The Trial of Juno Saga [PG-13]

[Neo Emolga]

Typos and errors first! :]

Chapter 9

Double 'expose to'!

Wow, Coldblood. Drunk much? XD

Chapter 10

I find this wording to be slightly odd. 'into' should be 'on'? Or get rid of "into wanting."

Yeah, I see what you mean, I can doctor that up a little.

The double 'even' in this sentence puts me off a little.

Even #2, you're FIRED! Yeah, having two of them there was a little funky.

Just double "a few seconds." :]

FIX IT, FELIX!

Looks good.

Hearing Coldblood say this makes me wonder how long, exactly, Randy's imaginary world has been around. It was my impression that it's been less than a week, but the way Coldblood is describing it makes it sound like it's been years, or months, or something. If it has been under a week, then saying "nobody has ever beaten him" sounds a little extreme. Also, he says nobody can just go up and challenge Randy willy-nilly, so it sounds as if he'd only have tournaments every so often. Unless it was explained that this world has existed for years, and I just missed that. xD

Hmm... yeah, you bring up a good point there and I'm quite surprised I didn't catch this myself. 50 losing slaves for a week of tournaments would mean roughly 7 tournaments a day (not to mention that doesn't fit with the whole setup that Juno goes through later on). Randy's world is weird, but it can't go that far. Math is still math!

I'm changing the bit about "that's why Randy now has at least fifty slaves" to "anyone that loses to him becomes his slave, and already several challengers have fallen victim to it." I think that does a good job of mopping up the mess, but still keeps the warning about what's at stake.

Chapter 11

"I" was more hopeful?

Yeah, that whole sentence sounds a little junky. Going with:

"It was a long march back to Victory City, but things were looking better than when I had left."

I'm sure you know that the plural of every pokemon species doesn't end with an s. This should be "regular Pikachu never feel," unless you're consciously rebelling against it and stuck an s on there for that purpose. xD

This, I wasn't even all that sure about, so I kind of just made an assumption and rolled with it. But yeah, I fixed it and I'll try to keep that in mind later on.

This whole sentence sounds kind of awkward. The tense is mixed up - unless you mean "I've got" - and "a whole lot of surprise" seems like an odd choice of words. Maybe it's just me. xD Also, if this is him looking back, then I find it a little puzzling, since we have never gotten a hindsight Jake/Juno before. I'm sure it's just a typo though.

WTF... what was I thinking when I wrote that!?

Changed to "And when the next day had arrived, there were a whole lot of surprises I wasn't expecting..."

No, I promise, Jake hasn't been drinking!

Should be its.

And... check!

Should be a.

And gotcha!

Extra "felt" in there!

I guess that wasn't the only strange thing Raichu was feeling!

I love fiercely sticking to things!

LOL, oh man, how one little letter can change so much. XD

Bladed scythe blades. Cool.

Ha, ha, I'm full on laughing and embarrassed now, but it's worth it. XD

Chapter 12

Should be no instead of so.

Yep.

I think that's meant to be in the battle.

Yep, otherwise that's a really weird battle!

Double "away."

And... goodbye to that one!

I believe you require a "that" between 'outside' and 'was.' Or better yet, rewording it would be good!

I think just taking out the second "was" probably did the trick.

You need an 'and' between 'twice' and 'said', and that second 'left' should be 'let,' I think.

Yeah, that one's a mess. Changed it all to "I just blinked twice and said nothing, not that he would have understood what I was saying anyway. I decided to put it behind me and carry on."

All one of Randy have arrived.

>.<

Okay, that one never should have happened.

You need a 'when' before 'Alex.' Probs a comma after 'Jeff' as well.

Yep, agreed on that one.

'forget' should be 'forgetting.'

*Nods.*

'in' should be 'on.'

Yep, you got that right.

There should be a 'be' between 'to' and 'on.'

Well, there is one now!

Get rid of that first 'battle.' xP

But it's a double battle! Just kidding, yeah, that's a silly mistake. XD

Chapter 13

Snipe that first 'their'!

Lordy, that whole sentence is a mess. I decided to change the whole thing to: "They didn’t know what attack it was either, but I could tell by their surprise, they never suspected this unique Pikachu named Juno was capable of highly-powerful forces."

This whole sentence is a little bit muddled. I think rewriting it as this might work better...

Done and done!

Taken aback?

Yeah, that's messy. Just rolling with "Chain Lightning came out exactly as I imagined it and I was pleasantly surprised at how this amazing power worked." I think that does the job just fine.

Should be 'sudden.' Also, repetition of 'dark' here. Not a biggie. x)

It's really dark! Just kidding, changing it to: "Then, all I could see was a sudden storm of dark shadows bursting from where Mewtwo and Arceus were standing, moments before being consumed in a shrouding, black cyclone."

All of those 'he' and 'she's should have lowercase letters.

TRIPLE KILL! That second one got a much-needed "at" as well.

Again, just the repetition of a word (flew).

You can tell repetition is a stalker of mine when it comes to writing. XP

This sentence is either unfinished, or that comma should be a period. x)

Yeah, I think the period works.

It says Juno is further enough away from the giant fissure to avoid it and not be harmed, but then he can hear Jolteon's quiet speech (or what I imagine is quiet, given his physical state), even at the distance, and speak to him back? I think there should be some indication that Juno moved closer to him. I also imagine that anything that isn't yelling would be hard to hear at all in this absurdly noisy arena, given that the crowd is so loud.

Good points, yeah, that's true. I decided to change it around so it makes sense:

“I’m sorry…!” Jolteon cried out to me, looking terribly exhausted, “I wanted to go further, further than this! I wanted… to win together, with you!”

“No, don’t worry about it!” I told him quickly with a reassuring smile, telling him he shouldn’t fear this. “There will be other days. You did an outstanding job, Jolteon. I couldn’t have done it without you.”

Jolteon was silent for a moment, nodded lightly with a weak smile, but then collapsed from the exhaustion.

I think that should be okay.

There we go! All errors accounted for...of the ones I saw. Which hopefully were all of them. xD But you never know! Those sneaky little buggers can be hiding anywhere. O:< There were other random little places that I would change personally, but some are too insignificant to bother mentioning, like the occasional comma use. xD

You caught a LOT, and I appreciate you taking the time to flag them all down. I'll admit, very often I'm just thinking in terms of the storyline, description, emotion, and that kind of stuff, and my thoughts are moving faster than my fingers.

I think I like this tale more as it progresses, and now that Jake is getting somewhere with his plan to overthrow Randy and get the heck out of there, I think it's becoming more interesting. I did quite like Coldblood, and the points he raised were quite good--such as Jake having to go in disguise. On that note, I was sort of surprised how quickly Jake accepted the change from a human into a pikachu, especially when he said he would become a pikachu for the rest of his life if it gave him a shot at getting out of there. I can see how he would be quite keen, but it seems just a little extreme that he has little to no issue with it. If that were me, I'd be terrified if I had to become something else for the rest of my life. Your entire life would be morphed, from your family life to your friend life, to your career, future family, etc. I dunno...it was a little unsettling how fast he took the opportunity. I suppose I'm basing it too much on my thoughts, though. Jake obviously isn't me. Also, there hasn't really been much clarification on how the necklace works, which leaves me puzzled at some things, such as how the pikachu-changing would work. I could see how he would be a pikachu for the rest of his life inside Randy's mind, but once they broke free of it, wouldn't he return to normal, because Coldblood's powers wouldn't work outside of it? And if he's just a figment of Randy's imagination as Juno, it seems a little odd that he can become real. I'm not up to when they escape Randy's mind, though, so maybe I'm speaking about things that have already been answered, but I feel like Jake doesn't think enough about it. He could have asked Coldblood how it worked. Asked him a simple "What will happen to me after I leave Randy's mind?" but he doesn't, which is what is weird to me.

Good points. Very good points... but... considering the situation Jake is in, I thought of it more in a terms of "what other choice do you really have?" Also, Jake never thought he'd be stuck as a Pikachu for life, only until Randy's dream world collapsed. That, and after being so desperate for answers and having virtually no other solution present itself, Jake had to make a choice. Take Coldblood's offer, or likely risk wandering Randy's bizarre dream world forever. Never said it was easy...

As for Juno becoming real, that gets explained a little further.

During all that travelling that Jake did to Coldblood's building, and then the three day trek back, I expected to see a little more of his adventure. It skipped each day with a sentence or two, when I think there could have been an awesome chance for a short little adventure or something, even if it was to show that Jake really was willing to give up everything for a chance to escape. The main thing that disappoints me is that there's never any interaction between Jake and his pokemon. Surely, for the three days that he wandered away from Victory City and towards Coldblood's building, there must have been a time when he let out his pokemon and had them there for company, or needed their help, or whatnot. I would have been satisfied if there was a sentence somewhere saying "Despite how lonely he got, Jake elected not to send out Raichu or Ariados for fear that they may wind up like Jolteon and Weavile" or something. But then on the way back, he sort of had no excuse not to send out his pokemon, especially because he had three days to kill as a pikachu. Instead, I can imagine him being absolutely silent for the entire three day journey, and then, when he's in the middle of a battle that will lead up to his plan, he decides to reveal to his pokemon that he's a pikachu now. Not only that, but he'll "explain it later"? Wouldn't it be helpful if his pokemon knew what they were going up against, and how Jake planned to do it? I just feel like he could have given them a little warning. Why didn't he take advantage of that three day walk to talk to his pokemon, explain what was happening, and even practice some imaginary attacks? It would make a lot of sense if he had done that, especially for the purpose of training with his raichu/jolteon so he could actually learn how to use his electric powers. I get that he's half (or more, or less) Juno now, but surely the Jake in there has no idea what's going on. I think it was pretty irresponsible and rude that he didn't even talk to them once over the span of six days... xD I mean, not even to let out his two pokemon to show them that their bodies had returned to normal? I dunno; it just seems like a wasted opportunity and in that position, I thought that Jake would have wanted all the help he could have gotten.

Hmm, I didn't think about a small Pokémon interaction thing to help ease Jake's loneliness and having them get trained. You make some pretty good points about that.

I'll think it over a bit more, gather my thoughts, and see what kind of options would fit into this. A person on PokéCommunity also felt Victory City really could have used more description, so that's probably another thing I could focus on as well if I'm going to write more into these particular chapters.

Despite that, I'm quite enjoying it. x) I'm still yet to see how this battle ends. The arrival of that latias is cool, though Juno sure does take a reeaallly fast liking to her. I suppose that's him in his excitement and joy that he's got a legendary on his side, though. xD I'm enjoying his made up attacks, too. Also I searched up the height of a lugia and oh my god it's 17 feet tall. I mean, it's no wailord, but it's still huge!

Yup, Lugia is seriously gigantic!

Pst, I could let you in on a little secret. Latias resembles Randy's optimism.

I shall now return to the shadows and continue reading. :3 I really wanna see them get out of here. xD Also I was quite surprised to see that Alex had become one of his slaves. I mean, I expected it, but it sucks that he has to do what Randy commands. I wonder what David's doing. At least he changed them back. xD Jeff seems so smug, too. The 'good guys' really annoy me to be honest. xD I want Randy to lose miserably and for that necklace to break because I'm SUPER lovely.

Ha, ha, yep, it's about turning the tables. The original intention was to have the characters you originally felt sorry for become the jerks and the bullies you wanted to see fail become the heroes.

And you are SUPER lovely. XD

Ah, so we're finally in Kivistal! At least I hope it's still called Kivistal, and I'm honestly a little impressed with myself for remembering the name, but I digress!

Yep, it's still called Kivistal!

I've always believed that you could have focused entirely on the Gray Battlegrounds and the human world that you created alongside Randy's dream world and still have crafted a beautiful series, but I don't think that the rush, the excitement, and the shock would have compared to taking things in a whole new direction by setting them inside a world where Pokemon use guns and fight wars. Even after all these years, the description of Pokemon like Primeape and Ampharos wielding high-powered weapons and working in a prison for warriors from a rebellion still lights up my world. Seriously, Mystery Dungeon eat your heart out!

True, and there's been times when I've felt like trying to pluck out the whole Gray Battlegrounds part and replace it with something that was more similar to the rest of the series, but it never felt right.

I did have to justify Pokémon using guns when a few people felt it was strange they would use weapons like that. Having them be used to overcome type disadvantages seemed like the most logical way to go.

Now, as part of my unofficial duties of my unofficial title of "guy who notices differences", here's what I've got for these last few chapters: First, it was always a little strange in the original tale that the relationship between humans and Pokemon was never entirely explained. There were hints of conflict with humans in the past, as when the Silver Rebellion was hostile to Randy because he bore a "human name" and he was coerced into adapting a new identity, as Blitz I believe. It seemed like there was a lot of potential (perhaps even a prequel I hoped :3) to what happened to wipe out all of the humans of Kivistal and teach Pokemon the art of warfare. This version simply has its benefits, without the lose ends of humanity's fate in Kivistal and the questionable morality of Pokemon keeping other Pokemon in Poke Balls, but it still surprised me a bit when I read that the Skarmory and Ampharos had not known what Poke Balls were.

Hey, I'm glad you remember all this!

The elements of humanity have been plucked out along with Pokémon being unfamiliar with Poké Balls. I noticed this also and I did create several workarounds, as something wasn't clicking with humans in the picture. It's true, in the original version, Juno does fight a few humans, but later on, they just stop showing up. Heck, there were times when the story randomly flipped to third person and those have been taken out also.

And then if that wasn't enough, they killed Jake's Pokemon (and Randy's too I suppose)! I was hoping that they would be set free and join the Silver Rebellion, maybe get caught up in some political intrigue and jockeying for power, but no, they were disposed of. I can't say I was a huge fan of the Crimson Stars during past read-throughs (despite my affinity for jerks, it would appear), but that they would kill eight Pokemon out of ignorance, not even malice, really boils my blood, rustles my jimmys, and grinds my gears! Augh!

THIS totally had to be done. Shen, a very long time avid fan of this series, kept begging to know what becomes of Jake's and Randy's Pokémon. Jake retrieves them in the original version, but then never uses them. And then they're never accounted for ever again. Because they don't appear in the story after this, I had to work in a good reason for that... and this matched well with the fact the Crimsons Stars doesn't know what Poké Balls do and threw them into the fire like everything else they owned.

I'll admit, it was a pretty brutal finish to Jake's and Randy's Pokémon, but it does tie up a loose end that badly got left behind...

Ahem, with that out of my system (and comforted because maybe Alex's supercool Pokemon survived :D), it does raise the prospect of Juno breaking Blazewing's Poke Ball or doing something similar where she isn't confined in it, not only to fit in more with the other members of the Silver Rebellion, but also to give our favorite Latias more screentime. Because honestly, I think you could sell t-shirts with Blazewing's lines on them and make a healthy profit.

Bingo. Blazewing gets truckloads of more screen time. Besides getting a more enjoyable personality to work with, there are a LOT of segments that have been revised where she travels with Juno where before he was completely alone (the Abyss in Trial of Juno II is a BIG one). This has also greatly affected how Juno and Blazewing overcome obstacles together, fight together, and have conversations during their travels. Honestly, I think you'll love the update.

With all of these updating of species, there is one thing that I am hoping won't change, and that's the species of Skepter, especially now that the first Pokemon in Kivistal that Juno battles is an Ampharos it would seem poetic to me if things worked out in a bookends kind of way. I was actually kind of hoping that this Ampharos was either Skepter or one of his relatives, but then Juno set him on fire so I guess that hope went out the window.

Skepter is definitely still an Ampharos. There's also a big twist ending disparity with his son Bartholomew when it comes to differences between this and the original, but I'm not spoiling anything. Read on!

As for that first Ampharos that Juno fights, I never thought of him being related to Skepter in a way. Hmm...

On top of all of my fan theories and geeking out, these battle scenes of yours still have a beautiful pace to them, and almost kind of heartbeat that gets my blood pumping and keeps me addicted to the story. What I delight in most is that you not only bring this kind of energy and cinematic focus to the fights between Juno and big bads like Lugia and Groudon, but even fights with henchmen in the prison cell. I'm not usually one for "soldiering stories" outside of the Star Wars expanded universe, but you definitely have made me look at the more realistic (if you can call it that when the fighters are furry little Pocket Monsters) types of conflicts with a more open mind.

Considering this was written before Pokémon Mystery Dungeon, I'm actually surprised I beat Nintendo to making Pokémon have their own world. Glad you like the way I handled the combat sequences, as it's tough to balance between a fight that feels too fast and one that feels like everything moves in slow motion.

Perhaps my chief complaint was the shortage of music suggestions in these last few chapters. I happened to have Explosions in the Sky playing, and then the score from Batman Returns, and while they worked in some places, it was still clear to me that I am but a novice in finding the appropriate background music for such a thrilling tale!

I've been having a tough time trying to come up with a fitting music track for the prison part. Most of the songs I've come across are pretty short, or their tempo, beat, and rhythm doesn't quite match with the setting and the pacing of the story.

I was half-thinking of going with Max Payne 3 - U.F.E. for the battle in the break room, but it only lasts for 1:06. I also haven't found a good enough substitute, but if you have something in mind that kind of matches this, hey, link me and I'll give it a listen.

As always, I'm eagerly anticipating what's up next (especially hoping for that rooftop battle with a Scyther from last time)!

Oh, that still happens. No way would I cut that part out. ;)