Into the Unown (Pokemon Fanfiction OC)

Second round for Nina was against a representative from the Verdant Orchid itself. And while it wasn’t exactly ideal since she wanted fodder for Brucey and Sir Clodington, it wasn’t exactly as bad as her very first round which most would consider to be the climax of the second year’s bracket.

“It’s a pleasure to have this exchange with you, Miss Jones. May the best trainer prevail,” said the amicable boy whom Nina was facing. Nina returned the sentiment with a genial smile and wished him all the best as well. Dealing with civilized and polite people was always a joy.

The boy from the Verdant Orchid’s first pick was a Tauros. A bit unconventional, but a good opponent for Brucey, a Flying Type, so most of its inherent moveset was ineffective against him. A sentiment that the boy seemed to agree with as he frowned and swapped the Tauros out for a Vileplume.

It didn’t matter, Nina persisted with Brucey since he had quite a few new moves that he wanted to try out.

Right off the bat, Vileplume began with a triple whammy of Poison, Stun, and Sleep Powder amidst a raging Petal Blizzard. Nina whistled with a frown, signalling for Brucey to conjure up a gust of wind to surround himself and insulate against the hazardous environment. It was a nascent Hurricane that Brucey was still trying to learn from Itachi, Purple Shadow’s Crobat. But unfortunately he wasn’t quite there yet.

Nina whistled once more, prompting Brucey to start spamming Supersonic and Confuse Ray. He couldn’t juke around like he always did given he needed to maintain the winds surrounding him, but against the slow moving Vileplume, it hardly mattered anyway.

Seeing that Brucey was unaffected by any status conditions, Nina’s opponent called on his Vileplume to drop the spread of powders and focus on disrupting the Golbat instead. In response, the previously scattered and wide area Petal Blizzard began to converge on Brucey in a spiral, slipping past the bat Pokemon’s wind barrier and slicing into his skin.

“Kukuku…” Brucey laughed in pain, strengthening his wings with Fighting Type Energy to spin in place and dispel the encroaching petals with a Quick Guard, buying the Golbat some reprieve to reposition himself.

Nina clicked her tongue, signalling for Brucey to use Kage Bunshin, followed by another whistle to call for a Steel Wing.

“Kukuku…” With another sinister laugh, Brucey split apart into five different clones, each clashing against the Petal Blizzard to force an opening for Brucey to fly though and strike at Vileplume with a Steel Wing.

“Vaii…” The Vileplumed moaned in pain as Brucey’s sharp wings struck its flower, simultaneously spitting a massive seed from its rafflesia’s central cavity. The Seed Bomb exploded in mid air, blasting shrapnel everywhere, striking at Brucey and forcing him to pull away.

Another whistle, and blades of wind began pelting the Vileplume in an attempt to suppress the Grass Type. “Make the flowers bloom, Sunny!” The boy called, prompting his Pokemon to endure the incessant harassment and erupt into seeds and pollen which seeped into the ground and sprouted into a miniature garden of vibrant vegetation and flowers — this was Grassy Terrain.

Immediately following that setup, Vileplume conjured another Petal Blizzard, this time centered around itself as a barrier against Brucey’s aerial assault, while the Grass Type continually spewed all sorts of debilitating powders into the air.

Nina groaned, the boy was a staller, much like herself and Brucey. Except in this case, prolonged battle would result in her loss, since Vileplume had a much wider arsenal of moves than Nina’s Golbat. “Either I swap Brucey out or I need to end this quickly.” She thought.

“But on the other hand, Brucey desperately needs a win.” Nina sighed. Her Golbat’s confidence had been faltering as of late, and swapping him out would impact his ego all the same. “I have no choice, I have to let Brucey win this match.”

Nina blew a long and winding whistle, followed by three consecutive clicks of her tongue. The former was a signal for Brucey to prime Brave Bird, the latter was to tell the Golbat to let loose with an unrestrained Kage Bunshin.

Nina had instructed Brucey to limit her usage of Kage Bunshin to only five clones in public to avoid too much scrutiny. If questioned, she could just feign ignorance and say that it was a special variant Substitute she devised. But with the dozen of clones that Brucey was able to conjure at this stage of his training, the chance of plausible deniability was slim to none.

The girl sighed. “Oh well, I’ll just have to trust in Lilian and Alfred’s promise of protection.”

With Nina’s concerns shelved for the time being, Brucey’s entire body shone in a radiant light as a dozen clones of him flew towards the spiral of Petal Blizzard surrounding the Vileplume, each clone exploding on impact and thinning the storm of petals just enough for Brucey to charge in with his Flying Type Energy empowered body, the light encompassing his body shifting to take on the appearance of a shining bird of prey.

The impact sent Vileplume flying against the arena wall and Brucey tumbling onto the ground from recoil. Both trainers cried out to their Pokemon, begging for them to get up. Which they eventually did.

“Kukuku…” Brucey staggered to stand, one of his wings limped to the side as he took in a deep breath and sat on the ground to Roost. Meanwhile, the tanky Vileplume, while looking rough with its ripped and torn flower, looked like it could still fight. 

It was unfortunate that Brucey had yet to master Brave Bird, so the resulting recoil was equally as damaging to him as it was to his opponent.

Nina sighed and tightened the fit of her earplugs. “Uproar.” She called, prompting her Golbat to break out into a noisy ruckus, deafening the ears of everyone in the arena. 

Brucey could now hold his Uproar for three whole minutes, way exceeding the duration of any Protect or defensive move that a Pokemon may reasonably have. Not that he needed to, since the worn out Vileplume succumbed and fainted after only a minute.

Brucey laughed at the hard won triumph and his trainer’s cheers as his opponent was returned to its Pokeball.

“Great work, Brucey. Come back and rest for now.” Nina also returned her Golbat, seeing that he was in no shape to battle any further. The following match was barely worth mentioning as Espy just swept through her opponent. The poor Tauros didn’t stand a chance.

***

“That was a mistake.”

Nina jolted in fright at the shadow that suddenly came to life on her way out of the arena. “Dammit, Sebastian! You nearly scared me to death.” Nina exclaimed. The person that emerged from the darkness was indeed Purple Shadow, who was still dressed in his butler outfit.

The man scoffed. “Hah! Better you die now then fall into the hands of Koga.” He remarked. “Those kids from the Fuchsia school? Over half of them are initiates from the clan, and nearly all of them saw what your Golbat did in the arena.”

Nina sighed in resignation. She figured as much, the name of Fuchsia’s premier trainer school was named Kage no Niwa, which literally meant Shadow Garden. You couldn’t get anymore on the nose than that.

“It can’t be helped. I didn’t want Brucey to lose.” Nina responded. “Besides, I got you to teach him Kage Bunshin knowing full well that he would have to use it at some point. If not now then somewhere down the line. It’s not exactly something we can avoid. Otherwise, Lilian and I wouldn’t have gone through so much trouble to look for you.”

“Looks like you’re still a kid after all.” Purple Shadow snorted in disdain. “You coulda waited until the little missus took over the mantle of Champion. Despite all her puffery, that girl isn’t as powerful as she would have you believe. She’s still very much at the mercy of her elders and that’s hardly going to change anytime soon… Especially with how distracted she is with frivolous matters.” That last sentence was said with a barely concealed sneer aimed at Nina.

The girl groaned and responded with a helpless shake of her head. “Welp, what’s done is done. I’ll consult Mr Alfred on the matter when we get back tonight. It’ll take some time for news to reach Koga’s ears, and I doubt they’ll trust a bunch of kids to pull off an assassination or whatever.”

Purple Shadow laughed. “Heh! Can’t argue with you there. If Koga wants someone dead then he ain’t gonna take any chances. But that’s the least of your worries. What you should really worry about is if he wants you alive.”

Nina scoffed. “Right, kidnapping someone under the employ of Misty Mizuhana and sponsored by two renowned Pokemon Professors. All under the full knowledge of the Blackthorn clan’s scion. I’m sure that’s gonna go well for Koga.” The girl said, voice full of sarcasm. “As if Koga was dumb enough to implicate himself like that. Better to just stage an accident and feign ignorance.”

Purple Shadow responded with a wry chuckle. “Yeah, ‘cause keeping a dumb little girl from getting herself killed is somehow easier than keeping her from getting kidnapped. Sure…”

Instead of responding, Nina just walked away, confident that the ronin would continue to guard her in the shadows. “I really should get myself a Ghost Pokemon at some point.” Having her own personal shadow guard would be very helpful right about now. Much better than having to rely on the grace of others. Especially when said grace involved a washed-up ninja with a bad attitude.

***

The third round was a much needed reprieve for Nina, since she was facing a representative from one of the generic trainer schools. Not that the kid was much of a slouch, but compared to her previous two opponents, he wasn’t much of a challenge either.

Sir Clodington handily defeated the boy’s Growlithe with copious amounts of Poison, a feat that he was quite proud of given the spectacle of Nairy’s previous match. The Paldean Wooper seemed to have perceived it as a battle between apostles of sorts.

His second choice was Victreebell, which was a lot trickier to deal with since it was also partially Poison Type.

The flycatcher Pokemon kicked things off with a Sunny Day, a classic strategy to use among Grass Types. But was handily countered by a violent Sandstorm conjured by Sir Clodington. The granules of sand whipped around the arena, and combined with the intense glare of the false sun, the entire arena turned into an arid desert — a very hostile environment for the Victreebell.

And this was where the difference between the two Pokemon Trainers became readily apparent, because Nina’s opponent was completely stunned, unsure of how to deal with the raging Sandstorm blinding his view. 

To his credit, the boy did his best, calling for an indiscriminate Leaf Storm to stall for time and keep the invisible Wooper away from his Victreebel. Unfortunately for him, Sir Clodington had already dug deep underground by this point, sneakily closing the distance and repeatedly jumping out of the Ground with an endless assault of Bulldoze, like the land shark that Nina trained him to be.

In the end, Sir Clodington ended the match with his newly learned Earthquake, the range of which wasn’t exactly ideal just yet, but when used directly underneath the Victreebel was devastating nonetheless.

Nina cheered out in celebration of Sir Clodington’s first ever sweep, a feat that even Brucey, his senior had yet to accomplish. Though to be fair, as far as wild Pokemon went, Sir Clodington was already pretty experienced when Nina first found him.

Recently, Nina even noticed that her Wooper’s tail had taken on a much more bulbous shape and that pale little nubs had begun to emerge on his back, signifying that Sir Clodington was now close to his Evolution. 

“If this was a game instead of real life, I suppose I can say that Clody was already pretty high leveled when I encountered him.” Nina mused. That and the fact that a Pokemon’s drive was a big determiner of their growth. And in the case of Sir Clodington, he was probably the most driven out of all her Pokemon by a long shot.

“This is good, Brucey has developed a rivalry with Clody. So if he sees his junior evolving ahead of him, it’ll give him a motivational boost.”

***

Author's note:

Has anyone been watching To be Hero X?

I just caught up, and to be honest I have mixed feelings.

On one hand, the art direction and animation is immaculate. Of that, I think everyone can agree.

But it seems to suffer the same pacing issues as Arcane season 2 in how condensed it is. I understand why that is, given that the whole series is supposed to be an anthology of sorts. But I really think each hero arc would benefit from five episodes instead of four. As it is, it's hard to really immerse myself in the characters and the world's setting when they're rapidly glossing over everything in half baked expositions.

Then there were the two "plot twists" that we were subjected to. I can forgive the empty plot twist at the end of ep1 since you need a strong hook to leave an impression and get people to keep coming back.

But shocking their viewers again at the end of ep4 with what was effectively another U-turn of a plot point that they had already undone in ep2 is just a step too far.

It would have been better if they just held back on ep1's ending and saved it for ep4.