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TEEN: Jet Carter: Ace Trainer

TurtleKing

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Jet Carter: Ace Trainer
Genre: Action/Adventure
Rating: Teen (Violence, Language, Suggestive Themes)

Hey guys! This is my first dive back into Pokemon Fan Fiction after a considerably long hiatus. Since then, I've grown as a writer, but I'm still open to any and all criticism as well as comments about the overall story. If you like what you see, feel free to comment! If not, I'm glad you came back to even take a look! Enjoy the story!

~TK

Book One - The Mogul's Quest
When a troubled teen proves he has skills comparable to a seasoned Trainer, he's immediately recruited to join a group of elite Trainers. What he doesn't realize is that these Trainers are in debt to a very wealthy businessman which leads to more than what he bargained for as an aspiring Ace Trainer.


1. Breaking the Law... Again

**********
1. Breaking the Law... Again

Jet Carter: Ace Trainer.

That has a nice ring to it, right? I mean… the name “Jet” is definitely a pretty cool name to have, kind of like something out of a superhero movie. Or… it could be the name of someone’s Pokemon. Well… maybe it’s not so cool. Either way, I never thought I would see the day that I would become an Ace Trainer. Heck, I never thought I would be an actual Trainer, especially with all of the bad stuff that I’ve done in the past.

So many stories to tell, but I think the most important one would be the day that I saved Castelia City from imminent danger. The only problem was… everything that involved me saving the city was completely illegal.

Gone were the days that some random 10-year-old kid could leave the comfort of his parents’ home and venture out into the world, catching Pokemon, beating gym leaders, and entering their region’s Pokemon League (and, in some cases, saving the world). Looking back and reading the history of that, it actually makes sense: putting powerful creatures like Pokemon in the hands of 10-year-olds is absolutely dangerous and if you remember the story in Hoenn from a few years ago you know why (something involving a child and a Wailord getting lost at sea).

Anyway, the Pokemon Association came up with some new policies before I was born that pretty much changed the landscape of Pokemon training. You had to be a certain age to have a certain number of Pokemon and have a Trainer license to be in possession of certain types of Pokemon. Not to mention, having large Pokemon out in certain areas is forbidden. I could go on and on about the policies, but you catch my drift. There wasn’t exactly "free realm" with Pokemon anymore, for better or worse.

So where does me becoming an Ace Trainer fit into all of this? Well…

I’m 15-years-old, which means that I’m behind by a full year in getting started on my journey (most people head out at 14). Because of my “criminal” record, though, I won’t be able to get my Trainer license until my 16th birthday. Still, I was able to get a job with a cleaning service to keep executive offices presentable and skyscrapers spotless from dirt and Pidove poop. It was the idea of my juvenile probation officer to give me that job because it would “keep me out of trouble.”

Apparently, keeping me out of trouble meant risking my life every time I scaled the side of a building.

“Alright boys,” said Mr. Dagen as he brought the cleaning crew together in the lobby of the Masterson Tower. “I'm about tuh give ya the assignments for the day and I trust ya to handle ya business, right?”

Mr. Dagen was a fat guy with a thick Castelian accent (I’ve probably got one too, but his was by far more notable). Every day he wore his bland, khaki one-piece cleaning suit with pride. He truly loved his job and, apparently, the uniform.

I, on the other hand, preferred to wrap the top part of my suit around my waist so that I wouldn’t burn up in the summer sun.

“Riley, you’re on vacuum duty… Wyatt, kitchens… Everson, bathroom…” Mr. Dagen went on and on listing out the duties for the day. I was all but sure that he would have me and Alex (a guy who had been working here as long as I had) on skyscraper duty.

As he continued to call the names and responsibilities out, I shifted my body slightly to ease the frantic scurrying going on underneath my one-piece.

“Guys stop…” I muttered behind bared teeth, looking down into the front of my suit.

“Carter!”

My head bolted upward as I gave Mr. Dagen my full attention. “Yes sir?”

“Did you not hear what I said?”

“Skyscrapers, got it,” I said, taking a wild guess.

“Yeah, now get ya behind ova there with Alex for cryin’ out loud!” he replied, pointing the pencil he used to check off the names on his clipboard in the direction of Alex, who was already standing by the elevator door with the cleaning supplies.

“Yes sir,” I responded, jogging over to Alex just as the elevator dinged and opened its doors.

As soon as we got inside and the elevator closed behind us, I unzipped the front of my suit, wiggling my way out of the top and then tying the suit’s arms around my waist so that I was just wearing a plain white t-shirt as a top. Now that I wasn’t covered, I was able to glare at the culprits that were crawling up and down underneath my shirt, nearly getting me in trouble with my boss: two Joltiks clinging to the fabric of my shirt.

“I told you guys you wouldn’t be trapped in there too long,” I said, bringing my arm to the front of my shirt so that the two of them could crawl over onto my skin, their sticky feet crawling across my fore arm until the decided to rest their bodies comfortably on my right wrist.

“Dude!” Alex exclaimed, realizing that I had done something that was wrong: bringing Pokemon with me on the job without a license. “You can’t do that! Dagen’ll fire you! You'll get booked!”

Lifting an eyebrow at Alex, I simply smirked and said, “That’s only if somebody tells him.”

In a flash, one of my Joltik’s shot a spider web up at Alex’s mouth, covering it in its entirety. I have to tell you: it was absolutely hilarious seeing a chubby guy with a military buzz cut trying to talk with his mouth covered with Joltik webs. I didn’t even command either of them to do it, but apparently they were mind readers. Go figure.

“Mmf! Mmf hmm mmff!” Alex muffled, moving his mouth quickly to try and break free.

I cupped my hand to my ear, leaning a bit closer. “What was that? I can’t understand you, Alex.”

Just then, the elevator dinged again and we were on the roof of the building. Chuckling at him, I picked up the cleaning supplies and eased past Alex as he was finally able to snap free from the webs sticking his mouth shut.

“Very funny, Jet,” Alex mumbled, following after me. “If you wanna get yourself in trouble, fine. Just don’t expect to me help you get out of it!”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” I chuckled, waving him off with the hand that didn’t have two Joltiks attached to it. “Let’s just clean this building without falling to our deaths, alright?”

Masterson Tower was the tallest building in Castelia City, so it was easy to see everything else in the surrounding area. From where I was standing, it was easy to feel like a king overseeing his land. But standing up here made me realize how badly I wanted to get out of Castelia. The trouble with the law, this crappy job, and my mom always being disappointed in the things I did and the decisions that I made… I would have killed to be a 10-year-old with Pokemon, setting out on a journey. But here I was, five years older than that, with nothing to show for it.

Standing near the edge of the roof, I stared out toward the sea, seeing the Skyarrow Bridge that connected Castelia to the nearest city. I had been on that bridge once with my mother when we drove to Nacrene City to visit the museum, but even being there piqued my interest more to go beyond the surrounding cities. There had to be more to life than just waking up every day and cleaning buildings. Sure, I would be able to become a licensed Trainer in a year, but who had time to wait for a year to roll around?

“You coming or what?” Alex asked. He had already strapped himself into his harness and began repelling down the building, spritzing some cleaning spray on a window and wiping it with an extended mop.

After taking in the view, I strapped myself into my own harness and began my work as well.

Thirty or so minutes passed by and my body began to initiate autopilot. I was thinking about the stories my mom told me about my dad and how he was some top notch Gym Leader in Johto years ago. It was admirable for him to be respected by his peers in terms of being a Gym Leader, but being confined to one city and one Pokemon type? That had to be annoying after a while.

She won’t brag about it, but Mom competed in the Unova Pokemon League when she was younger. Now she’s a professor at Castelia University working towards tenure. I think she wanted me to attend Castelia U, in hopes that it would prove to everyone else that I’m actually trying to make something out of my life, but I don’t think I have the patience to sit in a class all day or studying for exams.

Nope, my goal was to see the world, meet new people, and face tough challenges. I don’t even think I want to be a Pokemon Master or whatever. Battling is fun, but I try not to take it too seriously because bad things can come from taking battling too seriously.

My mother and I live in a rough neighborhood in Castelia, so there’s a ton of crazy stuff that goes on. You’ve got people battling each other without having a Trainer license and not to mention the underground market for illegal items and whatnot. Well, one time, when I was about six or seven, I witnessed a guy who lost a battle go so far as to sic his Garbodor on the guy who beat him! I don’t think I would ever sic a Pokemon on a Trainer like that. Well, one of my Joltiks did shoot a web at Alex’s mouth, but that’s different.

Still daydreaming, I jumped and yelped from my dangling harness when I realized that on the other side of the window that I was supposed to be cleaning was Mr. Dagen. He tapped on the glass with his knuckle to ensure he had my attention.

“Ya ain’t cleanin’ if ya daydreamin’, Carter!” he said, voice stifled behind the glass and finger wagging at me.

Quickly, I mopped the smudges clean from the window before proceeding down to the next level.

“You ever wonder why that Victor Masterson guy built these towers?” Alex asked as I finally caught up to him on one of the middle sections of the towers. I was always a faster window wiper than he was.

“Not really,” I said with a shrug, reaching out to wipe the corners of the window in front of me. The Joltiks on my wrist scurried along to my shoulders, probably out of fear that they would drop because of how far my arms were extended and how high up in the air we were suspended. “He’s got one in every major city right? The guy’s a billionaire.”

“I guess so,” Alex said with a shrug, focusing on his own window. “But he already owns the Pokemon Center system and those are pretty damn noticeable no matter what city you go to. Isn’t that enough? Does he have to build a Masterson Tower in Castelia? Goldenrod? Celadon?”

I wasn’t sure about the point that Alex was trying to make. As far as I was concerned, if I had enough money to build towers in every city, I would probably do it too. He had to spend that money one way or another, right?

“I don’t know, Alex. I wouldn’t spend too much time blabbering about how some other guy spends his money though,” I chuckled, grinning over at him. “You want one of my Joltiks to give you a mouth full of web again?” Of course, I was teasing.

“You do that and I’ll have my Drilbur dig up your mom’s garden and I'll blame you for it,” he snapped back with a devilish smirk on his face. Alex wouldn’t hurt a fly, so it was funny to see him react the way he did, even if it was a joke.

Alex was just like me in that he had yet to receive his Trainer license. The only thing is, I don’t think he wanted to be a Trainer. I wasn't sure what he wanted to be, but I knew that he didn’t need this job. His parents operated one of the best restaurants on Gym Street so they always got more than enough clientele. He worked there as a cashier since he wasn’t exactly the best cook in the world. This cleaning job was probably just extra money for him when he wasn’t working at the restaurant. The way I saw it, the family business kept him trapped in Castelia City.

“You’d be doing her a favor,” I said with a shrug.

We were nearly done with the middle section of the building when Alex realized that he didn’t bring his bottled water with him in his harness.

“Crap,” he said, feeling around for the bottle before looking up at the top roof. “Be right back. I’m parched.” He slowly repelled himself upward while I continued to clean the next section of windows.

I should have been paying attention to Alex, as we were cautioned during our training, just to make sure that he safely ascended and descended, but we had done this a thousand times so I trusted him. At the very last minute, I glanced up and realized that Alex’s rope was not completely secured with his harness once he had grabbed his bottled water.

But it was too late.

“Alex!” I shouted, watching his body beginning its freefall from the side of Masterson Tower.

It was extremely risky using my Pokemon, especially at this moment. Alex was right: I couldn’t use Pokemon on the job without a Trainer license, but he was going to die if I didn’t use them right at this moment. I would deal with the repercussions later because right now, all that mattered was saving him.

“String Shot!”

The Joltiks scurried to my left arm as I extended it downward towards Alex. The strings released from the two spider Pokemon, expanding together to form a much larger and sturdier string that wrapped around Alex’s torso and held him up before he could fall any further. Unfortunately, the weight of Alex’s body pulled the harness I was seated in down even more and I was beginning to question whether or not my Joltiks could withstand this for much longer. My left arm strained and I bared my teeth trying to hold on for both of our dear lives.

“Arrrrgh…. Try… to pull him… argh… up!” I said.

The Joltiks slowly withdrew the webby strings as I felt the weight of Alex’s body slowly diminishing with each second. Still, it was difficult to keep him steady.

“Oh man!” Alex wailed, arms lightly flailing as if he was still falling.

“Hold still, man!” I shouted, glancing down at him.

“Just don’t freaking drop me! Don’t drop me!”

I had to think quickly. There was no telling how long it would be until the string snapped. My Joltiks were strong, but without any help from someone on the roof, Alex was in trouble.

Glancing down at the windows, I realized there was only one solution to this problem.

“Alex, I’m gonna swing you through one of those glass windows!”

“Don’t drop– Wait… What!?”

Before he could even question me, I huffed and pulled my left arm forward and smacking his body into the window that was a few floors below where I was. Fortunately, Alex was smart enough to push his legs forward so that he dove into the glass feet first and not head first. The sound of shattering glass eased my mind as the strings of web loosened up around him and completely withdrew into the Joltiks’ bodies.

I knew we would both be in trouble. We just broke a freaking window of Victor Masterson’s building! It didn’t get anymore “trouble” than that. Still, Alex was safe and that was all that mattered.

I repelled down to the broken window and swung my way inside, snapping loose the rope from around me as I landed in the seemingly abandoned office. Taking a look at the shattered glass scattered across the scarlet floor, I shook my head in disbelief as I unstrapped myself from the harness.

“We’re in trouble, aren’t we?” Alex asked, sitting up from where he was laying down.

“Big time,” I replied.

How were we going to explain that in order to save Alex’s life that we had to break a window? I didn’t know how much a window repair would cost, but I was sure that Victor Masterson only wanted the finest windows this side of the Unova region. There was no hiding from this.

“We gotta tell Dagen,” Alex sighed, standing to his feet and dusting himself off.

Just as I was about to agree, a piercing roar rang out, causing both Alex and me to cover our ears. Even my Joltiks were frightened by the roar, scrambling inside my t-shirt.

When the roar subsided, I looked to Alex and said, “What the hell was that!?”

Alex, with his mouth agape, pointed his finger towards the broken window. Staring back at us was a three-headed Pokemon, each of its six black wings flapping violently. The central head blared out another roar in our direction sending us flying back before unleashing green flames from the mouths of the two heads attached to its left and right arm. The flames burned at the floor momentarily before subsiding, leaving behind tarnished carpet.

Landing on top of a cubicle, I braced my fall with my hands, but Alex wasn’t so lucky. He fell straight into a water cooler and got drenched.

Wiping the water from his face, Alex spat, “Okay… that is the biggest Hydreigon I have ever seen.”

“It was big, huh?” I said, getting to my feet and running over to the edge of the window.

I gazed upward, watching the Dragon Pokemon shooting in and out of glass windows, causing way more damage than Alex and me would have ever dreamed of. At least we wouldn't be getting in too much trouble for just one window. Somebody’s Pokemon was on a rampage, which was funny because Dragon-type Pokemon weren’t even allowed to be caught by most Trainers. They were deemed too dangerous and now I could personally see why.

The sounds of glass shattering and the Hydreigon roaring repeated like a broken record. Sizing up the distance and the side of the building, I ushered one of my Joltik’s to my opposite wrist.

“You’re not thinking what I think you’re thinking… are you?” Alex asked, hurrying over to where I was. “You’re gonna get yourself killed! Or worse… eaten by that Hydreigon!”

“I think both of those scenarios lead to my death, Alex,” I snorted. “Besides, I just wanna get it under control. Or at least help anyway.” I looked at him with a nod. “Stay here, in case Dagen comes back. If he asks, tell him I went to the bathroom.”

"The bathroom? But... Jet!?"

With that, my Joltiks shot webs towards the side of the building as I pulled myself upward to get up close and personal with this Hydreigon. For a moment, I lost track of it but when it burst from the window that one of the Joltiks’ webs were stuck to, I shifted my body to the side and swung inside one of the broken window openings on an upper floor.

Hydreigon roared once again and I could have sworn it was looking at me as if I was about to be dinner.

“Carter! What the hell have you done!?” A voice yelled from behind me. That accent was all too familiar.

“Mr. Dagen,” I chuckled nervously, turning my head to look at him. “What a pleasant surprise! I, uh, you didn’t happen to notice the Hydreigon terrorizing the city, did you?”

“Is that your Pokemon!?”

“The Hydreigon? No of course not!” I lifted my wrist to show the Joltiks attached to it, "There guys are–"

A rumble shook the building before it subsided. Apparently, Hydreigon was now headbutting the building now.

“Is anybody gonna do anything about this?” I asked Mr. Dagen, pointing a thumb outside.

“Just get in the elevator. Come on!” he shouted before running in the opposite direction with other people who were on the floor.

I glanced back outside, wondering why the heck had no one taken care of this Hydreigon. Better yet: whose Hydreigon was it and why was it running loose in Castelia City?

“Damn it,” I mumbled to myself, reaching a hand in my pocket for a PokeBall. I should have gone in the elevator, but this opportunity was just too enticing to pass up. It was dangerous and I was beginning to realize that I lived for these dangerous moments.

“Carter, let's go!” Mr. Dagen yelled again.

I tapped the button at the front of the PokeBall, causing it to enlarge in my grasp. Without looking back for Mr. Dagen or the elevator, I tossed the ball forward, watching it burst open in a bright white light.

“Here we go,” I thought to myself.
 
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Rather effortless read, my first on this forum so good work with that. The succesfull use of a light tone did the trick, me thinks, although using Times New Roman in such a small size doesn't make the text easy to read. The new restrictions on Pokémon seem logic to me, examplified by the Hydreigon (I'll bet it's a wild one). Having some ten year old running about with two storey tall creatures wielding destructive powers defies any common sense.

Landing on top of a cubicle, I braced my fall with my hands, but Alex wasn’t so lucky. He fell straight into a water cooler and got drenched.
So he finally got his water, huh?
 
Rather effortless read, my first on this forum so good work with that. The succesfull use of a light tone did the trick, me thinks, although using Times New Roman in such a small size doesn't make the text easy to read. The new restrictions on Pokémon seem logic to me, examplified by the Hydreigon (I'll bet it's a wild one). Having some ten year old running about with two storey tall creatures wielding destructive powers defies any common sense.


So he finally got his water, huh?

Thanks for reading! The goal for this work was for it be an effortless read so I'm glad I could provide that for you. I debated on using another font/making the size bigger so I'll consider that going forth. It looked big on my Macbook, but now that I'm on a PC at work (shhh) it does look quite small Thanks for pointing that out.

So you did catch that Alex finally got his water. Good eye. ;)
 
I also noticed how Jet pulled a Spiderman one with his dubble Joltik. I see you used a plural form of the Pokémon's specie name (Joltiks, not Joltik), that's something I was thinking of doing myself.
 
I also noticed how Jet pulled a Spiderman one with his dubble Joltik. I see you used a plural form of the Pokémon's specie name (Joltiks, not Joltik), that's something I was thinking of doing myself.

Yep! I'd be lying if I said that that segment wasn't slightly Peter Parker inspired. The way I see it (in this universe) Pokemon are used in more unorthodox ways (even though in some cases it can get people into trouble). Of course, more of the rules and policies in regards to the utilization of Pokemon will come up in future chapters as things sort of unravel.
 
Well, now it seems maintenance is over:

Technical Accuracy/Style
I noticed a consistent error in "repelled" rather than "rappelled". I think I'd simply get rid of the Times New Roman - it doesn't really add anything and the standard font is going to at least be recognisable to regular forum-goers.

Setting
Actually a nice surprise here. Most fanfiction authors don't really know what to do with a city, much less a big city. I didn't find myself picking at your version of Castelia, which is a good sign.

There's a lot of lampshade hanging at the start of the chapter. I don't see the point of all that about ten-year-old trainers - ok, fine, for the purposes of the story you need to establish that Jet is too young to legally be a trainer, but it doesn't need to be tied to the fanon idea that trainers always start out at ten. For one thing, anyone who's that hung up on that piece of fanon will complain anyway. Another is that it kind of gets in the way and comes across as a tired old joke. The third issue is that by drawing attention to it, you raise the question of why young teenagers can legally be set to work dangling off the sides of skyscrapers.

I'm not sure how much sense it makes for a woman who's a university lecturer to be living in the rough end of the inner city. I mean, I suppose it's possible, but it's a definite double-take.

Story
I'm in two minds about where this chapter's going. You kind of reveal your hand in the first instance - we already know that Jet's going to be exceptional in some way, so when the hydreigon turns up it's more or less obvious what the outcome is going to be. Given that, it doesn't make much sense for it to end on a cliffhanger, because you've already removed some of the suspense. Certainly my immediate thought is whether this is going to be a "typical" Pokémon story in that the teenage protagonist shows up all the inexplicably incompetent adults - a very typical cliché, and one that would punch a hole right through your own worldbuilding.

Characters
Funnily enough, Jet reminds me of a lot of kids between the ages of about 14 and 20 I've met. Hell, I've worked with kids like Jet, and not one's gone by that I haven't wanted to give a smack round the head and a lecture about the value of hard work. It's the same brand of arrogance, the same sense of grievance at having to do work, the same lack of perspective. He's a twerp, in short.

I am glad we didn't get a rant from Mr. Dagan about the horror of a broken window, which would have placed it squarely in "tiresome YA" territory. He is a bit on the one-dimensional side, which is why the suspicion occurred to me at all, but you could reasonably argue that from Jet's perspective he might well appear to be little more than a shouty jerk.
 
some random prenote

Hey there! My first dive back into reviewing after a considerably long hiatus, so lol; I hope this means good things.


general/worldbuildingy

As an intro, I think this is an intriguing first chapter. You establish the rules of your world fairly well, have a good threat, and your main character clearly knows what kind of direction he’s going in. Some of this is also guided by your summary that you posted at the top, but overall after reading this I feel like I’ve got a good idea of the tone/direction you’re setting, which is great for a first chapter. Ace Trainer Jet Carter feels like a believable, kind of grandiose teenage kid and is pretty much the exact kind of character I’d expect from someone named Ace Trainer Jet Carter, lol.

I also liked the way you took the premise—this is a story about a kid becoming a trainer, sure, but it isn’t about a kid picking up his starter from the neighbors. I think there’s a lot of room for depth here and I do hope you expand on it. And the setting is really cool! Trainer laws on what types can be captured! Other professions that kids can do besides battling! Some dude owns lots of skyscrapers and is probably important! There was a ton of cool worldbuilding here for such a short chapter, and I thought the plot flowed pretty smoothly once we got past the intro exposition.


narrator/tone

One thing that slowed me down when I was reading was how you handled your narrator—Jet would tell us a lot of things that either 1) got proven true in the text soon after, or 2) got proven false in the text soon after. The thing about (1) is that, if the text is going to show you something pretty soon after, Jet’s narration is pretty redundant and breaks that “show don’t tell” rule that you hear all the time in story telling. And the thing about (2) is that it’s pretty confusing to hear Jet say something even though the evidence points against it.

For example:
I’m 15-years-old, which means that I’m behind by a full year in getting started on my journey (most people head out at 14). Because of my “criminal” record, though, I won’t be able to get my Trainer license until my 16th birthday. Still, I was able to get a job with a cleaning service to keep executive offices presentable and skyscrapers spotless from dirt and Pidove poop. It was the idea of my juvenile probation officer to give me that job because it would “keep me out of trouble.”
The first few paragraphs of this story are pretty straight exposition, which is a bold choice for an intro chapter—you set up the world pretty well, but there isn’t much to keep a reader invested. The kid has a criminal record and a funny name, but who is he? Why should I care what he’s telling me? And what kept me reading the story was actually the stuff you put after, when he’s in the action and preparing for another day of soulless, dangerous child labor—this is the interesting stuff that keeps your reader hooked! I don’t think that Jet telling us that this is his job a few sentences before we follow Jet out to him doing his job really adds much to the story, and I think you could cut exposition like this from your narrator pretty easily without losing much.

And at the same time, sometimes Jet does things that totally contradict what he just told us in the narration:
“You want one of my Joltiks to give you a mouth full of web again?” Of course, I was teasing.
Believing this “of course” when Jet says he’s teasing is pretty hard, given that we’d just seen:
In a flash, one of my Joltik’s shot a spider web up at Alex’s mouth, covering it in its entirety. I have to tell you: it was absolutely hilarious seeing a chubby guy with a military buzz cut trying to talk with his mouth covered with Joltik webs. I didn’t even command either of them to do it, but apparently they were mind readers. Go figure.
And because this paragraph comes first, that’s kind of the idea that we get about Jet—that the Joltik did do what he wanted (“they were mind readers”), that what he wanted was to web up Alex after Alex threatens to rat on him, and that he doesn’t really think that it’s anything significant (“it was absolutely hilarious”), suggesting he would do it again. This builds the idea that he’s a teenager, sure, who isn’t afraid to sometimes dick his friends over as a prank, which is fine from a character-establishment perspective! But it does make the follow-ups about how he’s actually a very, very caring person who would absolutely only ever tease about shooting Alex in the face with a Joltik web a little harder to believe.

First person narration is tricky. There’s a lot of weigh given in Jet’s words here because they end up pulling double duty—as a narrator, he implicitly has a lot of power over how the reader interprets the world; as a character, his words are how we get a sense for who he is and why we want to root for him. So when those two roles contradict each other, it’s hard to put faith in either role that Jet has to play.

And maybe I totally missed the point and he’s supposed to be this big ball of conflicting thoughts, which makes him a super believable teenager, if a super unbelievable narrator, in which case OOPS.


overall

This was a fun read for a first chapter! I probably went way too overkill on the narrator stuff, but I do think that your narrator is pretty integral to how the rest of your story is going to go, so I thought I’d say my bit here. I still liked the overall tone that you set, and this is overall a fast-paced, fun read.
 
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Welcome back! It's always nice to see some old faces again. I was just cleaning up very old Writers Workshop threads not long ago, and I always found that squirtle avatar amusing when I came across one of your posts. :p

That has a nice ring to it, right? I mean… the name “Jet” is definitely a pretty cool name to have, kind of like something out of a superhero movie. Or… it could be the name of someone’s Pokemon. Well… maybe it’s not so cool.

Lol, I think it's a pretty cool name. :p Though I can just imagine a convo like this:

"My name's Doug." - > "Oh, cool. That's my dog's name!"

Where people think it's a compliment but it's not. XD

So many stories to tell, but I think the most important one would be the day that I saved Castelia City from imminent danger. The only problem was… everything that involved me saving the city was completely illegal.

I'll be interested to hear more about these little adventures... Sometimes, the ends justify the means. :p Doesn't seem like the good people of Castelia agree with me here, though, if Jet was punished for what happened.

Still, I was able to get a job with a cleaning service to keep executive offices presentable and skyscrapers spotless from dirt and Pidove poop. It was the idea of my juvenile probation officer to give me that job because it would “keep me out of trouble.”

Something tells me already that Jet's just going to get into more trouble anyway... You do a good job establishing the spontaneous, adventurous side of his personality straight off the bat.

“Dude!” Alex exclaimed, realizing that I had done something that was wrong: bringing Pokemon with me on the job without a license. “You can’t do that! Dagen’ll fire you! You'll get booked!”

Interested to know what the thought process behind this is in the story's world. Is it because Pokemon can pose a bigger danger on the job? Because they're distractions? Something else?

From where I was standing, it was easy to feel like a king overseeing his land. But standing up here made me realize how badly I wanted to get out of Castelia.

Yeah, you clearly get the sense that Jet's a restless, free spirit kind of guy. Kudos with the characterization here.

I would have killed to be a 10-year-old with Pokemon, setting out on a journey. But here I was, five years older than that, with nothing to show for it.

You're only 15, man. You're not supposed to be having life crises like these yet!

It was admirable for him to be respected by his peers in terms of being a Gym Leader, but being confined to one city and one Pokemon type? That had to be annoying after a while.

I imagine the gym leader position given to veteran trainers who already had their fair share of traveling and who eventually wanted to settle down but not give up their love of battling.

Well, one of my Joltiks did shoot a web at Alex’s mouth, but that’s different.

I can see Jet has morals and isn't a total juvenile delinquent, but I wonder what he'd do in situations where he'd have to break the law like when he supposedly saved Castelia. Seems he'd do whatever he personally felt was right, even if he got in trouble for it.

EDIT: Wrote the above before finishing reading the chapter. Seems I got my answer already and I was right. :p

Still daydreaming, I jumped and yelped from my dangling harness when I realized that on the other side of the window that I was supposed to be cleaning was Mr. Dagen. He tapped on the glass with his knuckle to ensure he had my attention.

I'm surprised Mr. Dagen didn't see the joltik right here. The joltik didn't even cross Jet's mind at all.

No specific comments on the rest of the chapter. Like I said, I got my answer. It does feel a bit out of left field to have a feral hydreigon on the loose like that, but it's established in the story that there's lingering questions and that they'll be answered in the next chapter. I suspect a lot of wild things like this will happen, given Jet's personality, although it's a tad easy to have the story feel too random or melodramatic as a result. Still, your writing's pretty solid, so I have faith you'll handle it okay, and I'll be looking out for more!
 
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