine, don't worry," Alaska replied, smiling to cover up her embarrassment. Amelia smiled timidly before turning her neon-like eyes towards Alistair, who was awkwardly rising from his chair.

"You would think the brute would come and see me, I am the one with the darn gunshot wound after all." His voice was rough and angry, but when he looked up, Alaska saw a tired smile on his face. "Can't take things too seriously now, can we dear? If this wound has taught me anything, it is that life is far too short for getting worked up over the little things. I hope you keep that in mind."

"I will try to; it sounds rather wise to me."

"Huh – your right! I suppose I am not quite so intelligent after all." Alistair and Alaska laughed, and he gave her a gentle pat on the shoulder before wobbling off through the plant boxes. Alaska turned and watched him leave, feeling somewhat at peace with herself even though all these questions and all these burdens still weighed heavily on her mind; the simple pleasure of airing them had relieved some of her burden, if it had done nothing to solve any of the problems. With a sigh, she finished the last of her water while Amelia picked up the jug.

"Mrs Athlew wants to finish her conversation with you," the maid said. Alaska groaned in response: she was too tired and too defeated to face them again. "Shall I pass that message on?"

"If you want, it is much cleaner than anything I would actually say at this point." Amelia smirked for a moment before gathering herself. Alaska smiled, and suddenly remembered something else from the last time she was here. "Did I ever thank you for your advice, the last time we were both up here? It helped me considerably win that battle against Alexis."

"No, you did not, but you are very welcome," Amelia replied, smiling before turning to head off. She only walked a few steps though before pausing and turning and back to Alaska. "If I remember correctly, my advice pertained more towards Gideon than it did towards Alexis."

"It did, but as you may have noticed, I do not exactly follow the traditional ways of doing things."

"And I am not scolding you for that, but perhaps you forgot the real meaning after you used it to win the match." Alaska turned to face her, eyebrow raised, and Amelia coughed nervously before stretching to full height. "You see, I feel it may pertain to your current predicament. They may not want you to fight your own way anymore, but you can still decide what happens next." Amelia was smiling so kindly that Alaska could not bear being rude, but her words were yet another reminder of the cruelty of her circumstances.

"Thank you for your help, but I don't think you quite understand the full story here –"

"The prophecy? Oh yes, I know all about that. We could hear your, um… discussion, shall I call it, all through the house this morning. From what I understand, there is simply going to be a war, but they do not know when."

"True… but your point is?" Alaska asked with narrowed eyebrows.

"Well, why does the other side have to decide when that day comes? It is your destiny, after all; why not take some control. Take it from a maid that you probably have a lot more freedom than you probably realise." Amelia smiled warmly, and she walked off before Alaska could respond. The trainer simply sat there in silence, alone in the expansive rooftop garden, letting those words swirl around with everything else that was bubbling away inside her mind. As they settled into her membrane, a number of different thoughts and ideas struck Alaska. She had been looking for answers for the past week, wondering what to make of everything what to do next. And now, it was as though a switch had been thrown, casting a new light over the ever jumbled up puzzle that made up her life. Everything shone under a different point of view, and for the first time since she had fallen asleep in her tent last week, Alaska had a feeling as though things were going to work out.

"Pidge Pidgey Pidge Otto?" Paige chirped by her feet, staring quizzically up at her trainer. Alaska looked down, catching the intrigued looks of her Pokémon, and she managed to crack a smile at them.

"What next, my dear? Control… that's what comes next."
 
Re: How to Conquer Kanto in Eight Easy Steps - Chapter 70

Ok, so, first review of our little exchange! I reckoned I'd get it started off, and in any case I've been a bit stuck with my own writing. So anyway, here follows my thoughts on Arc One:

Technical Accuracy/Style
It is a step down from Dawn of Darkness, which is to be expected. Most of what I noticed really was a case of a need for more rigorous proofing- the odd formatting error or leftover word from a rewritten sentence. In general the story comes across as rather cartoony. Everything is a bit larger than life, and a bit shallower than life, come to that. The humour, too, is on the slapstick side of the fence

Story
There's a fair few different elements going on here. Alaska's story itself isn't all that remarkable - other than that she has a Pidgey, of all things, as a starter - but this feels like a sequel of sorts to the standard narrative of the Gen I era. To which I say, ok, fine. Alaska's blog provides a nice change of perspective, and a sneaky way of getting around the problem of the standard journeyfic milestones. When it comes to journeyfic clichés, I couldn't help but think "At least it doesn't start in Pallet Town". I also rather like the idea that Alaska's motivation for doing well is essentially spite and defiance at the social order - Pokédex owners being inherently special and skilled always bugs me.

I haven't made my mind up about the reality show subplot, however. I can only assume that it's somehow more than just a reality show, because surely the producer wouldn't try to kill a girl over something as minor as inconvenient footage?

Characters
A lot of the characters are caricatures, which need not necessarily be considered criticism. Gideon as blatantly, child-killingly, One Ring forgingly evil I'm not about to argue with. In fact trying to give that character hidden depths is likely to tick me off. I'm not so convinced of the social strata bitches, of which we have two in the forms of Chloe and Amanda. Girls tend to have a subtle, insidious kind of spite that's really difficult to write into brief encounters ... so to an extent I can see why you did it. I actually think your subtlest one is William

Alaska herself reminds me all too much of the teenage girl who think's she's wittier than she really is. I can't say I'm really rooting for her, as such. For me I need a lot more depth to a protagonist to really get on board with them. I think on the whole I would have preferred to see less "Haha, take that rich bitch!" and more navel gazing from Alaska about what leaving home means

Final Thoughts
There's a lot that I simply haven't formed a full opinion on at the moment. I'm not sure whether I'll come to get really used to the cartoony style of the characterisation as the chapters wear on. If nothing else, it is different, which is more relevant with Kanto fics
 
Re: How to Conquer Kanto in Eight Easy Steps - Chapter 70

Second arc review! Better get reading, wolfie

Technical Accuracy/Style
Much the same as last time. I have to say, the melodrama hasn't grown on me. I think I would feel better about it were it not for how much there is of it in the characters. Alaska and Chloe hiss and trade childish banter among peals of laughter and smug smirks after every successful jibe. Amanda rather comes across as a taller Chloe. Sandy's sheer volume and genki girl madness plays into this as well. It's all just a bit much all in all

Story
Ok, so this see-saws between the fairly ordinary and the fairly crackers. I'm not about to write it off, though I am a bit sceptical. Sandy's debut chapter was the highlight of the arc, I think. The battle wasn't half bad, and aside from her VOLUME Sandy's a fun play around with an archetype. Despite being a frothy young lady in a summer dress she's a decent trainer. I still don't get why Buzz is jumping straight to murder. I suppose the loss of Robo-Drill might have clouded his judgement somewhat, but seriously, if Alaska produces bad footage, just don't air it. The man's a media lord and Amanda's presumably at least a competent producer, surely they'd know that

Characters
I've touched on this already. I'm torn between hoping and dreading that someone will tell Alaska "I like you, kid. You got moxie!" I notice that she's an unreliable blogger - sneaky little detail there, how she represents herself as the sole hero of the encounter. I almost want to see more of Damian and Lachlan, if I'm honest. One wonders why they ended up on the reality show and what they think about the whole adventure.

Final Thoughts
Still waiting to see what comes next. I've been surprised before, after all, so it seems fair to wait and see if I can be surprised again

Ooh, look how fast I can type halfway down my whisky. No typos, wheeeeee!
 
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