Note: This story takes place after a time skip following the events of Pokémon Scarlet.
This fic is being written based on a prompt request as practice for writing people's requests.
If you'd like to support my work and commission me to write something for you, please feel free to message me wherever you're reading this or DM me D3stiny_Sm4sher on Twitter. I haven't yet done any NSFW stuff and I'll be very selective if that's what you're looking for, but I am actively looking for paid work of any kind atm. Anyway, enjoy this weird lil' fic, it will be split into smaller portions than I usually post for easier reading.
"And the way I landed that one-shot, I mean yes! That's what I'm talking about! Jaja, ¡vamos!"
"...Yup. You sure got me...again..."
As expected, Nemona was getting all hyped up from her victory against Penny. A battle Penny had not even wanted to participate in, yet had been expecting to deal with, anyway.
"Whoo! You did better this time than the last, you know!" encouraged Nemona, her thoughts rifling through the details of their match. "When you caught my Dudunsparce off guard with the speed advantage? That was so good!" Her eyes were lit up as she clenched her fists up at her side.
"R-Right, sure..." Penny shrugged, shaking her head as she wiped her glasses with her sleeve, avoiding Nemona's glowing face. "I was there."
"And then I got you with that off-chance Paralysis? Hah!" Nemona laughed with satisfaction as she pumped her fist, ignoring Penny's comment, it seemed. "Augh, that was awesome!" She was sighing up toward the sky, palming her forehead in remembrance. "I knew it was a long shot, but it worked!"
"Yes, well...luck sure does seem to play a role," sighed Penny.
"Heheh, and that just means there is always room for a comeback!" Nemona countered, skipping clear over Penny's scepticism. "And you almost did!"
Penny pointed out flatly, "...You still had like three extra Pokémon in reserve. You flattened my team."
Nemona's excitement slowed down, like a train coming in to a station. She blinked, gawking at Penny's impatient, dull-daggered glare, and sifted her springy green bangs out of her eye with a small smile.
"Well...I've got more experience with this than you do," Nemona placated. "Don't be so down about it. I-I mean, c'mon." She jabbed a thumb back over her shoulder. "Let's go bring them to that Pokémon Center we passed a while back, and...-" Nemona swallowed, her throat suddenly dry at Penny's irate staring. "Your guys'll be fine, I didn't rough 'em up..too bad, did I?"
Penny's brow was twitching as her lower lip quivered. Nemona was confused, her stomach lurching with a sudden uncertainty. Had she somehow pushed something too far? What had she done that was out of the ordinary?
"...You didn't rough anything up," Penny sighed, her voice managing to come across softer than her expression, but no less stiff. "...Your Pokémon did. And I know my Mons will be fine, that's not even..." She trailed off, seeing the concern in Nemona's face, the confusion. This was going to be for her own good, Penny reminded herself.
"Did I do something wrong?" Nemona asked, approaching Penny and reaching out a hand – that arm-guarded hand, with its dry fingers gripping Penny's clammy digits in a gentle but unasked-for gesture. "Talk to me, Penny, you look really ticked all of a sudden..."
Part of Penny wanted to linger on that gesture, the physical contact, but Penny's gut instinct to physical touch didn't allow it. Her hand retreated into her sleeve like a Shuckle's head into its shell. If she could exist like a Shuckle, and just hide all of herself into a shell, she would. And, well, in her own ways, she did: as Cassiopeia. And just like in the past, Cassiopeia was going to help settle this problem she was experiencing with Nemona in a way that Penny couldn't.
"Penny?" Nemona's abandoned hand found its way to her chest, joining her other palm as her fingers awkwardly fidgeted around each other. Penny's gaze was caught in watching those nimble fingers dance across Nemona's chest. Normally, with Nemona in her school uniform, Penny would find herself distracted by the fabric of that white cotton shirt, imagining what it would be like to be able to shove her face into a Flareon's fuzzy, warm mane. Nemona's tie swaying with her every excitable movement would cause Penny to think about her Sylveon's ribbon-like appendages, how they'd try and reach and touch and how Penny would need to retract into her Shuckle shell by way of commanding her companion Mon to stop, or at worst, force it back into its pokéball. Nemona's eyes made Penny think of Jolteon, sparking and fierce, lively and energetic. And her long black hair, swaying with every subtle movement she made, would have Penny thinking of her protective Umbreon's dark, smooth fur.
But on that summer afternoon, Nemona wasn't wearing her usual uniform. She was dressed in a pair of tight denim shorts, with hiking boots and a sleeveless tanktop with a red Gyrados printed on it. The shirt had the text 'Lake of Rage' printed on it, some tourist spot in Johto Nemona had bragged about visiting some time back. The shirt itself was a bit worn out, its graphic pattern faded, and it was also perhaps slightly outgrown, as just a hint of Nemona's belly showed at the top's bottom edge. Not that Penny would complain. She didn't understand why Nemona was so insistent on continuing to spend time with her, but the feelings it was making Penny experience were...conflicting. Which was why she had decided to do what she was going to do that afternoon.
It was a rare sight to see Nemona not representing the school uniform, but since she'd graduated that spring, it made sense that she was starting to ween off of the stifling school outfit. Penny, meanwhile, was content with her usual choice of fashion: leggings and boots, shorts and skirt, though in a long-sleeve sweatshirt that afternoon. Her shirt advertised the annual Slateport Pokémon Pagaent with a Skitty posing with a prize ribbon. It was too hot out, even for her, to be fully decked out in a hoodie or jacket. Her beloved 'Veevee' backpack, though, was essential for the day's plan, even if it made things a bit warmer than preferred.
"What's goin' on in that big brain of yours?" Nemona asked, raising a brow and crossing her arms. "Usually you're pretty quick to tell me what's what." Her head tilted sceptically, but in that playful teasing way where Penny knew she was trying to lighten the mood. Did she even really care about Penny's frustration? Penny had voiced it time and again, but Nemona was like a Primeape with this stuff: there was no reasoning with her. If Penny was going to get her to understand, she'd have to do so...a little more directly. Thankfully, the Pokémon from that time rift to the past had helped give her the spark of inspiration that Cassiopeia had needed to hatch this idea...
"Feeling tired, I guess," Penny mumbled, trying to shrug off Nemona's persistent bugging. Sure, Nemona acted like she was concerned, like she cared, but did she really? She'd skip right over that when it was time to have Pokémon start beating each other up...
"Huh, yea, we've walked quite a ways today," said Nemona, her hands still clasped together over her chest. She nodded firmly, tallying tasks on her fingers. "Sent a buncha Pokémon back to the bank, hatched an egg, been super productive. Maybe we should circle back?" She tilted her head slightly in the direction they'd come from. "Take a break?"
"A-Actually, that's...not a bad idea," Penny said, pulling out her trusted Rotom to check her messages. She checked her map to make sure the target was still where it was meant to be...nearby, next to that tree, just due north-west. Good. Perfect. She explained her faux intentions to Nemona: "I'll swing by the Pokémon Center down the road here," she pointed it out, as it was still visible from their current location. "Get my team healed up, and get us something to eat. I'm in the mood for an early dinner today..."
The pair started to walk backward along the trail they'd been hiking down, and, as if on cue, Nemona got hyper over the mentioned of food.
Nemona blurted out, "Ohhhh, ooo, can we get curry-and-rice styled sandwiches this time?" She grabbed Penny by the shoulder with a light shake, and Penny's arms stiffened from the touch.
"Sure," Penny grunted through clenched teeth, and Nemona clapped as she broke the contact, seemingly oblivious.
"I have been hungering for curry all week. One time, my sister and I got to go to Galar to watch a competition – those stadiums they have there, it's something else! – and we got to have some curry, and Arceus mío, it was so good. Man, I wish Arven was around to make these for us, where has that guy been these days? You don't think him and the Champ have been hunting those monstruos gigantescos without us, huh?"
While Nemona had been working herself into a tizzy – she really didn't know when to stop, did she? – Penny had been continuing to study her Rotom's screen. This was the part of the 'conversation' to cut the girl off. To cast the line, so to speak.
"...Huh," Penny murmured, narrowing her eyes.
"...Huh?" Nemona repeated, instantly curious. Her head swooped over Penny's shoulder, her hand gripping down against Penny's elbow, her green-dyed bangs bouncing left and right from the sudden motion. "I know that 'huh,' that is a Pokémon-related 'huh.'"
'As if literally anything else in this world besides Pokémon and food could generate any kind of excitement in the reality you live in...' Penny lamented to herself, all the while soaking in Nemona's flaunting of their familiarity.
"You're not wrong," Penny responded, shrinking a bit from Nemona's hand on her arm while desperately wanting to lean into her in another thought. "Look at this," she said, pointing to the spot in question. "I'm picking up a scan that there's some kind of Pokémon nearby that never shows up around here – based on the heat signatures it's giving off, I suspect it's an escaped specimen from Ar-"
"Area Zero! Heck yes!" Nemona was pulling up her own Rotom to mark the spot on the map, before even having any information on what it was that was lying in wait. "OK, OK," Nemona rapidly spat out, coming to a full stop. "Truthfully? Truthfully, I have been...aching to go to Area Zero for months."She was stomping in place, her voice giddy and her wrists clenched into upward fists.
"You desperately want to go to Area Zero," noted Penny, scratching the base of her neck. "Even though it's dangerous."
"Uhhh, that's the entire appeal, Penny?"countered Nemona, flapping out her palms in gesture of disbelief at Penny's logic.
"...Even though none of the Pokémon there asked to even be here, to get stuck in our time period..."
"Um..." Nemona mentally stumbled. Penny wondered how she would react. In a way that suited her own interests, no doubt. Smoothing out her ponytail as she re-tightened her hairtie, Nemona wrote off Penny's questions with, "I-I mean, they came through the portal, right? They must've wanted to see what was on he other side. If they wanted to, they could...just go back home. Experiencing the unknown? The undiscovered? Fighting their hearts out? That's what Pokémon and trainers alike live for, isn't it?"
'Not all of us...' Penny replied in her mind, but not out loud.
"I'm...not convincing you to leave this Pokémon alone," Penny said, her words laced with defeat. "Am I?"
"No way!" Nemona jeered with a chuckle, starting to dash off in the direction Penny had pointed out.
"What about your Pokémon?!" Penny shouted out to her. "We just battled!"
"Half my team's still fresh!" dismissed Nemona, yelling back. "I've got potions, y'know! I'll be fine!"
Penny considered, for a moment, of barking out some other kind of warning. But she knew it was pointless. On the one hand, watching Nemona run with the unbridled, unrelenting excitement of an Arcanine was...undeniably cute. The way her bare shoulders flexed with each thrust of her arms, the way her ponytail flapped and waved in the wind, the way those denim shorts looked on her legs...Penny found herself hopelessly smitten. Which was awful, because how could she even begin to approach feelings like that for this girl who was so obviously...unaware of her own behavior?
As Nemona shrunk into the distance, Penny raised her Rotom aloft, waiting for its vibrations to indicate it was ready to take flight.
"You ready, little one?" she asked her trusted ally. It buzzed and chirped in affirmation, and Penny nodded, to which it whizzed off, following Nemona's trail.
Penny headed back for the Pokémon Center nearby, picking up the pace. Penny had tried talking some reason to Nemona. Penny had struggled, and tolerated, and put up with Nemona's nonsense.
Now, it was time to let Cassiopeia have a shot.