Into the Unown (Pokemon Fanfiction OC)

Ivy couldn’t stop her gaze from constantly wandering over to an ancient oak tree in the distance. It was the best spot to have lunch in the school’s scenic courtyard, but no one would dare to compete with its current occupants for the tree’s cool shades.

“Stop staring already, Ivy. You’re being a creep.” 

“I’m not being a creep!” Ivy exclaimed, her face flushed red in embarrassment.

“Yeah, yeah… How many times have you watched that video again? If you want an autograph then just go and ask for one, she’s not gonna bite your head off.”

Ivy glared at her friend, Hina. She was a jerk for constantly teasing her, but she was also the only person in Ivy’s year that would willingly befriend a shy introvert like her.

“You don’t get it! Do you have any idea how scary it is? I mean just look at who’s sitting around her!” Ivy said, as she subtly gestured towards the students sitting underneath the oak tree with their respective Pokemon. 

There was Kerry-Anne Joy, the student who ranked first in their year and also a member of the freaking Joy Clan. Then there was Justin Mayo, the first year representative for this year’s inter school meet who, apparently, handily beat all the other school’s first year reps and even some of the older reps as well. The boy was actually friendly enough, but his boundless enthusiasm towards everyone kind of made her feel super awkward around him.

But scariest of all was Lilian freaking Blackthorn, who for whatever reason started frequenting their school. Ivy still remembered how nervous Mr Smith, their history teacher, was when she first showed up in class, constantly raising her hand and correcting the man on whatever inaccuracies he made during his lecture. Poor guy sweated enough fluids to fill an entire pool.

Then last of all was Nina Jones, the coolest girl in class, Ivy’s beloved Aquarium Girl. Like Hina said, Ivy had been rewatching the surprise show she put on during Misty’s wedding every chance she got.

She even begged her little cousin in Cerulean City to buy a whole bunch of Aquarium Girl merch for her and mail it over. Her favorite was a keychain of Nina in her adorable Teddiursa ring bearer outfit, which she was carrying with her right this instant.

Ivy’s only regret was not getting her cousin to get Nina’s autograph for her copy of the album. A fact that the brat kept lording over her, saying that she got to shake hands with Aquarium Girl and even repeatedly sending Ivy the pictures that she took with her idol to rub it in her face.

“It’s not fair! I go to the same school as Nina. Why can’t I get an autograph and pictures too?” By all accounts, it should be easier for Ivy. But the girl was simply too shy to take any action. “What if she thinks I’m a creep just like Hina said? I’ll die from embarrassment!”

Hina sighed at her hyperventilating friend who looked like she was having an existential crisis. She looked over to the group of ‘cool kids’ and saw that Justin Mayo had stood up at one point and was pointing at Nina Jones in a ridiculous pose. “How in Arceus does he bend his body like that?” She thought.

No doubt the boy was trying to challenge the girl again. A common occurrence. And no doubt Nina would just deny him with the excuse that he was too weak, or so Hina thought. But surprisingly, Nina just laughed and nodded her head in agreement. “Oh do we get to see Justin get his ass kicked today?”

Hina shook Ivy to knock her friend out of her stupor. “Hey Ivy, snap out of it. Justin just challenged Nina to a battle.”

Ivy stopped her cursed mumblings and stared at her friend impassively. “So what? Nina never agrees to it.”

“Nah, look over. She said yes. I think she wants to try out her new Pokemon.” Hina found it weird that Nina had caught herself a creepy looking Golbat of all things. Given all her rare Pokemon and the fact that she was a mermaid, one would think that the girl would choose something more… aesthetic? Or maybe a Feebas, so that she could have a Milotic in the future.

Ivy instantly perked up at Hina’s words and eagerly looked over.

Hina chuckled. “Chill, they’re not gonna battle right now. Lunch break’s about to end. We’ll probably have to wait until after class.”

Ivy immediately wilted in disappointment, prompting Hina to shake her head at the fickle girl.

***

“Slow down, Ivy…”

Hina chased after her friend who rushed towards the gym after class.

“If we don’t get there first then all the good spots will be taken!” Ivy yelled.

Every one of Nina’s battles always drew a crowd, not because it was particularly exciting or anything since she won most of the time, if not with her Eevee then with that crazy strong Dragonair of hers. But because she would often give out advice and tips on battle tactics that were worth listening to. Even some of the teachers sneakily joined in sometimes to take notes.@@novelbin@@

Hina just sighed in exasperation. “Justin and Nina haven’t even left class yet…” Last she saw, their two classmates were still joking around and leisurely chatting in class.

As expected, the two girls were the first to arrive, outside of the students who had just wrapped up with P.E. They picked a spot and just waited, not even knowing which arena the two battlers were going to use.

It took another ten minutes for Justin and Nina to arrive, casually strutting into the place and taking positions at a random arena that was furthest away from them. So Hina and Ivy ended up having to move anyway, much to the latter’s despair as she couldn’t get to the front row.

As usual for Nina’s more casual matches, Kerry was refereeing. The girl counted them down in her soft voice and waved her hand down to signal the start of the battle.

The two trainers each sent out their newest captures; Scyther for Justin and Golbat for Nina.

“Go, Scyther! Let’s show everyone how hard you’ve trained!” Justin yelled, boisterous as ever.

Meanwhile, Nina was as calm as usual. “Alright Brucey, this is your first battle. So let’s try to do what we discussed the other day.”

Brucey the Golbat took to the skies and began flying around in a jerky motion. Just looking at the bat Pokemon made Hina and Ivy dizzy from how chaotic his flight pattern was. 

In response, Justin’s Scyther began vibrating its wings and slowly took off from the ground in pursuit. The Bug Pokemon’s Scythe arm glowed as it slash down at the Golbat, but was unable to catch his opponent from his constant juking.

The Scyther looked overwhelmed as he hovered in midair, jerking his head around in an attempt to predict the wily Golbat’s flight patterns.

“Use Leer, Scyther! Try to slow him down.”

“Kukuku…” But before Scyther could execute his order, a creepy sounding laugh could be heard from Nina’s Golbat, taunting the Scyther and causing him to continue swiping at the air in rage.

“Dammit! Fury Swipes! Keep going until you hit!”

At this point Nina’s face took on a sinister look. One that sent chills down Hina’s spine. “How’s a girl like that supposed to be a mermaid?” Meanwhile Ivy also felt chills down her spine, but of a different variety as she panted with her face flushed, eliciting a look of disgust from Hina.

While Scyther was letting out a fury of swipes at the general vicinity of Nina’s Golbat, a high pitched whining noise began to be emitted from the Golbat, bombarding his opponent with non-stop Supersonic waves from all directions as he continued to weave around the Bug Pokemon. Eventually overwhelming Scyther enough that his eyes began swirling.

Justin watched in despair as his Scyther wavered in his flight, before eventually faltering and falling to the ground. “Get up, Scyther! It’s not over yet! I believe in you!” The boy yelled.

At this point, Nina took something out of her pocket and shoved it in her ears. “Alright Brucey, remember what Espy taught you about Hyper Voice? Let’s give it a try shall we.”

At his trainer’s words, Golbat put a stop to his seizure-inducing flight and pointed his face towards the grounded Scyther, before taking in a deep breath to let out a grating sound akin to nails on chalkboard.

Hina and Ivy along with all the rest of the audience covered their ears in pain, feeling like someone was scooping their brains out with a scrapper.

Meanwhile, Nina just casually stood there with earplugs in her ears. “Hmm…” She hummed. “That was Screech, not Hyper Voice. But no worries, you did your best. Thanks for trying Brucey. Now let’s wake Scyther up with a bit of pain shall we.”

“Kukuku…” The blushing Golbat laughed as he began conjuring blades of wind around him and pelting the helpless Scyther with it.

“Shield yourself with your blades and get up, Scyther!”

Scyther did as he was told, fighting through the confusion, raising his Scythe arms to try and mitigate some of the damage.

“Hmm… Not bad,” said Nina. “But one thing you need to understand, Jillian. Scythers aren’t tanks, their greatest strength lies in their speed. That said, a bit of defense in case of emergencies won’t hurt. I’ll refer you to a good TM shop, so you should go pick up Protect for your Pokemon.”

With that advice out of the way, Nina then asked Justin to surrender. “Brucey doesn’t have any good finishers at the moment but he can easily go in with a Poison Fang and stall his way to victory. I don’t want to bother Kerry too much and I think you’ve already learned what you can out of this match, so no point continuing.”

Justin started protesting, but Kerry just ignored him and ended the match on his behalf. This was a casual spar after all, so no need to be too uptight.

Next came the part that everyone had been waiting for. Hina glanced over and saw Ivy taking out her own notebook to take notes, a quirk that she picked up in an attempt to mimic her idol.

“Right, going back to what I was saying about Scyther’s strength being his speed,” Nina began. “Your Scyther might be a Flying type, but due to his body proportions, he’s actually not a very competent flyer. If anything, his wings serve as supportive appendages more than anything else. So trying to compete in mid air with a dedicated flyer like a Golbat is a mistake.”

Justin groaned. “So what? Are you saying I should have used a different Pokemon?”

Nina shook her head at the boy's pessimism. “No. Like I said, his wings help to support his capabilities and is what will allow a predominantly melee Pokemon like Scyther to take on ranged flyers. You just have to be smart about it.”

Before going any further though, Nina did suggest that Justin teach his Scyther Air Slash, just so that he would have some ranged options if it came down to it.

“With that out of the way, let’s go back to talking speed. I noticed you didn’t tell your Scyther to use Quick Attack during that whole match. Why?”

Justin grumbled. “I mean, it’s like you said, right? Scyther isn’t the best flyer, so he can’t use Quick Attack in the air, and your Golbat never landed so…”

Nina shook her head in disappointment. “Quick Attack can also be used vertically, kid. You just gotta train for it.”

“What do you mean?” asked the skeptical Justin.

Instead of replying, Nina simply released her regal looking Espeon with an intricate looking metal collar on her neck. 

Looking at the beautiful Eeveelution really made Hina jealous, Eevee has always been her favorite Pokemon. “One day, I’m gonna become mega rich and get an Eevee of my own.” She vowed.

Ivy smiled at her friend and gave her an encouraging pat. 

“Hey Espy,” Nina called out to her Espeon in a courteous tone. “Do you mind showing off your air strats to Justin and Scyther?”

“Es.” The regal Espeon cried as she got up on all fours and did a light stretch of her body. Then with a yawn, the Espeon very deliberately lowered herself into a crouching position, before suddenly shooting off into the air in a blur of pink, too fast for anyone to follow. But it didn’t just end there.

The moment that Nina’s Espeon reached the air, a small purple barrier emerged in her path, which she elegantly flipped her body to land on horizontally, using it as a temporary foothold for another Quick Attack in a different direction. Then stopping again when another barrier appeared, launching the Espeon in another blur. And again, and again.

The crowd all gasped in awe at the mastery of Quick Attack and Psychic control being demonstrated in front of them as the pink Eeveelution zigged and zagged and bounced around like she was dashing in the air. Even doing flips and tricks mid air just to show off to the crowd, eliciting giggles from Nina.

“Alright Espy, that’s good enough. You can come back down now,” said the girl as she rewarded her now grounded Espeon with Berries and affectionate cuddles.

“Now I know Scyther can’t create barriers like Espy can,” continued Nina. “But one thing he does have that Espy doesn’t is wings. You’re a smart boy, Julius. I’m sure you can figure out something similar using your Scyther’s strengths.” 

“It’s Justin!” The boy exclaimed. But Hina could tell from his grin and the look in his eyes, that her classmate was all fired up to work harder. And he wasn’t the only one either, she could also see that everyone around her was suddenly feeling motivated after that incredible display, and she was no exception.

“Did you see that, Hina?! That was so cool!” Ivy exclaimed. The girl looked like she was ready to worship the ground on which her idol walked.

Hina chuckled at her friend and gave the girl a pat on the head.  “Of course I did, you Psyduck. Everyone did. So you should buckle up and go ask for that autograph already.”

“What does that have to do with anything?!” yelled the flustered Ivy, to which Hina just laughed in response.

***

Author's note:

If I'm being entirely honest, I wasn't going to release a chapter today. 

However, I made a lot of good progress with my writing recently; I'm only one chapter away from finishing the finale of Part 2.

I promised before that if I can finish writing the Part 2 Finale before the end of this month and get ahead on the chapters for Part 3 then I'll do daily chapters until we reach the end of Part 2. That will still happen, but I need more time, since I still need to clean up my most recent writing and rewrite a couple of chapters. All in all, I anticipate daily releases to happen sometime in March.

After that, I'll be taking a break on public releases until I feel like Part 3 is ready for scrutiny. Patreon releases will still continue in the usual cadence though.