Into the Unown (Pokemon Fanfiction OC)

Nina’s final round opponent was a familiar face. She couldn’t really recall the name, but Nina remembered the girl with glasses being someone who went to the same elementary school as her. “Pretty sure we were in the same class or something…” She mused.

The opposing girl from the Cerulean Gem pointed at Nina with a severe expression. “I’m not going to lose!” She declared. “I’ll prove to everyone that you’re no better than the rest of us!”

Nina returned the girl’s sentiment with an amicable smile and a thumbs up. “Good luck!” She replied, which seemed to upset the girl even more as she stomped her feet with an indignant huff.

Nina shrugged and sent out Sir Clodington, which her opponent met with a Poliwrath. “Hmmm…” Nina hummed, before returning Sir Clodington and swapping him out with Brucey, which effectively locked out any of her aces, but the girl was confident. Both her Pokemon had kill switches set up, so they could take their opponents down with them if it came down to it. Provided the girl didn’t have a pseudo legendary in her team of course, which Nina doubted.

The opposing girl scowled. “Aren’t you supposed to be a Gym Trainer! Where’s your pride?!” She exclaimed.

Nina raised an eyebrow in response. “Didn’t you say that you’ll prove I’m no better than everyone else? Well I’m not, and this is proof of that. So congrats.” The girl said cheekily. “Oh, but feel free to make a swap though, I’m not going to judge.”

The girl with glasses fumed, but refused to switch, exactly as Nina intended. “She wants to prove she’s better than me, so of course she’ll abhor mirroring my behaviour. So predictable…” Nina chuckled and waited for the referee to kick things off.

“Kukuku…” Poliwrath began with an attempt at Rain Dance, but was immediately thwarted by a Taunt from Brucey, enraging the Water Pokemon and prompting him to let loose with a mindless Hydro Pump into the air instead.

“Don’t waste your energy, Poliwrath!” The Pokemon’s trainer yelled. “Bubble Beam into the air, widen the spread!”

On the other hand, Nina just whistled, signalling for her Golbat to begin his harassment. “Kukuku…” Brucey laughed as he attempted to dodge the rising cloud of bubbles, renewing his taunt as he did. Then his eyes glowed a Gastly light, assaulting the Poliwrath with a double whammy of Confuse Ray and Supersonic, pretty much guaranteeing his opponent’s confusion.

“A landbound Fighting and Water Type…” Nina mused, while expressing a word of thanks to her opponent. Brucey was almost a perfect counter to the Poliwrath, which was good because her Golbat needed an easy win. All his matches recently had either been hard fought victories or losses.

Credit to Nina’s opponent, she responded to the situation with an ingenious solution, by asking her Poliwrath to use Belly Drum — a move that caused severe pain to the user in exchange for a massive boost in strength, effectively breaking the Confusion right away.

Nina clapped in admiration and expressed a word of praise to the girl, but was otherwise unconcerned. The pain caused by the Belly Drum, while useful in boosting the muscular tadpole Pokemon’s physical abilities, also placed it in a very volatile emotional state, making him even more susceptible to Brucey’s Taunts, further sealing its utility and environment affecting moves.

“Besides, it doesn’t matter how physically empowered he’s become. Poliwrath still can’t reach the high flying Brucey.” Nina thought, and whatever ranged options the Poliwrath had was completely ineffective against the wily Golbat.

Nina whistled, calling on Brucey to end the match before her opponent wised up and finally committed to a swap.

“Kukuku…” Brucey let out a menacing laugh while he dodged another futile Hydro Pump from his opponent, then proceeded to drop a Sludge Bomb on the Poliwrath and swooped in with an Air Slash.

By the time that Nina’s opponent came to realise the precarious situation her Pokemon was in, it was too late to swap. Because Brucey let loose an indiscriminate Screech, deafening both trainer and Pokemon to further commands, and finished the Poliwrath off with another flyby of Air Slashes.

The glasses girl clenched her fist in frustration and returned her Poliwrath, taking a moment to recompose herself before ripping a handkerchief in two and shoving them in her ears. The girl glared at Nina as she expanded her next Pokeball and summoned a Pidgeot onto the field.

Nina sighed at the sight of the fully evolved bird Pokemon. “Brucey, remember what we discussed about teamwork?” She asked. “Well, next up is Clody’s turn. Do you think you can set things up for him?”

“Kukuku…” Brucey laughed begrudgingly but complied with Nina’s wishes all the same. And good thing as well, because there was little chance of him winning this match.

Right off the bat, the Pidgeot used Hurricane and conjured a violent vortex of wind, which encompassed the entirety of the arena. All the while, the cunning bird Pokemon buffed itself in the eye of the Hurricane with a triple whammy of Work Up, Double Team and Endure.

“Kukuku…” Brucey let out a strained laugh as he allowed himself to be sucked into the Hurricane. It would have taken too much effort to fight against the pull, so he simply opted not to and chose to endure the sharp winds threatening to tear his body apart. Occasionally using Quick Guard to push through the worst of it and glide his way to the eye of the Hurricane where his opponent was. 

And when the winds were at its worst, Brucey caught sight of the haughty Pidgeot, and doused the bird with a sticky blanket of Sludge Wave, a move that he learned directly from Sir Clodington.

Pidgeot screeched in pain as its feathers clumped together, causing its flight to falter briefly. But to its credit, the Pidgeot recovered swiftly and doubled down on its Hurricane. But Brucey had done his job, the Pidgeot was Poisoned. Next he just needed to weaken it as best as he could before he got taken out.

“Uproar!” Nina yelled, followed by a call for “Wing Attack!” from the opposing trainer.

The Hurricane twisted and bulged, undulating from the powerful sound waves being emitted from Brucey’s gaping maw. Pidgeot cried out in pain from the damage to its overly sensitive hearing, blood seeping out of the Pokemon’s ear holes as its wings glowed a bright white and forcefully clashed with the noisy Golbat. 

By this point, Brucey was already hanging on by a thread, so he went down easily enough, leaving only a haggard and angry looking Pidgeot hovering above the arena. The bird Pokemon’s feathers were matted with toxic sludge, poison seeping into every wound on its body as it huffed in exhaustion.

Nina returned her fainted Golbat with a loving word of appreciation, vowing to smother Brucey with endless cuddles after his recovery. “You did great, Brucey.” The girl whispered as she released a determined looking Sir Clodington amidst a raging Hurricane. 

Having been kept abreast of the situation by Espy, the noble knight knew perfectly well the sacrifices his comrade had to endure to set things up for him, and he’d be disgraced if he allowed Brucey’s hard work to go to waste.

The moment that the dark colored Wooper took to the field, he immediately sunk his feet into the ground to avoid being blown away by the ongoing Hurricane. Followed by a rage filled cry as he slammed his bulbous tail onto the ground to summon a raging Sandstorm. The coarse buffeting granules merged with the Hurricane to form a mutually damaging hazard and forced Pidgeot to cancel its Hurricane to avoid hurting itself.

However, the Sandstorm persisted. Sir Clodington was in perfect condition and he refused to let his opponent off that easily. Pidgeot swooped down with a hasty Aerial Ace, but only managed to clip the back of Sir Clodington, who had already begun to sink deep underground by this point.

Burdened by both Poison and buffeting sand, Pidgeot struggled to stay in the air. Yet, it was also unable to land and Roost for fear of the Wooper hiding beneath the ground.

Sir Clodington bided his time, awaiting the perfect opportunity to strike. Meanwhile, Pidgeot flew, it flew as high as it could to escape the raging Sandstorm. Unfortunately for the bird Pokemon, this was a closed arena, so the elevated height did little to aid its predicament, only delaying the inevitable as its Poisoned state persisted.

Thirty seconds, that was how long a Pokemon was allowed to remain idle in a battle before the referee automatically disqualified them. It was a rule that Nina made sure to educate Sir Clodington on given his battle style. So just a few seconds before the timer was up, the Wooper surfaced and spewed Toxic Spikes all over the arena, further suppressing Pidgeot’s ability to Roost.

Thanks to its Keen Eye, Pidgeot caught sight of the subtle shifts on the terrain before Sir Clodington emerged, and swooped down with a Quick Attack and Aerial Ace combo to catch the Wooper unaware.

“Wooper!” Sir Clodington cried as he was sent tumbling on the ground, but not before clubbing the Pidgeot with an instinctive Poison Tail as he did, causing the Flyer to falter and crash onto the ground. An opportunity that Sir Clodington was not going to waste as he let out a sticky net of Sludge Wave and finished his opponent off with an Earthquake before it could break free.

“Wooper, woop! Wooper!” Sir Clodington cried out in triumph, his recent streak of wins giving him just the boost he needed to break through as the Light of Evolution took hold of his body.

The Wooper’s silhouette bulged and shifted, almost quintupling in size as its oversize body fell to the ground, the added weight no longer sustainable by the Pokemon’s stubby little legs, prompting two new appendages to emerge from the side as the bipedal Paldean Wooper was transformed into a quadrupedal chungus of a Clodsire.

“Clod! Clodsiiiire!” Sir Clodington cried, in a deep baritone voice that the species was known for.

“Heck yeah!” Nina jumped around in ecstasy, even releasing Nairy and Espy to share in the occasion. “Great work, Clody! We’re all so proud of you!”

“Nairy, nair!” 

Sir Clodington cried in elation at Nina’s words, but straight up jumped into the air at Nairy’s praise, causing a minor Earthquake upon his weighty landing. 

And with that, Nina fulfilled her promise to Principal Niko and won the second year tournament for the Vermilion Flame. Next, she could take it easy and enjoy the rest of the meet. That was, until her shadow shifted, a reminder that there were other troublesome matters that she needed to deal with.

Nina sighed and grabbed hold of her necklace with a prayer, hoping that Mew won’t let her die that easily, before she fulfilled whatever purpose the Mythical Pokemon intended for her. “I promise Mew, I’ll get to whatever it is that you want me to do after this.” 

The girl already had a game plan in mind. One of her first stops was going to be Pewter City, where she would check up on Futaba and the moonshrine. Even if the woman was unrelated to Mew’s purpose, it didn’t hurt to pry some knowledge from the ancient shrine maiden. 

“Then there was the Pokemon Mansion in Cinnabar Island…” Hikari warned her against visiting Lavender Town, but she said nothing about the derelict mansion in Cinnabar where the Mewtwo experiment took place. Nina was certain that she could obtain some clues there.

***

Author's note:

I'm often asked if Nina's team will be limited to jsut a fixed roster of six. And the answer is no. Nina will catch more than six Pokemon and will swap them out accordingly. That said, It's not like I'll put her on an indiscriminate capture spree either. That would be irresponsible. Since Nina as a trainer feels strongly about giving the appropriate amount of attention for each of her team members.

And I, as a writer, feel strongly about fleshing out the personality of each Pokemon instead of just using them as convenient tools of battle or mindless pets as most fanfics tend to do.