Into the Unown (Pokemon Fanfiction OC)

It had been a good week since Nina’s excursion into Diglett’s Cave when she was suddenly awoken in the dead of night by a loud cry from Espy.

“EEEEEE!”

Both Nina and Nairy jolted awake, frantically looking around them to assess what was going on. Only to find an angry looking Espeon in the midst of aggressively spinning a Golbat around in circles with her Psychic Aura.

Hovering next to the Golbat was what seemed like a fainted Ekans which Espy unceremoniously tossed out the window.

“Espy, no!” Nina croaked as she scrambled towards the window to check on the fate of the Ekans. 

The girl sighed as she looked down, completely wide awake by this point. “I really hope that Ekans doesn’t land on somebody’s head.” She also prayed that the Pokemon was still alive from the fall, otherwise she might have to endure some pointed questions from her dorm supervisor.

“Alright, you two, time out!” Nina chided her two troublesome Pokemon, prompting Espy to halt her abuse of Brucey and look towards Nina with puffy cheeks.

Nina desperately resisted the urge to squish her adorable Espeon’s bulging face sacks and continued her questioning with a throaty cough to clear her voice. “Alright Espy, what’s going on here.”

A deluge of frustration and anger flooded Nina’s head, along with blurry images of a Golbat trying to sneak into their home with a muted cackle and a fainted Ekans in his grasp.

Golbats were nocturnal creatures, so there needed to be a transition period where Brucey had to adjust his internal clock to that of a daywalker as opposed to a nightcrawler. This was in order to sync himself up with Nina and the rest of his new family.

During this time, Nina would leave a window open at night for Brucey to leave the dorm with, just so that the Golbat wouldn’t feel bored while everyone else was asleep. Of course, she had to have a talk with him and forbid him from pulling any pranks within the vicinity of the school to avoid any trouble. Though evidently, the mischievous Golbat had taken her words lightly.

Nina sighed once again and turned to address Brucey this time, who was being forcefully grounded by a heavy Psychic aura. “Brucey, did you try to sneak a poisonous Ekans into our home just for a prank?”

“Kukuku…” Brucey laughed in his usual undecipherable manner. This was the biggest challenge associated with the Golbat — Nina had no idea if her words were getting through to him, or what he was trying to say. There seemed to be some underlying emotion and intent behind each of his laugh, but Nina hadn’t been with him long enough to interpret them yet.

In a way, it kind of reminded Nina of Mile’s autistic cousin in her past life. The kid would often do things that many would consider to be highly inappropriate and self-harming, like trying to dip their hands into someone else’s bowl of piping hot soup. But there was no malice behind such actions, just misguided logic from a peculiar mind.

“Brucey, do you understand that what you did was very dangerous and could have caused harm to me and your new family?”

“Kukuku…” Brucey responded, but there was no nod or shake, just the same mischievous glint in his eyes.

Nina frowned and asked Espy to directly convey Nina’s question to Brucey’s mind, finally eliciting a weak nod from the Golbat as he wilted in remorse. His reaction confirmed the girl’s theory. “Brucey doesn’t understand words or know how to decipher social cues.”

Zubats were largely instinct driven Pokemon, in addition to being blind. So it made sense then that a Golbat wouldn’t suddenly be capable of reading faces and gestures despite gaining sight. “And I doubt there’s any complex emotions for Brucey to read out there in the wild. No wonder the species was so favored by criminals, most of them simply didn’t know any better.”

Nina hummed in consideration. “Is that the key to a Golbat’s evolution I wonder? To guide them into developing a full spectrum of emotions?” It’s a theory that would make a whole lot of sense given that humans had a naturally higher EQ than most Pokemon. And out in the wild, if a Golbat were to befriend an emotionally complex Pokemon, like say, a Chansey or a Psychic, there was also the chance of them Evolving naturally as well.

“I should send an email to Professor Oak to ask about this.” Nina wasn’t so conceited as to think that she was the first to come up with a theory like this, so maybe the Professor could steer her towards some relevant research material. And if it really was a new theory, then being able to prove it would be a great boon to understanding the Evolution of Golbats.

Nina had the urge to type out the email right now, but before that, she had to settle the conflict between her two Pokemon. “Espy, you were following my thoughts earlier right?” She asked, prompting the Espeon to nod in response. Such was the convenience of having a Psychic Pokemon.

“Then you should know that Brucey didn’t mean anything bad by his actions. We just need to patiently guide him until he understands.”

Espy averted her gaze with her cheeks still puffed in irritation, but Nina could tell that her Espeon understood from what she was feeling through their mental link. The girl couldn’t help but swoon at her awkward princess and pulled her in for a hug while rubbing her face against Espy’s fuzzy little cheeks.

At the sight of this, Brucey screeched and struggled against Espy’s Psychic hold, desperate to fly over and get in on the action, prompting Espy to hiss at him in annoyance and renew her spinning.

“Espy, no!” Nina chided once again as she pulled her Golbat into the hug as well. “There’s plenty of me to go around, so no need to fight.”

“Nair~”

Nina chuckled. “You too, Nairy.” The girl beckoned for her needy Dragonair to join in as well, much to Espy’s annoyance, who didn’t like to be crowded like this.

***

It had been a few days since, and Nina wished she could say that Brucey had learned his lesson from the events of that night. Unfortunately, the Golbat didn’t appear to be upset or remorseful. Instead, he seemed to relish the attention he got from Espy and tried to do everything he could from then on to get a rise out of her.

To the bat Pokemon, any attention was good attention, because all of it helped to soothe the loneliness gnawing at his heart. He didn’t seem to realize that his poor behavior would only serve to foster resentment and drive a wedge between him and all his other companions.

It was getting to the point where Espy was actually irritated enough to break Brucey’s wings if he kept pushing his luck any further.

“What now…” Nina sighed as a crying Brucey rushed into her embrace and drooled all over her. “Hey, it’s okay, Brucey… What happened?” Nina gently caressed the Golbat, marvelling at the leathery skin beneath the layer of fuzzy blue fur.

“Gol! Golbat, gol!”

Nina was a little taken aback, this was the first time that Brucey had tried to use Pokespeak instead of just laughing like he usually did. Didn’t mean she could understand him though. The Golbat’s body language was arguably worse than Espy’s when they first met, coming across as erratic and frantic no matter what he tried to convey.

“Nairy, could you help me out here?” Nina asked her partner, knowing that Espy wouldn’t be in a cooperative mood.

“Nair, dragon, dragonair… Nairy nair, nair…” Nairy wiggled around and started engaging in charades, shifting his expression in a variety of different ways to convey to Nina what had just happened, from anger, to a malicious smirk, to sadness and so on. Despite some uncertainties, Nina managed to grasp a rough understanding from her partner’s miming, thanks to their tight bond, leading her to turn towards Espy with a furious gaze.

At some point, Nina started harbouring some regrets about taking Brucey in. She had thought that she could redirect Brucey’s prankster energy towards battles. But she had been proven to be nothing but wrong so far.

And apparently, after realizing that corporeal punishment was doing nothing to deter the Golbat’s pranks, Espy decided to translate Nina’s feelings of regret and beam it directly into Brucey’s mind, completely unprompted. Which then resulted in the current situation.

“Espy! That was super mean and uncalled for!” Nina yelled. It was probably the first time that she had ever raised her voice against the Espeon.

However, Espy was unrepentant, which just goes to show the extent of her frustrations. Worst still, it seemed even the good natured Nairy was inclined to take Espy’s side on the matter. It made sense, Espy was like a sister to him by this point, while Brucey was just an annoying newcomer who kept griefing him and a vampire who was stealing Nina’s attention away.

“I need to do something about this. Otherwise, my team’s going to fall apart at this rate.” Nina considered her options. 

There were all sorts of personality types among the Pokemon in the Cerulean Gym, but none of them were quite like Brucey. And if there were, they wouldn’t be included in any training and be left in the exhibit instead. So Nina was at a loss on what to do.

Nina looked towards the sheepish Nairy, who was nervously glancing between his two companions; Brucey, who was still crying in her arms, and the defiant Espy who had her back turned towards Nina and her Golbat.

“What Espy did was extremely uncouth, but maybe I can make use of that…” Nina approached Espy and sat Brucey down in front of her. The Psychic Pokemon had already known about Nina’s approach. In fact, she had already read Nina’s mind and understood what the girl wanted from her. The fact that she was still posturing was just her tsundere side acting up, which Nina thought was the cutest part about her Espeon.

“Please, Espy?” Nina pleaded. To which the Espeon begrudgingly agreed with a curt nod. What Nina wanted Espy to do was beam all the negative emotions she felt towards Brucey directly into his mind. That way, there was no room for misinterpretation on Brucey’s end.

The end result was inordinately effective, Brucey wilted and even broke out crying at all the hate that he was feeling from Espy, prompting Nina to pull him in for an impromptu cuddle session and assuage him until he was calm enough to continue.

The stick had to be balanced out by a carrot, so Nina then asked Espy to think of a time where she felt positive acknowledgement from something nice she did for somebody else. 

The tsundere princess actually averted her gaze and took awhile to respond, feeling too embarrassed to expose her soft side in such a direct manner. But in the end she did comply, though she kept Nina out of the loop, so her human did not know what was shared.

Brucey immediately perked up at the emotions he was feeling, seeming to like it much more than what he was feeling before.

“See, Brucey,” said Nina. “There’s a big difference between the attention you get from doing something nice for someone and pranking them. I’m not going to stop you from playing pranks ‘cause I think it’s a big part of who you are. But you need to learn when to stop and to balance it out with good deeds every once in a while to make up for all the grief you cause. Do you think you can do that?” 

And just for good measure, Nina also asked Espy to reiterate her words using simple concepts for the socially challenged Golbat. Brucey nodded, seeming to understand.

“Alright, let’s hope this works. But only time will tell.”@@novelbin@@

***

Author's note:

Good news!

I finished writing Part 2! Well, sort of.

I still have to write the epilogue and there's a few things that I need to move around, maybe delete an entire chapter and rework its content elsewhere just to make the whole thing flow better.

Anyways, I'm pretty much done. I would tell you guys the chapter count but I feel like that might be a little spoiler-y.

And regarding whether or not to do a daily release. Somehow I feel like opinions are split on that so I'll put up a poll tomorrow for my Patreons to vote on. The council will decide your fate! Muahahaha!

Edit: Forgot to add, next chapter on Saturday.