EVERYONE: - Ongoing Luna's Lost Memories (Pokémon fanfic)

[Ice Rabbit]

I'm not anywhere near done yet, I expect seven chapters.

Prologue
It was a dark, stormy winter night. The sky was dotted with stars. Snow was raiding the sky like a large school of fish frightened by a shark. The trees of the forest were mostly bare, with a few evergreens scattered here and there. Most of the leaves had been blown away by the wind, leaving behind a forest of mostly bare trees and huge piles of snow. In one part of the forest, the snow had fallen in such a peculiar way that a maze was formed. The forest was usually quiet at this time, but an odd sight alerted the inhabitants of the forest that had not already started hibernation.

A crew of villains was in pursuit of a young girl, who couldn’t have been older than ten. Luckily for her, they couldn’t run fast, and she took advantage of this with the best of her ability. However, there were other things she had to consider. Although the girl had the advantage of speed, she couldn’t run forever. Obviously knowing this, she started looking for a place to hide. Unfortunately, there weren’t any nearby caves or alcoves, so she was forced to continue. Finally, after ten minutes of running, she found a decently sized cave. What she did not notice was a small rock in her path and a large gap covered with leaves. When she finally noticed the rock and the gap, it was too late. The young girl tripped on the rock and fell into the deep pit.

Chapter One
When Luna woke up, she had no idea what time it was. She had lost her watch a long time ago. She really had no clue where she was either. She did know that she was in some underground cave. Dimly lit torches lined the walls, which were of some weird rock. Luna started examining the cave. The first thing she noticed was a large pool of water, which looked endless. She could not swim it. At this, she almost lost hope.

Until she heard a loud roar. Luna did not dare make a sound, but she knew there was now hope of escaping. She simply waited, for there was nothing else to do.

Then she saw what was making the noise. The ground started shaking. A Gyarados emerged from the water. Strangely, it did not move towards her. It simply stood there, staring.

“Uh, hi,” Luna broke the silence. “Can you help me reach the other side of that pool?”

Now the Gyarados started to advance towards Luna. It roared.

“What did you say?” Luna asked, forgetting what she was talking to.

The Gyarados roared again. This time Luna partially understood it. Gyarados was hungry.

“I don’t have any meat, but I have an apple. Will that do?” Luna said.

The Gyarados roared again, and Luna tossed the apple. It missed. She was terrible at tossing things. Gyarados was ticked. It did not feel like going underwater to fetch the apple. At that, it went on a rampage. Luna knew she had to do something. With extreme dexterity, she jumped. She jumped farther than she ever had. She ended up on top of the Gyarados, which was moving wildly. She slipped almost immediately and held on to it. Now, she was helpless.

Again, something happened. Luna heard the fluttering of wings. Metal wings. A Skarmory flew into the cave. At this sight, the Gyarados went back underwater, and it flung Luna off first. Luckily, she landed lightly on the other side of the pool. The Skarmory flew towards her. It made a sound, and Luna understood it perfectly.

“You’re so sweet!” she said.

The Skarmory made another sound. Who are you?

“Uh, my name is Luna, and, uh, that’s all I remember,” Luna replied, puzzled.

The Skarmory made yet another sound. Well, that seems bad. I was separated from my family a while ago, but I still remember everything.

“Uh, what’s your name?”

I dunno.

“Then I guess I’ll call you Lucky. We’re both rather lucky to be alive, aren’t we?”

Luna and Lucky left the cave by a nearby exit. They were very surprised where they ended up.

 

[Ice Rabbit]

Shit, still no replies.

Chapter Two
Luna and Lucky looked around, puzzled. They were in a long, empty hall. The walls were decorated with fancy lights and ugly yet expensive wallpaper. The floor and ceiling were of black and white marble. Questions filled Luna’s mind. Where are we? Why did the cave lead to a building? Why is this hall so clean, yet empty? What is happening? As she shuffled through her thoughts, she remembered that she could not just stand here forever in awe of a cave leading to a building. Being able to understand some Pokémon, she was relieved to have someone to converse with, it wouldn’t necessarily make it easy to choose where to go, but at least it was something.

The first thing Luna and Lucky did was look at the walls. There wasn’t anything on them besides the ugly wallpaper, which was patterned with arrows pointing up, and the fancy lights, which had nothing peculiar about them. Next they examined the floor, which was decorated by arrows going one way then being sent in the opposite direction. Finally, they checked out the ceiling. It was decorated with arrows pointing right, but there were arrows pointing left scratched into it. Both Luna and Lucky were completely puzzled at first.

“What are those arrows doing?” Luna asked. She knew Lucky was probably stumped too, so instead of asking which way to go, she simply brought up something that could be helpful. What she said turned out to be very helpful, because they then started to factor in the arrows.
Luna and Lucky thought for a bit, until Luna came to a “conclusion”. “Do you think we should go right? The walls are pointing up, and the ceiling was probably meant to point to the right. It sounds OK.”

Lucky nodded its head before thinking about it. Luckily, Lucky thought quickly and started shaking its head furiously.

“Huh? What? You say we shouldn’t go right?” Luna said as she noticed Lucky’s quick change of mind. Then she too took a second thought. “Oh, I see what you mean. Left we go.”

It wasn’t that long until they found another door. It seemed like the only way to go, so they tried to open it, only to discover that it was locked. Inside, Luna was very annoyed by this, but she managed to hide her anger. “I guess there’s something we need to get from the right side of this hall.”

At the end of the end of the right side of the hall, there were three doors. Confronted by another puzzle, they stopped to think. Suddenly, voices emitted from the far left and far right doors.

“Hello, adventurers,” said both of the doors.

“Don’t tell me this is one of those stupid puzzles where one door always tells the truth and the other always lies. I could do those in 3rd grade,” Luna said impatiently. “I don’t want to hear your explanations, I want to get out of here.”

“You are incorrect. This is not one of those. This is different…”

“Shut up, now,” Luna said even more impatiently. The voices behind the doors were really annoying her. “You’re both liars. I’m taking the middle door.”

So they did take the middle door. It turned out to be the correct one too. Behind it, there was a path leading to yet another puzzle.

“A maze,” Luna said. “There’s even a map on the wall. Whoever designed this place probably wanted people to get through. Either that or they were complete idiots.”

After a few minutes, Luna had solved the maze, while Lucky just stood there, waiting.

“That was too easy,” Luna said in a bored mood. Within a few minutes, they were through the maze.

In the next room, there was a cage with something trapped inside and a key, supposedly for the cage. Inside the cage was an Eevee, struggling to get out. Luna was very annoyed now. She picked up the key and unlocked the cage. That was far too simple. The small creature jumped out of the cage and attempted to attack Luna. She just caught the Eevee and carried it to a small hole in the wall she just notices. It went in, and came out with another key. It must be the key to the door on the left side of the hall.

When Luna, Lucky, and the Eevee were on their way to left side of the beginning hall, they encountered a man. He looked very similar to the villains that were chasing Luna the other day.

“You. You will not get out of here,” he said.

“Shut up and go away,” Luna replied in an even more bored mood.

“You’ll have to battle me first. I see you have two Pokémon with you, so why not?”

“Because you are an idiot who needs to go away before he finds himself paralyzed from the waist down.”

“Go, Caterpie!” the man yelled as he threw a Pokéball. A worm-like thing came out.

“Lucky, deal with it.”

The steel bird simply pecked the small bug and it fainted.

“No, you’ve beaten me.”

“Good. Now go away,” Luna said as she kicked the man in the leg.

“Ow! You little brat!” the man jumped back in pain. Luna, Lucky, and the Eevee were able to reach the door, unlock it, and climb the stairs to the exit of the building.

 

[MistyRocks]

Heya Ice Rabbit! Don't worry about replies and the such, it takes a while to attract readers. People tend to read and reply to fics if they're friends with the writer, or if they've at least seen the writer has a a bit of a following already (like if the writers kinda popular, people like to follow the crowd. Don't mind them, it's human nature). But if you keep writing someone's gotta read your stuff eventually and then they'll reply (if they're nice, considerate people who know what it's like to just want people to appreciate the time/effort you put into your work)

Anywho, well, it's sorta alice in wonderland-ish I guess. It's a pretty original plot, I don't think I've read any pokemon fics like this, altho I haven't read everything on the planet. It's got potential tho

Do you want me to be all critic-like and tell ya what to work on? Well, don't read further if you don't, altho if you do read further and don't like what I say that's totally fair enough, cuz I'm far from the greatest writer or critic on earth.

Um, the prologue is quite short and could be fattened up and bit and perhaps make it the start of chapter 1. Just because it's a fic doesn't mean it has to have a prologue right? But I think this would also help to add more substance to chapter 1, which is quite short.

How many times did you proof-read what you posted? I think it's always a good idea to reread your stuff at least twice before posting just to check for spellings, grammar and clarity. And take it slow when you read, don't just skim. God knows speed read thru my stuff, post it and then notice a spelling mistake in like the first line (I feel like such a dope when that happens). Plus, spellcheck can't catch everything.

I know maybe it's hard to make the reader fully understand what's going on in this fic, what with the characters not being all together sure themselves (well, luna does have amnesia!) but I got a bit confused while reading. The description is a little rushed at times I think. Plus, if you spend more time on description, it will fatten up your chapters a bit which is always good. Just try and make things clear to the readers, they'll enjoy it more.

PLEASE don't feel disheartened cuz of the lack of replies! Seriously stick at it, every writer's gotta start somewhere. I'll keep reading and I'm definitely looking forward to what you're going to do with this.

 

[Barb]

It's an interesting story, and I agree with the poster who said that it is reminiscent of Alice in Wonderland. Was that your intent? With you establishing Luna as the protagonist, now we (the readers) need to know why she was being chased by the men in the prologue. A little backstory in the next chapter would help.

 

[Ice Rabbit]

lol I just noticed that this sounds sort of like Alice in Wonderland.
That wasn't the intent though.

How many times did you proof-read what you posted? I think it's always a good idea to reread your stuff at least twice before posting just to check for spellings, grammar and clarity. And take it slow when you read, don't just skim. God knows speed read thru my stuff, post it and then notice a spelling mistake in like the first line (I feel like such a dope when that happens). Plus, spellcheck can't catch everything.

I just plop something down, post it, and revise it later.

I will reveal more of the story in chapter three, I was going to do that anyway.

Also I just revised the prologue. I might put the revised version up sometime.

 

[Barb]

That's easy; just edit your first post when you make revisions. And never be afraid to change something. Most authors go through one to three drafts of a manuscript before it's published.

 

[MistyRocks]

lol I just noticed that this sounds sort of like Alice in Wonderland.
That wasn't the intent though.

Really? well, in that case I like your style even more (i like people who accidentally remind me of things I enjoy). Was always a big fan of Alice in Wonderland (always wondered what drugs the author and film makers were on...).

I just plop something down, post it, and revise it later.

I will reveal more of the story in chapter three, I was going to do that anyway.

Also I just revised the prologue. I might put the revised version up sometime.

As Barb said, you can edit your first post and replace the prologue with the revised one.

Anyway, I did the same for so long, writing something then posting it then going over it later. I suppose that's what these message boards are for, so people can read what you wrote and help you revise and redo it.

Well, keep writing, I'm looking forward to more

 

[Ice Rabbit]

In case nobody noticed I edited the prologue yesterday.