“Is Nina gonna be okay? I’ve never seen her like this before…”

Justin looked towards the beach where the girl sat huddled with her Dragonite, stoically watching over the feeding of her newly caught Dhelmise, stiff as stone. The boy had actually offered to sit watch on her behalf, but was declined by Nina.

Kerry sighed. “That’s because you’ve mostly only seen her in school. Nina might act all mature, but she’s still the same age as the rest of us, you know? She can be vulnerable when she needs to be. Which is a relief really... No one can stand up to the pressure of being perfect all the time.”

Meanwhile Lucy wordlessly stirred the pot and filled up her bowl with another serving of stew. Both she and Justin were absolutely hopeless when it came to cooking, so being able to indulge in Nina and Kerry’s culinary prowess already made them regret not meeting up with them sooner. Even if their fare tended to eschew meat in consideration of Nina’s dietary preference.

“She hasn’t eaten anything yet…” Lucy remarked.

“I don’t think she has much of an appetite right now…”

However, Justin disagreed with Kerry’s assessment. After all, it was Nina who told him before that if he didn’t eat then he couldn’t become stronger. So he grabbed a bowl, filled it with stew and trudged on over to where Nina was sitting.

“Justin? What do you want?” The boy recoiled ever so slightly at Nina’s chilling tone.

“I err… I brought over some stew. Thought you might be hungry. Err… Kerry cooked it. And it’s super tasty!”

Nina jolted then softened considerably as she shot Justin an apologetic look. “Thanks, but I’m not hungry…”

“Can’t become stronger if you don’t eat, Nina.” Justin argued, returning the words that his friend said to him a long time ago.

Nina chuckled and reluctantly grabbed hold of the bowl with a muted thanks. Only to stare at its contents with a troubled look.

“What’s wrong?” Justin asked. “Pretty sure there’s no Pokemon meat in it.” Kerry would know better after spending all this time travelling with Nina.

Nina responded by looking up at Justin with a pitying smile. “You didn’t bring me any utensils, Jessie…”

“Shoot! I forgot. Hold on. Be right back!”  The boy ran back to camp in red faced embarrassment.

***

Nina mindlessly stirred her bowl and brought the spoon up into her mouth, mechanically chewing the mixture as she tried her best to swallow. Her throat constricted, fighting the girl with every gulp as Nina’s gut threatened to regurgitate its paltry filling.

Kerry’s stew tasted especially bland today, despite the generous helping of Chansey’s egg that the nurse girl had put in it.

“Are you sure you wanna be eating while you’re watching… this?” Justin gestured towards the mass of seaweed wrapped tight around the decrepit forms of the bundle of Water Pokemon that Nitey caught earlier. The poor creatures looked all dried and shrivelled up, like the stuff that Justin’s mom used to make soups and broths.

Nina sighed as she set her bowl aside on the ground. “If I plan to keep Dhelmise then this is the sort of sight that I’m gonna have to get used to.”

“What’s wrong with Pokechow?” asked the ignorant boy, eliciting another sigh from the girl.

“I received new info from the two Professor Oaks. They have a few trainers who own Dhelmise.” Nina pointed. “See the way that those Pokemon are all shriveled up? That’s from the Grass Type aspect of Dhelmise sucking their blood dry. But that’s not all…

“Dhelmise is also a Ghost that feeds on the souls of its victims. So it requires live prey. Not all the time, but often enough that it would need to go on regular hunts to sate its hunger.”

And Nina’s Dhelmise was especially starved. More than likely, it had been relying on stray fish or Magikarp that had wandered into its lair on occasion. Despite a Dhelmise’s surprising deftness in maneuvering its anchor, their movement range was limited. And most of the local wildlife would know better than to stray into its grasp.

“Just like how living beings came in all sorts of different shapes and sizes, all souls have differing weights as well and will provide varying levels of nourishment.” This was part of the reason why Dhelmise in the wild only went after larger prey usually — a single Wailord could typically sustain a Dhelmise for at least a couple of months, providing them enough leeway to move around and stalk their next prey.

“But other than that. I could

get some special nutrient sludge that I can use to feed it in place of blood. There are other Grass Types with similar needs after all. Like the Victreebell line for example. Actually… Now that I think about it, I should make a trip back to Violet City. With how obsessed they are with Bellsprouts, they should have those products in stock.”

“That’s great then! Once Dhelmise is all filled up, you just gotta beat it up a few times and talk to it — just like I did with Carvanha!”

However, Justin’s words only served to deflate Nina further.

“It’s not that simple, Josiah… From the intel that the two Professor Oaks provided, it seems that even trained Dhelmise are often treated with extreme caution. Not necessarily like Pokemon, but more like tools for battle. They’re definitely sapient, but it's almost impossible to communicate with them — almost like they’re some sort of alien lifeform…”

“So what are you planning to do then?” Justin murmured. The boy knew first hand how much Nina loved her Pokemon and how much she hated some of their more frivolous classmates back in VF who treated Pokemon with heartless pragmatism

In fact, those were the only times that Nina would actively go and seek out battles during their time in trainer school — whenever she saw someone mistreating their Pokemon. And to say that Nina was ruthless in her rebuke was an understatement. It was partially how she earned such a fearsome reputation, not that the girl would be cognizant of all that.

Nina took in a deep breath and turned her gaze towards the starry night sky. “For now, I’m gonna feed Dhelmise until it’s full. I don’t think… I don’t think I can bring myself to name it. But I won’t give up on trying to talk to it. Until then, I’ll condition it for battle — make sure that it’ll at least learn to obey me. And then, well… It’s not like the species is capable of evolving anyway. So I’ll only bring it out for training and battles. Outside of that, I’ll leave it with whichever one of my sponsors have need of it.”

The girl continued with a groan. “Urgh… How am I even supposed to train a Pokemon that I can’t communicate with?! That’s gonna be a whole ‘nother problem…”

Justin just scoffed and waved his hand in dismissal. “That’s a problem for future Nina. Present Nina’s just gotta eat! Otherwise she won’t have enough strength to battle me tomorrow!”

“Since when did I agree to battle you, you brat!” Nina laughed. “But well, I hope you guys made enough food for Nitey, ‘cause he’s quite the big eater.” The girl said as she gave her Dragonite a little pat on the belly.

Justin looked back towards the camp, only to see an uncouth Lucy splayed out on the ground with a rotund belly filled with stew. “Yeah, about that…”

***

In the Gold and Silver games, Route 32 had a Pokemon Center near the end, where the entrance into Union Cave lay. It made sense, given that both in game and in real life, Route 32 was the longest stretch of road in Johto.

However, in real life, the building wasn’t just a Pokemon Center but a sizable Ranger Outpost with a hostel and Pokemon Center attached. This was because the massive stretch of land surrounding Route 32 was mostly untamed wilderness that required constant management by the authorities.

So after another week or so on the road, the first thing that Nina did was to get on the transfer station and put in a request to retrieve her Clodsire whilst simultaneously sending Dhelmise over to Bill’s ranch for further study.

The girl had done her best over the past week and Dhelmise was definitely calmer now, less ravenous. But still very instinct driven and couldn’t obey just yet. And with an upcoming cave exploration and potential bit of tomb raiding planned, Nina wanted a reliable Pokemon she could trust to watch her back as opposed to a writhing mass of eldritch seaweed that would happily snack on her if given the chance.

“I missed you so much, Clody!” Nina exclaimed, on the verge of tears as she threw herself onto Sir Clodington, completely heedless of the toxic Poison eating into her skin, until Kerry and Espy pulled her away.

“Alright, Nina. Why don’t you go get us some rooms while I bring our Pokemon over to be healed at the center.” Kerry commanded, to distract the emotionally drained Nina with some menial labour after taking her Pokeballs from her.

Nina nodded with a sniffle and went to do as she was told. The position of leader in their little ragtag band of adventurers had shifted over to Kerry at some point after Nina’s behaviour became increasingly more erratic over the past few days. Updates are released by novelꜰire.net

“Hi there, Miss. I was wondering if there were any rooms available for me and my friends in the hostel?” Nina asked as she approached the receptionist garbed in Ranger uniform.

The woman responded with a pitying smile. The dark bags hanging beneath her eyes and her utter neglect of personal grooming really served to accentuate the wear and tear of Nina’s most recent journey through the wilds. Albeit, most of it was self-inflicted mental strain.

“Of course, my dear. How many are in your party?”

“Four. Three girls and one boy. All carrying full teams of Pokemon,” said Nina as she handed a stack of Pokedexes over for identification.

“Oh my, quite an impressive retinue. One moment please…” The woman advised before proceeding to tap away at her PC. “Ah, and an esteemed member of the Cerulean Gym as well!”

Nina jolted, she could feel her Nina senses tingling. The tone that the woman had was the exact same one that all the adults used when they were looking to take advantage of her!

“So Miss Jones… We’re quite packed at the moment, since it's the start of the new season and all. But what would you say to getting a full suite in the Ranger’s dormitory all to yourselves, for no cost at all…”

Nina shuddered. The most expensive things in life were the ones that came for free.

***

Author's note:

Reminder that today will be the last chapter before the break.

So no public release chapters for the upcoming two weeks. Maybe. I'm not sure yet, I may or may not extend the break. Might even cut it short, who knows?

Anyways, Patreon releases will still continue but at a reduced rate of two chapters a week for now.

[This message will self-destruct when I come back to avoid causing future confusion.]