Into the Unown (Pokemon Fanfiction OC)

“I wonder what a Diglett’s full body looks like…”

“Dra.” Nairy nodded in agreement.

Nina had once asked Kerry about it, thinking that the apprentice Nurse Joy would have some knowledge about Diglett physiology. But the cheeky girl just winked at her with an enigmatic smile. “Wouldn’t you like to know?” She said.

No amount of bribes, pleas and negging could get her friend to loosen her lips. And the most infuriating thing was, there was no available information in the League’s database either. It was like the true appearance of the Dugtrio line was a full blown conspiracy or something.

“Should I catch one to find out?” Nina shook her head at the terrible idea. Digletts and their evolved form were very fragile Pokemon, the whole reason why they lived underground was because they dry up really easily under sunlight. 

In addition to the fact that they couldn’t be summoned on non-ground surfaces. So using a Diglett in the Cerulean Gym’s arena won’t be feasible, for example. Since they simply won’t come out unless there was ground for them to burrow into.

The Pokemon’s weakness to sunlight made Nina think of earthworms based on facts that she remembered from her past life. And it would make sense given their shape. Except, when she mentioned her theory to Kerry in an attempt to gauge the girl’s reaction, she was told by the mischievous Joy that Digletts did indeed have feet.

Nina was unsure if it was a lie or not, but she did feel an intense urge to strangle her friend at that moment for all her teasing. 

“I should ask Professor Oak next time.” Surely THE Pokemon Professor wouldn’t be so cruel as to deny knowledge to an inquisitive little girl right?@@novelbin@@

Shelving the mysteries of Diglett biology in her mind, Nina moved away from the group of Digletts that she found and continued exploring Diglett’s Cave.

There were very few Zubats to be found in the main cavern. And those that were present were very similar to main route Pokemon in that they were too timid to approach the human with a scary looking Dragon by her side.

So she decided that she would try to explore as many of the side passages that she knew within the time that she had. Obviously she wouldn’t be able to get to all of them, because some of them were simply too far away. The entirety of Diglett’s cave went from Vermilion to Pewter City, a distance that spanned almost half the region. 

To put into perspective, it would take Nina almost two weeks to get to Pewter City from where she was if she simply walked it without mounting a Pokemon.

Besides, she doubted that any Zubats would live too far from an exit anyway. Since they still needed to surface at night in order to hunt.

The first side passage was actually very well hidden. Nina wouldn’t have been able to spot it were it not for the marker the Ranger made on her map the day before. It was actually a narrow crevice that was angled in such a way that it was entirely hidden in darkness.

The insides were relatively safe, since it was the remnants of someone’s illegal mining activity and had all the reinforcements that one would expect from a mineshaft. The problem was that Vermilion City’s side of the Diglett Cave did not have much in terms of precious minerals, so the place was quickly abandoned.

Nina also found that the space was a little too narrow for the liking of Zubats, but she did find a family of Sandshrews hiding within. They were scared witless by the sudden intruder and jumped back into their little burrow the moment they caught sight of the human girl. Nina felt a little bad, so she left some Berries near the entrance of their hidey-hole as an apology.

“Hmm. Neat.” Nina bent down to examine a shiny object she found partially buried in the ground, which turned out to be an empty Potion bottle.

“Not like I’d feel safe using some random bottle of Potion I found lying on the ground anyway.” The girl chuckled, eliciting a nods of agreement from her Pokemon. 

This was real life, not a game, so one couldn’t expect to come across valuables just laying on the floor. Precious metals and minerals were a possibility though. But as evident by the abandoned mineshaft, the chances were quite slim.

Not to mention, the relatively straightforward structure of Diglett’s Cave and its frequent use by humans meant that the space was thoroughly canvassed, and whatever hidden treasures hidden within its bowels would have been unearthed by now.

“Besides, I don’t know how I feel about robbing a corpse.” It was an unfortunate fact that most valuables found in caves were what remained of unfortunate spelunkers and ill-prepared travellers who lost their lives for one reason or another. It was also etiquette to report the findings of any human remains to the League so that they may be identified and returned to their loved ones. However, there were no explicit rules against looting, so long as it wasn’t too egregious.

Aside from the bottle, there wasn’t anything else of note in the little passage that Nina was in. So she stored the empty Potion bottle in her bag to be disposed of later and moved on — littering was no good, no matter where it was.

This trend largely continued across the next few tunnels she visited, some man made and others dug naturally by Pokemon. She was especially cautious of the latter since she didn’t know how sturdy they were, making sure to have Nairy standby outside to look for help in case of a cave in and bringing only Espy, who could buy them enough time for an escape if necessary.

“What do you think, Nairy? You used to live underground right? Surely you had a few Zubat friends near Victoria’s nest?” Nina asked, when they eventually breaked for lunch.

“Nair~ Dragon nair nair.” Nairy gestured as he spoke but Nina still couldn’t fully grasp his meaning. Thankfully Espy intervened and a bunch of ideas and images went through her head of food, feelings of irritation, and images of Nina and Nairy out fishing.

Nina thanked Espy and nodded at Nairy. “I see, you mostly hunted them for food and ‘cause they were super noisy and annoying huh?”

“Nair!” Nairy nodded before sticking out his tongue and shaking his head in disgusts.

Nina chuckled, not needing Espy’s help for this one. “Yeah, I imagine Zubats probably have a nasty taste to them.”

Nairy nodded once more and nuzzled against his partner in affection. Which Nina reciprocated with kisses and boops.

Lunch was Pokechow with Berries for the two Pokemon while Nina took out her portable stove to heat a pack of MREs she packed for the trip. Nina was having a dish similar to mapo tofu with soy meat today. There was a surprisingly robust selection of vegetarian MREs on offer since those tended to be easier to preserve and a lot cheaper than ones with real meat in them.

The moment that Nina’s packet of instant rice was done boiling, she poured the rice into the MRE pouch containing the mapo tofu and dug in with her spoon. Nairy and Espy were nice enough to wait for her to begin eating as well.

“I thought I smelled something good,” said a masculine voice, midway through Nina’s meal.

The girl looked around to find the source of the voice to be a fairly rotund looking bearded man with a wide smile and dressed in red hiker’s gear.

“Hello there,” greeted the affable looking man. “The name’s Collin, I smelled your cooking and got a bit nosy. You wouldn’t happen to be looking for some company, would you?”

Nina glanced towards Espy, who gave her a small nod, prompting her to return Collin’s smile and invite him to join in. “My name is Nina, and as you can see I’m not short on company, but the more the merrier right? Please, do join in, and feel free to use my stove if you like. I have no need for it at the moment.”

Collin let out a hearty laughter at Nina’s hospitality and unloaded the hefty looking backpack that he was carrying onto the ground before rummaging around for his supplies.

“That’s quite a load,” Nina commented. “Must be rough to be trekking around with so much stuff.”

“Haha! It’s not too bad,” responded Collin as he took out some dried rations and a can of coffee to boil on top of Nina’s stove. “Can’t afford one of them fancy Silph Co Bags, so the trick is to just be smart about what I pack. Coffee?” He offered, to which Nina declined with an amicable smile.

“I don’t drink coffee, mom says it’s bad for my growth. I’ll happily take tea though if you have any.”

Collin chuckled. “Unfortunately, I’m not one for leaf juice. Tastes too… herbal.”

Nina laughed at the man’s face and continued with her meal. And for a moment, a comfortable silence took over their camp as Collin focused on settling down. Surprisingly, he released a Dugtrio, a rarity among trainers.

“I don’t think I’ve met anyone who had a Dugtrio before, aren’t they difficult to rear?” Nina asked, as she reached out to pet the surprisingly smooth and thin skin of the Pokemon and fed them some Berries.

Collin nodded. “Haha! That’s true, but Dexter here is a real help when I’m working underground. And I do spend more time down in these caves than up there in the sun.” Collin explained that he was a Geologist who traveled all around Kanto-Johto to research the two region’s cave systems, mainly focusing on soil and mineral compositions of every location he visited.

It was a tough job, but it was extremely helpful in enabling the League to pinpoint areas of interest to send prospectors to. As well as to detect any potential cave-ins or sources of pollution in a location. “Former mining areas are especially bad, because the soil is all loose. A bit of heavy rainfall is all it takes for any residual metals to seep into the environment and completely ruin it.”

Nina nodded along while writing in her notebook. “So what sort of measures are taken to resolve the pollution?”

“League sends in Ground and Metal Type Pokemon to help unearth any residual minerals and cleanse it. Metal Types have a constitution like you wouldn’t believe, their bodies will absorb whatever minerals they find useful and excrete the rest. Makes it easier to manage any toxic waste, ‘cause you just gotta have them shit in a designated area.” The man took a sip of his coffee.

“And after all is said and done, they’ll send in Fire Types to cleanse any polluted biomatter and Grass Types to help rejuvenate the land.”

Nina hummed and furiously scribbled her notes. Pokemon truly were miraculous beings, learning about how they could be used to maintain the sanctity of nature was absolutely fascinating to her. “I’m guessing you must have encountered a lot of fossils during the course of your work huh?” The girl continued to ask.

Collin nodded with a mixed expression. “I do, aye. Selling them is tricky, but they make for a nice bit of bonus when I do find buyers.”

Nina tilted her head in confusion. She had thought that fossils were just universally valuable given that they could be revived.

Collin further elaborated to clear the girl’s doubts. “Not all fossils are intact enough to undergo the revival process. The success rate is actually quite mixed even for fossils that looked alright on the surface. And the costs of revival will largely depend on how well preserved the fossil is.” He explained that sometimes they ended up with a “stillborn” or some sort of wretched abomination that was missing crucial parts and organs. 

“Contamination also plays a factor, and it's generally known that even the most successfully  revived Fossil Pokemon have limited lifespans without very expensive and persistent rejuvenation treatment.” Oftentimes it was more cost effective to just revive a new fossil than maintain an existing one. So only eclectic and wealthy collectors, or dedicated researchers will seek out Fossil Pokemon.

“There are boffins who are working on DNA revival though — that is, they extract the remnant DNA from fossils and grow the Pokemon in a vat instead of ‘reviving’ them. Kind of like cloning, I guess? It’s supposed to be more reliable, but I don’t really know the specifics. Just that it’s more expensive ‘cause it takes more time or something.”

Nina thanked the man for enlightening her and scribbled in her notes. In truth, Nina had at certain points fantasized about digging up fossils to either sell or revive for her own use. So this was really helpful knowledge. She asked for a few more details before settling to focus on her notetaking.

“What about yourself?” Collin asked, after a moment of silence. “Not often I see young’uns come down this way. Usually they prefer to stay above ground or take a Sky Taxi if their folks are rich enough.” The man clearly thought Nina was a rich girl with the way he was judging her expensive looking backpack and Pokemon.

Nina laughed and waved dismissively at the man. “Nah, I found Nairy by chance, and Espy’s from my sponsor. I prefer taking my time traveling so I try not to take Sky Taxis unless I’m pressed for time. I’m actually here to see if I can catch a Golbat.”

“Oh, that’s not the sort of Pokemon that’s usually popular with prim and proper girls like yourself,” said the bewildered Collin.

Nina nodded and explained her rationale. “I’d settle for a Zubat as well. But given how instinct driven they are, it just seems like such a hassle to train.”

Collin hummed in consideration. “Hmm… I would say that it’s precisely ‘cause of how animalistic Zubats can be that it’s easier to endear them to you. That’s why you see so many criminals using them. Golbats, despite their boost in intelligence, don't exactly have solid morals, if y’know what I mean.”

“And yet, you don’t see a lot of Crobats among your run of the mill Rocket goons.” Nina argued “Like Professor Bill said, Evolution is an active phenomenon, not a passive one. A Pokemon needs to have purpose and a drive to grow stronger in order to progress through the next stage. Friendship Evolutions especially.”

In fact, Professor Oak once hypothesized that the intent of a Pokemon and their trainer needed to be aligned in order to trigger a Friendship Evolution. Hence why it was easier to evolve Pokemon in battle, since their thoughts were usually quite straightforward in such a scenario — a desire to beat the opponent in front of them.

Case in point, Espy evolved with Nina under a mutual desire for survival and their love for one another. The strain of the predicament they were in at the time helped to cleanse their thoughts of everything superfluous, thereby helping them to sync up.

“I doubt a Golbat that’s simply obeying me for the sake of food and shelter would be able to evolve into a Crobat.” Nina concluded.

Collin nodded in understanding and stared at the little girl in front of him with eyes full of intrigue. “Y’know, I don’t think I’ve ever met a young girl quite like you before, Nina. Are you sure you’re just ten years old?”

Nina laughed and waved dismissively at the older man. “I am a bonafide ten year old alright, just had my coming of age not too long ago. But if it helps, I am sponsored by Professor Bill as you can tell from my Espeon. So I’ve studied a bit more about Evolution theory than your average ten year old.”

Collin slapped his fist against his palm. “Ah… I see, that explains a lot. A student of Professor Eevee himself, no wonder. As expected of an esteemed Pokemon Professor, the man sure has an eye for talent.” Collin laughed.

Nina laughed alongside him, thinking that sometimes, sharing a fraction of the whole picture was more than enough to sate the curiosity of an average layman. Especially if they didn’t harbor any ill intent.

“Y’know, I might know of a little guy that meets most of your requirements…” Collin continued, while flashing the girl a knowing smile.

Nina grinned at the fortuitous encounter and sent a quick thank you to Mew in her head.

***

Author's note:

The only two NPCs present in Diglett's Cave, as far as I can tell, are Hiker Collin and Hiker Dexter. Dexter lost the coin toss, so I had him become the Dugtrio, while Collin remained human.