A very fine story your baby is br33y. Absolutely love the characterization of Lucas and the Darkrai narration. A good a saddening ending you created, it touches on the fact that it's not always a happy ending for everyone.

What a fine story! I really enjoyed how you were able to intertwine three otherwise distinct ideas: the surface-level Darkrai mystery arc, the emotional/relational arc of Lucas and Dawn's interactions, and then the intellectual/philosophical level theme of storytelling, mythmaking, and what is real.

You made a story with a fitting happy ending. And one that nonetheless acknowledged the challenges and difficulties of the world. Lane's parents do end up separating. The relationship between Lucas and Dawn ends up cooling. Lucas can't bring himself to keep his promise to tell the whole truth of the story.

Yet life goes on. Alyson gets back on her feet after much struggling. Lucas and Dawn reconnect. Elaine hears what's important and loves her parents. The miracle of life lies in the tragedy of it and how we love life anyway.

Lucas learns and grows, and we as readers learn with him. We're genre savvy enough to know that Dawn's there to get him out of his shell. And it's easy to abstract about the "weight of the world on a kid's shoulders." But what makes it human is seeing what Lucas really means. It's not simply the responsibility of it... it's thinking that Cynthia just doesn't care. That no one cares.

We're genre savvy enough to know that Dawn LIKE likes Lucas (I can't even tell if I wrote it that way as a joke, to be honest). But it's human to see what it causes her to do. To fear the worst for Lucas. To see the best in who he was and can be.

We're genre savvy enough to know that Lucas and Barry had a falling out. But it's human to discover that Barry doesn't even need to act like he care. Maybe he does care, but it's who Barry is to not even show it. It's who Barry is to just be bothered that Lucas didn't give him Dawn's number.

All these examples just to say: nicely done.

If there's any criticism that comes to mind, it's that the Lane dream sequences sometimes felt like a chore. And yet that build up feels very important to his final dreams with Darkrai and the Pitch Black Pokemon's observation that Lane fears his own death because of its impact on other people (which, by the way, was such an amazing contrast with Lucas, and I love how you crafted that and pointed it out).

The other was that Piplup's perverted Piplup weirded me out a little. I almost expected it to turn out to really be quite innocent with Lucas's conclusions being colored by his cynicism, but I don't think it ever turned out thus. Though at the same time, doing it thusly might be TOO cliched.

I'll finish with a little more of the good: you write snappy dialogue, and excellent-non-dialogue.

*Insert synonyms of amazing/wonderful/fucking great*

To be honest, I didn't know where this story was going in the first place, but I'm glad I read it all. 10/10 Would read again, simply because of the Lucas/Dawn dynamics.

Also, glad to see a happily ever after(sort of?) ending.

What a wonderful take on the Darkrai arc! I must confess, I absolutely loved Lucas' characterization in this; I think a lot of five downplay the emotional effect the heroism and the championship can have on such a young person. This story was more about the people than about the Pokemon, but I was totally fine with that because it kept the focus on what was really important - Lucas' inner struggle. The interaction between Darkrai and his victims was stellar. Favorited :3

goddamn
first where did you get that awesome cover?
second, this is fantastic. absolutely breathtaking, magnificent, whatever you call it (you've surely gotten the same compliments before).
magnificent.

I wish I could say something other then "This is amazing," but I can't. Because there are like no faults in this story. My only gripe is that you never wrote a fight scene, but I can understand why not. You wrote an amazing story.

Keep on kicking ass.

Yeah, this is definitely a great story. Great job on it.

Ahhh! I love the ending! :D

God, I seriously hate your Dawn. What an annoying bimbo. I plan on skimming over her parts, Christ.

I love that this story has personality.

Woah. My gosh. That was an amazing, beautifully written story.
Thank you. Seriously.

That was nice. The epilogue part was okay, since I did kind of want to know their future, but the story overall was excellent. Thanx for writing and posting it!

Wow...this story is AWESOME!

Before I read the story, giggly is the first sign of nuts...

Or a man on drugs. There is more than one type of a screwed mind. Paranoid, nuts, pyscho, insane, etc.

great story lol loved their kids