Pokemon : Negative Emotion System

High above the battlefield, a pair of golden eyes shimmered with an eerie calm, silently observing the chaos below like a referee waiting to blow the whistle at the end of a very weird football match.

The scene below was split down the middle like someone had sliced the world with a god-sized butter knife. On one side raged an endless sandstorm, kicking up waves of dust, rock, and the occasional unlucky bird Pokémon. On the other side, there was nothing but darkness—a suffocating, cold black that looked less like night and more like reality had given up.

Floating right in the middle, somehow untouched by either, the golden eyes gazed down—not at the war, not at the storm, but at a Pokémon egg resting delicately in Giovanni's hands.

Then, in a flash of light and a small explosion of heat, the egg cracked.

Pip… crack… snap.

A small claw poked through. A flash of red light burst out like a paparazzi camera catching a celebrity out of rehab. Then came the horn—long, blunted, and proud—followed by a rock-textured head and a pair of very annoyed, very fiery orangey-red eyes.

"Holy crap," David muttered, shielding his face from the sudden gust of heat as the baby Pokémon made its grand entrance.

It was a Larvitar.

Or… it was supposed to be a Larvitar.

David and Giovanni stared at the little beastie, then at each other, eyebrows raised in silent, synchronised confusion like they were auditioning for a detective drama.

"Why's it… black?" Giovanni finally asked, blinking as the newborn Larvitar stomped forward and puffed its tiny chest like it was ready to fight Arceus himself.

"I… have no idea," David replied. "Maybe it's emo?"

The Larvitar was indeed pitch black. Not just dark-colored—void black, as if someone had poured space into a dinosaur-shaped mold and sprinkled on some red scales for garnish.

Its eyes glowed crimson, its body pulsed with a strange, rhythmic heat, and there was a weird sense that this thing knew it was cool. Like, born-with-sunglasses kind of cool.

Above it, the golden eyes flickered approvingly.

A silent flame—a real one, not metaphorical—ignited around the newborn Pokémon, wrapping around its rock-like skin as if forging it anew. The sandstorm began to circle it, spinning faster, tighter, until the grains looked like golden threads weaving an armor around the baby.

David stepped back, gulping. "Okay, that's either a very fashionable sandstorm, or this Larvitar is about to become the final boss."

Then the darkness stirred.

A shiver ran through the gloom as shadows coalesced into something solid. A jagged, thorn-like crown formed out of nothingness itself, slowly descending like a coronation scene in the world's darkest fairy tale.

Giovanni, who'd seen a lot of weird things in the Mystery Zone, looked absolutely rattled. "This… this isn't normal. Not even by Mystery Zone standards."

"I think you just unlocked Demon Mode Larvitar," David said, nervously peeking at his prompt system.

It displayed:

[Larvitar: ???]

[Grade: ???]

[Ability: ???]

Great. Three question marks. Because nothing says "totally fine" like a system too scared to give you stats.

David's face hardened. If this thing really had ties to the forbidden technology of some ancient civilization, this wasn't just an overpowered pet—it was a walking doomsday button.

And right then, the storm screeched.

A roar, loud enough to scare the color out of a Gyarados, tore across the Mystery Zone. It was primal, guttural, and angry enough to make even the shadows think twice.

"Uh oh," Giovanni muttered.

He didn't have to say it. Everyone knew what it meant.

Tyranitar was coming.

Far away at the entrance to the Mystery Zone, Aron froze as the familiar bellow rang out like a war trumpet across dimensions. He narrowed his eyes. That was his Tyranitar.

"Crap!" he yelped, fumbling for his Poké Ball. "Hold on, big guy! I'm coming!"

In a burst of light, his trusty Tropius appeared, flapping its massive leafy wings like a flying salad bar.

"Let's go, buddy!" Aron shouted. "We've got a Tyranitar to save!"

"TROOOOPIUS!"

Tropius took to the air, soaring toward the sound like a botanical bomber plane.

Back near the storm's eye, things were spiraling. Fast.

Dusknoir, already battered from his earlier brawl with Tyranitar, was doing his best to block the raging pseudo-legendary, but it was like trying to hold back a freight train with a couch cushion.

Tyranitar was livid. He'd felt his child's awakening and had come crashing in like a father at a birthday party where no one saved him cake. His eyes burned with fury, and each punch he threw was fueled by a terrifying mix of paternal instinct and unhinged rage.

"Dusknoir's gonna get beaten!" Giovanni gasped, turning to his Banette.

The ghost floated behind David, clutching him in place with Disable, unsure what to do.

"Banette, help Dusknoir!" Giovanni barked.

Banette hesitated, pointing at David with stubby claws as if to say, You sure? He might wander off and lick an electric fence.

"Bay-net!"

Giovanni gave a firm nod. "Release him. We need Tyranitar under control before this goes ou of control."

Banette sighed and released the psychic grip. David dropped like a sack of potatoes, groaned, and wobbled upright.

"Thanks," he muttered, shaking off the stiffness. "I thought I was gonna die of boredom in ghost jail."

Meanwhile, baby Larvitar—now wearing a literal crown of darkness like some tiny, gothic royalty—watched the chaos with curiosity. It blinked slowly, looked at the sandstorm, then at the black swirling void, and sneezed.

A small sneeze.

That obliterated a nearby boulder.

David froze mid-throw.

"…Yeah, that's not concerning at all."

****

Giovanni narrowed his eyes, his tone oddly casual but filled with the tension of a man who suspected something deeplywas off.

"How," he said, voice sharp as a Razor Leaf, "do you know about the prophecy on the slate?"

David blinked. Okay. That came out of nowhere. He hadn't even had time to re-adjust his socks after being nearly killed by a newly hatched goth-lizard. Now Giovanni was interrogating him like they were in some kind of bad crime procedural.

"The… what?" David tried to play dumb for half a second, then gave up entirely. "Wait—you mean that slab thing with the spooky warnings and ancient gibberish?"

Giovanni didn't smile. Not even close. His stare could've cut through diamond.

"There's no way someone like you should've seen that slate," he said flatly. "You're not strong or qualified enough to have gotten into the Dragon Frontier Mystery Zone."

David flinched. "Excuse me—rude."

Giovanni continued, ignoring the protest like a man who had dealt with way too many interns.

"Even that fool Aron, who went with me to the mystery zone, didn't know the prophecy existed," he said. "Yet you, a random Trainer with no clearance, no background, no qualifications—you knew. That makes no sense."

David looked around for a distraction. There was none. Just darkness, a hungry Larvitar, and Giovanni looking at him like he was a puzzle missing half its pieces.

He swallowed hard. "Look… I can't explain how I know it. It's just…" He paused, forcing himself to meet Giovanni's glare. "I just do."

Then, in the most serious tone David could muster—which for him, was the exact opposite of his usual sarcastic snark—he said:

"There's no way to control super ancient Pokémon. You can try, you can experiment, you can shove ancient power into eggs and chant spooky nonsense at full moons—but it never works."

Giovanni's expression twitched. Just barely. A little muscle near his eye went full earthquake mode before he scoffed.

"Impossible."

His voice cracked slightly at the edges—like a man trying to hold together the last thread of a belief system with duct tape and denial.

"This Larvitar…" he said, gesturing toward the black-scaled hatchling beside him, "this one is different. It has to be."

His hands clenched into fists, knuckles white. He was shaking, but not from fear. This was rage. Desperation.

"This is my life's work," he hissed. "Five years. Five years since the Alliance exiled me. Since they took everything from me. My rank. My research. My Tyranitar…"

His eyes flared, nearly glowing with fury now. "They called me mad. They said I tampered with forces I didn't understand. But I wasn't wrong. I was never wrong."

David stared, confused and awkward as hell. This guy was doing the whole tragic villain monologue and David didn't even have popcorn.

Giovanni turned to the Larvitar, voice snapping like a whip.

"Larvitar! Attack him! Destroy that Trainer!"

David froze.

Larvitar, who had up to now been gently vibrating with dark energy like a tiny ancient god, slowly turned. Its crimson eyes locked onto David like a predator spotting lunch.

David couldn't move. The air around him suddenly weighed three tons. His limbs were frozen. Not from fear. Not entirely. This was something else.

A pressure. Like the universe had just decided to set him on "crush" mode.

His heart pounded. Larvitar was just a baby, but it felt like staring down a mini dinosaur-sized freight train. One that had been fed nothing but rage and ghost peppers since birth.

Even the system couldn't give him data. It just flashed error messages like it was too scared to try.

And then—it pounced.

David braced for death. His whole life didn't flash before his eyes—just his last lunch, which he'd regretted ordering extra spicy.

He squeezed his eyes shut, fully expecting to be turned into Trainer paste.

But instead of the sound of bones snapping or the end of everything…

…there was a thud.

A surprisingly light thud.

Like someone had dropped a watermelon on his foot.

David cracked one eye open.

There, wrapped around his leg like a clingy toddler, was Larvitar.

It was… hugging his leg?

David blinked again. Larvitar looked up at him with those same fiery eyes, but now they weren't so murdery. They were… hopeful?

It pointed with its stubby paw at David's chest pocket.

David, still shaking, reached in and pulled out a crumbled, oddly pockmarked rock. It was pale yellow-brown, with crystalline ridges. The Smooth Rock.

"Oh," he said dumbly, holding it up. "You… want this?"

Larvitar nearly drooled. It nodded so fast its horn almost stabbed its own nose. Then it patted its belly with its little claw like a child miming "I'm starving."

"You're hungry?! That's what this was all about?"

David crouched, carefully holding out the rock. "Here. Take it. Just—no more murder stares, okay?"

Larvitar squealed—squealed—and immediately snatched the rock, chewing it with glee like it was a bag of potato chips.

David slowly turned to Giovanni, mouth hanging slightly open in disbelief.

"This is your all-powerful destroyer of worlds?" he said, gesturing at the baby Pokémon now hiccuping and nibbling on the rock. "Are you sure it inherited the wrath of a cursed civilization and not just a bottomless stomach?"

Giovanni's face… oh, poor Giovanni.

His expression twisted like a man watching his PhD thesis get eaten—literally—by a hungry dinosaur child.

He looked at Larvitar. Then at David. Then at Larvitar again.

The baby was now trying to roll onto its back to rub its belly, Smooth Rock in its mouth like a pacifier.

Giovanni's eye twitched so hard it could've been counted as a separate organism.

And then, softly…

[Acquired negative emotion value +2000 from Giovanni…]

[Acquired negative emotion value +3000…]

[Acquired negative emotion value +4000…]

His entire worldview, years of research, forbidden technology, and one extremely angry grudge against the Pokémon Alliance—crumbling. All because his apocalypse monster wanted a snack.

David could only stand there, dumbfounded, watching as the "harbinger of destruction" snuggled against his leg like a puppy.

"…Right," David muttered. "Glad we cleared that up."

****

Giovanni stood amidst the chaos, the air around him practically warping from the sheer pressure radiating off the surrounding Pokémon. The ultra-ancient beasts—his so-called creations—were all brimming with terrifying energy. Their bodies pulsed with unstable rage, their every twitch threatening to unleash apocalyptic destruction.

And then… there was Larvitar.

The little guy was sitting cross-legged in the dirt, holding a hunk of Smooth Rock like it was a slice of gourmet pizza. Completely absorbed in his meal, he nibbled at it with tiny fangs, blissfully unaware that the dramatic lighting and doomsday soundtrack playing in the background was supposed to include him.

He looked like a toddler who wandered into the wrong anime.

Giovanni stared, completely dumbfounded. What went wrong? The other Pokémon were textbook examples of ancient wrath and elemental chaos. And this one? This one looked like he was three chews away from a nap.

The scientist in him screamed in silent horror.

Was it the DNA infusion? The ancient ruins algorithm? Did he calibrate the matrix wrong? Did someone swap his experimental egg with a prank rock and he'd spent the last five years raising a hungry mascot?

Meanwhile, David, the cause of most of Giovanni's emotional damage today, stood off to the side—scratching the back of his head awkwardly, trying not to laugh out loud.

He could feel Larvitar's fondness radiating off him like a space heater. The little guy kept glancing at him mid-chew like they were best buddies now. Which, apparently, they were.

Giovanni clenched his jaw.

"Larvitar!" he barked. "I said kill that Trainer!"

Larvitar froze mid-bite. Crumbs of rock tumbled from his mouth. He looked up at Giovanni slowly, confused.

The look on his face read: "Wait, you want me to attack the snack-giver? Seriously?"

David raised his hands in mock surrender, shrugging. "Hey, I just gave the guy lunch. We bonded. That's how it works, right?"

Larvitar turned back toward David and took another content bite of rock, clearly voting "no" on the whole murder thing.

David, not one to waste a good moment, tossed his bangs back dramatically and flashed Giovanni a smirk so smug it could've had its own gravity.

"What can I say? Some people just have the charm."

Then he winked. "Guess I'm just that handsome."

David chuckled to himself. "So this is what it feels like to steal someone else's partner. Honestly? Not bad."

Somewhere in the heavens, an old Prime Minister named Cao Cao from another world probably choked on his tea. Or maybe he gave a thumbs up to his fellow man of culture.

[Acquired negative emotion value +2000 from Giovanni…]

[Acquired negative emotion value +3000…]

[Acquired negative emotion value +4000…]

Giovanni looked like he was five seconds away from combusting. His eye twitched so hard it could've triggered an earthquake. All around him, ancient Pokémon radiated despair and darkness, but inside Giovanni's soul? Pure, unfiltered salt.

David stood there pretending to stretch, but inside, he was doing mental cartwheels.

This is amazing, he thought. Turns out the aura of charm the system gave me isn't just for show!

He'd always thought it was a joke—a novelty feature. But nope. Today, it had just saved his life. Apparently, his magical charisma worked on angry, possibly cursed baby dinosaurs, too. Who knew?

Meanwhile, Giovanni was about five emotions past furious.

"How…" he muttered, glaring at the cuddly Larvitar now rolling on his back like a sleepy puppy. "How did a creature born from Tyranitar's DNA, infused with ultra-ancient power, turn into this—this rock-munching beanbag?!"

There had to be a mistake. A glitch in the gene sequence. Maybe Larvitar had inherited too much calm from the ancient energy. Or maybe—horrifying thought—he'd been born with empathy.

Giovanni couldn't accept that. He refused to.

"Fine," he snarled, reaching into his coat pocket.

From it, he produced a Poké Ball—standard red and white, but the weight behind it felt like doom.

"You want to be stubborn?" he hissed. "Let's remove the source of your weakness."

He tossed the Poké Ball.

With a burst of spectral energy, a coffin-shaped Pokémon materialized in the air before them. Purple and gold, its face stretched into a haunting grin, arms extending like tendrils of ink in water.

Cofagrigus.

"Kill that Trainer," Giovanni ordered, his voice icy.

David's eyes widened. "Hey, whoa, aren't we skipping the negotiation phase here?!"

Cofagrigus didn't wait. With a rustling, grinding moan, it lunged. Dozens of black, shadowy hands burst from its coffin body and shot toward David like demonic spaghetti.

David spun on his heel to run—except… he couldn't move.

He looked down.

"Oh come on—"

His shadow was locked in place. One of Cofagrigus's abilities had taken hold. His feet might as well have been glued to the ground with ghost cement.

He looked up.

The shadow-hands were inches away. Inches.

This is it, David thought. I'm going to die while being groped by a haunted sarcophagus.

But then—

"TROPIUS, RAZOR LEAF!"

The shout rang out like thunder. The sky split open.

A blur of green burst through the clouds as a massive Tropius swooped in, leafy wings roaring through the air.

On its back stood a man—older, rugged, eyes sharp with experience. His face held a storm's worth of focus. It was Aron, the Elite Four of the Eastern Alliance.

Emerald leaves, sharp as blades, slashed through the air and shredded the shadowy tendrils attacking David.

"Whew!" David gasped, stumbling backward now that the spell had broken. "I owe you a smoothie. No—ten smoothies!"

On Tropius's back, alongside Aron, were David's loyal partners—Pikachu, Ralts, and Dreepy.

The moment they saw David was alive and not turned into soul soup, they practically leapt off the flying dinosaur and ran to him.

"Pika!!"

"Raaalts!"

"Dreee!"

They tackled him in a pile of happy squeaks and sparkles. David wrapped his arms around all three, heart pounding.

"Guys!" he said. "Oh man, you have no idea how glad I am to see you!"

And then—another voice.

"TyyyyyyRAAAA!!"

From across the battlefield, a massive Tyranitar roared. Its green-scaled body barreled forward, stomping with sheer force as it locked eyes on its old partner, Tom.

Its face, for the first time since the chaos began, softened.

David looked up, covered in dust and Pokémon affection, eyes wide as the battlefield shifted.

"Oh, now it's getting good," he muttered.

****

Giovanni's face had gone full crypt-keeper mode.

Skin pale. Expression twisted. Teeth clenched like he was trying to grind diamonds between his molars. He looked less like a man and more like a skeleton who had been forcibly reanimated by caffeine and spite.

And that voice—hoarse, hollow, and echoing with years of bottled rage—cut through the air like a haunted blender.

"Aron, you bastard!"

From the skies above, Aron had just landed on Tropius, triumphant and windblown like a heroic cowboy arriving late to his own movie.

But the moment his eyes locked on Giovanni's face, all the swagger vanished. He blinked. Hard.

Then, for the first time in years, the hardened Alliance veteran choked on emotion.

"…Giovanni?"

His voice cracked like a dropped teacup.

Somewhere, beneath that skeletal glare, he saw it. The faint trace of the man he once knew. The brilliant researcher who'd once explored the Mystery Zone beside him. Back then, Giovanni had been sharp, clever, passionate—and he'd smiled. He actually smiled.

Now, there was nothing but a ghost of that man, rotting in rage.

Aron's eyes welled up with guilt.

"I'm… I'm sorry," he whispered. "I'm sorry, Giovanni."

But Giovanni wasn't having it.

"You KILLED my Tyranitar!" he roared, voice breaking with fury. "And then—then—you stepped on its corpse to join the Elite Four like some self-righteous hero!"

Aron flinched. That accusation hit harder than any Hyper Beam.

"I lost everything!" Giovanni continued, eyes blazing. "The Alliance threw me out like garbage! I lost my license, my dignity, my life's work! But I kept going. I never stopped. You know why?"

Aron opened his mouth, but Giovanni raised a hand.

"I'll tell you why. Because I knew I could fix it. Tyranitar wasn't gone. It just needed time. My research—my power—it would bring it back! And now…"

He pointed to the black Larvitar, still chewing a Smooth Rock like it was a candy bar.

"…Now, that child. Your Tyranitar's child. It's the perfect vessel! It's proof that I was right all along!"

Aron stared in stunned silence.

Giovanni's voice dropped to a whisper, cold and razor-sharp. "Today, I'll show you—and your precious Alliance—how wrong your choices were."

With a mad gleam in his eye, Giovanni pulled out two more Poké Balls and hurled them forward like grenades.

In two flashes of light appeared a Jigglypuff and an Alakazam… but not the kind you'd want to cuddle or share tea with.

These weren't normal Pokémon.

They were… tainted.

Black, pulsating runes twisted across their bodies like warped circuitry. They radiated dark energy, vibrating with something ancient, unnatural—something wrong.

Giovanni stretched his arms wide.

"Destroy everything, my babies!!"

As if on cue, the four ultra-ancient Pokémon surrounding the Alliance garrison roared back to life. Their chaotic energy exploded outward, like a wave of corrupted thunder rolling across the land.

And the Jigglypuff?

Oh, she grew.

From barely two feet tall, she began swelling like an angry marshmallow monster. Ten feet. Twenty. Thirty. Until she stood over them like a giant pink meatball with legs.

A meatball that wanted you dead.

Her strength spiked from gym level to Elite level in seconds.

David, watching this unfold, leaned toward Aron with a concerned expression.

"…Okay, I think that one's skipping leg day but not chest day."

Aron looked grim, but patted David on the shoulder.

"Don't worry. The Alliance has sent backup Trainers. The camp'll be fine."

David nodded, then paused.

"Wait—you mean fine like 'they'll survive'… or fine like 'we're all getting vaporized but let's pretend it's okay?'"

"I mean…" Aron hesitated.

Before he could finish, David casually pulled a small ornate box from his backpack and held it up like a sales rep.

"Don't worry. If they die, I brought urns."

Aron did a double take.

David beamed proudly and shook the little container. "It's even decorative!"

Aron stared, face blank.

"…You brought a funeral urn into the Mystery Zone?"

David blinked. "Well, yeah. Never hurts to plan ahead, right?"

Aron looked at the box. Then at David. Then back at the box.

"...Are you sure you're not with Giovanni?"

[Acquired negative emotion value +2000 from Aron…]

[Acquired negative emotion value +2000 from Giovanni…]

[Acquired negative emotion value +3000 from Aron…]

[Acquired negative emotion value +3000 from Giovanni…]

David gave a thumbs up. "Don't worry, I only look like a lunatic."

But something else tugged at his attention.

A shadow.

Shifting unnaturally behind him.

David's frown deepened. He reached into his jacket and pulled out a cube—sleek, silver, humming faintly with electric energy. One of the system's "Jet Cubes."

He threw it toward the shifting darkness.

From the shadow… a giant gray hand burst out and caught the cube.

David jumped back with a yelp.

"HE'S IN OUR SHADOW!" he shouted, spinning toward Aron. "It's a Shadow Sneak! Get ready!"

Before Aron could respond, Banette emerged behind him like a nightmare clown—grinning from its zipped mouth, eyes glowing red. A swirling orb of darkness gathered in its claws: Shadow Ball, charged with malevolent energy.

It hurled it straight at Aron's back.

"Look out!"

But at the last second—

A wall of emerald vines erupted behind Aron, shielding him like a living shield.

BAM!!

The Shadow Ball collided with the vines and exploded into a shockwave of dark mist. Smoke billowed, debris flew, and the whole clearing rumbled.

David coughed through the dust.

When it cleared, Giovanni stood there.

His skeletal frame leaned forward, his voice low and venomous.

"Aron…" he rasped. "Didn't you always hate this power?"

Aron stood still, jaw clenched.

"This taboo force you swore to never use… Look at it now. Look what it's become."

Giovanni raised an arm toward Larvitar.

"This child. Born of Tyranitar. Bathed in ancient energy. More perfect than anything you ever imagined. And he controls the power better than any of my creations."

His eyes burned with triumph.

"So, tell me, Aron…"

Giovanni stepped closer, eyes glinting like obsidian.

"…How do you choose now?"