The Aura Within:

"Kanto knows the pain of war: the conflicts, the corruption, and the deaths. Ever since the nation suffered its first civil war, Kanto has continued to thrive under the reign of Queen Rin. However, she lost many of her knights in battle including her right hand man, Andrew Fraverden. His only daughter and successor to his power became orphaned, but not until Queen Rin takes her in. In her father's legacy, Soul trained vigorously and faced any kind of discrimination in order to become what her father once was: an aura guardian.

With the help of Queen Rin's best knight, Sir Aaron, she was able to achieve that at a young age. However, it seems that another war between two foreign nations might just make its way onto Kanto's land. In order to prevent another tragedy, Soul, Sir Aaron, and four more knights are sent out to gather more information to prevent another war. However, it seems that this journey is more than what Soul bargained for, especially with the mysterious pasts of her comrades.

Is it possible for history to repeat itself once more? Will the knights be able to prevent another battle and protect the Kingdom of Rota?"

Genre: fanfiction, historical fiction, action adventure

Sword-fighting, aura-wielding, and heartbreaking galore. The Aura Within by MysticalTactician describes an alternate Pokémon universe full of medieval warfare fought by gallant knights seeking peace.

I love the fantastical land crafted in the story. The world building was excellent from the concept of aura guardians themselves to the way smaller cities were converted to villages and even how each region had a crest of their respective legendary Pokémon. Every chapter does a great job capturing the atmosphere, especially the fantastic action scenes.

The only problem description-wise was a minor one: whenever characters were talking, their eye colors were referred to once every three/four sentences. I had the phrase "Soul's sea green eyes" imprinted in my brain by the time I was finished reading.

I was surprised to see that the focus was placed on the characters instead of the plot. Rather than the adventure forcing the cast into dire situations, the several conflicts emerge from the characters' dark pasts in fitting ways.

Interestingly enough, the way TAW is presented reminds me of an anime with the traits the cast displays. Tropes you find in the Japanese medium appear in the story, such as an energetic, non-human sidekick and a cool senpai-like figure. This wasn't a problem (taking inspiration from tropes) because the author gave the characters depth instead of keeping them one-dimensional pieces of cardboard; everyone was fleshed out with their own personal motivations.

However, there can be too much of a good thing. I'd prefer a smaller cast since six major original characters, each with their own tragic past, is a lot for readers to take in. Thankfully their backstories are separated into episode-like sections, but it's difficult to keep track of when you're a reader like myself who takes a week or so to complete a 60k+ fanfiction.

Given that, I think Axel was an unnecessary character. Until Mark's past was brought up, I always confused both of them. It's almost as if Axel's purpose was to make the group even so the ships could pair up and have their moments while Axel/Mark found information to further the plot. You could have just had Mark travel by himself with his Arcanine for company.

On the other hand, the best character, in my humble opinion, was Soul. It's not often you find a likeable, strong female protagonist. Too many writers believe that a strong character equates to an emotionless character. Emotions are what make people, characters included, human. I love that Soul showed vulnerability without completely buckling under pressure. Her anxiety caused by her fear of failure balances her power. I'm so glad she didn't stray into Mary-Suedom.

*Spoilers*

My biggest nitpick about TAW is the relationship between Akira and Blake. Both of these characters are great on their own with their complex pasts and personalities, but the way their romance was handled was rushed, forced, and bland. As soon as Akira was revealed to be a girl, Blake took a liking to her immediately with little buildup. It seemed like, "Hey, she's a single female character, and I'm a single male character! Let's do this!"

I don't understand why they got together when a healthy friendship could've sufficed. Platonic love heals just as well as romantic. In a time where a life-altering war is creeping upon the land, it doesn't make sense why each of the knights had to find a significant other.

Blake's and Akira's friendship wasn't established enough before the romance came into play. It wasn't until they were debating how they felt about each other that we learned they were genuine friends. They lacked the fundamental chemistry that made the other relationships (such as Aaron/Soul and Mark/Layla) in TAW work.

What I would've done to better their relationship is hint that Blake felt differently toward Akira even when she was disguised as a man. It could've cause him inner turmoil because of the time period's social norms and create drama in the party.

*Spoilers End*

All things considered, TAW is an enjoyable read as a fantasy adventure fic. The romance needs reworking, as does the overabundance of eye descriptions. Still, the dark elements are implemented well, and the theme of fighting oppression makes the story all the more memorable.

I give it a 7.5 - really great.

I enjoyed this book and found few significant issues with it. I liked the change of pace from other fanfictions by using a medieval setting; you utilized the context of this setting well to introduce small conflicts and themes to your story.

The description throughout the story was very lively, despite being in third person. Many people I've seen on Wattpad struggle with having bland narration in third person, but I could feel the personality of your characters almost constantly. There are a lot of small quirks in your style, mostly through figurative language, that really bring the work to life.

I liked how you addressed the topic of mysoginy towards Soul throughout the novel, but I thought it could be expanded on and become one of the main themes. You've included romance in this novel, so I feel like adding a gay couple might be a good way to do this. It wouldn't have to be a big plot point, but something along those lines could help you spread the concept of mysoginy to a more broad concept of oppression. Even if you don't do this, addressing the mysoginy in older times was a nice conflict to see alongside the main plot.

I feel like you pulled off having many main characters well. You gave each character distinct traits that kept them separate from one another, which can get hard when you're writing about that many different people. This isn't to say your characters didn't change throughout the book, they weren't based off of just one trait, they had depth and remained distinct.

*Spoilers*

In the final scene where Soul and Aaron gave up their lives, Soul mentioned being afraid of death. It was really nice to see that mentioned and to see that Soul isn't unrealistically heroic, but she still gave up her life with almost no hesitation. Even though the world almost depended on her sacrifice, the natural human response to a deadly situation is to try and get out of it. The scene would have been more dramatic and felt more like a climax to me if there was more struggle in her to do the right thing. Even the most valiant hero would have to fight their natural instinct to survive in a situation like that, and I feel like that struggle should have been more prominent in that scene.

*Spoilers End*

There were some slips in verb tense throughout the entirety of the story. There was usually nothing big, like shifting from "I ran" to "I run", but there were small shifts between past tense to present tense (in the prologue, for example, you say "... and nothing will stop her" when "... and nothing would stop her" would flow better). This is a rather easy fix; I just suggest proofreading or finding an editor to get a second opinion on each chapter.

How did the protagonists learn that Johto was in anarchy if they were so close to Kanto? You briefly mentioned this flaw through one of the characters asking this same question but never gave a really good answer for this. I can understand Johto trying to hide exactly what's wrong from Kanto, but Kanto would likely at least know that something was wrong. I feel like it should be, at the very least, similar to how you described Hoenn's problems; the protagonists knew Hoenn was on the brink of oblivion, but they didn't know exactly why. It doesn't make sense to not know they were having such significant problems.

*Minor Spoilers*

When Akira was revealed to be a girl, I didn't like seeing her immediately fall for Blake. It felt more like fanservice than a real relationship. If you wanted Akira to still develop those feelings, I'd suggest keeping her a guy and introducing an LGBT relationship to the story (which could add to the oppression thing I mentioned above) or revealing it more gradually. The way it happened made it seem like you planned it last minute; as if you wanted more romance but had no other girls to throw into a relationship.

*Spoilers End*

Overall, the main plot was strong, and I didn't find many significant holes in it. Everything I mentioned will help the book feel polished, but it's still a good book as it is.

OVERALL: 7

The Aura Within has improved substantially. I last had the opportunity to review the book before the author made edits, and I'm pleased with what I've seen.

The book started well. I was drawn right in by the prologue. Overall, it reads well, too. There is some info dumping, and it would help if it was condensed by 10-20%, but I was able to make a connection with the majority of the characters as I read. For reference, I felt that Akira, Aaron, Soul and Blake came on strong. Mark and Axel's conflicts came on a little weaker to me. Do watch out for verb tense as there's a lot of changes which are not grammatically correct.

Something I really appreciated was a connection that Johto's struggle initially reminded me somewhat of the French Revolution. It's a rather short note, but a good one.

There were a few minor things that I took note of while I read that I think are easy fixes. There was a note about polyester in chapter 4. Considering the setting is more medieval, using silk or wool is realistic. Polyester is made from synthetic fibers from petrochemicals (oil). Synthetic fibers weren't developed until the 1930s. There's also time skips later on, which don't really have a purpose, so I would get rid of those.

I liked the ending a lot, except for the epilogue. I felt as though the book should end on a more somber and less happy note, however the final scene with Aaron and Soul was really nice due to what I felt was a clear communication of how they were feeling to the reader.

Even though the book was quite lengthy, I managed to swallow it in a relatively short amount of time, so to me it's a read that was entertaining. I like the uniqueness of the story and the fact that the journey was down to earth and not some prophecy march.

I think it was a good book and recommend others to read it.

GRA score: 6.5/10 - considerably good  

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Credits: Article by d_s_t_e

Reviews by Cora-chan , Pumpknhead , blue___22 

Special thanks to MysticalTactician for giving us permission to write this review!

I'd also like to thank our new member Cora-chan for stepping up at the last minute to fill in for those who were unable to have their review published today. Sheare will also be posting a review of this book, but, since she's become a judge for the adventure category of the Pokemon Watty Awards (in which this book is currently entered) she personally thought it would be better to not publish it until the awards have been announced.

We hope that you watch out for that and for the interview, which is coming soon!