Chapter 71: Chapter 71: End of Prologue

“My lovely granddaughter is all grown up now!” Melina Ashes grabbed hold of Nina and spun her around aggressively until Nina’s eyes swirled like a fainted Pokemon.

“Mother, enough! You’re going to get her all dizzy before the party!” Yelled Leanette.

“Oh pish,” dismissed Melina, but let Nina down regardless. “My granddaughter isn’t so weak. Right, Nina?!” With a pat from her grandmother, Nina tripped and stumbled into her Uncle Ali who grabbed hold of her and kept the girl steady.

The man knelt down, told his niece to close her eyes and covered the girl’s ears with his extra large hands. “That’s it… Breathe in slowly and focus on feeling your legs,” he instructed, chuckling after seeing Nina steady herself.

“Your daughter is right,” continued Ali. “We wouldn’t want her stomach churning before she’s had a chance to taste all this wonderful food Nancy prepared for her.”

“And who in the Distortion are you?” Asked Melina, flustered to be ganged up on by a stranger.

Ali laughed at the old lady’s memory. “Alias Jones, Patrick’s brother. I think the last time we met was back at my brother’s wedding.” He stood up and reached a hand out to the woman for a handshake. Which Melina gladly obliged by squeezing the man’s hand tight in an attempt to crush it, metaphorical sparks forming between the two as they locked eyes.

After regaining her bearings, Nina slipped away from her family, no longer wanting any part of this drama.

She was currently in the Cerulean Gym, attending her own Coming of Age party. All of her close friends and family were invited and Nancy had gone all out in the catering, opting for a full pescetarian spread with no Pokemon carcass in sight. After all, it was Nina’s day and her preferences took precedence.

The girl looked around and saw a bunch of familiar faces, including Bill and Hikari who took precious time out of their schedule to attend. “I should go and thank them for coming, knowing how busy they are.” And with that thought she approached the couple to do just that.

“Ah, Nina! The star of the day,” returned Bill. “And no worries at all, Hikari never misses an opportunity to party. And I’d be remiss not to come and offer my blessings as well.”

Hikari giggled, the woman’s laughter was melodic as ever. “It took a lot to get this stubborn Tauros out of the lab. I forget if we’ve told you, but Melanie’s friend, the Alpha Parasect has agreed to be relocated to our ranch. Her presence has riled up my husband and his researchers as of late.”

“That’s great!” Nina cheered at the news. “Parasect will be safe in the Sea Cottage. Just make sure not to overwhelm her too much, okay?” She said to Bill. “She’s had enough trauma pertaining to humans already. No point adding more baggage to the pile.”

Bill looked a little sheepish at the reminder while Hikari nodded along in agreement. “Yes, I’ve been telling them much the same thing. But not to worry, Parasect’s stay in our estate is merely transitory. To free up resources at the Pokemon Center since she is no longer in need of treatment. We do have plans to transfer her over to the Safari Zone at some point, once she’s ready to move on, of course.”

After exchanging a few more pleasantries, Nina moved on to her other guests, trying to prioritize those that she hasn’t seen in awhile. She spotted Tini together with a Donphan, arguing over a piece of pie while Stephen was looking over them and smiling at the scene.

“Hey Stephen,” greeted Nina. “How’s it going?”

“Nina! Happy Coming of Age! I swear it felt like just yesterday that you were yay tall.” Stephen gestured towards his knees, causing Nina to puff up her cheeks in defiance.

“I was never that small!” She argued, eliciting laughter from the man as he reached down to pat the girl in the head. Though to be fair, the man’s knees were taller than most.

“So you’re going to the same school as Charlie right?” He said, while the two of them grabbed plates and began going through the buffet.

“I am, yeah,” responded the girl. “Is he well, by the way? I haven’t heard from him in a while. And the few times that I tried calling, he never picked up.”

Stephen laughed. “He’s fine. Boys will be boys. I’m sure he’s just going through an awkward phase right now. I’ll pass you his address, so just go knock on his door when you get a chance. He’s living with his aunt and cousins right now.”

Nina nodded, despite having gone through the same awkward teenage boy phase in her past life, she could not claim to understand the hearts of hormonal teens anymore than Stephen did. So she just accepted the man’s words as they were.

The food was great, as expected of Nancy, whom she and Stephen went to greet when they spotted her conversing with Kumiko and Chelsea. Nina thanked the woman for gracing her special day with her impeccable culinary prowess and proceeded to heap tons of praise onto her, which the woman merely brushed off as a small matter.

After engaging in more friendly conversation with the adults, Nina left the group and made her way over to the Cerulean Sisters and Beverly, who flew back from Indigo Village just to attend her best friend’s coming of age. Even though her Gyarados had yet to recover.

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In truth, Nina wanted to delay the party for her friend’s sake, but Pokemon society was quite a stickler when it comes to a child’s Coming of Age celebrations. So she was assured that it would be fine and that Beverly wouldn’t mind stepping away for just a day.

Just to note, a child’s Coming of Age is usually held during the first week of the new year. There are even communal celebrations that would be hosted in various different venues for kids with smaller or busier families who couldn’t make preparations of their own to celebrate.

The week after that would typically be when children receive their starters and Trainer license so that they would have some time to get to know their Pokemon before heading out on a journey or commencing school in February.

“Hey Bev…” Nina reached out with her spare hand to embrace the older girl, who looked a little listless and haggard. “How’s Ryu?”

Beverly kissed her best friend on the cheek and buried her face in Nina’s nape. “Happy Coming of Age, Nins. And yeah… He’s alright. They finally let me go in to see him.”

Nina tightened her embrace on Beverly. “I’m sorry Bev, I told them I wanted to wait for you and Ryu to be back before celebrating,” she said, only to be met with a vigorous head shake from her friend.

“No it’s fine, I wouldn’t want to miss this for the world.” Beverly let out a strained laugh. “You know, they asked me if I wanted to remove the scar on Ryu’s face. I couldn’t decide, so I asked him. And what do you know? He said no. Probably thinks it’s all cool and badass from the way he was making funny faces in the mirror.”

Nina laughed at the imagery, boys do love their scars. She could attest to this as a former member of the gender. “That’s good to know, sounds like he really is fine. But how are you feeling though? I can’t imagine it’s easy to be reminded of the incident everytime you look at Ryu’s face. Maybe you should talk to him and ask him to reconsider? I’m sure he wouldn’t mind.”

Beverly shook her head once more. “No, it’s fine. Ryu’s the real victim here. If he’s strong enough to survive… that. Then as his trainer, I shouldn’t pussy out either. I’ll get over it eventually. Once Ryu recovers and I know for sure he’s alright.” There was a determined gleam in the girl’s eyes, indicating to Nina that she’ll be fine.

After giving Beverly another squeeze, she turned to address her cousins with a deep bow. “Thank you guys so much for taking me in and guiding me throughout all these years. I don’t think I would have accomplished as much before my Coming of Age if not for your generosity and care.”

Misty reached out and gently patted the girl’s head. “Oh please… Look at her, acting like this is gonna be the end or something. Once a Gym Apprentice, always a Gym Apprentice. Don’t think you can get away from us just yet.”

“That’s right,” echoed Violet. “You’re the only person here in this place that has half a brain cell worth squeezing. Business has been on the up and up since you’ve joined us, and our rebranding efforts have been going really well, so don’t think I’ll let go of you just yet. Especially since there’s still some worth in the Aquarium Girl IP.”

Lily chimed in. “Yeap, we’ll call into the Vermillion Flame for October. Trainer schools are pretty understanding of the needs of us Gyms since practical experience is also good for their students. So we expect you back for at least a month during the year. ‘Cept this time, you’ll be in a swimsuit screening challengers. I’ve already registered you under our Gym, so don’t think you can go running off to Surge or Sabrina or something.”

Nina paled at the thought of her being forced into bikinis and heels, instinctively turning around to run away from her unreasonably demanding bosses, but was yanked back by Misty who reached out to grab Nina by the scruff of her hoodie. “Dammit! I should have agreed to the formal dress code.” She cursed.

“I knew I had a good eye for talent,” bragged Daisy. “What’d I tell you bitches? Nina’s a big fat hidden pearl, just needs a bit of polishing.”

Lily rolled her eyes. “We already knew that when we saw her during Little League, you skank. And don’t call the girl fat just cause you’ve been gaining weight, fatso. It’s rude.” Said the red haired Cerulean Sister, signaling the beginning of an ensuing catfight.

Nina simply sighed in exasperation as a crowd of people gathered around them, cheering and hollering at the barbaric women. She was half expecting the other two sisters to step in and stop them but they only added fuel into the fire instead, with Violet taking bets and Misty cheering along with the rabble.

Curiously, the youngest Cerulean Sister didn’t have a drink in hand. Usually, in a party like this, she’d be halfway through her second bottle by now. “Huh? I guess Uncle Ali really did get through to her. That’s good to know.”

***

That night, Nina laid in bed with both her Pokemon, staring wistfully at the ceiling. “So this is it, I’m finally ten years old. It’s been a long time coming huh, Tini?”

“Tiin~”

Nina booped her partner in the nose and gave him a kiss. “Thanks for being so patient with me Tini. I know you’ve been ready to evolve for quite some time now. It’s just going to be a little bit longer.”

Tini nuzzled up against Nina affectionately, as if to tell his partner not to worry. Nina giggled and scratched Tini in his favorite spot, pressing another kiss onto the Dratini.

“I know you’re eager to go out and travel, and I am too. But I think it might be good for us to spend a couple more years in trainer school just to build up our team. I have a feeling that’ll be hard to do while we’re on the road.”

This was Nina’s true purpose for wanting to delay her journey. She wanted to at least get a couple more Pokemon before setting out, and nurturing new Pokemon was just easier in a stable environment.

“I still have Professor Oak’s offer in reserve, but I’m gonna leave that till the end when I run out of options.”

“Besides, Espy still needs a bit more time to develop. Let’s wait for her to evolve first shall we?”

“Tiin~” echoed the good natured, not-so-little-anymore Dragon. While Nina reached over to the sleepy brown fur ball, who was laying on her own little cushion by her human’s side, and gave Espy a gentle caress. In a rare occasion, the Eevee had lost control and stuffed herself full of Nancy’s impeccable cooking during the party earlier.

Nina cooed at the cute little frown that Espy had on her face, as she struggled with her bulging stomach. The gluttonous little princess even let out a little burp when Nina rubbed at her back, much like a baby who had just finished feeding. Nina had to hold back a squeal to avoid waking the sleeping cutie.

Tini yawned. The Dratini had his fair share of food as well after getting too competitive with his best friend, who had evolved into a Donphan at some point during the years. “Shame that I missed out on the moment…” Nina yawned after being infected by Tini.

The girl closed her eyes and gradually drifted off to sleep. “Good night , Tini…”

“Tiin…”

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Author's note:

Thank you all so much for sticking with Nina and her journey this far. But do not despair, for there is more to come!

If you've really enjoyed my work so far, please consider leaving a brief review at the main page. Visibility and discovery aside, I really do feel more energized to write every time I see that someone has left me some kind comments, be it in the form of a review or just a regular old comment.

Now for an ANOUNCEMENT.

As thanks for all of the support you've shown me so far, I'll be releasing another round of chapters tomorrow, up to Chapter 80.

That's right, tomorrow!

Haha, posturing aside, the reason why I'm doing this is because December is a really rough time for me and I simply don't have any time to write between my avalanche of work and family obligations. So I'll be needing to take a short break for the rest of the month. This is my way of making it up to you guys. Think of it as an early Christmas present if you celebrate it.

But it's actually to your benefit since you'll be getting more chapters overall. In fact, I hesitated in doing this because this will eat into my backlog in a time where I can't write too much.

Services should resume as normal in January, with the goal of 2-3 chapters a week depending on how productive I am.

In the meantime, if you find yourself unable to wait that long. Consider checking out my Patreon where you can get 10 advanced chapters. Link can be found in the bio down below.

Thank you all once again for joining me in this journey. Chapter 71 marks the end of the Prologue, but Nina's adventure isn't over just yet so make sure to favorite or bookmark this fiction for more to come!

And also, please leave a comment down below of your thoughts on the story so far. I always love to receive feedback and suggestions from you all so that I may incorporate it in my writing and improve it further.