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The Quest for the Legends (ILCOE)
Chapter 7: Charmeleon’s Trainer
Since we're now in pure ILCOE territory - from now on, there are no other 3.x versions prior to this one of the chapters we'll be going through - I figured it'd be fun to start mentioning when each chapter was published, going by the Serebii thread. This one is from August 31st 2004, only a couple of weeks after I first posted the YAR version of chapter six (August 14th); the ILCOEth revision of the prologue and chapters 1-6 was posted on August 23rd, so we can assume I made all the ILCOE revisions and wrote this entire chapter in the space of just a bit over two weeks. I wrote blazingly fast back in 2004.
Mark was stunned by Charmander’s evolution itself, but no less the fact that even though they had decided to postpone the evolution to a better time, neither of them had been able to do anything to stop it. It also wouldn’t stop bothering him what Charmander was like just before the evolution; he had looked so sickly, sweating like that, and had a headache. And how he acted when he battled Raikou – it wasn’t normal. Not like him.
Nevertheless, as he reminded himself, he was still in a battle, and two out of the three Pokémon he could use for the battle had fainted, one of the possibilities left being really young, and the other one extremely vulnerable to the opponent’s attacks. He tried to think, but felt he was absolutely unable to concentrate while still worrying about whether Charmeleon was still the same person as before or not.
A kind of awkward opening picking up directly from where the previous chapter ended, even though it's not actually obvious that we're still in the previous scene until the second paragraph. These days I always split my chapters at a scene break, so to speak - a timeskip of at least a few minutes or a transition to a new location - and I think that's a pretty good rule.
He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, then opened them again.
“I forfeit.”
“What?” the junior trainer questioned, apparently finding this absolutely unheard of.
“I give up,” said Mark a bit louder. “I’m going to lose the battle anyway.”
“You’ll have to battle both of us again,” the junior trainer pointed out.
“Can I just have a quick one-on-one with the guy before you or something?” Mark called back. The junior trainer, not really disliking the idea, shrugged and picked up a car key thing like the other junior trainer had possessed, pointing it at the door Mark came through so that it opened.
“Thanks,” he said, before jerking around and running through the door.
Mark forfeiting partway through his first gym challenge also happened in the previous revisions, but it happened a little later, against the fourth junior trainer, and obviously not because of Charmander evolving - rather, Mark just abruptly realized his Pokémon's moves weren't good enough and decided he needed to get better ones before trying again.
The junior trainer in the first room noticed him and apparently had had cases of people rushing through his arena in the wrong direction before, because without words he picked up a key and opened the front door for Mark. He threw a yell of “thanks” over his shoulder before exiting. He was in such a hurry that he didn’t notice the girl he crashed into in the doorway.
Both of them fell over, landing harshly on the ground.
“Ow,” Mark groaned, standing heavily up. So did the girl. He was about to say sorry for running into her, but then recognized her as the blue-haired girl whose Skarmory had given Charmander a beating at the Lake of Purity.
She was still wearing the same clothes, but three other things were different about her. Firstly, her hair was done differently; now two locks fell down on either side of her face outside the ponytails, which also no longer stuck into the air like that, but rather just a little to the sides. Secondly, she had a necklace. Thirdly, her Pokéballs were missing.
Mark stared at her waist for a few seconds, seeing no trace of the battered Pokéball belt that used to be there. He saw her right eyebrow rise higher on her forehead, before she realized what he was staring at, or rather what he was not staring at. She gave a faint smile.
What I actually meant by "what he was not staring at" was just that he was staring at the absence of Pokéballs. But then as I wrote it I noticed you could also interpret it as "for a minute there she thought he was staring at her crotch", and I thought that was hilarious, so I intentionally did not rephrase it.
“My Pokéball belt was getting old, and in the mart this morning I saw these Pokéball necklaces and couldn’t resist buying one,” she explained, pointing at what Mark had taken for red orbs on the necklace when they were actually real, minimized Pokéballs. “It’s more convenient against thieves, anyway,” the girl added.
“New hairdo?” Mark asked. The girl blushed.
“Look, whatever first impression might be forming in your head, I swear, I don’t usually change random things in my appearance like that. Normally people have a hard time convincing me to change my clothes.” She sighed. “My name’s May, by the way. Yours?”
Poor May had to sit through me giving her an out-of-character makeover between chapters. Don't worry, May, I would not have done this in the IALCOTN.
I like that seemingly off-hand mention that she chose the necklace because it's better against thieves, though! Your first thought might be Quilava, but she's more thinking of Spirit there - again, I'd already come up with the whole Spirit backstory and how a rich kid stole her from May and she stole her back, even though I'd never ended up getting there in the UMR. Actual early hint at way-later backstory!
She's surprisingly quick to introduce herself; they just literally bumped into each other after battling once, which doesn't really call for introductions, does it? If I were writing this today Mark'd be the one to say his name first.
“Mark,” he said. Apologetically, he added: “Sorry for bumping into you like that.”
“Nah, it’s okay, I have plenty of time. How is your Charmander doing, anyway?”
“He… just evolved,” said Mark faintly.
“Oh. I see.” May looked at him for a second, then asked in a different tone: “How did you get him, anyway? You from Kanto?”
“No, Sailance,” Mark answered.
“Sailance? Sorry, I’m not into Ouen place names – I’m from Johto, you see. Originally came here to get myself a low-leveled Skarmory, my favorite Pokémon.”
That "into" is a mistranslation - in Icelandic you might say you're not "in" a topic to indicate that you don't know much about it, and I guess I interpreted "to (not) be into something" to be the English version of the same phrase, rather than one meaning to be a fan of the thing. Thus, this amusing insinuation that you've got to be some kind of Ouenian geography nerd to have heard of Sailance.
Mark nodded; the next city to the south, Alumine, was famous for having the biggest Skarmory nesting ground in the world just outside it. Then his brain told him there was something wrong with this statement combined with what he already knew.
“Wait – did you get a Caterpie as your first Pokémon?”
May sighed deeply. “No,” she said. “Professor Elm gave me a Cyndaquil. I actually picked her just because she was female, and females are so valuable – I seriously have no idea what I was thinking, because I hate Cyndaquil. She didn’t exactly like me that much either. Then, while I was training just north of Cleanwater, I found this guy and battled him. He had a funny-looking Pikachu, and I used Cyndaquil against him. Basically, she was losing, but then suddenly she evolved in the middle of the battle and beat his weird Pikachu. Well, I like Quilava – don’t ask me why I like Quilava but hate Cyndaquil – but as a person, I don’t think she will ever like me. Then, completely unexpectedly, the boy wanted to trade his Charmander for my Quilava, said it was level 15. So I thought, yeah, why not? And I actually gave that stupid little git my Quilava,” she spat the words ‘stupid little git’ very pronouncedly, “for a Charmander I had never seen that then turned out to be level five. And I got so angry (and stupid, mind you) that I actually tossed Charmander’s ball away and went to try and find that boy, who had of course just gone away with my Quilava. That’s actually the reason why I’m still here in Ouen, I’m trying to find that guy and get my Quilava back but I think I’m taking part in the league too since I’m here anyway. But I’m a bit worried about the Charmander, because either he’s there somewhere in his Pokéball, or he got out of it and…” Her eyes darted around as if she was wondering how to word what she was going to say, but finally just finished it with three words: “Well, it rained.”
This whole ramble is unusually honest for her, especially when she's telling it to some kid she just met for the second time. Why is she trusting him with all this right now? She could've just said "I had a Cyndaquil, but not anymore," and then maybe Mark could've probed further or something. I actually vaguely recall what I was going for here was that she just kind of wanted to tell somebody because she's lowkey freaked out about possibly having inadvertently killed a Charmander, but it's very clumsy, especially since immediately after this she's acting completely casual about it.
May liking Quilava but not Cyndaquil is just me shamelessly injecting myself into her. I never liked Cyndaquil, but back in 2002-3 I liked to spend days temporarily restarting a Pokémon game without saving, picking different starters and different Pokémon and so on. Eventually I reluctantly picked Cyndaquil on Gold for one of these times, and unexpectedly I really fell in love with it when it evolved - I liked Quilava's Gold sprite a lot, and you always get pretty attached to your starter, and all in all, when eventually I had to stop playing, I was sad to turn the game off and lose that Quilava. May originated as a sort of self-insert (I gave her the name May because it sounds like "me"), and the original version of this story played out extremely similarly: she and Cyndaquil didn't like each other, but after Cyndaquil evolved during the battle against Taylor, May liked her a lot more, and although she still traded her away because they'd never liked each other, she quickly regretted it. In the ILCOE I made it so May just liked Quilava more all along, because it was a bit ridiculous that she'd suddenly grow attached to her in the space of five minutes, but it's still the same story at its core.
She suddenly looked at Mark. “What’s wrong? You’re so pale.”
“Wha… er, no, it’s nothing,” said Mark quickly. “Sorry.”
May’s right eyebrow ascended again, indicating that she didn’t really believe him, but she said nothing. There was an awkward silence
“Well, I sorta need to challenge Rick, so… see you around,” she finally said, turning back to the Gym. Mark’s eyes flicked to the Pokémon center further down the street, and he nodded. “Yeah, I have to go too.”
May shot a quick look at him. “Well, bye then, Mark.”
“Bye,” he replied. As May stepped into the gym, Mark broke into a run again, hurrying even more to the Pokémon Center.
I like this awkward goodbye.
Charmander belonged to May. There was no question about that; she had received him in a trade. But then again, she had thrown him away like a piece of garbage, just because he wasn’t high-leveled enough for her almightiness, and she had agreed to a trade which opposed the Agreement – trades were never supposed to happen without consulting the Pokémon first.
Although she did seem to regret having thrown Charmander away.
All the same, thought Mark, calming a bit down, I’m his trainer now. Now that part of the Agreement protects me, not her.
Strange phrasing, but I'm pretty sure what he means is that it's not like he'd be required to give Charmeleon back to her unless that was what Charmeleon wanted. Pre-HMMRCIG, Mark actually did worry about that and had a bit of a confrontation with Charmeleon about it, but at this point I'd apparently managed to realize that that really doesn't make sense.
He slowed down as he reached the automatic door to the Pokémon Center. It opened, and he walked hastily inside.
“Nurse Joy…” he panted, ringing the bell and experiencing a déjà vu flashback from last night. A few seconds passed, Mark’s heart pounding against his chest; then the nurse came out of the back room.
“What can I do for you this time?” she asked warmly.
“It’s… it’s my Charmander… I mean Charmeleon…”
“What about him?” she questioned.
“He evolved, and he seems so different, he couldn’t stop it because he was so weak when it happened, I’m worried, oh please…” Mark took a deep breath while Nurse Joy’s face turned grave; he just handed her Charmeleon’s Pokéball.
“Come with me,” said Nurse Joy, taking the ball and gesturing for him to follow her into the blue back room.
“Before I start treating him, I’d like to talk to you,” said the nurse, looking deep into his eyes. “No matter how different he might seem after the evolution, he’s still the same Pokémon. Pokémon evolution is like growing up; when you’re a kid you have certain ideas about the world, but when you become a teenager they might change a bit – or a lot. For Pokémon who just evolved, it’s the exact same thing except that it happened all of a sudden rather than gradually as it would in a human’s case. If he had enough respect for you as a Charmander, he will still be ready to battle for you no matter what happens. He could be very different, or he could be pretty much the same – but there will definitely be a change. Your Pokémon is no longer a child, and you need to realize that. Treat him with care, and don’t give him a reason to dislike you. A reason for him to dislike you is not necessarily what would be a reason for you to dislike him; he’s basically a moody teenager whose limits should not be pushed. Do you understand?”
Mark felt sick, but nodded.
I'm surprisingly incisive about teenagers here. I probably thought it was other teenagers, though. (Dear self: it was definitely also you, who disliked anyone who asked insufficiently enlightened questions about your ridiculous fanfic.)
“Good. This might take some time, so please wait in the waiting room.”
Mark walked into the fluffy waiting room with a knot in his stomach. He wondered who had the stupid idea of making the waiting room pink and red; these colors were absolutely inappropriate and way too happy. The gloom of the back room would’ve been much better.
He was also not too fond of this Nurse Joy. Mark didn’t want a moody teenager whose limits should not be pushed; he wanted his friend back. The last thing he’d ever care about would be whether he would still obey.
He flung himself into one of the sofas and for half an hour or so, he sat there with a blank expression, staring at an ad for Kantonian Airways. A red-haired boy who seemed to fit very well with all the fluffy pinkness decided to try to be funny by waving his hand in front of Mark’s face. He hated himself for smiling at it; it wasn’t funny at all.
Okay, I really enjoy this bit. This is some good Mark feeling relatable emotions. The contrast to the earlier neutral description of the interior of the Pokémon Center from chapter 4 is fun, and "Mark didn't want a moody teenager whose limits should not be pushed; he wanted his friend back" is a cute line, only undermined by the fact I haven't been doing a good enough job with the friend part.
Finally, Nurse Joy came out of the back room, holding Charmeleon’s Pokéball. Mark immediately sprang up, running towards the desk.
“He seems fine physically,” said the red-headed nurse. “You judge the mental part.”
With a small bow, she handed Mark the Pokéball. He accepted it and walked out of the Pokémon Center.
He stopped beside the building, hesitated, but then dropped the Pokéball to the ground. Charmeleon materialized from red energy as Mark caught the ball again.
For a few seconds, they just looked into each other’s eyes. Mark had never noticed how awkwardly small Charmeleon had been as a Charmander; even now, evolved, he was smaller than an average Charmeleon.
“Hi,” said Charmeleon finally in a low voice. Mark suddenly felt a lot better.
“Hi.” Mark paused, leaning against the wall and staring into the air. “Sorry we didn’t get to postpone your evolution as we intended.”
“It’s okay,” said Charmeleon, leaning up to the wall too and likewise not looking at Mark. “It felt quite amazing, actually.”
Wow, guys, why are you making a point of not looking at each other. You really did turn into teenagers.
“What was it like?” Mark asked, this being one of the things he had often wondered about although his voice wasn’t up to showing interest of any kind at the moment.
“Everything just disappeared in a bright white light, first I thought I was dying… then I felt the power that was always hidden somewhere in my body burst out, I felt like… like I was melting. I had a kind of a vision of a Charmeleon walking towards me, pulling me away and taking my place… a twinge of pain at this point for some reason, I think... but immediately afterwards, I felt so much wiser and older. Then the white light faded, I saw you, but I was very weak after the evolution and lost consciousness…”
Huh. I guess I even kept the vision of the evolved form taking his place, just in a more metaphorical form. So weird.
He hesitated.
“You know, it’s weird – when I think back at my Charmanderhood, it feels so… childish.”
Suddenly he looked straight at Mark, meeting his eyes.
“It’s strange… why did I just want you to train me back there? Why wasn’t I suspicious of you for a single moment? Not that I am now,” he added quickly, “but… I mean, what if you had been a bad trainer and abused me or something? It was a stupid thing to do, just accepting you as my trainer immediately because you told me you saved my life. Don’t take me wrong, I mean… of course you are trustworthy, but what did I know then? You could’ve been somebody… bad.”
Mark had no answer to that. Charmeleon didn’t appear to be expecting one, either; it was more like he was thinking out loud.
“Well, I was lucky. Really lucky.” Charmeleon smiled faintly at Mark and then turned away again.
This was very directly inspired by a reader remarking on how incredibly quickly Charmander agreed to let Mark train him back in chapter 2. It still doesn't really make sense; it didn't come across as childishness there at all. But I appreciate the attempt to patch that up, I guess. Wish I hadn't again gone with the "Charmeleon feels so lucky to have Mark, who keeps recalling him at every opportunity and doesn't particularly care when someone threatens to dump him into a lake," though.
I rather wish Mark had more of a reaction here - does he feel like he really has Charmander back, or does he still feel kind of uneasy about the new form? After all the buildup about his worries, there's no real followup.
“Do you feel like doing some more junior trainer wiping?”
They grinned at each other; both knew the answer.
“Come on,” Mark said, holding Charmeleon’s Pokéball forward. The red beam shot out of it, dissolving the Pokémon.
Mark hesitated for a moment. He had been in a rather hopeless situation earlier, mainly because his Pokémon’s attacks were kind of weak compared to the ones the Legendaries knew. The only one with a halfway decent attack was Gyarados.
He remembered when he had seen the TMs and HMs at the Pokémart. He thought for a bit. Flamethrower was a TM. Earthquake was a TM. Return was a TM.
One good TM for each of his Pokémon except Gyarados would probably give him the edge.
Mark walked decisively towards the market. He went back to the shelf he remembered as containing the Technical and Hidden Machines. Ten years ago, Hidden Machines were really rare items. Now, you could buy them at Pokémon markets for around the same price as a TM – admittedly one-use only versions.
This is a bit of throwaway worldbuilding that I will go on to accidentally contradict later.
He browsed through the selection of CD covers. Each of them had a photo of a Pokémon performing the attack it contained, the TM or HM number, and the attack’s name. He found TM35 for Flamethrower, TM26 for Earthquake and TM27 for Return; they were more expensive than the Potions and Pokéballs, but still relatively cheap. He made carefully sure to himself that these attacks would definitely work well; then he went to the counter to pay the punk dude.
After he got outside again, he let Charmeleon out.
“Charmeleon,” he said in a formal tone, “are you willing to accept this Flamethrower as your first Technical Machine move?”
The Pokémon grinned. “I do,” he then said seriously.
But... you implied you were going straight back to the gym only to suddenly send him out and offer him a TM. Why isn't he confused? Why didn't you ask him before buying the TM?
“Good,” said Mark. He opened the CD cover carefully; even though he thought he knew how to use a TM, he checked the instructions with the disc carefully just to make sure. He then took it, and touched Charmeleon’s head gently with it.
The CD’s vibrant red slowly drained away from it, leaving it dull gray and useless and enveloping the Pokémon with a fiery glow. Charmeleon closed his eyes; the glow slowly sank into his skin.
It was done.
“Do you feel any wiser?” Mark questioned, not sure how exactly it was supposed to work.
“Sure do,” said the Pokémon with a smile.
“Great. You can go back into your ball, then.”
Mark held forward the Pokéball; Charmeleon was drained into it as a beam of red light from the button hit him. He took out the second ball.
“Sandshrew, go!”
Mark’s Ground Pokémon appeared, curling into a scaly ball before even seeing whether he was in battle or not. Mark laughed.
“Oh, come on, you aren’t going to get hurt, I’m just going to teach you a TM.”
Sandshrew uncurled in an instant, looking unsurely up at his trainer. Mark felt a twinge of guilt; Sandshrew didn’t trust him. Of course he didn’t. Mark wouldn’t trust somebody who kept letting him get injured, either.
“I’m… sorry about it all, you know,” he said in a low voice. “I didn’t mean to get you hurt so much.”
“Shrew,” the Pokémon said unhappily.
“Well… would you forgive me if I made sure you never lost a battle again?”
That's a very bold promise to make, Mark.
That being said, I'm glad we're finally addressing Sandshrew a bit and acknowledging that Mark hasn't done a great job with him so far. I wish he'd acknowledge the bit where this is the first time they talk, holy crap, but at least there's an actual sign that Mark cares.
Sandshrew didn’t answer.
“At least, I’ve got a TM for you. You know what that is, right?”
The armadillo Pokémon nodded faintly.
“Yeah, and it’s Earthquake. That’s a very, very powerful attack. You’re going to do great with it.”
Sandshrew had apparently heard of this devastating attack sometime among the Sandshrew he grew up with; he just nodded, quite a bit more confidently than he had ever looked before.
“So…” Mark took out the second CD cover, opened it and picked up the disc, “stand still and concentrate.”
Sandshrew closed his eyes; Mark touched him with the CD, orangeish brown this time, and like before, the color faded from the disc and instead started circling Sandshrew in the form of energy. It then seeped through his hide. The armadillo shook himself powerfully, then looked back up at Mark with his beady black eyes, perhaps a bit less hopelessly than before.
“We’ll beat those junior trainers now, right?” Mark said meaningfully.
What does it even mean to say something meaningfully. Find better adverbs, fourteen-year-old me (or leave them out or replace them with other descriptions, that's also a thing you can do).
“Sand,” said the Pokémon, nodding.
“Good,” said Mark, smiling, as he recalled the armadillo Pokémon.
Next off, it was Eevee. Mark took a deep breath.
“Go.” The small brown furball emerged, looking curiously around and eying Mark intensely.
“Eevee, you don’t know what a TM is, do you?”
Eevee shook his head.
“Well…” Mark found it so awkward to be explaining so many things to Eevee; why did he have to go through all this but not anybody else?
“See,” he finally began, “Pokémon know moves. You know that, right?”
The Pokémon nodded.
“Yeah… and TMs… or Technical Machines… can be used to teach a Pokémon a move that it couldn’t learn otherwise.”
“Vi?” the small Pokémon questioned.
“Well, see – I take this disc,” he removed the Return TM from the cover, “and when I touch you with it, your cells will react to it and then a complicated process starts, and basically, after it you’ll be able to focus your power in a – er – new way.”
Kind of like this as a suitably awkward in-character explanation of my rather vague interpretation of TMs. Obviously the whole touching the CD to their head thing was heavily inspired by FireRed and LeafGreen, which animated it that way.
Eevee nodded nervously.
“OK, then…” Mark took the disc and lightly made it touch Eevee’s head. The Pokémon let out a small sound, but didn’t move. His eyes closed; white orbs of energy drained from the disc and started circling Eevee slowly. They went faster and faster, and finally faded into Eevee’s fur. He shivered, opened his eyes and moaned a little.
“Are you okay?” asked Mark concernedly. Eevee nodded a bit, shook himself vigorously and appeared to feel better afterwards.
“Now, uh… do you trust me?”
Eevee nodded.
“Then focus on it very carefully,” Mark said, not sure how to explain the attack. Eevee screwed his eyes carefully shut, concentrating.
Slowly, a pinkish aura started emitting from Eevee. He let out a soft squeal of curiosity, probably feeling energy building up in his body.
“Great!” Mark cheered. “This attack is called Return. You basically do that, and then tackle the opponent. Okay?”
Eevee nodded nervously, the pink glow fading.
“Ready to go to the Gym?” Mark asked carefully.
“Vee,” said Eevee decisively, nodding.
Mark was still not sure whether it would be right to use Eevee in battle.
Oh boy, the TMs.
I have no excuse for this. In the games, you couldn't just buy any TM at any random Pokémart. I specifically decided to make that a thing in my story just so I could give Mark's Pokémon better moves - probably because I was having a hard time believably writing Mark's Pokémon taking down a Ho-Oh with attacks like Scratch and Ember and Tackle. (Yet another example of why this gym was a terrible idea - although that's really not an excuse; it would absolutely have been possible to come up with something.)
As you could probably guess, this originated in the original version, but I really hate that I didn't know better by the time I was writing the ILCOE. Suddenly giving Mark's Pokémon endgame moves before he even fights the first gym leader is deeply cheap (as if the Gyarados and Dragon Rage thing wasn't bad enough), but also robs the story of a lot of opportunities for cool stuff. I could've had them go back to the lake and brainstorm and practice some actual strategies or inventive ways to use the moves they already have, but instead Mark just goes on yet another shopping trip and presses some CDs to their heads. Moreover, this means we don't get to really see the Pokémon's abilities grow and change over time the way they could have - Sandshrew and Charmeleon are just going to be using these same moves for most of the fic. This was really bad writing and I regret everything. At least in the ILCOE I ditched the part where Mark also got Eevee a Thunderstone and evolved him here. (Yes, Mark had a Jolteon by the first gym in the original.)
This chapter is also kind of disappointing in how the Charmeleon thing plays out - after all the drama about whether he'll still be himself, I don't really get into Mark's feelings on it after he gets Charmeleon back at all. I think I did successfully write Charmeleon's voice slightly differently after his evolution, but then I don't have Mark actually react to that, which is a huge missed opportunity. It was nice to see him have a bit of a substantial conversation with Charmeleon, though, and actually talking to Sandshrew and acknowledging he hasn't done a very good job with him (though I still don't seem to have noticed that this is their first conversation).
The other thing in this chapter is the encounter with May. She's jarringly friendly and willing to share, but despite that and the sudden makeover, I'm honestly still pleasantly surprised by how I was writing May here - she's a little off, but not as much as Mark has been. I guess I just had a firmer grasp on her character when I started the HMMRCIG.
This encounter with May happened after Mark beat Rick in the previous versions. May dumping the whole backstory on Mark here all at once is very similar to the way she does the same in the UMR, so I'm guessing that's pretty much the reason I did it this way, some lingering inertia causing me to stick with the previous infodump rather than come up with a more natural way for this information to come out. But there, she started telling him the backstory because she wanted to tell him about her Quilava, while here she's ostensibly just answering a question about why she doesn't have a reasonable starter Pokémon.
You can read the extra if you want, but I'm going to skip commenting individually on extras; rather, if there's something in particular to say about them, I'll just remark on them a bit at the bottom of the chapter commentary. This one's just a plain retelling of May's battle with Taylor, probably written largely because May's infodump this time around doesn't include quite all the unnecessary detail I had in there in the previous versions, such as describing the 'funny-looking Pikachu' that Taylor had. It's my first attempt to write May's POV, and it's a pretty crude one; there's not much distinct character to it, other than how she thinks of her Pokémon in negative, insulting terms, only to randomly find "a certain feeling of trust for this Pokémon" when Cyndaquil has evolved.
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This is an author's commentary intended for readers who have already read the entire ILCOE. My retrospective comments on the chapter are in bold below, with some remarks within the text and then some overall thoughts at the bottom. The commentary will contain significant spoilers! Do not read the commentary on your first read-through!