MATURE: Rara Avis: Oak and Iron Bound

[AetherX]

Centuries ago, before the Pokémon League, before Poké Balls, even before trainers, the creatures we know as pokémon dominated the wilds. Only a rare few humans befriended pokémon, and most of those fought alongside them in deadly gladiatorial combat. To the average person, pokémon were simply monsters, mysterious demons and spirits that prowled the wilderness, bestowing swift and terrible death upon anyone unfortunate enough to cross their path.
But then, as now, the destinies of humans and pokémon are closely intertwined.


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Hello and welcome to a project that I have devoted quite a bit of time to in the past few months, and hopefully will continue to do so for a long time to come. Rara Avis is the story of a monster slayer in a sort of medieval version of the Pokémon world. It's not meant to be canon to anything, but there will be plenty of nods to the Pokémon world as we know it. Technically this is a sequel to an old fic called Locked in Battle that I wrote years ago, but I've changed so much about the world and characters that it's barely canonical.

Special thanks to Beth Pavell, my ever diligent beta reader and sounding board. He's a very talented writer himself and I highly suggest checking out his work. Another thanks to all of you who read and review. I greatly appreciate any and all feedback, even if it's just a note saying you're reading the story.

I'll be writing and uploading this story in chunks, so if you get caught up in the middle of an episode, you shouldn't have to wait more than a day or two for the rest of the episode to be posted.

Rated Mature for swearing, graphic violence and gore, and possibly other stuff later on.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
PROLOGUE: BLOOD IN THE SNOW
Below
EPISODE I: OAK AND IRON BOUND
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
EPISODE II: BROKEN BONES
EPISODE III: QUAKING LEAVES
EPISODE IV: THROWING STONES
EPISODE V: WITCH'S CARESS

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PROLOGUE:
BLOOD IN THE SNOW​

The snow barely came up past Victor’s ankles, but by his complaining one would think he was trudging up a glacier. “It’s colder than a bergmite’s bum out here,” he grumbled.

Radovan smirked as he followed his apprentice down the road of frozen mud. “Pish-posh, it’s the warmest part of the day.”

Victor turned around to give him a serious look. “Wouldn’t you say it’s just a little bit cold? Perhaps you’ll need to go back soon.”

Radovan laughed. “You won’t get me to admit defeat, mountain-dweller. I may come from the lowlands, but these bones have been through far worse.”

Victor grinned and was about to continue his teasing when a mighty roar shook the forest around them, echoing off the mountainsides with a sound like shearing metal.

“What in the blazes?” Victor pulled his axe from the loop at his belt as the roar faded away. It was a basic woodsman’s axe, but it was the only weapon they had between the two of them.

A chill that had nothing to do with the cool mountain air creeped up Radovan’s spine. “We should head back,” the smith said. “pokémon roam these woods that wouldn’t flinch at the sight of a simple axe.”

“You’re the one who made it,” Victor retorted, holding the tool at the ready as he scanned the tree-line.

“Aye. For chopping wood,” Radovan shot back.

Victor ignored him. “What if whatever made that sound got to the traders?”

Radovan sighed. The delivery of steel was already several days late, and after a recent round of battles in the Azurefell arena, there were plenty of customers that needed steelwork. Their stock running perilously low, Radovan and Victor had journeyed up the road in the hopes of finding the traders and their wagon, in case their horse had thrown a shoe or something of the sort. They found no sign of them. If a pokémon was indeed attacking travelers, they would need to report it to the Battler’s Guild. It was worth investigating. “Aye, alright, let’s go have a look. But if it’s anything bigger than a persian, we hoof it back home.”

Victor led the way off the road. “That didn’t sound like a persian,” he muttered under his breath.

Radovan agreed, but didn’t say anything. He followed his apprentice through the pine trees. The snow was a few inches deeper here than on the road, but it was older, frozen snow. The scant flurries that currently danced around on the wind had yet to accumulate much. They hadn’t gone far when something caught Radovan’s eye.

“Victor, look over there.” He gestured through the trees to a clearing where several dark shapes, very much resembling bodies, were lying in the snow. The two of them ran to the clearing.

“By the gods,” Radovan whispered. He had not seen such bloodshed since his days in the arena. He counted three human corpses and as many dead pokémon, their broken bodies making their species hard to discern at a glance. Scuffling feet had scraped away the snow in some areas, leaving visible patches of frozen dirt. Some of the trees surrounding the clearing had deep scars where they had been hit by some wayward weapon or attack by a pokémon. The snow was stained scarlet, the blood steaming slightly. This conflict was recent. Victor went to inspect one of the bodies.

Radovan knelt beside another one of the fallen men. The man wore the stylized armor preferred by arena battlers, meant to resemble the pokémon they fought alongside. This man’s armor was red and flanged. He presumably had been partnered with the kingler whose smashed carcass lay nearby. Radovan wrinkled his nose at the kingler’s stench before inspecting the man’s wounds.

“These people were not killed by a beast.” Victor said it right as Radovan came to the same conclusion. “They killed each other.”

Radovan stood to inspect the third body as Victor continued. “But why? Was there a survivor? A winner? I’ll look for tracks.”

The third body lay at the base of a tree, limbs splayed awkwardly. Radovan frowned as he saw it was a young woman wearing a gambeson. She might have been pretty if not for the blood plastering her mousy brown hair to the side of her head. He began turning to leave when he saw a flicker of motion out of the corner of his eye. He looked back at the woman. There, just below her nose, the weakest breath was barely visible in the cold air.

“Victor!” Radovan shouted as he knelt to check her pulse. It beat faintly, but it beat. “This one’s alive!” He quickly checked her for any broken bones. Finding none, he picked her up. Despite getting on in years, Radovan was a strong man with muscles tempered by years of working the forge, and battling before that. He draped the woman over his shoulder. In his excitement, he didn’t notice the tremors that began to vibrate the forest.

Victor, still holding his axe, looked at the woman. “If that’s her only injury then–” Victor’s eyes suddenly widened as he looked over Radovan’s shoulder. “Run!” he screamed.

Radovan whipped around. A monstrous bipedal pokémon that must have stood over seven feet tall was crashing through the trees towards them. Literally crashing through the trees, tearing them apart like twigs that barely slowed its momentum. When it reached the edge of the clearing about twenty feet away, it punched its forelegs down into the ground to stop itself and let out the same terrifying roar that they had heard earlier. The screeching was so loud it made a lump of snow that had gathered on a nearby tree branch fall to the ground. Radovan almost wanted to drop the woman to cover his ears.

Radovan didn’t have much time to look at it, only briefly taking in its steely armor, sharp horns, and piercing blue eyes full of bloodlust. He knew from his battling days that this was an aggron. He also knew that they were likely already dead. Instead of giving up, he ran as fast as he could back towards the road.

Victor had the opposite idea. With a mighty battlecry, he charged the aggron, axe raised.

“Victor, no!” Radovan watched his apprentice sprint at the beast. With a shout, Victor swung the axe straight into the aggron’s chest. The slash would have obliterated the ribcage of any ordinary man, but this creature was something else entirely. A small, bloodless gash in the thick hide of its chest was the only sign that the blow had even struck.

With a throaty growl, the aggron responded with a blow of its own, backhanding Victor across the clearing. It didn’t even use its claws. It didn’t have to. Sheer muscle was enough to kill a man.

Radovan’s mouth hung open and an icy cold feeling gripped his chest. The sickening crunch and the way that Victor lay crumpled on the ground was enough evidence that he was already dead. People weren’t supposed to bend like that.

The aggron roared again, making the hairs on Radovan’s arms stand on end. With the wounded woman still slung over his shoulder, Radovan fled as fast as his feet could take him.

 

[AetherX]

EPISODE I

​

- Part 1 -​

Avis’s stomach lurched as her pidgeot swooped down, just barely drifting over the treetops. The giddy feeling never got old to the girl.

“Go ahead and put us down, Aria,” Avis said with a smile as they reached the clearing near her house. They landed in the tall grass and Avis dismounted, one hand held out for balance, the other holding on to her bow. She stroked the pidgeot’s neck and sighed deeply. “Father and Vito should be back by now, go ahead and hunt or rest or whatever you’d like to do.”

Aria closed her eyes and nuzzled Avis’s cheek, then backed away and took flight off over the trees.

Avis’s heartbeat quickened as she headed down the trail to the little cottage where she lived with her father and brother. Today they were supposed to be returning from fighting in the arena. It was to be Vito’s first bout. It was a dangerous, bloody sport that often ended up with one or more combatants dead, human or Pokémon. Vito had told her to be there when he returned, but she was unable to stand sitting around waiting for them, and so had left early that morning and spent the whole day flying and hunting with Aria.

She eventually came to their house. The shiny metallic mound of Peredur, her father’s aggron, lay resting in his usual place in their garden next to the potatoes. Turiel, Vito’s Lairon, was nowhere to be seen. Growing worried, she pushed open the door.

Her father was standing in the middle of the kitchen, staring at the wall. He wore his heavy plate armor, but his helmet lay haphazardly on the floor. His arms were covered in gore.

“Where’s V—,” Avis started, but she froze when her father’s gaze snapped to her.

A terrible fury burned in his cold blue eyes. He was a tall, imposing man, but the physical presence was nothing compared to the raw anger that bored its way into Avis, stopping her in her tracks and practically knocking the wind out of her.

Her father breathed through clenched teeth, glaring at Avis. Eventually the seething inhales and exhales slowed, but the rage didn’t dissipate. “He’s… dead.”

Avis let her bow clatter to the floor, her mouth hanging open slightly. “No…”

“He was… weak,” her father growled.

“I-I can’t… It’s n-not…” Avis stuttered through growing tears.

Her father let out a scream of rage, making Avis jump back in fear. Hauling back, he punched an armored fist straight through the wall. The wood splintered and broke like it was nothing but dry parchment.

“Weak…”

· · · · ·​

Avis awoke in a strange bed with a pounding headache. Startled by her surroundings, she tried to push herself upright, but the throbbing in her head kept her prone. Breathing slowly, she tried to focus. Feeling at the locus of the pain, her fingers found a bandage wrapped around her head. She blinked slowly and looked around.

She was in a small bedroom of a simple wooden house. The dandelion yellow tint of an afternoon sun through a tiny window above the bed was all that lit the room. The only furniture other than the bed was a dresser on which stood a set of knick-knacks including a geode and an oddly shaped piece of wood. More importantly, there was also a pitcher and a plate of bread and cheese.

Avis’s stomach growled. How long had she been out? How did she get here? Where was here? She tried to think, but her memory was hazy. If she hadn’t learned to avoid the habit, Avis would have thought she’d drank too much wine.

“Hello?” she called out. Her voice felt weak. It took effort to speak loudly.

At the other side of the room, the door hung open slightly. No one beyond it answered her cry.

Once the throbbing in her head had subsided enough, Avis scooted to the edge of the bed and sat upright. She reached out to grab the bread from the dresser and began hurriedly eating it.

The last thing she remembered was flying above the mountains with Aria. She had been… going to meet with her father somewhere… somewhere outside a city where he had been fighting in the arena. And then… what? She had something she wanted to say to her father, but she couldn’t remember what it was.

After a quick drink of water, Avis stood up. Her head swam for a moment, but she stabilized herself against the dresser. Eventually the feeling passed. Her legs shook slightly, but as she paced back and forth across the room, they quickly recovered.

At the foot of the bed, she found her gambeson and the stylized leather jerkin she normally wore over it, as well as her belt with her hunting knife. Avis put the armor on. It wasn’t necessary, but the comforting weight of it made her feel safer. She growled slightly as she realized that her bow and quiver were nowhere to be found.

“Is anyone there?” she called out, her voice working a little better this time.

Still no reply.

She pushed open the door and stepped out into the rest of the house. Hers was the only isolated room. There was a small hearth with a smoldering fire in the middle of a kitchen area, a table and some chairs, a stack of barrels, and a single bed tucked into a far corner next to a bookcase full of scrolls and a large locked chest.

Avis wandered out the front door, where a cold breeze quickly stole away the hearth’s warmth. An overhang covered a fully equipped blacksmith’s forge. She was in the middle of a city. A road of frozen mud ran by, empty except for a couple bundled up villagers ambling along between the thatch-roofed houses. Patches of snow marked the ground. Azurefell. It wasn’t far from where she last remembered being. She’d visited the small city plenty of times before, as she had grown up relatively close by.

“Aria?” Avis called to the iron-gray clouds.

The only response she got was an odd look from a woman walking by.

A seed of worry began to grown in her heart. Aria must be out hunting. That’s the only reason she ever went far.

After thinking for a moment, Avis decided to wait for the blacksmith or whoever had cared for her to return. She went back inside and moved a chair over to the side of the living area opposite where she had woken up so that she could see whoever opened the door before they saw her. They probably didn’t mean her any harm, given that they had wrapped her head and left her with her knife, but she couldn’t help but be cautious.

· · · · ·​

More than an hour passed before Avis finally heard heavy boots outside the door. She sat up straight as it creaked open, ready for some answers.

A man walked in carrying a heavy backpack that he immediately set down with an odd clattering noise. He had graying black hair, a short beard, and a muscular build. He looked towards the room where Avis had woken up and, seeing the door open and the bed empty, swore out loud.

“I’m here,” Avis said.

The man jumped and looked at her.

“By the gods, you gave me a start,” he said. His voice was deep and rough, but not unkind.

Avis hesitated for a moment, suddenly nervous. “Th-thank you for looking after my injuries. You wouldn’t happen to know where Aria went? My pidgeot?”

The man frowned and looked her up and down. “Hmm… I was worried that might happen. How are you feeling?”

Confused as to why he wouldn’t answer the question, Avis paused a moment before responding. “Headache, tired, a little nauseous, but I’ve had worse. Have you seen Aria?”

“You don’t remember anything about the fight, do you?” the man said, pulling out another chair and sitting down.

The seed of worry grew into panic. She had amnesia. Something had happened. She’d been hit in the head and forgotten all of it. Avis shook her head slowly.

“Well, let’s try to piece this together then. My name’s Radovan Todorson, by the way. And yours?

“A-Avis.”

“Well Avis, what’s the last thing you remember?”

“I was flying through the mountains, going to meet with my father in the woods northeast of here.”

“Flying?”

“Yes, on Aria. What happened to her?” Avis’s heart began to beat faster.

Radovan let out a long sigh and lifted a hand to calm her. “I’ll start from the beginning then. My… apprentice and I were out on the road to Donchapel two days past, when we came across the site of a recent battle. That’s where we found you, as well as two dead men and a few dead pokémon. A kingler, a scyther, and a pidgeot, I’m afraid. Had an interesting little saddle on it.”

The seed of worry burst open into full blow shock and disbelief. Avis doubled over, clutching her gut. Her head pounded, her stomach convulsed, and her heart shattered. She squeezed her eyes shut, but the tears got through anyway.

After so long… After all they had shared…

It wasn’t fair. Aria was all she had. Her only friend. Her only ally against…

Avis straightened a bit, wiping the tears from her eyes and trying to keep her voice steady. “The other men… was one of them tall, with dark hair, and thick steel armor?”

Radovan looked at her sympathetically. “Aye… was that?”

“My father.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Hm,” was the only reply Avis could muster. She wasn’t sure how to feel about that. For so long she had trained in some kind of attempt to impress him. But for a while now she had grown disenchanted. A flicker of a memory returned.

She had been going to tell him that she never wanted to see him again.

“I was basically his apprentice after my brother died,” Avis continued, “but I never really wanted to fight like that. I wanted to be free to explore and travel on my own. With Aria.” But that dream was gone now.

Whatever had happened, she knew it was his fault. All her father’s fault. It always was. Somehow, something had finally caught up to him. “W-Who was the other man?” she asked, still fighting back tears.

Radovan shrugged. “Another battler. I just went back with a few members of the Battlers Guild to bury the bodies. They said they saw him in some recent arena matches.”

“You buried the pokémon too?”

“Aye. Didn’t want mandibuzz or mightyena getting attracted too close to the road.”

“I’d like to go there, if you could show me,” Avis said.

Radovan let out a long sigh. “It’s a few hours walk, so it’s a little late for that. Besides, I’d rather not head up there at all with an aggron running around. The Guild put a bounty on it, but I doubt anyone’ll take it.”

Avis’s eyes widened. “Peredur’s still alive?”

“What?”

“Peredur was my father’s aggron. If he’s still alive, that would be quite bad. My father raised him to be vicious, distrustful, and cruel. He was an effective fighter in the arena, but if he’s wandering free, he could cause a lot of damage.”

Radovan leaned over and rubbed his temples for a few seconds before responding. “It already has. Killed my apprentice when we found you.”

He wouldn’t meet Avis’s eyes anymore.

“I’m sorry,” Avis said quietly.

“Me too.”

· · · · ·​

Avis spent the night at Radovan’s house. Even if she had anywhere else to go, Radovan insisted, saying he wanted to keep an eye on her in case her concussion resulted in any more issues.

Despite her exhaustion, Avis couldn’t sleep. Her head still throbbed and it felt like an icy coldness had gripped her heart.

Avis didn’t mourn for her father. Not really. When she was younger, she’d known he was an awful person, but part of her had always wanted to believe in him. She wanted to believe that he merely needed someone to carry on his name and legacy. But that was only an illusion she had created for herself. Sometimes she got the feeling the only reason he fought in the arena was so that he could kill people with no consequences, but the award money probably played a part too.

She tried not to think about Aria, but it was impossible. Avis couldn’t imagine a life without flying with her pidgeot. Everything felt so empty and devoid of purpose. With her father gone, Avis didn’t even have anyone to channel her anger into. There was no feasible, visible goal for the future anymore. No bonds to struggle against, nothing at all.

Radovan had said that he hadn’t seen her bow anywhere either. Avis had made that bow herself. It had taken her four tries before she managed to cut a decent staff from the yew tree she had felled. Unable to stand listening to the sounds of her father and brother sparring, she spent days out in the woods carving it into a proper shape, adding intricate bas-relief designs of vines and leaves, feathers and flowers. For years, she hunted with it. It was her proudest possession, and now it was stolen away, too.

Every last reminder of her previous life, good or bad, was gone.

Except Peredur…

Avis pursed her lips, thinking about that.

She didn’t sleep the rest of the night. Dawn had begun to creep its way through the wooden panels when she heard Radovan get up. She lay there for almost another hour with half a hope that she might catch a few minutes of sleep.

When she finally got up, she found Radovan working outside. The forge was lit, but he was at a table pouring over what looked like the blade of a scyther. He looked up when he noticed her.

“Morning,” he said.

“Good morning. Is that what I think it is?”

“Aye, I grabbed it from the scyther where we found you. One of the men I was with stepped on it on accident and it cut a chunk out of his boot. It’s sharper than anything I could make, and it gave me an idea.”

Avis looked at his work so far. “Is there much of a market for weapons made from the body parts of a pokémon?”

“No, but I still don’t have any steel, and I need something to stay busy with to keep my mind off… things.”

“I understand.”

Radovan bent over and reached into his backpack, which lay under the table. “I found a couple other trinkets too.” He pulled out a sharp spike of metal a few inches long that looked like it had been torn off of something.

Avis’s jaw dropped. “That’s…”

Radovan nodded. “I think it’s the tip of one of that aggron’s horns. I didn’t notice it at the time, but I’d guess it broke off when… whatever happened to you happened. I was thinking of using it as a spearhead. I’d forge it into something else, but I’d need to get the forge hotter than the blazes of hell to be able to shape aggron steel.”

Avis couldn’t help but notice that talking about his craft seemed to put Radovan at ease. “You could do it with fire from a pokémon.”

Radovan smiled sadly. “True. I had a houndoom, Morana, back in my battling days. She could’ve done it. Didn’t become a smith until after she died, though.”

Avis wasn’t sure what to say.

“Oh, and I almost forgot. Grabbed this on a whim, mostly, but now I think you might like to have it.” He reached once more into his pack and pulled out a feather nearly a foot long. Jagged stripes alternated beige and brown all the way down to the white fluff around the quill.

Avis’s lips tightened. She reached out to delicately take the feather. Aria’s feather.

Something to hold on to.

She looked at it while Radovan went back to his work. Tears crept into her eyes for the first time that day. She held it close to her chest.

“Thank you,” she finally managed to say.

Radovan didn’t look up. “Mhm.”

“I mean it. Thank you.”

Radovan glanced up at her. Avis smiled.

The smith’s eyes darted around her face, like he was unsure if she was really there. Finally, a small smile snuck into his beard.

“I’d like to do something for you… and for me,” Avis said.

Radovan looked at her curiously. “What’s that?”

“I’m going to take out the bounty on that aggron. I’m going to kill Peredur.”

 

[AetherX]

EPISODE I:

- Part 2 -​

Avis wiped a tear from her eye. Her sobs had long ago faded, but the tears just wouldn’t stop. She leaned into Aria, who sat on the ground with her, comforting Avis with her mere presence.

Vito was dead. Her brother, her only human friend, was gone forever. No more late nights spent discussing Pokémon, philosophy, and fanciful dreams of adventure. No more exploring the woods between training sessions with their father. Vito, and Avis to a lesser extent, had been raised to battle. Their father had worked him hard. Perhaps too hard, Avis sometimes thought. Vito’s life was to be the life of a fighter, but to fall in his first battle? It wasn’t right. It wasn’t fair.

Avis choked slightly. She didn’t have the energy to cry out anymore. All she wanted to do was go home and curl up in bed, but home was where her father was. She hugged Aria, who put a wing around her.

When her father had told her about Vito, he wasn’t sad. He was angry. Livid. At Vito’s weakness. Avis had left not long after, terrified of his violent attitude.

He had devoted so much time to training Vito, but for naught.

“No,” Avis said out loud.

Aria looked at her curiously.

“I can pick up where he left off.” She stood up suddenly. “I can convince Father to make me his new apprentice. I can keep Vito’s memory going. I can fight. I can be strong.”

It seemed so simple at the time. A solid purpose to hang on to like a piece of driftwood in the stormy ocean of despair. But it wouldn’t take long for her to discover the monster that lurked in the depths.

· · · · ·​

“You don’t honestly think you could take on a fully grown aggron by yourself, do you?” Radovan said incredulously over his bowl of porridge.

Avis stirred her bowl absentmindedly. They were having breakfast in Radovan’s kitchen. “It wouldn’t be easy, but I think I could do it. It just requires the right kind of knowledge and preparation.”

“And you have that kind of knowledge?’

“I’ve spent a lot of time in the wilderness with pokémon. I know a lot about them, Peredur most of all. I grew up with him. I know how he thinks, I know how he moves, I’ve even sparred with him before.”

“Did you win?”

Avis shifted uncomfortably. “If I can have your help setting up, I think I could definitely have a chance.”

Radovan seemed unconvinced, but played along. “Alright, where do we start?”

“By finding him. You wouldn’t happen to have a map of the area, would you?” Avis asked.

“As a matter of fact, I do.” Radovan got up and went over to his shelf of scrolls. Rummaging through them for a minute, he eventually pulled one out. “From my days traveling. This covers the entire Silver Empire.” He spread it out on the table.

The map was considerably more comprehensive than Avis was expecting. The map detailed everything from the Western Sea to the Argent Mountains, but she only cared about a square inch surrounding the little dot that represented Azurefell, nestled in the mountain range on the right side of the map.

“You didn’t see any sign of him when you went up there last?” Avis asked.

Radovan shook his head. “Snow had covered any tracks at that point, and we didn’t find anything else.”

“Where was it?”

Radovan pointed at a spot on the map several miles up the road from Azurefell towards Donchapel, near the other side of the mountains.

“Hmm…” Avis thought for a moment. “Aggron are pretty good at dealing with the cold, but I imagine he moved to drier climes.”

“Where are you thinking?”

“Probably somewhere open and rocky, though I don’t know if I’d want to engage him on that kind of ground.” Her eyes wandered down the map to a point at the base of the mountains. “Unless…”

Radovan looked at her curiously.

“Unless he went home.”

“What?”

Avis pointed on the map. “I grew up in a little cottage here. That’s where my father trained my brother and me. Not long after my brother died, my father decided that he needed to spend more time in the arena, so we left. We haven’t been there in years, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Peredur knew how to get back. He might even see it as his territory.” She looked at Radovan.

The smith shrugged. “You’re the expert. That’s a long day’s walk, though. How long do you think it would take an aggron to get there?”

“More time than us, I’d imagine. He’d probably find the river and then navigate from there. It’s a considerably more winding path, so if we left today, we’d probably get plenty of time to spare.”

“Today? Will you be up to fighting that beast so soon?”

Avis closed her eyes and nodded. “I’m ready now.”

“What do we need?”

Avis had been thinking of ideas all night. If Peredur really headed back home, then there were several that could work. “Hoes, maybe a shovel, an axe for firewood since we’ll need a fire going all night in case he shows up. Some other things too, but most importantly, you’ll need to finish those weapons you were working on.”

“What?”

“The scyther blade and aggron spear. I wouldn’t say no to a bow if you have it either,” Avis said

“You think they’ll work? That beast was well armored. The blade and spear might be dangerous enough, but that’s optimistic. Arrows will bounce right off.”

“They’ll work if you know where to hit it.”

“Better you than me, I suppose.” Radovan stood up.

They cleaned up and went outside while Avis discussed her plan. She leaned up against the side of the house, watching Radovan get to work attaching a handle to the scythe blade. A few minutes later, they were interrupted.

“Oy, smith!”

A pair of men walking up the street called out to Radovan. He seemed to recognize them and waved.

“Wanted to let you know we found that cart,” one of them said as the two walked up to the forge. They were wearing gambesons and helmets, and carried spears. The one who was talking had a long, hooked nose. “All the traders were dead, and the steel gone. Looked like the beast attacked them, dunno why it would take the steel, though.”

Avis almost spoke up, but decided against it. The two men didn’t appear to have noticed her in the shadows of the house’s eaves.

Radovan let out a heavy sigh. “If you have any battlers headed up to Donchapel, I’d like to send a message letting them know.”

The other man shook his head, making his slightly-too-large helmet wobble a bit over his cap. “No arena in Donchapel. No reason to head that direction, especially with Darian patrols wandering through the mountains. It’s dangerous.”

“I understand,” Radovan said. “Did you tell the guards at least?”

“Aye,” the hooked nose man said. “Told them to keep an eye out for any bandits with a load of steel, too.”

“No,” Avis said out loud, surprising herself.

The two men looked at Avis, seeing her for the first time.

Avis took a second to find her words, a little nervous. “I doubt bandits took the steel. If the aggron attacked the wagon, it probably ate the steel.”

The men burst out laughing. Radovan looked thoughtful. Avis’s cheeks grew hot.

“Ate the steel!” the hook-nosed man hooted. “I’m surprised a shiftry didn’t come by and eat the cart!”

Avis’s brow furrowed as she began to get angry. The man whose helmet was too big appeared to notice, and the mirth quickly left his face.

“Y-you’re not serious, are you?”

Avis rolled her eyes. “It’s true. They prefer raw iron, but they’ll eat plenty of metals. It’s not their whole diet, but they need the minerals to regrow and heal their armor plates.”

The hook-nosed man had stopped laughing now, too. They just blinked at her. Avis was unsure if they were convinced. Radovan shrugged and appeared to accept this information.

The man whose helmet was too big looked at Radovan. “Hold on, is this the girl you saved?”

“Aye, the same.”

“What’s your name?” the man asked, eyes narrowing.

Avis blinked. “Uh… Avis.”

“Don’t suppose you know what happened?”

Avis pointed to the side of her head. She’d removed the bandage, but there was still a very visible bump. “Don’t remember a thing. The tall man in the steel armor was my father. It was his aggron. Trust me when I say he’s not worth mourning.”

“Fair enough,” the man whose helmet was too big said. “Met him a couple times. Seemed like a right prick anyway, even if he had a good record in the arena.”

“Anyway,” the hook-nosed man said. “The real reason we’re here is that we talked to Victor’s family just now.”

Radovan’s shoulders slumped. “Aye? What do they need?”

“Funeral service tonight. They’d like you to come and relate his final moments.”

Avis looked at the smith sadly. He rubbed his temples.

Eventually Radovan looked up at Avis.

Avis took a deep breath. “I can handle it myself,” she said. “Don’t worry. It’s my fight anyway.”

Radovan nodded slowly before looking back at the two men from the Guild. “I’ll be there.”

“We’ll let them know.” The men left.

Radovan wordlessly went back to work.

Avis watched him for a few minutes, but drowsiness was making her eyelids heavy. She must have dozed off, because the next thing she knew, Radovan had both weapons ready.

“Well, here they are,” he said. Avis straightened up.

The scyther blade was about two feet long, with an odd curvature to it. A scaly green vein ran down the back of it. It looked haphazard, but effective. A wooden handle was attached via rivets through the base of the blade.

“Not my best work, but it’ll do.”

Avis took the blade from him and gave it a few test swings, hours of sword practice with her father guiding her through the motions. It was surprisingly light. Though the handle was round, she had no trouble keeping edge alignment simply due to the shape and the way it was weighted. Radovan had also made a quick leather sheathe for it.

Radovan held out the spear next. Without being able to shape the tip, the spear wouldn’t be good for anything other than a direct thrust, but that was all Avis needed.

It took less than an hour for them to gather all the supplies Avis requested and pack them in Radovan’s backpack. He even pulled out a bow he used for hunting and a dozen arrows.

“Now I just need some kind of bait,” Avis said.

Radovan gave a long sigh, then went back to rummaging through his chest of tools. Eventually he pulled out two dark metal ingots.

“These are raw iron. They’re the only workable metal I have left until the next batch comes through. I’d really rather they not get eaten.” He hesitantly handed them over to Avis.

“I’ll do my best to keep them safe.” Avis tucked the ingots into the pack and hefted it onto her back. It was fairly heavy and felt odd, what with the hoe poking out the top and the bow tied awkwardly to the outside.

“You’re leaving now, then?” Radovan asked.

Avis nodded, leaning on the aggron spear. “The sooner I get down there, the more time I have to prepare.”

Radovan crossed his arms and looked her up and down. “You sure about this?”

“Absolutely.”

“Just be safe. I don’t want to have to wander through the woods looking for your body.”

“If I’m not back in a week, don’t bother,” Avis replied shakily.

Radovan’s lips tightened beneath his beard. “Bring me that bastard’s head.”

“I will.”

· · · · ·​

Avis had only a passing familiarity with Azurefell, but it wasn’t that big of a city, so it was easy to find the western gate. Once one of the most hotly contested border cities, ever since the silver mines were depleted, interest in Azurefell’s defenses ran out. This resulted in an odd patchwork of partially completed stone walls and more crude palisades.

The road down out of the mountains was equally forgotten. As Avis began to descend through the forest to the lowlands, she stopped seeing even other foot traffic, never mind trade caravans or military patrols.

The solitude helped her keep a good pace, but it left her mind to wander, for better or for worse.

Avis couldn’t help but think about how much faster it would have been to fly to the cottage on Aria’s back. She looked up through the pine branches swaying in the breeze at the gray sky. That was where she belonged… or used to belong, at least. Just the two of them, hundreds of feet above the landscape, gently riding air currents wherever they might take them. Despite the constant wind rushing in her ears, it had always felt so still, like the whole world was frozen beneath them while they sailed on in beautiful solitude.

It wasn’t right that those were only memories now, that all of that was behind her. And to end so suddenly… Avis looked down at the ground, frowning, trying as hard as she could to remember. But the memory simply wasn’t there. It hurt. More than anything, it hurt to not even be able to remember Aria’s final moments.

She tried to think about something else, but the only thing that came to mind was her father. Avis felt a kind of numb sadness, but it was mostly from regret.

Two weeks before, she had been flying with Aria while her father stayed in Azurefell preparing for the upcoming battles when she had found another battler traveling with a metagross. He was kind and soft-spoken, and they had shared a meal together. He had asked her about her life, and for some reason, she had answered. Without even thinking about it, she had admitted to this complete stranger her true feelings about her father. Feelings that she herself hadn’t even fully recognized until then.

She hated him. He was manipulative, angry, and murderous. He’d never been affectionate or loving. All he’d ever cared about was fighting and winning. The only thing that brought them together was Avis’s insistence on being trained to fight. She never fought in the arena herself, she didn’t even really want to, but she did it. For him. But why? There was nothing that truly connected Avis to him, not since Vito had died.

After admitting this to the stranger, whose name she couldn’t even remember, she realized that she needed to escape. Eventually, she had decided to go tell her father that she was leaving. Where to? She wasn’t sure. But with Aria, she could have gone anywhere. And anywhere without her father was a place she wanted to go.

So she had set out to confront him. And then… and then what? The gap in her memory still made her uneasy. Had her father grown violent, and the other battler passing by had intervened? Or had the fight between the two men already started, for reasons unknown, when Avis had arrived?

Part of her didn’t really care that much, but another part wished she’d been able to tell her father off once and for all. Just to see how he’d react. Instead, that rage that had built up inside of her was left dangling, unresolved.

But on the other hand, would she really have been able to confront him? For as much anger as she felt toward her father, she feared him in equal parts. So much so that the concept of running away from him had never crossed her mind before. Standing in front of him, would she have been able to say what she wanted to say? Or would she once again have been intimidated into staying?

Avis stewed in thoughts like these the rest of the day. The sun was sinking low in the sky when she finally saw familiar landmarks. The road was intersected by a shallow stream that Avis knew ran towards a small pond near her destination. She stepped off the road to follow it, and in less than an hour, she saw the squat structure she had grown up in emerge from the trees.

She slowed to a stop as she approached, standing silently by the stream and listening intently. Avis hadn’t seen any sign of an aggron yet, but Peredur might have approached from a different direction. The only sounds she could hear was the quiet burbling of the stream and the occasional birdsong. There wasn’t even a breeze. Still unsure, Avis cautiously approached her old home.

It was a wooden house with a small fence surrounding a garden now overgrown with weeds. Her eyes darted around, but there was no glint of steel or loud huffing breath. Avis dropped her spear and pack in the little grassy clearing where her father and Vito had once spent so much time sparring. She looked at the dilapidated house, unsure if she wanted to go inside. To say she had no pleasant memories of home would be inaccurate, as she had plenty of fond memories of spending time with Vito, but there was a lingering sadness about the place.

She hadn’t returned here since Vito died. Her father had almost immediately set out to compete in as many fights as possible, with the hope of being invited to the Tournament of Champions in the Silver Empire’s capital of Alaban. Naturally, Avis had gone with him.

But the time for reminiscing was not now. Now there was work to be done. Avis looked around the meadow, it was only about thirty feet long and maybe a bit more than that wide. This would be her arena. She pulled the hoe out of the backpack and began plowing the clearing, digging into the soil as deep as she could. Her feet hurt and she was tired, but if Peredur was on his way, Avis needed to be ready when he arrived.

She wasn’t totally sure that her plan would work, but fighting Peredur on even ground would be suicide. Her hope was that he would struggle in the loose soil due to his weight. She’d seen him stumble around a bit when the arena was torn up by pokémon with digging abilities. Every possible advantage was worth trying for.

By the time she had finished digging up the whole field, the sun had set and it was getting harder to see. Back when she had lived here, she’d needed to venture into the woods to find appropriate firewood. Some time since they had abandoned the house, however, a small cottonwood had fallen in a storm. The wood was dead and dry, perfect for her needs.

She started a fire at the edge of the clearing, using dead moss as a fire starter, building it in such a way that it would last for a while. Once that was done, she took the two iron ingots out of the backpack and dropped them in the middle of the plowed clearing.

Only then did she allow herself to rest. With a long sigh of exhaustion, Avis unrolled her bedroll and collapsed on it at the base of a tree near the fire. She pulled a waterskin and a loaf of tough bread from the pack and began to eat.

Avis tried to stay alert, but exhaustion overtook her and she slipped into fitful dreams.

· · · · ·​

When Avis awoke, it was not to the crashing sounds of an oncoming aggron as she had feared, but the familiar cawing of a murkrow. It was a sound she’d often woken up to when she had lived here, and brought back a torrent of memories. The sun wasn’t yet visible above the trees, but the sky was beginning to lighten as morning progressed.

She spent most of the day puttering around the clearing. She practiced a bit with the spear and scyther blade, getting used to the way they felt in her hands. It had been a long time since Avis had last sparred against Peredur. She tried to imagine him in front of her, clawing, biting, and slashing, but it was difficult to remember his fighting style in complete detail.

It was late afternoon when she began to grow frustrated. There was no sign of Peredur yet. No crashing of trees, no shaking of the earth beneath his lumbering footsteps. Avis began to worry that she had miscalculated. Maybe Peredur didn’t feel any kind of connection to this place? Maybe he wandered deeper into the mountains instead? At the other side of the range in the Kingdom of Darius, it was hot and dry. Perfect for an aggron. But he wouldn’t know that, would he?

It was a little chilly, so Avis re-lit the fire. Mostly just for something to do. As she gazed into the flames, she had a brief idea. Retrieving the aggron spear from where she had left it leaning against a tree, she carefully balanced it on a rock near the fire such that the tip was licked by the flames, but the wooden haft was untouched.

Building the fire had only taken a few minutes, and Avis was back to being bored. She stared at the ruined house, not for the first time, heartache clenching in her chest. Angry at herself for being so sensitive to the emotional effect of the place, Avis stood up and went to go walk through the woods for a bit.

A short distance into the brush she clambered over a small mound of dirt that must have once been an old stump and felt something shift under her foot. Avis figured it was some kind of loose rock or a root, but when she looked down she saw a glint of metal. Curious, she brushed away the dirt and grabbed onto the metal object. She yanked it free of the weeds and tree roots that had grown over it.

It was a sword. And not just any sword. It was Vito’s sword. It was rusted and dull. The shape of the hilt and pommel was nothing fancy, but Avis had seen this sword in her brother’s hands enough times to know that it was his.

“But… how?”

After a fighter was slain in the arena, the Guild generally took possession of his gear so that it could be resold. Had her father taken it instead? But then what was it doing out here?

Setting the sword aside, Avis dug around in the dirt, looking for the scabbard or belt. Her hand found something knobbly protruding slightly from the mound she had climbed over. She dug until she could get a hand around whatever it was and pulled. It wouldn’t budge. It looked like it was grey or white, but in the shadows of the trees it was hard to tell.

She sat down on the ground and put a leg up on the mound for leverage and pulled again as hard as she could. This time, the mound collapsed slightly and she pulled the object from the loose dirt.

It was the skull of some kind of animal. Large and thick, bigger around than her torso. An angular steel plate grew out of the top.

It was the skull of a lairon.

Avis stared at it as she sat, legs splayed, dumbfounded. She brushed some of the dirt off.

“Turiel?”

Surely this wasn’t her brother’s lairon? A sort of terrifying confusion grasped her heart. What had happened here? Why was Vito’s sword and the body of his partner pokémon discarded, half buried in the woods?

Avis spent the better part of an hour digging out the rest of the small mound until her fingertips hurt. She unearthed the rest of a lairon skeleton, but nothing else.

Clutching her brother’s rusted sword to her chest, Avis staggered back to the clearing. Dazed, she blinked at the house. Maybe it was time to go in? If Peredur wasn’t going to show up, she might as well make the most of the trip.

Taking a deep breath to steady her nerves, Avis approached the house, sword still in hand.

She had to lean into the door with all her weight to overcome the stuck, rusted hinges. Once inside, Avis looked around at what was once her home.

Weeds were growing through the floorboards, while a thick layer of dust covered everything. The hearth was thick with cobwebs. The house was sparsely furnished, the only exceptional things being an assortment of tools for weapon and armor maintenance that her father had left in the corner. A beam of fading light from the sun shone through the hole that her father had punched in the wall on that fateful day, illuminating clouds of dust that hung in the air like smoke. Besides the decay caused by the passage of time, it was all just as she last remembered seeing it.

On the mantle lay a dusty book, the only book Avis had ever read. It was a treatise on swordsmanship that her father had managed to get his hands on somehow. He had used it to teach Avis and her brother to read, only enough so that they could read arena flyers and tournament advertisements. Avis had never taken much to letters, but Vito had developed a keen interest in them. It got to the point where he was writing fanciful love poems to the girls he met whenever they went into town. Avis didn’t know if he ever had trysts with any of them, she always just thought he liked making them feel special.

Instinctively, Avis went for the doorway that led to the little room she had shared with Vito. It was nothing but two beds with straw mattresses that had long ago begun to rot. The only decoration was an old oyster that Vito had pulled from the nearby river, sitting on a shelf above his bed. He had forbidden Avis from touching it, saying that a pearl was growing inside. If she opened it, he insisted, the pearl would stop growing, but if they waited then it would eventually be large enough for them to buy their own house in Alaban. It was one of many fanciful dreams that Vito had planted in her head. Avis never quite believed him, but she played along. She told herself it was just for fun, but part of her secretly wanted it to be true.

A sad smile on her face, Avis sat down on Vito’s bed, setting his sword beside her, and grabbed the oyster from the shelf. Its surface was dry and flaky and just as dusty as everything else in the house. The two halves easily came apart in her hands. There was no pearl inside, but she was surprised to find a folded-up piece of parchment.

So this was where he kept his love poems. Avis laughed lightly, unfolding the piece of parchment that looked like it had been torn from her father’s treatise. It had been a long time since she had read anything, but she slowly worked out the words.

The ink had faded considerably, but it was still legible. The note was longer than she was expecting.

To her surprise, the first word was her name. Heart pounding, she read on.

Avis,

I wanted to tell you this before I left, but you had already run off with Aria. You really do need to stop fleeing the things that make you uncomfortable. Nevertheless, I have returned victorious from my first arena battle, and you are once again gone. I do not have much time, but I will try to explain as best I can.

Doran son of Shamus, the man we call ‘Father’, is not our father at all.

I do not know the name of our real father, only brief memories of his face and feelings of love and belonging. I was quite young when it happened, you were but a babe. Doran broke down the door of our house when our father was away, killed our mother in cold blood, and took us as his own.

I was too young to really understand what was going on, but I know now he wanted to raise me as an apprentice. He kept you as leverage against me. If I told you anything, or if I attempted to escape, he would kill you, or worse. Over time I grew used to our new life, cruel as it may be. I regret not telling you sooner, but I fear nothing more than for your safety. That was my weakness.

Upon winning my battle, I collected my prize money and came home as quickly as I could, ignoring our so-called father’s orders to give him the winnings, and leaving him in the dust. He must have realized by now what I mean to do and gave chase. Now I return here, ready to flee with you and our money, but you are nowhere to be found. I write this note in case he arrives before you do. If you find this, then I am likely dead.

Do not cower petrified in his shadow, dearest sister. Not like I did. You are meant for greater things.

With love,
Vito​

At first Avis was sure she had read it wrong. Reading again, she slowly sounded out the words letter by letter like she had been taught.

“The man you call ‘Father’, is not our father at all.”

Her hands trembled.

Vito…

All that time, he had been protecting her. And she hadn’t even realized. Then, in their one chance to escape, she wasn’t there for him. Because she was too afraid to face the reality of Vito’s first battle. Because she didn’t have faith in him…

Tears fell onto the note.

Sadness and confusion consumed her. She could not mourn parents she had never known, but…

Her father had killed Vito.

He had returned before she did, confronted her brother, and they had fought. That was the only explanation. Her father who was not her father had betrayed her, lied to her, torn her life apart and forced it back together in the most painful and twisted ways.

Avis stared at the wall, like she was trying to see through it. She had found Turiel, but somewhere out there was Vito’s body… lost in the woods…

Before she could fully process this new information, Avis felt something. It was a slight tremble that made the old house creak softly, barely distinguishable from a breeze, but it was exactly the tremble she had been waiting on tenterhooks for.

A spike of adrenaline shot through her, drying her tears in an instant and making her drop Vito’s final note to the ground. She felt the tremble again, then again. For a brief moment, Avis imagined Vito sitting there having finished writing the letter, hearing the same terrible sound and coming to the same terrible realization.

It was time to fight the very thing she had been running away from.

Avis dashed out of the house to the clearing. She dove for the backpack, pulling out Radovan’s bow and swinging the quiver of arrows over her shoulder. She checked to make sure the scyther blade was still at her belt while positioning herself at the west end of the clearing near the fire that crackled merrily, oblivious to what was about to happen.

The trembles were growing more intense. They were audible now, and she could also hear the cracking of tree branches.

Avis squinted through the woods at the far side of the clearing.

A minute later, she saw the light of the setting sun reflecting brightly off steel.

Peredur had arrived.

 

[Ghostsoul]

Prologue:

The first conversation between the characters seem to set up the scene very well, the reference to the Pokémon themselves really helps set the scene and get the reader invested in worldbuilding. Even if it is just the start of the plot. Although I think that two a small degree that the references could be seen as too numerous, especially since you mention in the introduction that Humans and Pokémon still lack understanding between each other. I would say as the inclusion of the rather dramatic inclusion of violence early on and reference to the blood and corpses was also well placed. It helps give the reader a sense of the plot’s ‘darkness’.

“Victor, no!” Radovan watched his apprentice sprint at the beast. With a shout, Victor swung the axe straight into the aggron’s chest. The slash would have obliterated the ribcage of any ordinary man, but this creature was something else entirely.

The strength and power of the individual Pokémon and its importance in the set-up of the plot is prominent and the action scenes are described well.

Sheer muscle was enough to kill a man.

I'm not sure if this needs to be here, since the reader could probably already guess the strength of the Aggron by what you wrote just before and just after this line.

 

[AetherX]

EPISODE I:

- Part 3 -​

“Again!” her father shouted.

Avis groaned and massaged her arm. The glaive had left a small cut in her gambeson, but hadn’t drawn any blood. That didn’t mean it wasn’t going to bruise like hell, though. She ignored her father and lowered her sword.

He responded with a quick swing across her torso. Avis jumped back to avoid it.

“A sword isn’t fit for this,” Avis complained. “Getting inside your reach close enough to hit you is impossible.”

Her father sneered as he raised his polearm, leaning against it. “Impossible if you’re incompetent, perhaps. A sword is the best weapon for you to be learning.”

“Why won’t you just let me use my bow? I’m plenty competent with that!”

He laughed mockingly. “You’d only get one shot off before you were killed, and arrows would not pierce the armor that most battlers wear.”

Avis sheathed her sword and walked over to where she had laid her bow. “They will if you know where to hit them.”

A few feet to the left of him, her father had placed his barbute helmet on a fence post. Avis nocked an arrow, aimed at it, and released.

The arrow stuck quivering in the wood, perfectly centered in the helmet’s gap for the wearer’s eyes and mouth.

Avis raised an eyebrow at her father. He looked unimpressed.

“A good shot,” he said coolly, “but unfortunately I’ve seen fence posts fight in the arena about as often as women.”

Avis was seething, but she returned her bow to the sidelines and drew her sword once more.

“Again!”

· · · · ·​

Peredur’s pace slowed as he approached the clearing. He stopped at the edge, his eyes going from Avis to the iron ingots still sitting in the middle of the field.

For a single, terrifying moment, Avis saw her father there and froze. His swaggering gait, his gaze like an eagle staring down a mouse… The figure that haunted her nightmares. He stood giant and daunting, the orange light of dusk casting wicked shadows with the spikes and contours of his polished steel armor.

“I will not cower petrified…” Avis whispered to herself, nocking an arrow.

This was not her father. Her father was not her father. Only a monster…

The next moment, he was just an aggron again. Frightening still, but real. Fightable. Beatable. Peredur was watching her closely, unmoving. Testing him, Avis took a step forward. Peredur mirrored it. She took another step. Peredur followed suit.

It clicked. To him, this was an arena battle. For her, her very first. For him, just one of many.

Remembering the rules of combat, she took another step, then another, counting them. When they had each moved the requisite eight steps closer to each other, they were only about ten feet apart. Avis took a deep breath to steady herself.

Her heart pounded in her chest, her ears, even her fingertips. “I will not cower petrified…” Avis repeated under her breath.

Peredur looked at her, unblinking. Each breath of his was loud and hot enough to feel even at this distance.

“You were there when Vito died, weren’t you?” Avis said. “Maybe you even struck the final blow…” An adrenaline fueled fire began to burn in her heart.

Peredur stared back, his eyes seeming to add an extra bite to the cool evening breeze.

“Yah!” Avis shouted, suddenly charging forward, feinting right then ducking left.

Peredur lurched in surprise, swinging at her with his huge left arm. She dodged the blow easily, then jumped over his tail as it slowly swung around.

Avis needed to create space, and running directly away from Peredur wasn’t the best way to do it. She had to confuse him first, and her sudden charge had done just that.

If she picked up her feet and stepped quickly, the loose dirt barely slowed her, but just as she had hoped, Peredur was struggling. His heavy weight sunk into the soil several inches, making his tail swing sluggish. It took him almost a full second to turn around.

That was all the time Avis needed. She reached the edge of the field, turned, and sighted down the arrow still nocked in the bow.

Peredur bent low on all fours and charged at her. His head was lowered, one and a half horns protruding ominously from his helmet-like skull. But Avis could see his blue eyes when his head swung upward during part of his awkward gallop.

Avis drew the bowstring back, taking in a deep breath and letting it out slowly. She could feel the strength of the bow in her arms, bending dutifully as she pulled, yet yearning to be let loose. Bit by bit, she eased the tension in her fingers until the string was barely restrained by her fingertips. She only had a couple seconds before Peredur would collide with her, likely killing her outright even if she dodged the horns. This shot had to count.

She waited patiently for her chance, watching Peredur’s head. Up-down. Up-down. Up-down. Up-

She released. Avis didn’t have time to see if the shot had hit, she just threw herself to the side. As she scrambled in the dirt, a piercing screech assaulted her ears. It was so loud and abrasive that it practically knocked her back down, like a nail drawn across a steel plate.

So she had hit it.

Avis spun around and got to her feet, trying to put distance between herself and the flailing aggron.

Peredur clawed at his face, snapping the arrow that was embedded in his left eye. Dark red blood flowed from the wound. His right eye burned with pain and hatred.

Bow still held in her left hand, Avis drew the scyther blade with her right just as Peredur came toward her. He clawed at her, but she jumped out of reach. Avis swung the scyther blade at Peredur’s outstretched arm, but it just skittered across the steel ring around his wrist without catching on anything that it could cut.

This happened a few more times, Avis dodging barely out of reach, but her strikes bouncing harmlessly off Peredur’s armor. She knew the steel plates were impenetrable, but the darker skin was just that: skin. It was thick and difficult to pierce, but vulnerable, especially under the arms and in the stomach area. Unfortunately, Peredur was quite good at catching blows on the armored parts of his body.

Peredur suddenly barged forwards, catching Avis by surprise. She lurched to the side, and pointed claws swung out towards her face. She tried to deflect the blow with her scyther blade, but although it cut into the flesh between Peredur’s claws, she couldn’t keep ahold of it. Peredur’s entire arm flinched in pain and the blade went flying out of her hand.

Avis tucked and rolled away, still holding the bow close to herself. As she stood up, Peredur gave another one of his shrieking roars. It almost threw Avis off-balance, but she saw a chance.

Quickly drawing another arrow, she let loose a rapid shot straight into Peredur’s gaping maw. She didn’t have much time to aim, but it was a big target.

Peredur’s mouth snapped shut with a loud clang right before the arrow hit, making it clatter off the invincible steel of his jaw.

Avis blinked, unsure of what to do next. Peredur had no such hesitation. He spun, plowing his tail through the dirt for a few feet before finally realizing that he needed to raise it to pick up momentum. Peredur was too close and the tail too large to dodge. Avis held out her hands in front of her and tried to roll with the blow.

It hit her smack in the chest, knocking her on her back and snapping the bow into multiple pieces. Head spinning, she coughed and frantically scrambled away from a follow-up slash. Two of the fingers on her left hand that had been holding the bow felt like they were on fire, possibly broken.

Avis clenched her teeth and dove for the dull green blade sticking out of the dirt a few feet away. Another slash went over her head, and she took the opportunity to charge in close, swinging the blade with both hands in a powerful draw cut along Peredur’s stomach. The razor-sharp blade sliced cleanly through the thick skin, but it only got deep enough to draw blood for a few inches of the cut.

Peredur roared again, this time he was so close that the sound felt like it would split Avis’s head open. It faded, leaving nothing but a relentless ringing in her ears. Too late, she noticed that she was too close to the aggron and had no way to escape. Peredur’s steely claws came in from either side, grasping Avis around her waist, hoisting her into the air, and slamming her down on the ground.

The blow wasn’t as bad as it would have been if she hadn’t plowed the dirt, but it still knocked the wind out of her. She coughed and choked, but didn’t have time to recover. Peredur’s mighty jaws bore down on her head. Blood dripped from his eye, splattering on the ground. Hot droplets of it splashed her face.

Peredur’s strength was incredible, she couldn’t even wriggle under his grip, but at least her arms were free. Panicking, Avis swung the scyther blade upwards, straight into Peredur’s right armpit. The blow didn’t have much strength behind it, but the sharpness of the blade did its work. It tore into the aggron’s flesh, severing muscles and tendons.

Before Peredur could bite Avis’s head off, the pain of the strike made him collapse on his side, letting out another roar that might have been loud if Avis already couldn’t hear anything besides ringing. The movement tore the blade from Avis’s grip.

Freed from Peredur’s grasp, Avis rolled away and staggered to her feet, still coughing and spluttering. Her whole body was in pain now. What was a bad injury and what she could live with, she wasn’t sure. It just hurt.

Avis tried to keep to Peredur’s left side, his blind side. He writhed in the dirt, blood flowing freely from his multiple wounds. His left arm, under which the scyther blade was still stuck, hung limply.

She panted, thinking. She could try to retrieve the blade. If she could get both hands on it, Avis was sure she could pull it free. But that would mean getting dangerously close.

The spear!

Avis looked around anxiously. The fire she had lit was still going, though it had diminished somewhat. The spear still leaned on a rock, the point jutting into the coals. She limped over to it as fast as she could while Peredur began to get his feet under him.

The very tip of the spear’s point glowed a cheerful orange, just like she had hoped. Grabbing the haft, she picked the weapon up and planted herself in front of a tree.

“Hey!” she shouted at Peredur, her own words barely audible in her ears. “I think this is yours!”

Even with only three usable limbs, Peredur moved with incredible speed for his size. Seeing his prey, he began lumbering across the field.

Avis squared her shoulders. Feeling around with the back end of the spear, she found a spot to plant it against the tree, and waited. Her muscles were trembling from fear, adrenaline, and exhaustion. The spear might not be sharp enough. It might not be a killing blow. But it was all she had left, and she was going to do it.

Avis refused to let herself close her eyes as Peredur bore down on her. She concentrated fiercely, aiming the spear right where his heart should be. She took a deep breath.

He hit her like a rock slide.

The single unbroken horn slid across her chest, tearing through her jerkin and gambeson, cutting a gash along her collarbone. His shoulder slammed into her right as she felt the spear buckle and snap under his weight. Avis was knocked off her feet, sent cartwheeling backwards like ragdoll before she crashed into another tree. Colors spun around her, and her head knocked against something hard.

Stars danced in her eyes as she crumpled to the ground, but she fought to stay conscious.

“Not… this… time…”

Alternating between ragged breaths and painful coughs, Avis rolled onto her side to look at Peredur.

The tree she had been bracing against was cracked and splintered. Shards of wood littered the ground. Seeing movement, she suddenly realized that the tree was about to fall.

One final burst of adrenaline was enough to help her scamper out of the way as the fir came crashing down, snapping branches and finally hammering the ground with a rumble that shook the forest.

Still breathing quickly, but with easier breaths, Avis pushed herself to her feet.

Peredur was slumped against the shattered stump, completely still.

Avis limped closer, listening carefully. The ringing in her ears had faded somewhat, but it was still impossible to tell if she could hear the aggron’s breathing. Once she got close enough, she reached out and cautiously prodded his arm. He still didn’t respond. Encouraged, Avis set her shoulder against the aggron’s bulk and pushed him over. There was a high-pitched squeal as the beast’s horn was dislodged from the remains of the tree. The body slumped to the side.

The shaft of the spear was protruding from his chest. The wound leaked steaming blood into the dirt, where it mixed with the blood from the cut on his stomach. His huge jaw hung open, purple tongue dangling out awkwardly. He was dead.

Avis let out a sigh of relief, then winced in pain. She probably had a broken rib or two. But it didn’t matter. Peredur was dead.

Peredur was dead and her father was not her father at all.

A sense of relief spread through her that she had not felt when she had initially read Vito’s note.

She was free now. Just like she had dreamed. Aria may not be able to share the dream with her, but if she could kill her father’s beast by herself, then she could handle anything.

As if to remind herself that she hadn’t made it up, Avis limped back inside and retrieved the note, bringing it outside to the firelight to read again, and again, and again.

The sun had mostly set now.

Tired, sore, and relieved, she drifted off to sleep.

· · · · ·​

The next day, after tending to her wounds, she spent several hours searching the woods for Vito’s grave. There was nothing, not even a hint. Wherever it was, it had been long ago covered by blackberry vines and moss.

Exhausted, her shoulders slumped as she looked out through the trees.

“I hate to leave you here… but I’m not sure where else I would take you even if I could,” she said out loud. “This is… was… home. For better or for worse. A lot of unpleasant things may have happened here, but so did some of my only fond memories. Memories of me and you. Fishing in the creek. Chasing sentret through the woods. I remember carving my bow while you were off training. It was days and days of work, but I was so excited to show it to you.”

Avis talked to him like this for almost an hour while she cleaned up and prepared to leave. It sounded crazy, but it was cathartic. She reminisced of past adventures, inside jokes, and time shared together. It was the closest thing she could manage to a proper funeral service.

“At least I have some memories to take with me.” She glared at Peredur’s body. “The rest of it… I’m glad to put behind me.” She took a deep breath, trying to hold back the tears. “We beat him, in the end. Even if you’re not here to see it. We did it together.”

Avis smiled sadly. She could move on.

Eventually, she had no more excuse to dawdle. The tip of the aggron spear had been retrieved from Peredur’s body and packed away alongside Vito’s old rusty sword. All that was left was to retrieve her trophy.

Scyther blade in hand, Avis grabbed Peredur’s one remaining horn and pulled his head up to reveal his throat. It took several powerful hacks and a minute of sawing away, but eventually the head came loose, the skull armor plate sliding neatly off the vertebrae plates. It was quite heavy, so Avis used some spare rope from the supplies Radovan had provided and a few fence posts to lash together a sled.

After one last emotional glance at her childhood home, Avis began the slow and steady journey back to Azurefell, tugging the sled behind her. It took her two painful days to reach the city. When the dilapidated gates finally came into view, Avis let out a long sigh of relief. The increasingly frozen ground had made the sled more and more manageable to pull, but it was still quite heavy and awkward.

The two guardsmen stared at her without comment as she trudged the last fifty feet to the gates, the sled grinding loudly along. Avis was about to just push on through when one of them told her to stop.

More than a little impatient, Avis looked at the guard who had spoken. He wrinkled his nose at the severed aggron head, which had developed a powerful stench.

“What the hell is this? And why are you bringing it into the city?”

“I’m turning in a bounty on an aggron that the Guild put out,” Avis whispered as loud as she could manage. Pain and exhaustion made it hard to talk properly.

The other guard scoffed. “You? You’re saying you killed an aggron? By yourself?”

“Aye.”

The guard looked at her torn gambeson and bloodstained bandages. His companion walked up to the sled to scrutinize her trophy.

“Hmm…” he said. He poked at the snapped arrow shaft still protruding from the left eye. “This must have been a tricky shot.”

“It was,” Avis said tersely. “Can I go now?”

The guard inspecting the head looked at his friend, who shrugged.

“Alright, just don’t cause any trouble.”

Avis thanked him and kept plodding forward.

Thankfully, Radovan’s house wasn’t far from the gate. Avis found the smith sitting outside on a stool, sharpening a wood axe. He looked up at the sound of Avis scraping down the road. When he saw her, a smile lit up his face. He dropped what he was doing and stood up to greet her.

Avis couldn’t help but smile as he approached. She dropped the rope attached to the sled and stood aside so that he could see.

“I brought you a gift,” Avis said.

Radovan didn’t even look at the head at first, instead striding right up and pulling her into a hug. He smelled like oil and wood smoke.

Avis recoiled slightly. “Ah! Bruised ribs. Please.”

Radovan released her. “Right, sorry,” he said, still smiling. “I’m glad you’re okay.” It was only then that he looked down at the head. “Well I’ll be damned. You did it.”

“Only thanks to your weapons. Broke your bow, by the way, sorry about that,” Avis said, looking down at the cargo she had been dragging behind her for the last two days.

Radovan waved it off. “Bah, I can get a new one. I’m just grateful that you’re alive… and that the beast is dead.”

They stood there in silence for a moment before Radovan spoke again.

“I know it doesn’t undo any of the problems this monster caused, but seeing that it’s dead does provide some relief. Some closure.”

Avis sighed. “That it does.” For the first time since she had awoken in Radovan’s house, she felt content, unburdened. Like her heart had been unchained from a heavy weight.

Nothing left to hold on to, but no reason to hold onto it anymore.

 

[AceTrainer14]

I knew I had to read this now or it would be six years before I got around to it.

I like the concept of the story. It is an original enough world, medieval Pokemon, and gives you a lot more freedom to create and play around with things. Definitely not a cliche this time While the concept of gladiatorial battles has not been explored just yet, I do look forward to seeing how it will unfold in later chapters presuming that is where the story is going.

Avis is a good lead. She has the spunk that many of our strong females do on this site, but she has vulnerability as well and a detailed backstory. I liked what we saw of Radovan, and you did a good job in painting a detailed picture of him by using subtle descriptions. I think he stood out a bit more really, as Avis was focused on her past and her grief rather than really standing out right away, but I think it is easier to portray supporting characters at times since we are not in their heads.

The plot of this little arc was good. The opening reminded me of the prologue to A Game of Thrones, and that similarity stuck during the story. The character types and the little subtleties really stood to me, and the battle scene was really well written. It flowed nicely and was the perfect length, and I really wasn't sure how the story would end. I liked the use of the various weapons and hoeing the battle field, and I think this might be one of my favourite battles ever on the site.

I had a few little niggles though. Mainly, things were a bit sparsely described at time. For example, I thought you missed an opportunity to highlight the carnage and bloodshed in the prologue. It was clear what had happened, and I liked the little touches like the blood in the air, but it just felt a bit brief and as though there was more to be highlighted in the horror. Similarly, while we got some description later, the introduction to the house in the second chapter was this: "It was a wooden house with a small fence surrounding a garden now overgrown with weeds." We could have gotten a touch more character here just to highlight what sort of place it was earlier on. I'd also paint the city in more depth in future chapters

The other issue I had was with the revelations and the conclusion to the father/Vito storyline. I liked both the revelation that the man was not actually their father and that he had killed Vito (possibly, I feel he might still be out there somewhere), but the letter felt like a rushed way to imply that. I think there could have been some mystery left in the air. I also don't think someone would have written a letter that length that quickly. It could have been reframed as something he might have written earlier hinting at things but not fully revealing them. As it stands, the end of the episode left me wondering what would come next: there was no cliffhanger or urgency as to what would come next. I know you are going for a self contained thing, but some hints at a bigger storyline or something to push Avis onwards would have worked wonders. As someone who has been told off in the past for spelling things out, I thought the paragraph beginning with "Despite the pain of her injuries, Avis felt at ease..." was a bit too direct and conclusive. Even changing that would have made things more ambigiuous and given her more to work on.

Mostly I really liked it. It was well written and I never felt bored. The characters were realistic and believable. My one take away thing would be to build the world a bit more and flesh things out. I'd like to see some flashbacks with Vito in them to make that relationship stronger. But asides from the two complaints, it is a solid story that I think will only grow from here

 

[diamondpearl876]

I got into this fic fairly quickly. The characterization - particularly through the dialogue - is strong and entertaining right off the bat. I had a strong hunch that something bad was going to happen, given how it's a medieval setting and gladiator battles are a thing, and boy, I was right. I felt awful for Victor and Radovan - Victor for his death, Radovan for the aftermath - and that's saying something given how little screen time they both had before anything major occurred.

Avis's dialogue feels slightly more forced, but I disagree with Ace and think that she actually stood out above Radovan for me. He might've been on equal footing with her if I could fully buy that he'd lend such important metal to Avis for her battle with Peredur when he's clearly in a difficult situation with finances and business. I understand he could've done it for Victor's sake, for revenge, but in the end, I don't think the ingots are even given back to Radovan, only the aggron's head.

As for Avis herself, her determination was clear and a refreshing change of pace from a lot of characters I see, her tragic backstory was a good read, and the emotions were overall well written. There were some instances where you described her emotions with cliche says - and I know you've said that cliches don't matter if you use them originally, but I'm of the opinion that it's hard to use cliche sayings originally when they're used word for word most of the time. Whenever I saw one, I was kind of taken out of the story and, in general, cliche emotional sayings only cover the surface of things when what you want, I assume, is depth. Overall, though, you did ask me how to power through the emotions, and I think you did well. How dare you pull at my heartstrings with Vito's family revelation. ;o;

The plot felt quickly paced to me, and while that wasn't necessarily a bad thing considering it was only an arc, I'm not sure if a fast pace was your intention or not. I felt like a whole story could've been written out of this arc's plot, and I wouldn't have minded seeing it. Regardless, you set up the world very nicely - all the subtle details, like Ace said, really make things feel real. Whatever comes next, I know it's going to be good.

 

[Misfit Angel]

Thoughts on the prologue:
Victor, you idiot...

I like it. I'm not sure there's much to say beyond it does a great job at setting the scene and the overall tone of the story.

Thoughts on Oak and Iron Bound: Part 1
Not much to say here, but I can definitely see what you meant when you said the Witcher series was an inspiration for this story. This is definitely set up in that same vein. The details about the world aren't the most vivid, but I can get a general feeling for what things are like and how this world works, especially as I move into part two.

Thoughts on Oak and Iron Bound: Part 2
Wow, what a set up. I wasn't quite expecting it. At the time of writing, I haven't started on part 3, and I'm really wondering if she'll get the closure she needs regarding the truth about her "father". I suspect she won't until her memory of what happened on the mountain pass returns.

Harkening back to a comparison to the Witcher series, I really loved the letter that Vito wrote. It felt like it was lifted straight out of one of the games. Well done!

Thoughts on Oak and Iron Bound: Part 3
"Did you bring my iron ingots back?" "Shit, I knew I forgot something..."

Fantastic fight scene. I know I say it a lot in my reviews and it probably wouldn't work in the context of pokemon vs. human, but I really, really appreciate that this isn't just a boring list of attack names one after the other. There's definitely something visceral about foregoing "use a slash attack!" and actually describing what happens.

As she scrambled in the dirt, a piercing screech assaulted her ears. It was so loud and abrasive that it practically knocked her back in the dirt,

The repetition here feels a little weird, but that might just be me.

Regarding closure, it does look like she got it. I don't know whether that's the end of it, as I imagine there's more to it for when her memory returns.

I wish I could say more, to be honest, but I always find myself stumped on stories that I find to be well written or enjoyable. Whether that says more about the story of my own inability to review properly, I don't know. Regardless, a solid read and something I can heartily recommend.

 

[Flaze]

Finally got around to reading this (mostly cause I had to read it for the awards) but I apologize because it's actually taken me a long while, months even. Regardless, it was great to read something from you again while Unpredictable is on its own kind of hiatus.

Prologue:

You do a good opener, easily one of the worst parts of starting a new fic, here, immediately giving us a look at Radovan and Victor as well as the basis for what makes them thick, the same could be said for your establishment of the setting. It's not super detailed but it's got enough flow and it create a vivid enough image to the reader without having to fall into purple prosing.

Then there's my favorite part of the prologue, which is when they meet Peredur. The scene is morbid and kind of creepy, conveying what the characters are feeling. However, the thing that made me do a double take the most out of the prologue is easily Victor's death. At first I though Rara Avis was going to be something completely different and you're able to juggle a good twist in making us think that Victor'll be our protagonist...only to kill him off by the end of the prologue.

Chapter 1

We're introduced to Avis right off the bat and it leads into one of the things that initially worried me about the story, amnesia. You know as well as I do that amnesia is used as a very convenient plot point in stories to justify character's learning things that they are supposed to know already. What saves this I think is the fact that Avis' isn't just any kind of amnesia, she hasn't actually forgotten everything about her life (which is why her personality is intact) just the event with her father and Peredur.

Moving on from that, the best part of this chapter is easily when Avis realizes that her Pidgeot is gone. It's a moment that carries a lot of weight and shows us how close Avis and her Pokemon were, even though we never actually saw the two of them together. The fact that you also explore Radovan's own grief and how these two characters have to comfort each other in order to get over their specific losses also helps add more nuance to the proceeding and shows us why Peredur has to be stopped.

All of this goes well with the small hints we get of Avis' life and how it used to be, letting us know what her situation was and also giving us some clues on what might have happened.

My only big issue with this chapter is that it's a little on the short side and it feels like not a lot happens, we get introduced to Avis, learn about her circumstances and also about what she has to do. The other thing I gotta remark on is the world, your world isn't bad but it's a bit hard for it to stand out. I mean, it's one of the best interpretation of a Medieval Pokemon World and it'll be interesting to see more of it, but there's not much detail to it to really set it apart from others.

Chapter 2

We start where we left off with Avis preparing to set out for her battle against Peredur and some more memories of her youth. One of the things that stood out to me the most was what you did with the Pokemon-based weapons, it's an idea that I don't remember seeing before and while it sounds kind of painful (for the Pokemon) it makes sense. I mean when you have monsters that are essentially walking weapons it'll make sense that humans would try and find ways to counteract. Also, a Scyther-blade is both really badass and kind of made me cringe when I thought of the poor sap who had their arm ripped off.

As the chapter goes on things become a little...different. Avis' journey to her house and her having to face her past and whether or not she's willing to enter the house where she had so many awful memories feel realistic and poignant. However, it's when she finds Vito's letter that things felt a bit jarring to me. Vito's letter is an interesting twist but...it feels kind of left field, I can buy that they weren't their dad's actual children and all, but the fact that Avis was dueling with the pressure of whether or not she could say goodbye to the memories of her time there, regardless of how awful they were, gets downplayed heavily by her realizing that "Nope, not her dad". It also feels like a melodramatic twist, like something taken out of a soap opera.

It also undermines Avis' arc a little bit and kind of makes Vito come off more as a plot device than an actual character, since his role was basically to leave the letter for Avis to find out. Also it feels kind of weird when you think about it, like Avis' father being abusive was all because they weren't actually their kids and removes weight to it.

Chapter 3

And so we reach the end of what's apparently the first arc of Rara Avis; this chapter itself is a lot different to the ones from before, with the main focus being the fight against Peredur. It's here that the story really shines, you've always had a good knack for doing action scenes and you don't fail here, being able to juggle Avis' and Peredur's actions seamlessly and letting us feel what's going on. We don't get stuck in their heads or spend too long on any one moment because this is a fight to the death and any form of hesitation could prove fatal.

Avis' struggle against the Aggron and her attempts at killing it are also amusing to see, especially with the back and forth that the two develop. However, while Avis does get the tables turned on her eventually, it does feel a bit like she won a little too easily like things went mostly according to plan and when they didn't it Avis was able to course correct. That being said, I think this speaks to Avis' own strategic side, her knowledge of Peredur and her own skills as a Battler.

The other thing that stands out to me about this chapter is the way it ends. It feels like a legit conclusion even though there's apparently more to come, which makes me wonder where Avis' character will go. At the same time I do have to say that I was a bit disheartened that Avis didn't find out what actually happened with her dad, I know you can't reveal all your cards in one go, but considering the fact that the story mostly closes off well it's still a bit off.

Overall Rara Avis is off to a great start, it works as a very focused and well developed character piece and Avis herself stands out as an interesting and unique protagonist with flaws and fears. I do think that she can come off as bland sometimes but she's got a lot of depth and I'm sure she'll go even further. So don't keep me waiting.

 

[lucarioknight56]

Post-Awards Review Time!

Grammar/Style:
Very few issues here, I have little to say.

Plot/Story:
Alright, now here's the good stuff. In just four chapters, you tell a gripping story with Avis and Peredur; when reading it, I didn't want to stop. Despite the simplicity of the plot, you made it compelling enough for us readers to want to find out Avis' past, the encounter with Peredur, and how everything else turns out. It was simply brilliant!

However, at the end of the day, it feels like the story is finished, despite the fact that there are more chapters to come. Everything was tied up so nicely and so...quickly, that there doesn't feel like anything more to tell, outside of the passing reference to her going back to the coliseum. It's rather disappointing, to be frank.

Characters:
With what few characters you have, you do quite well. Avis is the compelling protagonist (evidenced by her winning the Best Character award), Peredur is the brute antagonist (who does the job well, but is somewhat shallow), and Radovan is the simple, if useful, supporting character. You made them all quite believable and likeable!

However, as stated before, the episode just...ends. Avis already seems to have a full character arc, and there doesn't appear to be anywhere else for her to go. I know that more could come about from her returning to her battling career, but there is nothing foreshadowing future development, or if there is, there isn't much.

Setting:
When you describe the setting, it is wonderful, but it is sometimes unclear. There definitely could be more, but what's there is enough to get a decent picture.

Overall:
Absolutely deserving of the Best Alternate and Best Story awards. It is wonderful what you have here, and will always look forward to reading this when it is picked up once more!

 

[Ambyssin]

So, I saw this mentioned in that fic of the month thread and decided to give it a look see. I've never played the Witcher, or read/watched Game of Thrones. And the Middle Ages was always a spotty subject in history for me. But, for whatever it's worth, I think this was a fun first arc that definitely felt like what I've seen of the Witcher. The pace is snappy, and you transition from the quiet, somber scenes to the tenser, foreboding bits very well. There was enough descriptors for me to get a general sense of the layout of the land, as well. I know you're just getting started, so there are a few subjects I'm wondering if you'll be addressing. Most prominently being, well, how do humans forge bonds with pokémon in this time period, anyway? This arc wasn't focused on that, so it wasn't a huge deal. But I really am hoping that'll get addressed in the future. I think it could be quite interesting! ^^

As for the individual parts:

Spoiler

Prologue
Well, this is a chilling note to open on. Err... pun maybe intended? In any event, it starts off on the quiet side, with most of the focus on describing the carnage Victor and Radovan stumble upon. Minor detail that made me smile: these arena warriors having armor to match their pokémon partners. Nice way to have a human-pokémon bond in this time. I'm intrigued about the discover that the people they discovered all attacked each other. But, before we can get into that, giant aggron attack. RIP Victor; you were cool while you lasted. Still, fitting description of just how tough aggron are compared to a fragile human skeleton.

Part 1
Dang, that's one heck of a cold opener you got there. I'm no bit-time consumer of this kind of setting, but I seem to recall a characteristic of the Middle Ages being that men in the household were valued for their strength and if they didn't have that, then what good were they? That's what came to mind with Avis' father, anyway. I'll admit, I was a little bit confused, up until the third scene with Radovan appeared and links things up to the prologue. At first I thought there was some sort of time skip, but now I get what's happening. The itallics part was a flashback. Maybe the confusion was a good thing, though? At least I could understand how Avis was feeling initially. ^^;

On a side note, maybe I'm easy to impress, but I liked Avis' reaction to knews of Aria's death. Like, there's clear signs it's upset her a lot, but she's steeled (heh) enough to carry on the conversation and learn of Victor's fate. Which was a good ending note for that particular scene. And you managed to carry the momentum into the next day, which leads to the very quick reveal of Avis' plan to hunt down Peredur. I think it's a good build up that ends on the kind of wham line that's great for a cliffhanger.

Part 2
Another surprising start here. You totally got me. Here I was led to believe Avis was forced into taking up Vito's apprentice role. But, no, that was her decision. Certainly gives some context for her reckless thinking at the end of the last part, huh? This is probably just nitpicking on my part, since this is mostly Avis' tale, but I would've liked at least a little bit more of a background on the master/apprentice relationship b/w Radovan and Avis. I mainly say that b/c I know he wants to see Peredur dead, but I had a bit of trouble seeing why he'd go to such great lengths (and use up materials he could've turned for a profit) to equip Avis. I know the motivation is Victor's death. But some more context might help me believe that Radovan really wants the aggron dead. *shrug*

The quiet contemplation was nice too. You didn't milk it for too long, in my opinion. And the ongoing tension that her memory loss brings continues to even make me (as the reader) feel bad for her. I know you mentioned the Witcher, and it does certainly feel like the middle of this chapter is trying to channel that sort of "quiet lull" a game like that has as you're traversing the world. I think you did it well, for whatever it's worth. And that certainly makes the revelation from Vito's letter all the more jarring. Like, that completely blindsided me. Yeah, the letter probably isn't all that realistic. Since I'd imagine it'd be harder to write a letter super-quickly in this type of setting.

Part 3
Certainly a tense stand off to start things on. That coalescence of memories that Avis has with Peredur and her "father" is something that I always think it hard to pull of in writing, but it looks like you handled it very well. Then there's the dramatic, slow bow release. Kind of makes me think of the Tomb Raider reboot or the Hunger Games, even if they're not quite the right era. And, to your credit, you keep things tense. Things swing right back into Peredur's direction after the arrow shot. In fact, it goes really badly for her. Like, human trying to challenge a pokémon levels of badly. Peredur's hits, despite not explicitly saying any sort of attacking moves, still seem to pack a punch. I actually wasn't sure if Avis' gambit with the spear would actually work, but it did... sorta. The arc gets a proper closure with her return to Azurefall, too. I didn't mind the quick pace of all of it. It was entertaining.

 

[kintsugi]

some random prenote

Avis’s stomach lurched as her pidgeot swooped down, just barely drifting over the treetops. The giddy feeling never got old to the girl.

Wow that’s cute; that’s just like Baron and I like them already and I hope she has a nice little saddle like Baron and I hope nothing terrible happens to—

That’s where we found you, as well as two dead men and a few dead Pokémon. A kingler, a scyther, and a pidgeot, I’m afraid. Had an interesting little saddle on it.”

goddammit.

also, everyone in this story is sassy as fuck and I love it

useless/nitpicks

Radovan wrinkled his nose at the kingler’s stench before inspecting the man’s wounds.

The snow was stained scarlet, the blood steaming slightly.

If it's so cold that body-temperature blood steams, then these people were killed very recently. If they were killed very recently, the kingler doesn't smell bad (unless I'm missing something about how kingler should smell bad when they're alive; unsure; have owned hermit crabs and they smell like dead butts, but that’s mostly a byproduct of the tank). I would not normally care about this except for how spot-on the rest of your details are.


plot/structure

Shamelessly re-adapting a lot of this from the first time I dumped advice on you. I’m sorry.

There’s a clearly defined narrative arc here, and it starts off strong with a lot of forward momentum and doesn’t really stop. Avis is an interesting character, and her problems literally feed the plot, so she’s involved and discovering things alongside the reader and feeling tons of realistic emotions in response to the plot. It’s a revenge quest, but there’s a lot of neat elements to it: the protagonist actually asks for and receives help, and the fight feels balanced, and there’s a lot more time spent on personalities than normal. I liked this premise a lot, and although it had some old elements to it, it felt fresh and creative here.

I do think that part of that “it feels familiar” idea comes from how you structure the story: to me, early on, the conclusion felt inevitable. Avis is going to combat Peredur, symbolically destroying the influence that her father has over her. I was still excited for how this was going to go down, but I wasn’t shocked when it played out that way. I think a large part of that has to do with the structure of your flashback/real time stuff:

Ch 0. Victor and Radovan get nuked by Peredur -- the aggron, later revealed to be Peredur, is an antagonistic force in this story
Ch 1, A. Smol Avis and Aria land at home to find her father angry and her brother dead -- Avis's father is also an antagonistic force in this story
Ch 1, B-C. Avis wakes up from the attack and learns from Radovan that everyone left in her life is dead except Peredur -- Peredur is the only antagonistic force left in this story
Ch 1, D. Avis talks to Radovan for a bit, they learn more about each other, and then Avis vows to kill Peredur -- Avis and Radovan are the protagnistic force in this story and will fight the only antagonistic force left
Ch 2, A. Smol Avis mourns Vito's death and vows to become stronger -- Avis is stubborn, and also she relies on Vito to keep fighting
Ch 2, B. Radovan and Avis plan their attack on Peredur, Radovan is removed from the picture, and Avis goes to fight Peredur alone -- Avis is the only protagonistic force left in this story
Ch 2, C. Avis returns home, thinks about her past, and prepares for the battle ahead -- Avis, the only protagonistic force left, will fight the antagonists
Ch 2, D. Avis finds Vito's note -- Doran was a fucking asshole and was an antagonistic force in Avis's life / this story -- tying together him and Peredur once and for all and making them effectively the same antagonistic force.
Ch 3. Avis fights Peredur -- the only protagonistic force left meets the only antagonistic force left

Every scene is tidy and ties on to the next set of events. The flashbacks at the beginning of each chapter set it up each chapter perfectly. There aren’t any dangling loose ends or secondary conflicts. Radovan being with Avis in this fight would add some emotional complexities as they both seek revenge on the dangerous monster that killed people close to them, but he’s neatly removed before that can happen. Peredur being anything other than a soulless killing machine would add some conflict when Avis has to personally put him down, but he’s not. The characters are never wrong about things, or make assumptions that’ll make them have to do things in a way that wasn’t according to plan: Avis thinks Peredur will go back to their family home, and he does. Avis needs to be shocked by the revelation that Doran is a liar and abuser, but not shocked to inaction, and she isn’t. Avis thinks that the aggron horn/spear will pierce Peredur’s armor, and it does. In turn this is exacerbated by how quickly the plot moves around her—Avis is knocked out during the awkward parts that Radovan would need to narrate, letting her skip back to the action; Peredur shows up right after she reads the letter. The whole plot feels very one-directional, and the characters are almost eerily aware of the meta-ness of their situation/able to respond accordingly. The awkwardness of Avis needing to confront her actual father gets waved away by a letter; he isn’t actually her blood so it’s okay not to be upset that he’s dead and there’s no need to struggle with the fact that someone she should love has caused her a lot of hurt. None of that matters.

Smart people make smart decisions based on smart observations, and they can be right or wrong in real life. Usually they’re still wrong somehow. It’s those flaws that make them human. So in fiction, when they’re always right, and they’re never uncertain, it makes the plot feel very one-directional—things are constantly moving toward a fixed conclusion at the end of this 3-chapter arc of protagonist defeating antagonist that’s been set up almost by default: Avis and Peredur are the only protagonist and antagonists relevant to the plot at this point.

This is a weird one to fix, and I don’t know if a) it’s possible or b) it’s necessary. SHITTY REVIEW I KNOW. Because the thing is, your story still works. Blindly adding more plot doesn’t inherently create complexity, and it’s still an enjoyable, breathless ride even if we can see the end.


style/tone

It’s odd. I can’t tell you what you main character looks like, but this story still has a vivid feeling of depth to it. Your style is often barebones/functional style where you typically describe only the important things in the room (and it works really well for Keith), but I did like the narratively-useless details that you added in here, like

The other man shook his head, making his slightly-too-large helmet wobble a bit over his cap.

LIKE. We never see this guy again, and he’s really only here to take Radovan out of the story. But little details like this make too-big-helmet guy feel like a real human with actual goals and problems, which adds a depth to your world that you really couldn’t get through other means. And on the larger scale, it makes details like this one:

At first Avis was sure she had read it wrong. Reading again, she slowly sounded out the words letter by letter like she had been taught.

which feel grounded and precedented. Avis being so shocked that she initially rereads the letter because the idea of her being illiterate is more plausible to her than the note’s contents is a fantastic piece of detail that would normally feel like it was ruining the tension of this scene, except you have a rich history of having these tiny details scattered around. I loved it.

A minute later, she saw the light of the setting sun reflecting brightly off steel.

Peredur had arrived.

I loved how you handled this dramatic tension here. There’s so much buildup to this confrontation—and most of it is in the form of Peredur being an unstoppable tank of steel and rage—but this is quieter and understated. It’s just there, and readers can fill in the hype for themselves. It also makes for an excellent cliffhanger in this format.


overall

I also loved the premise of this. Forgot to say that elsewhere. The pokémon-human partnership deal is pretty cool, the arena is cool, a young woman stabbing an aggron with as superheated spear made of aggron horn is metal af and also cool. There’s a lot of awesome concepts here.

The one thing I wasn’t hooked on was the structure of your story, which, okay, is pretty hard to get around. But everything else—setting, style, characters, etc—I thought you handled beautifully. Good shit.

 

[Persephone]

This is kind of weird because I talked a lot about this fic in a place where you could see, but never quite in a concrit way. So some of this might be repetitive or I might leave things out or skim over them if I thought I talked enough about them in the final round.

The perks of this story:
-Setting. I love the setting. Past eras are often underexplored, which is odd to me since the games lend themselves so well to either high or low fantasy. You have gods and somewhat human-friendly monsters running around and everyone focuses on the present/near past/near future. And you do well with weaving in subtle things (clothing, weapons, hobbies, economic/city design) that emphasize that it's not quite a modern world.
-Mindless villain is fun and mindless and scary. Not much to say here, but I liked that Aggron a fair bit more than most non-talking 'mons. Was set up as terrifying from the prologue and, while it's not quite clear what happened there, he looms over things well.
-The aggron battle. It was good. Tactics were clever. I liked. Only flaw was that Avis was oddly confident that Aggron was going to return home to a degree that the story didn't quite seem to justify.
-Avis is awesome and I enjoy the birbgirl huntress theme. And how, even with her biggest enemies buried, she's still left with many unanswered questions in the future.

Struggles/weaknesses:
-Some of the development felt rushed. The letter in particular felt like something that would've come up in chapter ten+ to answer questions, rather than giving a plot twist that... affected characters who'd already been dead and had minimal flashbacks, in the brother's case. Hard to really care about him tbh. And character development that occurs over hours rather than weeks always feels off to me.
-You killed another birb you monster.

Advice going forward:
-Maybe have Avis still struggle with family issues? I could see trying to find her biological family, or whatever's left, also being a mid-term goal, if only for her brother's sake. And having him appear in flashbacks could partially rectify that situation. Either way, it'd balance out the quick reveal a bit.
-She gets another birb that you won't kill ever.

Overall, it was worthy of its prizes despite its short length. Look forward to seeing where it goes in the future.

 

[kyeugh]

hi there. i realize this is an ancient thread as the bulbagarden's "are you sure you want to post this" banner has helpfully reminded me, but i wanted to drop a review anyway because kintsugi bullied me into it this is a really neat story that i feel has a lot in common with my own. i had a great time reading it and wanted to share my thoughts. i don't know if you have any intentions to update and this was written a fair bit ago, so i'm gonna refrain from picking out line comments as i normally would, but let me know if that is something you're interested in and i can maybe do it in a gdoc or something.

zooming out a bit to a conceptual level, there is just a ton of awesome shit going on here aesthetically. i'm unabashedly a big huge fan of human vs. pokémon combat and feel that a medieval setting lends itself best to that dynamic—i think you really pull the best out of both here and make something awesome. the pokémon-derived weapons are just awesome. i loved the way the arena fighters' armor was designed to resemble the pokémon they fight alongside. on the one hand it's just cool but on the other i actually fully believe it in-world. tangential, but i remember reading eragon as a kid and even though i was like 14 i was like rolling my eyes at the fact that he gets forged le epic blue sword to match his dragon xd, but here it's like... the gladitorial flavor of the arena fights makes it believable that they'd do something like this, there's sort of a showman-y aspect to it. i don't know, that's a small thing but i really like to see stuff that's just Cool being worked into a world in a way that actually makes sense and doesn't lean too much on rule of cool. i actually kind of wanted to spend more time just reveling in the cool worldbuilding you've set up here. maybe that was intended for later on in the story... to which i say, good fic pls upd8.

anyway, had to get that out of the way. looking more closely at the worldbuilding, i thought you did a great job at quickly and efficiently conveying your unique setting. right off the bat we get that this is a medieval setting where pokémon are highly dangerous. bet. this feels like a fairly deep and complex world, but we only learn as much as we need to at a given moment to understand what's going on and receive an impression of a larger world to be potentially explored later. i was impressed with how economically you get some of your worldbuilding aspects across, particularly the arena fighting. you don't really spend a lot of time explaining it at all but i still feel like i have a solid idea of this system in the world, largely by way of avis's interactions with it and the dynamic of their family. if anything, i feel like the very first section of the prologue felt a little bit exposition-heavy—the way radovan's character is established through the dialogue feels a bit clumsy and ultimately not that useful to me, particularly the "you're the one who made the ax" line.

plot-wise, i know from the table of contents that this is intended to be a longer fic but i actually think that with a bit of tweaking this could kind of work as-is? there's definitely a complete arc here. if anything, some of the beats (particularly wrt the family revelations) feel a bit rushed, but i think maybe it only feels that way in the context of, like, the idea that this is a longer story. if i came into it expecting this to be it i think it would be a bit easier to overlook. i thought the pacing here was really good overall, you don't waste any time but you do linger on the emotional moments for just the right amount of time. the events all flow naturally and tie into avis's personal arc in a solid and well-crafted way.

i think the strongest part of the story is the bit where we get to know avis and she's attempting to figure out where she is and what happened. her character is developed strongly here and we get some pretty emotional insights into her backstory, just overall a strong sense of who she is, what she wants, what she wanted, what she misses, etc. i think once the story starts turning towards peredur, i agree with kint's assessment that there isn't a lot of tension—you basically know, ok, she's gonna go find the aggron and kill it cathartically. that said, the fight itself is very well choreographed. peredur feels like a properly impenetrable monster and extremely dangerous. it was always clear to me what was going on in the fight and who had the upper hand, which i think is a feat tbh—action sequences are hard! and there were plenty of awesome avis moments, especially the bullseye. wew lad. i think the only crit i have for the battle sequence itself was that i think you could have lingered a bit more on the actual damage peredur was inflicting while she was inflicting it; avis seems pretty beat up after the fact, but during the actual fight it seemed like she was able to shake off most of the hits without much issue. also, i felt like it was maybe a bit too much for peredur's jaws to be "boring down" on avis's head—i don't really know that she walks away from that like she did.

vaguely i wonder if there was a different angle this could have gone. on the one hand, i love humans fighting pokémon and the image of avis dragging this monster's severed head back to the village goes hard as hell. on the other, i feel like there was a potential missed opportunity to loop avis's family issues back into the present with this fight. it seems like her "father" was someone who abused and used everyone around him, including peredur. yet peredur is sort of portrayed as a mindless violent monster. i actually kind of wanted the pair of them to relate a little bit here. they sort of have a lot in common? they're the only parts of each other's old lives still alive. obviously that does come with baggage and the violence makes sense; avis sees peredur as a reminder and an extension of her hated father. but i feel like there's some potential for kinship there too. maybe vito was the only one who ever treated peredur well, and just as peredur is about to land the finishing blow on avis, she sees his sword and his lairon's skull and softens and decides not to go for the kill. maybe that doesn't work, kinda just spitballing there. bottom line being i did feel like there was an opportunity for something interesting there.

it seems like it was intended for the intrigue in the plot to stem more from avis's reckoning with her family and her past, but i honestly found it a little hard to engage... these people all seem to be dead, so while the revelations aren't uninteresting, i just didn't get the impression that it was going to have all that much bearing on anything that was happening going forward. felt more like closure on a situation that i was only just introduced to a few thousand words ago, i suppose. there are elements in the structure here that i think make up the backbone of what could be a really intriguing plot but the particular way they're arranged here makes them sort of fire off before they've developed enough momentum to land all that hard. that sounds a little harsh—as i said before, i enjoyed reading this story a lot, and i think avis is a well-written and well-developed character with very clear motivations, but i do think you could pull a lot more out of it.

random things i liked and wasn't sure where else to mention: radovan is best boy, i love him. also, i'm depressed that aria is dead, because the idea of an aggron-slaying pidgeot rider hedge knight is SO COOL and 10000% my style and i did not realize how much i needed it, please introduce a replacement bird immediately.

overall, sorry if this review feels really critical—i think this fic is really cool and way up my alley and next chapter when. the world you established here was really intriguing and i'd love to see more of it. i think the fact that what you have posted here feels relatively self-contained is maybe causing me to read in a way that isn't quite fair, because this is a story that was apparently intended to receive more breathing room and development. and imo it should get it!!! post moar!!!! #BringBackRaraAvis2k22!!!!!!!