Into the Unown (Pokemon Fanfiction OC)

A trickle of sweat dripped down Nina’s brow, her mouth claggy, and heart pounding from fear and trepidation. She knew that the angry Tauros before her was trained, and that it wouldn’t actually hurt her, but looking into those manic eyes and flaring nostrils triggered her escapist instincts all the same.

The girl took in a deep breath to steady herself, resisting the urge to cough as particles of dust threatened to invade her lungs. The tension in the arena reached a breaking point and Nina raised the piece of red cloth she held to cover her front, leaving only the tip of her head peeking out to keep track of the Tauros she was confronting.

Nina knew that the color red had little relevance to Tauros as a species. Even in her past life, bulls were actually color blind and couldn’t even recognize the strikingly colored cloths that matadors used in their performance. It was actually the movement of the fabric that attracted their attention.

The difference between Tauros and their animal counterpart was that the Pokemon could actually see colour. So for this particular assignment, Nina took advantage of that fact and sought to use the eye-catching cloth to trick the Tauros. The idea was, she would keep the bull Pokemon’s attention focused on the red cloth instead of her. That way, she could use it as a homing beacon of sorts to guide it or dodge out of the way safely, in theory.

Nina did not know if this would work or not, but it couldn’t be helped since the teachers provided minimal instructions to the lead up of this class. Only telling the students to try their best and that “it’s okay if you fail.”

Nina’s musings were broken by the whistling of Mr Yamada, the teacher overseeing this class. The Tauros kicked its foreleg in aggression and charged at the student in front of her, its speed and force already tempered for the girl’s benefit.

“Dammit! Get your shit together!” Nina chided, in an attempt to force her frozen knees into action. Fortunately her survival instincts kicked in right as the Tauros neared, prompting her to wave the red cloth in provocation and step out of the way as the bull passed right through it, barely nicking Nina’s flank in the process.

The Tauros couldn’t stop its momentum in time and crashed loudly into the side of the arena. Nina had positioned herself accordingly before the start of the match. A momentary wave of elation and relief washed over her when she realized that her half cooked plan actually worked. But that moment soon passed when the stinging pain to her side brought her back to the visage of the disgruntled Tauros before her.

Nina cursed inwardly and hastily moved to reposition herself for another round. Pokemon, who should by all means be intelligent, shouldn’t fall for the same trick that many times. But the premise of the lesson today was how to tame a rampaging Pokemon without aid. As such, the Tauros acted accordingly while also being well trained enough to know how to mitigate any debilitating injuries, mostly. 

Accidents do happen, which was why there were nurses stationed in the periphery that would jump in if anything were to happen. Regardless, it all felt very callous to Nina, even though her teachers assured the students that they have not had a fatality for over a decade now.

The next charge from the Tauros ended much more smoothly, now that Nina knew what to expect. She was able to dodge out of the way without making any contact with the Tauros at all, causing it to crash into the sturdy arena wall once more.

However, instead of allowing herself to fall complacent, she threw aside the cloth and jumped onto the back of the dazed Pokemon, scrambling to secure herself by grabbing hold of Tauros’s menacing horns.

“Wait, why the heck did I do this again?” But before she could regret her life choices, the Tauros recovered and began bucking Nina up and down, waving the foolish girl around like a flag as it bounded all across the arena. 

The bull ride did not last because Nina’s grip eventually slipped and she was tossed off the Pokemon’s back, landing on the arena ground with a mouthful of dirt. That marked Nina’s failure as Mr Yamada whistled to signal the end of her session.

Nina groaned as she willed her bruised and battered body to move, spitting out clumps of dirt and sand as she did while begrudgingly grabbing hold of the hand that was offered to her.

“Haha!” Mr Yamada laughed. “That was quite the performance. No idea why you got onto Tauros at the end there though, should’ve just kept baiting him until he wore out.”

Nina winced as she attempted to roll her shoulder, but was unable to muster any strength amidst the pain, likely having dislocated it during the fall. “I was going to take the opportunity to cover the Tauros’s horns.” She said, as she gestured towards her belt at the special cushions that she had fashioned together from the supplies and props they were given. “But my mind blanked, and Tauros recovered quicker than I expected.” The girl whined.

The P.E Teacher chuckled at the flimsy plan. “Not the best idea, but we’ll talk about why that wouldn’t work during the proper demonstration. Now go and get yourself looked at before little Miss Joy runs into the arena.” He said, while gesturing towards the anxious looking Kerry near the nurses.

Nina huffed in acknowledgement, but not before demanding an explanation of why they didn’t do a demonstration of correct methods before asking students to get hands on.

Mr Yamada laughed sheepishly at his student and explained that it was to instill a genuine sense of danger among their students. “We could teach you the right method first, but when you’re actually facing down an angry Pokemon like this, all rational thoughts tend to be usurped by fear and panic. This way, students will better remember our subsequent lessons after having experienced painful failure, as well as having a better idea of what to expect if it really comes down to it.” He explained.

“In addition, we find that you kids tend to get too overconfident if we do it the other way around. Since you already know the right methods, there’s minimal urgency and severity. We want you to experience that sense of helplessness, know

Nina nodded in understanding, and was then dragged away by a stern looking Kerry who had approached them at some point.

“Doesn’t it hurt?! Why are you so calm about this?” Kerry exclaimed, eliciting a wince and a feeble laugh from her friend.

It did hurt. In fact, Nina could feel tears welling out of her eyes as her injured arm was jostled during their walk to the nurse’s station. And when they arrived, Nina obediently allowed the nurses to manage her and do their thing. All the while, she kept her eyes trained on the arena to distract her mind from the pain of treatment. Not that it was too bad, the nurse made sure to apply a light numbing agent on her shoulder before attempting to maneuver it back into position.

One of the most stand out performances in their class was a girl who grew up on a ranch. She opted for a length of rope which she tied into a lasso and was doing all sorts of fancy tricks with it before the start of her session.

When the charge began, the girl skillfully entangled the Tauros’s limbs with the lasso, causing it to fall and tumble onto the ground. The whole process repeated itself several times, before the girl deemed that Tauros was exhausted enough to be restrained. Naturally, the whole class gave her a standing ovation for such an incredible display, even Nina, earning her some light scolding from the nurses to stay still.

Another student that stood out to Nina was a boy using a whip. She didn’t manage to catch his name, but she dubbed him Indiana in her mind from how skillfully he was manipulating the long strip of leather he wielded.

Every time that the Tauros kicked its legs to gear up for a charge, there would be a flash of whip to its side, followed by the crack of booming thunder to shock it out of its intense concentration and kill the Pokemon’s drive. As a result, the Tauros’s charge was a lot slower than the previous demonstrations, and completely devoid of aggression, allowing ‘Indiana’ to casually hop out of the way.

Seeing that actually inspired Nina. In a way, the shock caused by the whipping noise was similar to how Brucey used Screech, except it happened in quick bursts and contained a lot more impact. “I wonder if I can get Brucey to do something similar.” She mused. It would also be a good alternative to Taunt for opponents that could resist it.

“Man, it’s hard to tell sometimes since I kind of had an unfair advantage coming in. But there’s actually a lot of really talented kids here in this school huh?” Nina murmured. 

Kerry laughed by her side. “Of course, VF is the number one trainer school in Kanto for a reason. It’s just that not everyone’s used to battling the way that you are. But everyone here can handle Pokemon to a certain extent.”

Nina chuckled along as well. “Yeah, guess I shouldn’t allow myself to be too complacent. Not that I’m looking to compete or anything.” She then turned towards Kerry with a little smirk. “By the way, you haven’t had your turn yet, right? Feeling nervous?”

The dainty nurse apprentice groaned “Urgh. Don’t remind me. I don’t even know what I’m supposed to do here.”

Nina laughed and gave the girl a light pat with her good arm. “No worries, just use that magical charm that all you Joys have.” She teased, earning her a glare from the anxious girl.

***

“Alright, I hope you all learned something today. Because as second years, this will be part of your practicals in the midterm.” Mr Yamada’s proclamation earned him a wave of groans from the class.

The brawny teacher laughed at the response and reassured them that they likely wouldn’t be facing a Tauros in the exams. “You’re only in your second year, so you’ll likely be dealing with an unruly Pikachu or an aggressive Zubat or something.” He said, triggering sighs of relief from some of the students.

“In reality, it’s likely you won’t be dealing with a rampaging Pokemon the size of a Tauros without backup from Pokemon of your own.” Yamada explained. “However, that’s no reason to be complacent.” He added.

“Accidents happen all the time. We may treat the Pokemon in our lives as friends, families and companions,” Yamada paused and turned to look at every one of his students with a severe gaze. “But out there, in the wild, Pokemon are to be treated as wild beasts that you should approach with the utmost caution.” 

The class fell silent at the teacher’s grave warning. And indeed, while Pokemon were largely intelligent. There was no shortage of species out there with more aggressive tendencies that treated humans as hostile entities. As budding Pokemon Trainers, this was a fact that every student in the school should be properly educated on to prevent any unfortunate mishaps.

“So that feeling of dread and helplessness you felt when you were confronting Tauros today? Engrave it into your hearts. And so long as you still have the privilege to handle Pokemon, I don’t want any one of you to ever forget it. Is that understood?”

Nina and her classmates all cried out in acknowledgement. And with that, Mr Yamada called an end to their class. The haggard looking students cheered and steadily vacated the premise, each of them looking forward to a hot shower and a hearty meal to soothe their aching bodies.

***

Author's Note:

One of my Patreons asked me a good question when I initially released this chapter. So I thought I'd share the answer here as well. 

The question was why I didn't flesh out the school setting a bit more since I went through the trouble of introducing it in the first place.

And the answer is;

Had Nina not gotten a Dratini as her starter I would have had a much more fulfilling school life for her. Since she wouldn't have joined the Cerulean Gym and VF would be the main source of Pokemon knowledge for her.

Unfortunately, the Gym superceded everything. And all the curiculum that I could think of for a first year was hardly worth the time since she would have already learned it at the Gym. I

considered just skipping the school entirely and find some other way to introduce the characters I wanted to introduce. But the entire point of me writing this story was because I got sick of reading the same old badge collector fanfics. Like seriously, there's hundreds of them with little to no variation in between.

Had this remained as a private project then maybe I would have scrapped Part Two mid way and rewritten it in its entirety. But oh well, what's done is done and from this point on, it's one straight shot to the end of Part Two without any deviations or side quest.