~~
March 10, 2025, there were multiple explosions heard in the
distance. Every agent in P.A.R.K (Private Agents of the Royal Kingdom) heard
the explosions and immediately knew of the terror they were about to face. Their
archenemies S.E.L.A. (Secret Evil Lair of Agents) were knocking at their
doorstep. As the agents headed to their battle stations, one agent was
particularly calm lying down in his sector room. His name? Agent Kai. He was as
skillful as a monkey in terms of strength and acrobatics. He was also very
cunning. After graduating at the top of his class from the academy, he became
the agency’s top spy. Kai knew the explosions outside of the base were just a diversion. S.E.L.A.’s
true goal was to kidnap a specific agent. Her name? Agent Rita. Under the cover
of explosion, they took Agent Rita and escaped without notice.
After the
battle, the executive council of P.A.R.K met to discuss the true intentions of
their attackers. There were minor damages caused by the explosions and the base was virtually unscathed. The council was curious about the true intention of the attack. While the leaders bickered about their reasoning, Kai made his presence known in the hall.
“Why the
confusion? It is blatantly obvious what has happened here,” said Kai. The leaders murmured in confusion.
“Please, inform us with your infinite wisdom, agent Kai,” said one of the council members sarcastically.
“Look around,” said Kai.
"
Do you notice anyone missing?”
Do you notice anyone missing?”
As the
council searched the premises, they finally realized that Agent Rita has
been taken right under their noses. After discovering this horrible truth, the executive
council ordered Kai to retrieve Rita from the hands of their archenemies.
“Kai, you will retrieve
Rita and return her to us.”
As Kai was preparing to set off on his journey a young agent came and spoke with him.
“Hi!
You’re Kai right? Oh my goodness! You’re THE Kai? I can’t believe this is
happening, WOW! You look so awesome in per-“
“QUIET! Who are you?” said
Kai.
The young agent replied, “My name is
Jay and I am your partner for this mission!”
Kai, in disbelief, questioned
him, “Why would I need a partner?”
Jay replied, “I specialize in tracking. I
am here to assist you in finding Rita.”
Kai shrugged and accepted the help
from the young and slightly annoying agent. Soon after their meeting, Kai and
Jay set off on their mission to rescue Rita.
After two weeks of tracking down the trail left
by S.E.L.A.’s henchmen, Kai and Jay finally found their secret base. The base
was heavily fortified. Turrets were placed on every side and guards stood at every inch of the gate. This infiltration required an agent of great combat skill to enter. Jay
stayed behind while Kai snuck his way through the main gate and platoons of
agents patrolling each sector. One by one Kai struck down S.E.L.A. henchmen and
interrogated them until they spoke of Rita’s location within the base. Finally,
Kai found Rita in a location deep inside the base. The sector was the most
heavily guarded room in the entire lair.
Suddenly, Kai had an idea. He decided to end this war once and for all. He rushed into the sector unarmed and outgunned. The henchmen tackled Kai and captured him immediately. Rita could not believe her eyes. She never thought the great Agent Kai could be captured so easily. After having captured Kai, the henchmen were debating whether or not they should do away with Kai then and there. However, one captain spoke and thought it would be best if they took him to their leader. Their leader’s name? Vana.
Suddenly, Kai had an idea. He decided to end this war once and for all. He rushed into the sector unarmed and outgunned. The henchmen tackled Kai and captured him immediately. Rita could not believe her eyes. She never thought the great Agent Kai could be captured so easily. After having captured Kai, the henchmen were debating whether or not they should do away with Kai then and there. However, one captain spoke and thought it would be best if they took him to their leader. Their leader’s name? Vana.
The men took Kai in Vana’s own personal chamber to meet
with him.
“Greetings, Agent Kai. I have heard quite a lot about you. It seems
you are not as great an agent as everyone believed. You have been captured and
now you will stay here forever! HA-HA-HA.”
Kai replied “Haha, why the confusion? It is
blatantly obvious what has happened.”
Vana replied “What are you babbling abou-?”
Before Vana could complete his sentence Kai broke free from the guards and
began pummeling them down one by one. Vana was in such shock that he froze
where he stood. After defeating all of the guards, Kai faced Vana in a one on
one fight. Vana, miserably outmatched, cowered in fear. Kai defeated Vana with only one of his lethal punches. After defeating the men in the hideout, Kai retrieved Rita and set explosives
throughout the entire base. The two agents run out of the base as quickly as they could. Before they escaped, Kai and Rita reunited with Jay and fled the base. As Kai set off the charges, the three agents looked back in awe at the explosions of the base. After returning to the P.A.R.K.
headquarters, Rita thanked Kai.
“Agent Kai, I owe you my life. Thank you for
everything you have done. If there is anything I can do…”
Kai replied playfully, “It is blatantly obvious what you have to do. Marry me!”
AUTHOR'S NOTE
I tried to keep the plot similar to when Hanuman was tasked with saving Sita from Ravana. However, in my story instead of a magical being, Hanuman is an agent working for a secret company. In the original story, Hanuman is guided by a mythical vulture that leads him to Sita. Instead of a vulture, I gave Agent Kai a nerdy partner that specializes in tracking. Once Hanuman discovers Sita's whereabouts, Hanuman infiltrates the city and is captured on purpose to meet with the leader, Ravana. Similar to my story, Agent Kai infiltrates the enemy's base and is captured in order to meet the evil leader Vana (Ravana). After meeting Ravana, Hanuman escapes and burns the city down. Shortly after, he retrieves Sita and returns her to Rama. In the end of my take on the story, Agent Kai blows up the base and escapes with Rita, similar to what happened in the original story. I figured I would change the ending a bit seeing as I made Agent Kai the protagonist of the story. Rather than Kai returning Rita to the base for someone else, like Hanuman was for Rama. I decided to have Agent Kai and Rita get married.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Public Domain Ramayan, Section C Reading
I thought that your story was very catchy. You hooked me in with the secret agencies, and made me keep reading. I thought that the story ran well with the actual story, but was catching my attention better. It kinda made me feel like I was reading a excerpt from a James Bond book, if they had one. I thought it was really cool how you started with the the explosions in the distance to set up the entire story, making it feel a since of "holy cow, this is getting good". So well done on that. I liked how it ended on a happier note, with Kai getting away free, with Rita, and winning the skirmish between Vana and himself, but I was wondering how you would have made the story play out had he not saved Rita? It would have been cool to see how your story would tie into the original story, or would you change it a bit more.
ReplyDeleteHi Tyler, I am just coming back to check out your story after reading your planning last week! And this is awesome! Your story is packed with action-filled scenarios and I like it a lot. Your descriptions were well written and I can actually picture these scenes in my head. I was actually holding my breath at the last scene when Kai faces the final big boss Vana. You know the explosion after that reminds me of those movie scene when the character epicly turns around and something explode behind them. Overall, I enjoy reading this! Well done.
ReplyDeleteHi Tyler! This was a great and original story. I love anything/everything secret agent and English. You did a great job of explaining who everyone was, setting the scene, and overall it was really well written. I have two little editing comments for ya! The first one is that all punctuation goes inside of the quotation marks. So for a sentence like- Kai, in disbelief, questioned him, “Why would I need a partner?”.
ReplyDeleteThe last period outside of the quotation marks is not needed. And the second would be separating out the dialogue. I would make each piece of dialogue its own line, so it is easier for the reader to understand who is speaking or interrupting. But overall, this story was so engaging and left the reader wanting more. I look forward to reading your future works!
Hey Tyler! I really enjoyed reading your story! The spy-elements made the story really intriguing and I liked how it paralleled with the Ramayana. It'd be really neat to see more stories about Agent Kai and his spy adventures, especially if you were able to tie it with the other epics. I'm looking forward to reading more of your stories!
ReplyDeleteHey Tyler,
ReplyDeleteI loved your acronyms and dialogue in the story! Posting the image at the top of your blog drew me into your plot immediately and I am going to use that layout for my next storytelling post. As Madeline brought up, splitting up your dialogue from the rest of the story will make it easier for your readers to "hear" who is speaking. Overall, the story was so enticing it didn't distract enough to matter. Awesome job!
Hi Tyler,
ReplyDeleteI liked your story a lot! It had a lot of different styles of writing which was nice to have. I liked how you switched the names a little bit. Like Vana was a shortened version of Ravana. Agent Kai seems very confident in his abilities to rescue Sita which is good for a protagonist. In the paragraph where it is mostly dialogue, having each character’s voice be separated by a line would make it a little easier to read!
I enjoyed reading your story!
Great story! It was interesting that you changed the story to a spy world. I liked the acronyms you made up in the beginning, they made me laugh. The story worked well with the background story that you chose to go off of! Your characters were all interesting, and you followed the story, but not so closely that I could predict everything that was going to happen. Great work!
ReplyDeleteFirst off, I love the names of your agencies. They are so clever! I like the James Bond feel you gave to your story. I have not read a story like yours so far! I’ve always enjoyed the young side kick that is forced on the trained expert scenario. We all know it ends with them being best friends, but the comical tension that leads up to it is great. There is one paragraph (starts with “After two weeks of tracking…”) that you end three sentences in a row with “within the base” or “in the base.” What if you took those endings off? I think it is understood that it is in the base. I sort of wish Jay had a bigger role in rescuing Rita. You added the whole thing about Kai and Jay’s meeting but he hardly did anything. I do like the playful ending! “Obviously, you have to marry me. DUH.” In your author’s note, you mention Hanuman and Rita together, which is kind of confusing. I’m assuming you mean Sita. Overall, it is a wonderful story! Keep up the good work!
ReplyDeleteHi, Tyler! I thought your story was super entertaining and interesting! I really liked how you incorporated parts of Ramayana into a spy world. I think your acronyms for everything was my favorite part (P.A.R.K. and S.E.L.A.). Genius! The whole Kai-Rita marriage proposal thing definitely caught me off guard when I read it, but it was a great twist to the story! Anyway, the only thing I was wondering about was the time setting (March 10, 2025). Was there any reason for this date? Or was it just a random date you just chose? I was thinking… What if you could incorporate more futuristic gadgets or something to add onto this whole 8-years into the future date? I think that would be something interesting you could do to make your story even cooler. Other than that, I have no complaints about your story. It was pretty well-written and overall captivating in terms of the storyline.
ReplyDeleteHa, I never would’ve thought to spin any part of the Ramayana off into a Bond-type story, and the amazing part is how the plot of this lines up so spectacularly well with the epic. That was a great plan: not only was it a ton of fun, but it breathed fresh life into the original story. I especially loved the acronyms—P.A.R.K. was especially clever. How has no major movie franchise not used that one yet?
ReplyDeleteIn terms of constructive criticism, my only suggestion would be to use italics more sparingly on the dialogue. The dialogue itself is natural and a great strength of the story, but the italicized text is a little distracting from the actual conversations.
I think you’ve done a great job on this, though, and it was a really enjoyable read. I love how you developed Kai’s personality in such a small amount of space through snippets of dialogue, his actions, and that catchphrase: “Isn’t it blatantly obvious?” The image you found sets the stage perfectly, too.
Nice job!
Hi Tyler,
ReplyDeleteI like your take on the story and how you changed the characters into agents. The story is exciting and it flows very well together. I liked how you began with a specific date and then went into why you said that, what was going on, and who the agents were. I think if you went more in depth about the agents and what they did specifically it would provide more information for your readers. An example would be like do they work with the CIA? Is this private agency or is it overseen by the government? Beside that I liked how you developed Kai`s personality and added humor to your story. You did a great job at adding creativity to your story and made it better in your own way.
This was a really enjoyable story to read. I thought it was really creative how you combined Hanuman and Rama’s roles in order to make the story work out more reasonably. It was a great way of adapting the story to the setting you created. I also loved your use of dialogue in the stories. Personally, I struggle a lot with creating dialogue that doesn’t interrupt the flow of the story; however, you used dialogue masterfully to further the story’s plot and develop the story’s characters. One thing that I think you could to do improve the story would be to experiment more with different complex sentence structures. Although it sounds like a simple and very structure-based suggestion, making sure to include varied sentence structure and different types of sentences throughout your writing help to keep it interesting and colorful. By adding more variety in sentences, you could create an even more enticing tale. In any case, I thoroughly enjoyed reading this. Thank you!
ReplyDeleteYou put an amazing spin on the Indian story that told about the saving of Sita. Your incorporation of the acronym P.A.R.K was very clever. It immediately reminded me of the agents of S.H.I.E.L.D, which is a television show influenced by the Avengers. Nick Fury was the leader of S.H.I.E.L.D and his businessmen working underneath him were spies. Your story is very creative and I love the image you chose to include to represent the plot and characters. I like how you included the dialogue. It made the story seem more involved. I felt as though I was reading a mystery novel. I wonder how you would have completed the story if the agents were caught and unable to save Sita.
ReplyDeleteYou have a good sense of imagery to create an action-packed environment, and this secret agent world intrigues me. Your protagonists are also well set up for an unlikely friendship developed between them.
ReplyDeleteBut that's what I feel more focus should be on: characters. Agent Kai has the spotlight for the majority of this story, not giving room to shine for the other major characters: Jay, Vana, and Rita. This in turn makes them feel unnecessary, especially since Kai seems to resolve everything without Jay's help.
On the subject of Kai, I would like to see more tangible flaw and conflict in his character. His hubris getting the best of him while rescuing Rita, forcing him to be saved by Jay could be an interesting twist, giving Jay more purpose and making an interesting conflict for Kai.
I'm not sure why dialogue is in all Italics since your dialogue would stand out without it, but if it suits the setting you're going for, I won't stop you. I would like to see some minor expansion on the world we have, though. If it's 20 minutes into the future (See TV Tropes for details) then seeing that will be very enticing! Maybe Vana's fortress has drones surrounding it, or the agents of P.A.R.K. and S.E.L.A. have super high-tech gadgetry!
I love this story as a start. Zooming in on what aspects of our characters will make the conflict more intense and real, and maybe showing us more of the future that this story takes place in could really give it staying power! Keep it up!