Procrastination is an ailment that plagues all students facing a deadline. It is unknown why such a phenomenon occurs. Some say it is a curse placed upon the world by Giratina on Arceus’s creations as payback for imprisoning it.

Others say it is a yet undiscovered memetic virus, transmitted through the Pokenet via Porygon carriers to infect the youth.

Only one thing is for sure, procrastination is inevitable. Those that say they do not procrastinate are either liars or Hypnos in disguise as Leanette claims. Which is why Nina was currently laying in her bed and making weird throaty noises at her ceiling.

She had wasted her time reading through some of the reading recommendations on Evolution that Bill passed on to her in the bus the other day; some of it his own work, and some from lesser known academics. It was all very interesting but it meant she had made zero progress on her essay. Her scatterbrain simply refused to focus.

“Nina, it’s dinner time.” The girl responded to her mother by intensifying her whining noises.

“Are you okay, Nina? You’re not sick are you?”

Nina sighed. “No mom, I’m fine. I just don’t know what to write for this stupid essay.”

Leanette went to sit beside Nina on her bed and gently caressed her daughter’s hair. “Then stop thinking about it. Come back to it with a fresh mind. And your hair is atrocious, sweetie. What have you done to it?”

Nina sat up to face her mom. “What do you mean? I spent a whole ton of money on products that Beverly recommended. According to her, they’re all organic and natural and stuff.” Not that the organic label meant anything really, the people of this world don’t put a lot of artificial chemicals in their products.

“I mean, it was pretty bad at the start when you weren’t around but I think I did a pretty good job.” Nina pouted. “Especially for a secretly insensitive thirty year old guy,” she added to herself.

Leanette frowned at her daughter’s callousness. “We should go to the salon sometime. You’re due for a haircut anyway. Look at this, the ends are all frayed.”

“Will you let me cut my hair short? Not like super short or anything, but maybe up to my shoulders? Having super long hair is kind of annoying.”

“Of course, sweetie. It’s your hair so you should choose how to style it. Maybe we should dye it back while we’re at it? The color is all washed out now,” said Leanette with a smile.

Nina was a little surprised at how receptive her mother was to her request. She remembered the woman being quite obsessive about maintaining her daughter’s hair. “This is good, it means she’s heading in the right direction. Maybe I can take her to the Gym soon…”

“I don’t know, I quite like the color. It fits better with my tanned skin. Kinda gives me an outdoorsy beach girl kind of vibe. Beverly said it helps to hide my nerdiness from people.”

“She also said that the gap between my looks and my bookworm personality is super hot.” Not that Nina would say that out loud to her mother of all people.

Leanette’s brows furrowed. “This Beverly doesn’t sound like a very nice girl.”

Nina laughed to reassure her mother. “She’s fine, mom. Beverly is actually really nice and takes good care of me. Speaking of which, you’ve never gone to see me at the Gym right? Would you be interested to come and see your daughter at work? I can introduce you to Beverly and some of the other girls as well.”

Her mother seems hesitant at the idea, but Nina could tell that she was making a genuine effort to consider the matter. “You don’t have to force yourself to go if you don’t want to. I was just spitballing.”

“No, it’s fine. I just…” Leanette shook her head. “You’re right, I do want to go to see my daughter at work. Everyone in the neighborhood has been gushing about how accomplished you are. It’d be embarrassing if I’m the only one who doesn’t know what my daughter’s up to.

Nina smiled and gave her mother a hug. “Awesome. I’ll talk to dad about this. We can take you to the Monthly Exhibit to start. Tini performs in the afternoon so maybe we can go to the salon in the morning? Then after the show, I’ll ask if I can take you on a tour behind the scenes.”

Leanette smoothed out her daughter’s hair and kissed her on the cheek. “That sounds wonderful, Nina. I’ll look forward to it.”

The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

***

“Hello~ Earth to Nina.” The noise of someone snapping their fingers in front of her woke Nina from her stupor.

“Hmm? Oh, sorry Bev. I was just thinking.”

“Urgh. Are you still thinking about that stupid assignment? You’ve been at it for weeks already. Just make up some random Tauros poo and be done with it,’ said the older girl before taking a sip of her overpriced latte.

The two of them were currently sitting in a cafe by the Stretch because Nina said she wanted to go watch people and their Pokemon.

Nina sighed and took a sip of her own milk tea. “I know, I only have a month left till the deadline. Well, realistically only two weeks if I want to be timely about it.”

“What's it for anyway? Is it even worth it? If not, then just flip that bitch off and tell her to stuff it.”

Nina shrugged. “I don’t know actually, Ms Roxy wouldn’t say. But I trust her enough to know that she wouldn’t be wasting my time for no reason. Remember I told you that she was the one who got me into the Little League? The two of us wouldn’t have met without her.”

She had not participated in the Little League since her first due to the fact that Nina was now an apprentice. No point casting any unnecessary doubts on the Gym’s partiality. Though she and Beverly engage in some casual spars from time to time. Nothing too intensive, to avoid stressing their Pokemon to the point of evolution.

Nina watched as Beverly reached down towards the little basin holding her Horsea and fed the Pokemon some special made Pokemon confectionary. The younger girl rubbed on her abdomen where Tini usually wrapped himself on and felt a bit wistful. Her partner was in the Gym right now, rehearsing for this month’s show. So she was all by herself today.

“Have you ever thought about life without Luna?” Asked Nina. “As in like, if Luna just suddenly disappeared one day, what would you do?”

Beverly frowned. “What sort of question is that?! I mean, like, I’ll have to expand my team at some point I guess and there’ll be times where I can’t have Luna with me.”

Nina shook her head. “That’s not what I mean. If Luna was your only Pokemon at the time and she just ran away or went missing or something. Would you just replace her?”

“Course not!” Exclaimed Beverly, her loud voice attracting the attention of the people around her. Nina gave her fellow customers an apologetic look and bowed slightly for the commotion while Beverly continued talking. “I can’t imagine life without Luna. I wouldn’t give her up even if someone came up to me with one of the Legendary Birds. I mean would you ever think about replacing Tini?”

Nina replied in the negative. “I think you’ve misunderstood the question, but you’re right. I can’t imagine life without Tini.”

Before Nina encountered Tini, the girl often wondered about what sort of starter she should get. Despite knowing that this was the real world, there was still a part of Nina who thought of Pokemon as just game characters back then. She would think about which Pokemon species had the most potential while accounting for her family’s means and came up with a list of Pokemon that would be an ideal starter for her.

Needless to say, all of that deliberation went out the window when she got Tini. Especially when a Dratini wasn’t even on that list due to practical concerns.

But even if Nina were to go back in time and start over, she would have still gone back into Victoria’s nest and partnered up with Tini. At this point, life without Tini was just unthinkable. Even if her partner decides to leave her at some point, she would always wonder about what the Dragon was doing at the moment, maybe even go visit him from time to time if it was possible.

“You know, I always thought of Ash as a somewhat heartless character. How could he just willingly give away his Pokemon or abandon them in Oak’s ranch every time that he was done with a region?” For all that the show tried to portray the boy as a compassionate person, he was surprisingly callous.

Nina thought about all the times where she felt down or depressed for whatever reason and the way that her little Dragon would just boop her in the nose to take her mind off things.

“Even the most exciting of adventures would be meaningless without Tini by my side…”

With the introduction of Tini into her life. All thoughts of this world being a game had exited her mind. Each person and Pokemon are their own unique existence, with their own personality, likes and dislikes.

“Thanks Bev, I know what to write now.” Nina shoved her food to the side, pulled out her oversized laptop from her backpack and began typing.

Beverly stared at her friend with disbelieving eyes. “Gurl~ Are you seriously working on your homework during our date?”

Nina gave Beverly an apologetic look. “I’m sorry babe, just ten minutes. Let me write down my ideas before I forget them and I promise you’ll have my full undivided attention.”

Beverly simply glared at Nina in response while aggressively poking at her cake with a fork.

***

Nina quietly munched on a rice cracker as Ms Roxy flipped through her essay. She had unintentionally written more than expected, with the final piece taking up ten whole pages.

She ended up writing about her adventures, omitting some of the more sensitive details like Victoria’s nest, Mew, and the Moon Shrine. She wrote down her observations about the people and Pokemon she encountered, and their relationships with each other. Be they good or bad.

She wrote about Masayuki and his conservation efforts, the Rockfords and how they treat each of their Pokemon like family, the Safari Zone, the Cerulean Gym, the daycare, and even Cole and his unhealthy relationship with his Onix.

But most of all, Nina wrote about Tini and the importance of his presence in her life. “Without my partner Pokemon, not only would most of my encounters not be possible, life would also be empty and meaningless even in the midst of the most exciting of adventures.” Wrote Nina at some point.

“This is very good, Nina,” said Roxy, once she was done with her review. “I can feel your love of Pokemon and travel emanating from this piece. There are a few places where the writing is a little rough. And I think you could have been more concise in certain parts. But overall, it comes across as truly genuine, which is the most important thing. Do you want to submit this as is or make some more revisions?”

“I think this is fine. No point in overdoing it, I want this essay to reflect me as a person and I’m well aware of how imperfect I am.”

Nina’s teacher smiled proudly at her. “In that case, I think you’ve certainly managed to accomplish that. I’ll submit it as is then.”

The girl nodded. “Are you still not going to tell me what this is about?”

Roxy simply gave a wry smile in return. “You'll find out. The other teachers are disguising this as some sort of special assignment and will hide any failure from their students but I think you’re mature enough to handle it. Just make sure not to leave the City for an extended period of time this summer.”

Nina replied in affirmation. “That’s fine. I think I already have my summer planned out.”

In fact, aside from working in the Gym and making a short visit to her grandmother’s place, Nina called in to the Sea Cottage on Bill’s invitation and managed to arrange for a sleepover there. Something which the girl was very excited for, motivated by thoughts of fluffy Eevee fur.

“Eevee fluff, here I come!”