Into the Unown (Pokemon Fanfiction OC)

Purple Shadow looked more put together. He took a shower, put on some clean clothes, and even shaved his face. Though Nina could tell he didn’t do a very good job of it, since there were visible knicks here and there. One would think that a ninja would be more proficient with blades.

The man still had that weary energy to him though. Like a man who would happily welcome the end of the world, just so that it meant an end to his miserable existence.

The two of them were in a little secluded corner of Diglett’s Cave, near Brucey’s old home actually. It was a bit of a trip, but the lack of any traffic meant that there wouldn’t be any busybodies snooping on them. And more importantly, between Espy and Purple Shadow’s ninja expertise, they could easily detect any foreign presence within their vicinity.

Unfortunately, Lilian and Alfred couldn’t join them, since her friend was currently on an excursion to capture a Noibat in Mount Moon. To capture all the Noibats actually. As a representative of the regional Dragon Tamers, she was obligated to repatriate the foreign Dragons to their home soil. Which meant that Justin was racing against Lilian if he wanted a Noibat of his own. A challenge that the competitive boy actually relished in.

“Are you just going to stand there staring like a Psyduck, or are we gonna get this over with?” asked the impatient Purple Shadow, which was a bit of a mouthful, so Nina decided she’d just address him as Shadow from now on.

The girl held back her retort about the man being unemployed and idle, simply responding to his biting tone with a genial smile. “Of course, Mr Shadow. Is it okay if I call you Mr Shadow by the way? My Golbat is already released and eager as you can see. Feel free to begin whenever you would like.”

Shadow snorted, murmuring something about how Nina could call him whatever. Then to her surprise, what he released wasn’t a Golbat, but a Crobat.

Nina gasped. “Incredible…” Out of habit, she produced some Berries and approached to pet the four-winged bat Pokemon in front of her. 

Nina’s first impressions were that the Pokemon felt the same to touch as Brucey, except he was much bigger. Brucey himself was around the same size as Nina. The only reason why he was able to perch on the girl usually, was because of Flying Type Energy shenanigans. 

But Crobat was about the same height as his trainer and significantly more robust, with a much wider build than an average adult. Nina reckoned that Shadow could probably ride his Crobat around without much issue, though it’ll be a bit of a tight fit.

“You must love him very much…” Nina murmured, eliciting a slight twitch from Shadow. “But why though? Why take part in such a heinous sport when you care for your Pokemon so much?”

Shadow scoffed. “Are you here to learn, or interrogate me?!” He snapped. “Hurry up and pay attention already!”

Nina gave the Crobat one last pat and waited for him to finish his Berries before shifting all her attention to the ronin.

“Right, first off, tell me what you’ve been doing with your Golbat. I can tell he’s very… active.” He said, referring to Brucey who had been sneakily trying to drop stones onto Purple Shadow since just now.

Nina nodded and started going into detail about her regimen with Brucey, especially when it came to their aggravating attempts at trying to learn Kage Bunshin on their own. “Brucey can do two Substitutes at maximum. He’s been steadily getting better at maintaining the clones, but we’ve yet to find a way to optimize the move well enough to address the Energy drain.” The girl lamented.

Shadow snorted. “‘Course you’re not getting anywhere. You’re going about it all wrong!” He said with a smirk. “But I don’t blame ya kid, that’s what everyone thinks whenever they see that bastard whip out his Golbat. It’s all a ruse — subterfuge to trick overly ambitious idiots like you.”

The girl simply nodded in acknowledgement of her failure, not looking upset at all. “I thought as much. So what’s the actual secret then?”

Shadow clicked his tongue, like he was annoyed the girl didn’t fall for his provocation. “Ever heard of Payday?”

Nina’s eyes widened as the realization dawned on her. “No… No freaking way. Can a Golbat even learn that move?” said the flabbergasted girl. “But that would explain why Koga’s clones are so… material,” she murmured. “Payday conjures up physical projectiles… But how do they even fly around like that?”

There was actually a lot of debate on the nature of Payday. Unlike in the games, the coins conjured up by a Meowth were impermanent. But the illusion was staggeringly realistic, to the point where the coins even take on physical properties, however fleeting they may be. 

So there’s long been doubts on whether the move was actually secretly a Fairy Type move or a Psychic Type move. A debate that would be quite contentious were it not for the irrefutable fact that Payday used Normal Type Energy. Not that this stopped a small niche of researchers from dedicating their entire life’s work to uncovering its mysterious workings. 

That said, most of them were just nutjobs who believed they could unlock the secrets of unlimited wealth through Payday. It was basically the Pokemon world’s equivalent of transmuting lead to gold.

Shadow let out a smug grin as he relished in the girl’s confusion. “Heh. A long fucking time ago, there was a Koga who was obsessed with cats. It was all she cared for. They say the claws of the Persians she reared could even pierce the scales of a Dragonite. Probably all Tauros poo, but that’s what they say anyway. She was the one who came up with the move.”

“So you’re saying that the Persian line is also capable of Kage Bunshin.”

“Nope~” denied Shadow, with a long drawn out pop at the end. “The move came about because the dumbass was trying to teach Payday to every random Pokemon they had lying around. Persians can’t learn Kage Bunshin because of their higher affinity with Dark Type Energy. Ironic,  I know. Even the name’s part of the ruse. Shit has nothing to do with shadows. Psychic Energy — that’s how you control the clones. It’s not a lot of control, mind you. But if your Golbat gets good enough, he might be able to split his swarm two or three ways.”

Nina frowned in confusion and pulled out her Pokedex. “I know that Alolan Persians are Dark Types. But it still makes no sense. Regular Meowths are Normal Types. And from what I can see, they share a lot of moves with Golbat.” Both species are also capable of learning a similar number of Psychic and Dark Type moves. 

“Also, does that mean that a Pokemon has to be Gifted to learn Kage Bunshin?” She continued.

Shadow snorted. “I don’t fucking know, something about genetics and Type Energy compatibility or something.” He then let out a grin and looked over to Espy. “As for the second question, it’s a good thing you have a Psychic to help out. I never did say this was going to be easy. There’s a reason why you don’t see all the Koga ninjas using that move.” He said with a sneer.

The man also explained that not all the historical Kogas possessed that move. That’s why they never made it a requirement for assuming leadership of the clan despite numerous discussions around the matter. Though knowing the move does certainly make one a shoe-in. 

All the while Shadow had a smug look on his face as he said all of that. Which really made Nina wonder what sort of transgressions such a gifted trainer would need to commit to be kicked out of the clan. “I mean here he is, a drunken, washed up prize fighter, toting around a Crobat when even the current Koga doesn’t have one.”

Nina shot a quick message to Lilian while Shadow was talking, telling her to take care in selecting a Noibat that was ‘special’, without leaving any context. She never did find out if messages sent through the Pokenet were encrypted or not. Nina trusted that her friend was smart enough to understand what she meant. Otherwise, Alfred could help.

“What about Payday then?” Asked Nina. “Do we need a Persian to teach it, or is your Crobat going to do it?”

Shadow rolled his eyes and gave the girl a look like she was an idiot. “Well no duh! Why else would I send out Itachi? I thought you were supposed to be a genius or something?”

Nina did not mind the insult since she never claimed to be a genius, but she did have to hold back a flinch at the familiar name. “A ninja Crobat named Itachi, how appropriate. The only thing he’s missing is a secret demonic eye or something.”

“Wait…” Nina suddenly had a thought as she recalled a novel piece of information she read on the Pokedex. The girl turned to look at her Espeon, whose mouth curved up a little at having read her human’s mind. “Espy can learn Kage Bunshin!” 

She remembered researching Payday as a kid to see if she could use the move as a cheat to get rich quick. But naturally, this being the real world, she was disappointed to find out that such convenient money making schemes did not exist. Otherwise, the wild Meowth population would be in the same precarious situation as the Eevees by now, instead of roaming around cities in abundance.

“Nope, not gonna happen,” interrupted Shadow. As a trained ninja, the man could easily read the girl’s intent just from that brief interaction.

“What? You thought all those old farts never tried with Pokemon other than Golbats? Arceus knows I have.” The man added, in response to the befuddled look Nina gave him. “And it has to be a Golbat, mind you. Zubats are too dumb and Crobats are too smart, but they’ll remember the move from when they were Golbats. Just not learn it from scratch.” 

“So by that logic, Espy is also too smart to learn Kage Bunshin. I wonder if there is a component of instinct involved… So a Golbat would be like the Goldilocks zone when it comes to learning the secret move.”

“Your Espeon can manage 2-3 bunshins, maybe. If she tried hard enough. But at that point you might as well just use Double Team or Substitute or something. Which by the way, it was actually good that you trained your Golbat on Substitute cause he’ll be needing to mix in a bit of that as well.”

Nina sighed. “Should I message Lilian and tell her to forget about the Noibat then?”

“Now hang on a second,” Shadow chimed, his eyes looking more alive than Nina had ever seen him. “It’s never been tried before, but I don’t see why not. Or at the very least, I’m willing to give it a go.”

Nina let out a warm smile at the enthusiastic Shadow, thinking that someone like him likely couldn’t be too bad. “Everyone has their own story after all…”

***

As it turned out, learning the basics of Kage Bunshin wasn’t that hard with the help of a Gifted empath like Espy. She just had to read Itachi’s mind and conveyed all the feelings and intent she captured wholesale into Brucey’s mind.

It wasn’t perfect, but Nina’s Espeon was basically acting like a simplified TM copier. Thanks to that, Brucey was able to get the hang of consistently producing upwards of four to five clones easily. Even Shadow was so flabbergasted that his jaw nearly took on the same shape as Brucey’s.

Learning how to control the clones though, was a different matter. Since Kage Bunshin was based off Payday, a projectile move. Brucey was only able to throw his bunshins forward like they were oversized batarangs. Not to mention the weird, inconsistent shapes and sizes of the clones thanks to Brucey’s difficulties in focusing his attention.

But Nina was ecstatic. Brucey’s quick progress aside, the discovery of a new way to apply Espy’s empathic abilities opened the door for much more efficient avenues of training. No longer would Nairy have to struggle with Hyper Beam when they could just import the foundations from Ryu for example. 

The loss of clarity from the translation process and all the junk ‘data’ from the species discrepancy was actually beneficial in this case, since her Pokemon would be able to get a feel for how the move was used and try to apply it their own way as opposed to being stuck with incompatible software.

Nina wanted to slap herself for not realizing Espy’s potential sooner. “How have I been such an idiot all this time?”

Shadow laughed. “I’ll say, what a fucking moron.” He added, in a not so helpful manner.

Nina scowled at him. “I don’t wanna see you begging at my knees when you want to borrow Espy’s help one day.” That was enough to shut the mouthy ronin up and prompt him to treat the girl with much more courtesy. Or at least as much courtesy as an incorrigible asshole like Shadow could manage.

***

Author's note:

This remains one of the chapters that I feel iffy about so I welcome any feedback for potential rewrites.

The idea of combining Payday and Substitute with a bit of Psychic control makes sense in my head but I don't know if I conveyed it properly. My Patreon members seem to think it's fine, but they've always been very kind to me.

So yeah, if anyone has any feedback, I'll gladly take it for a potential rewrite. All those backseat writers out there, now is your time.

Just keep in mind that the means of learning Kage Bunshin isn't that important. What's important is the act of Nina learning it.

Also FYI, Espy's newfound ability isn't actually broken. Think of it as a learning aid to help speed up the process of learning a move as opposed to being equivalent to using a proper TM. We'll get into this later on.