Chapter Text
You can read about this event here on Twitter or here on Tumblr.
To kick off NemoPen Week, I'd like to share a drawing that was gifted to me by an artist named patata_sms, wishing the event good luck! I'll try to edit in pictures with links to their posts on socials as they are posted.
-Twitter upload-
-Tumblr upload-
The earlier prompts here will be more experimental/silly, and not as NemoPen centric, but the later prompts will be very NemoPen focused, being excerpts from future planned scenes from my longform fic Operation Comet Punch. Have fun and enjoy!
Day 1: I went for something pretty goofy given the prompt!
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NemoPen Week 2024: MYSTERY DUNGEON
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Air. She needed air.
This was all insane. How were they supposed to get back home? What if they were stuck like this?!
As much as Nemona loved Pokémon battling, and as fun as it was to partake in it first hand, even she was already sick of this...
Wheezing to catch her breath after their narrow escape, Nemona's bloated body let out a large exhale – causing her entire form to deflate, leaving her now rotund body a bit flatter and squishier than it had been.
“Muh-... 'Mona?!” Penny gasped with alarm, catching up and coughing on her own lost breath. Her four black legs wobbled beneath her, worn out from the panicked dashing they'd just endured. “Y-You all right...?” she choked out.
“... Bleh, I'm... hanging in there,” Nemona groaned, letting Penny flop her Umbreon form against Nemona's semi-deflated Scream Tail body.
“Oh-ARR-...!” Arven was panting, losing his sentence in his recovery as he stumbled toward Nemona from the opposite direction. “Arc...!” he finally managed out after a moment. “This... This place... is... in-sane...” His pudgy Greendent anatomy was making running on two legs difficult, so he'd stooped to all fours during his escape, and collapsed onto his fuzzy, round stomach with pant.
“Wh-... Where's Letty?” Nemona eked out with concern, reflating her body with alarm. Penny's short fur tickled against her pink, fuzzy skin.
“Th-... They were just-...” Arven craned his chubby head around his neck, looking over his furry shoulder and thumbing his rodent thumb behind him to the tunnel. “-... behind me,” he finished darkly, suddenly realizing that his partner had gotten lost in the mad shuffle.
As if on queue, the tunnel lit up suddenly in a burst of reds and oranges and yellows as a Fire Blast was launched, detonating to reveal the Scarlet's Armarouge silhouette. A flurry of banshee-like screeches echoed ominously through the cavern as shadows dissolved back into the pitch black beyond.
Igniting a small torch light of flame out of their hand and leveling it menacingly in front of their helmet face as they stomped their metallic stomp toward them, Scarlet flatly announced their assessment of this network of tunnels they had found themselves in.
“Cave's haunted...”
“... Excuse me?” Arven balked with alarm, rising up to his wide feet.
A shrill squeal reverberated down the tunnel Scarlet had emerged from. Letty sighed, turned their Armarouge torso around, clamped their arms together to form a metallic cannon with their armor, began charging a fiery blast, and repeated their observation in the exact same tone as before, but louder this time, over the noise of their energy forming.
“Cave's haunted...”
- FOOMmmm -
- FWWWSHHHHsssss! -
Another Fire Blast was loosed from their dual-arm cannon, zinged through the air, and exploded in a bright flash in the distance, eliciting more ghoulish groans to trickle through the halls.
As Letty's flames crackled down, drowning the group in darkness once again, Nemona gulped. Ghost Pokémon were awesome and cool, but they did give her the heebie-jeebies ever since she'd been literally assaulted by one a ways back... At least, the prospect of untrained ones. Oh, man, that thought was suddenly making Nemona realize... they themselves, they group, were also untrained Pokémon! Technically speaking! Whoa, what a 'wild' thought... literally! Hah...
Penny seemed less afraid and more annoyed, and Arven slumped tiredly at their prospects. Nemona wriggled her rotund body to and fro, her green tinted hair tendrils flicking about as she tried to pump herself up. Despite having just been gasping for air moments before, she was already feeling ready for action again – having a Pokémon body had its perks, it seemed.
“...wuuUUUhhh-UUUhhh...!” Penny softly groaned against Nemona's wobbling, her body still leaned up against her.
“So, what's the plan?” Arven huffed as Scarlet re-lit their torch light hand flame.
“Get the fuck outta here's my vote,” Scarlet replied bluntly.
“But how?” Penny sighed, standing upright.
The group was all looking at Nemona expectantly.
Her puffy face frowned with thought, the bright orange circles furrowing with angry angles as her fanged mouth propped out a lower lip in contemplation.
Penny nuzzled her nose against Nemona's cheek in a quiet, tender gesture of support and reassurance. Even Penny the pessimist seemed to have started to pick up some of Nemona's warm, fuzzy hope in spite of the wacky circumstances they found themselves trapped within.
After a couple moments (in which her nubby hand stroked against Penny's black-furred skull), Nemona pondered aloud, “Maybe... Maybe our problem is that we're trying to run.”
“Oh, right. The battle nut wants to stand and fight,” Arven huffed glumly. “... Shocker.”
Scarlet's crimson eyes lulled downward with consideration.
“They're relentless,” Letty noted. They pointed their armored limb off toward the fire-singed cavern behind them. “But they're weak in small numbers.”
As a chill tingled from the tip of Penny's tail, up her horizontal spine, and through her pointed ears. More of them were coming – the ones she and Nemona had just outran.
“...'d they go...?” one of them was saying from the tunnel behind Penny and Nemona.
“...'em head right...” another responded.
“...left?...”
The voices in the tunnel were so echoey, it'd be difficult to pin down which turns and twists the group had taken to arrive back at their meeting spot, buying them enough time to form a plan.
“The more we run,” Penny theorized, “the more they gather in pursuing us...”
“¡Bien!” agreed Nemona. “So... If we just approach them as we encounter them-...”
Arven was starting to see the logic now, as well, stroking his paw against his pudgy chin.
He finished the thought: “-... we can ward them off one at a time, working together.”
“They're only scary because we're trying to avoid fighting them,” Nemona deduced. “I know this is-...” She held out her stubby little hands and sighed, trying to look down at her own feet and being unable to see them. “-... uhh... not ideal, but... I also know if we slow down, take a more strategic approach, and... and, y'know, fight back? We'll get better and better at it, and make our way through this place to save Arven's poor lost Mabosstiff.”
“Let's fuck 'em up, then,” Scarlet said, noticing the approaching ghouls.
“Sí, genial. ¡Vamos!” Nemona cheered, giggling with surprise as Penny scooped her balloon body up onto her Umbreon back.
“Good idea, Penn,” said Scarlet, flicking their wrist against Arven's bulbous stomach. “Hop on, let's tag-team this shit.”
Arven was reluctant, but resigned himself with, “At least this mess can't get any weirder...”
“Don't jinx it,” Penny dryly bemoaned.
“...from over here...!”
“...'s mess 'em up!”
“They're almost here!” exclaimed Nemona, reacting to the mischievous voices quickly approaching. “Game plan, people: I'll... I'll try to Sing them to sleep. Penny, think you can manage a Shadow Ball?”
“Got it!” Penny acknowledged, having already figured out the move earlier.
“Letty,” Nemona continued, “I know you like the flashy stuff, but... maybe save those big moves for when we hit a group, yeah?” Scarlet nodded stoically. Nemona added: “They're Ghost-Type, so, think you can whip up some Night Shade?”
Still leveling a torch light with their left hand, Letty snapped their right hand fingers a few times, as if trying to ignite them – on the fourth attempt, a shimmer of black and purple energy rippled from their hand.
“Got it,” said Scarlet simply.
“How are you figuring this stuff out so quick?” Arven groaned with bewilderment, tilting his head around Scarlet's thick armor plating. Scarlet shrugged, jostling the Greedent up and down slightly, to which he “Grk-!”-d.
“And Arv,” Nemona finished, “I know you maybe haven't worked out how yet, but... try to Bite whoever's left standing.”
“Wh-?!” Arven snarled with disbelief. “But they're Ghosts, 'Mona! How's that-?!”
“Just trust me, my guy! Bite is a Dark-Type move! Your-... Your Pokémon instincts will kick in, and... and you'll gain that Dark energy when you pull off the move. I've seen Bite hundreds of times.”
Penny could tell Nemona was bluffing in that she didn't know for sure if he'd able to pull it off. But Nemona herself had managed to embed kinetic, elemental Fairy-Type energy into her attacks already, after less than an hour of being in this Arc-forsaken dungeon. Being a Dark-Type herself at the moment, Penny considered some encouraging advice.
“It's easy,” she insisted, backing Nemona up. “Just... think of something that makes you feel right mental, just... loathsome. And go feral on them. Let... Let the 'mon instinct kick in. Eh?”
“Yeah-heah,” Nemona cheered.
“... Loathsome?” Arven muttered uncertainly to himself.
Arven cleared his throat and scratched at his ear, reaching for the wrong spot of his head at first and fumbling upward until he hit it.
“We can see you, ya trespassers!” howled one of their impending opponent.
“G-Got it.” Arven steeled himself, closing his eyes. “Just... Gotta remember, we're doin' this for my Buddy. We're doin' this for my Precious Best Boy...”
As he focused up, the enemy 'mons grew became visible in Letty's torch light, laughing their monstrous cackles. Scarlet flung a scattershot of hot Embers from their hand-carried flame, causing them to flinch and back off a little.
It was a pair of Ghastly, with one looking bug-eyed and frenzies, while the other appeared glum and irate.
“Four?! You said there was two!”
“... There was two...”
Penny craned her neck to look up at Nemona's sparkling orange eyes, her gray, glassy spheres lit with admiration and determination to match her girlfriend's.
“We've got this,” she said, aping Nemona's usual line in this kind of situation.
“Hell yeah, we do,” Nemona growled, grinning wide and baring her prehistoric fangs. She sucked in a deep breath as Penny galloped forth.
And then, Nemona Sang, projecting her sound waves outward and forward, pushing their slumber-inducing energies at their foes.
“~ On the roooad to Vi-ri-dian Cityyyy ~”
Penny was completely enamored in spite of... what an amusingly oldie pick of a song Nemona had gone with. She was even managing to put an odd lullaby spin to its melody somehow, as if her current Scream Tail brain just kind of knew how to do so.
“~ On the roooad to Vi-ri-dian Cityyyy ~”
Odd a choice as it was, and so not Penny's style, if it was Nemona singing it, Penny might start considering herself an Oldies fan...
“~ We've built a team, and we've been training all day long ~”
As the Ghastly's expressions warped into a stupor and their gaseous forms drifted toward the ground, Scarlet dryly asked a question to Arven beneath the noise.
“~ We're on the road, and getting strong... ~”
“... Why's she singin' that old-ass song...?”
To this, Arven just shrugged, pulling an Oran berry out of his bushy tail and handing it to Scarlet. Confused at first, Letty wasn't going to complain, having sustained some slight injuries covering Arven's fluffy behind during their escape.
Gasping for breath, Nemona was startled at how naturally that had just occurred. She totally couldn't sing like that in her human body...
“...Www...-” Penny was in some kind of shock. Nemona was worried at first that she'd projected her soundwaves wrong, maybe messed up Penny a bit... In her attempt to lean and check, her puffy round form rolled right off of Penny's.
The Umbreon 'eep'-d with concern, but Nemona, wide-eyed, just continued rolling until she was on her feet again, like it was intentional. There maybe were some weird advantages to this shape, huh?
“That was... beautiful,” Penny sobbed, her eyes flicked downward, eyes glazed with tears. She scampered up to her girlfriend and began nuzzling, and nuzzling, and Nemona giggled and reciprocated, reveling in this weird new way of snuggling with her amazing girlfriend, and-
“Focus up, you two,” huffed Scarlet coldly, their body softly clanging as they approached the Ghastlys.
A snap of fingers and a flick of the wrist, and one of them was dispelled with a Night Shade.
Penny likewise fired off a small Shadow Ball at the other.
Their purple-wisp bodies rolled around on the ground, their pained expressions whimpering from the terrible wake-up, only to be rendered imminently unconscious again.
After a tense moment of quiet, Nemona chuckled confidently.
“... Well, that was pretty-...”
“BOO.”
“-... ea-YEE-?!”
“EEP!”
“GUH-!!”
“...?”
A Haunter had startled them from the opposite direction.
Without any hesitation, Scarlet chucked Arven up in the air, aiming for the appartion, and smoothly transitioned their arms into a canon to fire off a burst of Flamethrower. Nemona rolled forward, building momentum, then launched herself off of her springy, small feet.
The Flamethrower caused the Haunter to flinch, Arven landed on its head with a shriek and began blindly gnawing Bites into it, and Nemona piled on with some Play Rough, jostling things up.
The Haunter sounded rather alarmed, flailing its ghostly hands around to pry off its attackers, whose bouncy bodies landed without incident on the cold stone floor of the cavern.
“... THE HECK?!” the Haunted snarled. “You freaks from that weird club who goes snooping in our caves, beating up my cousins, and-”
Penny shut it up with a Shadow Ball, sending it spiraling into a wall to join unconsciousness with its apparent cousins.
“...” Scarlet, arms still locked into an armament shape, continued hissing out a tiny drizzle of fire, keeping the cave just lit enough to read their immediate environs. “In the clear,” they decided after a few eerily quiet seconds, snapping their arms apart and holding the torch light flame in their left hand again.
“Wh-Whoa, I did it,” Arven sighed, stared up at the ceiling, still on his back. Scarlet wedged their foot beneath his head and hoisted him up to his feet with their leg, and he chuckled nervously.
“Jejeje,” Nemona squealed, rolling around circles around Penny.
Penny sighed warily, smirking at the sight of her adorable orb goof of a gal excitedly rolling with a
wide-eyed, small-smiled look beaming right at her.
“You're gonna get your... hair... thing... all dirty.”
“Worth it,” Nemona replied, bouncing off her tendril and landed right in front of Penny. “We got to Pokémon battle together in a whole new way, you can't not expect me to be hype about this.”
“Suppose not,” Penny gave in, letting a full smile overtake her.
Nemona and Penny's fuzzy bodies became an entangled ball of Pokémon fur rolling around in circles.
“... Uh, guys...?” Arven sighed, his poofy tail drooping warily.
“Can't decide which is worse,” Scarlet grumbled, “all these damn Ghosts or how mushy these two get...”
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A/N: I tried to pick 'mons that the characters themselves are known to actually use rather than what I specifically thought would best match their personas. I felt this would give things an amusing spin.