Into the Unown (Pokemon Fanfiction OC)

Author's note:

Chapter 117 was released with chapter 116, so make sure to go back and read it if you haven't already, to avoid confusion.

***

The one who would be flying the Cerulean Gym girls to Viridian City was going to be Ryu, Beverly’s Gyarados. For the longest time, the scar-faced Gyarados had trouble learning Fly since he evolved post-battle and not through ascending a waterfall, which was how the species typically learned the move.

Beverly had stubbornly insisted that her hardworking boy would get the hang of it on his own eventually. But after a whole year of fruitless effort, she finally caved and got a TM for Ryu. Unfortunately, this was before Nina’s revelation about Espy’s empathic ability. Otherwise, she could have asked had Kumiko’s Gyarados to teach Ryu how to Fly.

Nina released the Fly Basket that she had borrowed from her Uncle Ali from its storage device. It wasn’t as big as the one Kumiko used all those years ago, but it was plenty enough space for four little girls to comfortably fit in. They wouldn’t be able to have any Pokemon companions with them though. Not that any one of their Pokemon would be willing to be out in this chilling weather anyway.

“Alright, you bitches ready to roll?” Beverly asked, only to receive admonishment from Nina in return.

“Mind your language around the twins, Bev. We don’t need another set of potty mouths at the Gym.”

Beverly parroted Nina’s words in a mocking tone. “‘Mind your language around the twins…’ Okay, grandma…” The older girl whined.

Nina simply shook her head in exasperation and finished feeding some Berries to Ryu. All the while, whispering to the sea serpent about what a hopeless idiot his trainer was.

“Alright, girls. Picture time!” Beverly exclaimed. The older girl wanted to take some pics and record a few shorts for Pokegram. 

Nina found the whole affair to be quite vexing, but wanted to be supportive of her friend’s social media ambitions, so she decided to play along. “Make sure to run everything through us before posting okay?” She reminded. “And no live streams. We don’t want any weirdos stalking us during our trip.”

“Okay, sheesh! I’m not an idiot, Nins. Daphne taught me all about etiquette and stuff. ‘Sides, the twins don’t mind. Right, girls?!”

“Yup!” Natsumi answered, though Fuyumi looked a little reluctant. It was honestly fascinating how their personalities had begun to diverge.

Nina sighed. “Doesn’t matter, it’s only polite to ask. I trust that you’ll do the right thing, Bev. But enough about that, let’s all get on. I wanna reach Viridian before we miss the last tram.” Nina was determined to hitch a ride on the tram this time around, instead of flying straight to Pallet Town.

Beverly sighed. “What’s so good about some rusty ol’ engine anyway?”

But Nina ignored the older girl’s grumbling and hopped into the Fly Basket, feeling a fair bit of anticipation for the upcoming trip.

***

Viridian City was a weird place. Out of all the great Kantonian cities, it was the least developed with clusters of buildings interspersed across fairly lengthy distances from one another, and without a single skyscraper in sight. 

The place definitely had the capacity to house a city’s worth of population for sure, but from the outside looking in, one wouldn’t be faulted if they had thought that this was a sleepy little town instead.

The City itself was surrounded on all sides by the Great Viridian Forests, all except for the side facing Mount Silver — a barren piece of land which had been decimated over the course of the region’s protracted war with Johto. Even today, that area was left uninhabited for fear that a new round of conflict might break out at any moment.

In the background of all this was Mount Silver, looming over the city like an impassive deity, the most prominent landmark that separated the borders between Kanto and Johto.

“There used to be a wall there, you know?” Nina pointed towards the space between Viridian City and no man’s land. “The wall demarcated Kanto’s border on this side of Mount Silver. It suffered through years of violent assault from Johto, knocked down and rebuilt over and over again for as long as the war waged on.”

But in the present day, Nina could see that only a rough outline of the wall’s foundation remained as a reminder of the region’s bloody past. 

“One of the more radical things that Lance did when he ascended the Champion’s seat was order the dismantlement of the borders on both sides of Mount Silver. And when the politicians at the time tried to obstruct him, he swooped in with his Dragonite and did the deed himself.”

Many still resented the Blackthorn patriarch for the careless vandalism, but Nina thought that it was one of the more enlightened things that the man had done in his career. Even if the actual intent behind the act wasn’t as profound as the history books made it out to be. 

“There’s still plenty of time, how about we grab some food in Viridian City before transiting?” Nina proposed. 

Viridian City’s main produce to this day was agriculture, which goes to show just how backwards the place was. But in recent times, there had been a bunch of farm to table type establishments popping up, including one owned by Bobby’s father which Nina had a standing invitation on.

Nina’s companion’s cheered in approval at her proposal, and Beverly asked Ryu to make landing. Though Nina had to remind her friend to land her Gyarados somewhere secluded and out of sight.

“Lots of war vets living around these parts. Best not to traumatise them too much. We don’t want any trouble.” She said.

Viridian City was known as the City of Evergreen, but in this particular season, it looked like a ski town more than anything as the boots of the four girls crunched through the thin layer of snow and ice on the road.

Nina thought that the roads were surprisingly well maintained. “They must have a snow plow that goes through here every so often…” She murmured. But that comment was soon proven to be not entirely accurate when they eventually came across a Rhyhorn towing a plow through some of the accumulated snow.

The four girls waved and called out a friendly greeting to the old man steering the Rhyhorn.

“Ho there,” the man greeted in return. “Visitors are ye? Ain’t never seen such pretty lassies ‘round b‘fore.”

“Yup!” answered the perky Natsumi. “We’re headed to see Professor Oak in Pallet Town.”

“Ahh… One of the Poke Prof’s are ye?” The man said, with a smile and an approving gaze. “I’d offer to take you to the tram station meself, but well…” He gestured towards the pile up in front of him. “This snow ain’t gonna plow itself.”

Nina lightly shook her head at the offer. “It’s okay, mister. We’re actually headed to grab a meal before taking the tram. You wouldn’t happen to know about this place do you?” She said, before showing the man the details of the restaurant they were headed to on her Pokedex.

“Aye, that’s one of them fancy ones them tourists always like to go to. Done a lot of good for the city they have.” The man nodded with a hum. “That’a one’s just a skippity hop away. ‘Bout ten minutes walk I reckon.”

The girls thanked the kindly old man as he pointed them towards the right direction. In truth they could have just checked their maps, but it was always nice to interact with the locals like this. It was Nina’s favorite part about traveling — just getting to know the people and immersing herself in these niche little microcosms.

***

“Hey, Mr Mime. How’s it going? Is Professor Oak around?”

The perpetually smiling mime Pokemon flashed Nina a thumbs up and ‘called out’ silently towards the door.

Nina giggled at the bewildered look on her friends’ faces and simply told them to “Wait for it.”

And soon enough, the elderly Professor Oak opened his door to greet his guests. “Why hello there, dear Nina. And these must be Miss Mizuhana and the two Miss Tendous.”

“Professor Oak!” Nina exclaimed as she jumped up the front porch to give the Pokemon Professor a hug.

The old man chuckled in amusement and gently caressed Nina’s head. “It’s good to see you again too, dear. Now please, come on in. You all must be freezing out here.”

Professor Oak’s house was the same as usual, looking mundane and lived in. Were it not for the stacks of books and research papers strewn about here and there, one wouldn’t even think that this was the abode of one of the Pokemon World’s greatest minds.

After dusting the snow off their boots, the four girls followed along into the dining room where Mr Mime and Professor Oak began brewing fresh cups of hot cocoa. The smell of sweet chocolate wafting through the air helped a great deal in relaxing the weary travellers.

“Thank you for your help in guiding Lucy by the way,” said Professor Oak as he sat down in front of his own cup of tea. Apparently, his advanced age meant that he had to manage his blood sugar levels.

Nina shook her head in denial. “I didn’t do much, just gave her the battle that she wanted.”

Professor Oak laughed. “And in doing so, taught her a valuable lesson. She stopped by here not too long ago, on her way to Cinnabar island. I could tell from the look in her eyes that the girl had grown quite a fair bit from your encounter.”

“Cinnabar eh? I guess she’s serious about wanting to train up her Magby.”

“Indeed, the volcano is the perfect environment for their species. Her newly evolved Charizard will benefit greatly from the abundance of ambient Fire Type Energy in that area as well.”

“Who’s this?” Beverly chimed, feeling a bit left out.

Nina shrugged. “One of Professor Oak’s sponsored that showed up in our Gym during Crunchtober. You probably don’t remember her ‘cause she only challenged Misty at the medium difficulty.”

Beverly snorted. “Ah, so a firecracker then.”

“Not anymore,” Nina corrected. “But anyways, enough about Lucy. How have you been, Professor?” The girl noticed that the man’s gait was a little stiff when they were coming in.

Professor Oak chuckled. “Quite well, Nina. Thank you for your concern. It’s just that my joints tend to act up during this season. I do apologize for not being able to answer all your queries though. Some things are simply beyond my control.”

The Professor was being intentionally vague, but Nina knew what he meant. One of those unanswered queries was regarding Kage Bunshin while the other was about Diglett anatomy. Though she suspected that the denial of the latter was part of some inside joke in the scientific community as opposed to true ignorance or any restrictions.

“Not to worry Professor, I achieved my own breakthrough with my Golbat with some help from a friend.” Nina said with a knowing look.

“Oh?” The Professor leaned forward in intrigue. “Well now, I had not been expecting such news. Though do be careful alright, dear? Should anybody try to give you a hard time, feel free to use my name.”

Nina beamed a bright smile at the offer and thanked her sponsor. “However, my friend who is helping me out isn’t one to be trifled with. I doubt anyone will try anything unless we go way out of line.” She added.

“Very well… And where are my manners? I seem to have neglected my other guests. It’s good to finally meet you in person, Miss Mizuhana.” Professor Oak then turned towards the twins. “And I’m delighted to have such lovely young ladies be our newest Pokedex holders.”

“Yes, my name is Fuyumi, and this is my sister Natsumi,” said the older twin with a bow.

“Thank you for choosing us, Professor Oak. We’ll do our best to meet your expectations!” Natsumi added.

Professor Oak smiled warmly at the adorable pair of twins. “No need to be so stiff, my dears. We shall do as I did with Nina last time and confer the Pokedexes and your regional starters tomorrow. For now, you should rest for the day. Mr Mime has already prepared a couple of guest rooms for your use.”

“Thanks Professor Oak, and sorry to bother,” said Nina.

“Not at all, my dear. But once you’re finished settling into your rooms, I would appreciate some time with your Espeon. I heard from Bill that you have quite the remarkable specimen.”

Nina laughed. She was already expecting this request from the Friendship Evolution expert. In fact, this was one of the reasons why she wanted to come visit in the first place. Nominal or not, it was only right that she repaid her sponsor’s generosity in any way that she could.

“Of course, Professor. I’ll be right back once I drop off my luggage.”