New Beginnings - A Pokemon Slice of Life. [OC/Isekai/Move Tutor/Breeder] - Chapter 35
“Gro! Grooooo-gro-growl!”
Ethan blankly stared at the firedog, who was barking at the closed door of his guest room while pattering his paws on the ground in excitement. His little poofy cream colored tail wagged back and forth from the shaking of his butt, and Ethan had no clue why Growlithe was so excited.
As he was about to ask, the dismissing tone of Smeargle droned out from the other side of the closed door. “Smear-Smeargle!”
Growlithe shook his head, seemingly having heard something funny as he chuffed and scratched at the door.
“So… what’s going on here?” Ethan finally asked, not wanting his door to be dismantled by the powerful doggo.
Growlithe whipped around, lowered his stance, and was about to charge into Ethan in happiness, but quickly stopped and looked over his shoulder toward the door. Ethan nearly choked from laughter as Growlithe’s grand plan was to whine and scratch the door, like a dog from Earth wanting to be let outside.
Ethan walked forward, causing Growlithe’s pitiful faux-whine to evaporate as he readied himself to charge into the doorway as soon as it opened. Ethan knocked once on the wood, then spoke to Smeargle on the other side. “Smeargle, why is Growlithe kicked out of the room?”
A hurried shuffling could be heard on the other side of the room. After waiting a few seconds and growing worried about what was happening, something was pushed underneath the door. Kneeling down, Ethan grabbed the corner of a bedsheet painted with orange paint. He cringed at his ruined sheet, but saw a cartoonish depiction of Smeargle holding two pokemon eggs as he fended off a small dog with his tail like it was a sword.
“You got the two eggs with you?”
“Smear!”
“Gro!”
Growlithe repeatedly scratched the door with both of his paws, desperately wanting to be let inside. Ethan weighed the consequences of letting a hyper-zoomed Growlithe into an enclosed space with two pokemon eggs and came to a decision. “Growlithe, you’re a smart dog. If you damage those two pokemon eggs, I don’t think you need me to tell you what is going to happen to you.”
Growlithe lowered his butt as he nodded. He jumped back and forth, eager to be let inside. Ethan tried to open the door, but felt a load of resistance. “Smeargle… Did you bar the door?”
After a few seconds of awkward silence, a lone ‘Smeargle…” was heard. After more shuffling from the other side, Smeargle gingerly opened the door an inch and peered through the gap. In that moment of weakness, Growlithe shoved his head into the gap as he yipped and hollered with glee, wiggling himself into the room as Smeargle tried his best to slam the door closed.
The fire-dog got in, so Smeargle abandoned his door-guardian duties, running over toward the two eggs which were placed on the bed. He curled around them protectively as Growlithe sniffed and circled around them in excitement. Ethan entered the room, finding it to be a complete mess, and sat down on the corner of the mattress as he watched the two pokemon care about the eggs in their own way.
“Valiant attempt Hodor, but you couldn’t have kept him away forever.” Ethan joked as he kept a careful eye on the rowdy pupper. While he didn’t think the loyal dog would do anything to hurt the eggs intentionally, accidents happened—especially when excited.
The past two days, Ethan had done his fair share of research about pokemon eggs and how to care for them. With how these two came into his possession—them being from Team Galactic, not about how Cynthia basically offloaded unborn children into his waiting hands, he had to do his due diligence.
For starters, Ethan had it in his mind that all of the eggs he’d find would be either uniform in color and variation, or like those of a Togepi egg. While he was, of course, wrong with that assumption, he did find out that almost every egg for a species had signifying marks on the shells. While it wasn’t a perfect science, the Pokemon League and Professor Elm had a large series of papers with pictures attached with labels signifying pokemon species and their egg.
Not all of the species were labeled. Some of them didn’t have attached photos and had remarks written about sending in information to the pokemon research laboratory in New Bark town if they had any relevant information to share. What was interesting, was that the photos and information were filtered in accordance to the PokeDex. With it starting off with Bulbasaur, who was PokeDex entry number one.
When he had scrolled through the pages and got deeper and deeper into unknown territory, more and more missing information appeared. So, to Ethan’s brain, he concluded that the later the generation of pokemon, the less information they had. Sadly, this wasn’t an area which his prior knowledge could help out with, as he himself didn’t know too much past, say, a Mimikyu.
Needless to say, he found the information for caring for pokemon eggs. Firstly, if you didn’t know which pokemon you had, or were raising an egg found in the wild, then keeping them in a room temperature environment and making sure they didn’t break was about all you had to do. Technically, you could do this with any egg, but doing so would cause the development of the pokemon inside to take a long, long time. A good example provided was hatching a Slugma next to a volcano versus at room temperature. While both pokemon would end up being happy and healthy, the hatching times varied enormously. For the Slugma hatched in extreme heat, it could hatch in as little as three days… for the one at room temperature, you were looking at a month or more.
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As he liked the pokemon he’d hatch to continue being a surprise, added with the fact that they would be healthy in the end, he was giving them both the normal egg treatment. He didn’t know how old these eggs were, or what sort of environments they needed, but maybe they liked how it was. Berry Falls was a place of nature, life, and beauty, surely that would have some effect?
“Gro?”
Growlithes questioning bark knocked Ethan out of his thoughts. Growlithe had his forehead up against the egg with lightning, his eyes were crossed and intensely focused as he stared at the shell of the egg. As Ethan was about to ask what he was doing, the egg gave out one very minor wobble.
“Gro!”
Growlithe carefully backed away from the egg, hopped off the bed, then sprinted around Ethan’s home with the zoomies as he barked out his name in excitement.
It appeared that the lightning egg was farther along in development compared to the pink star egg. Shaking was supposed to become more and more common toward the end of the development. So, sometime this week he might have another baby on his ranch—Shuckle will be an older brother.
Smeargle curled his tail around both eggs, he’d been taking care of them the best he could while Ethan was busy out and about on the ranch. Since Smeargle didn’t have much to do around the ranch, he’d taken it upon himself to watch over the eggs. Ethan gently rubbed the brim of Smeargle’s beret head, smiling when he saw Smeargle’s wide eyes and tongue sticking out of his mouth. “Keep up the good work, but don’t be afraid to let the other pokemon check in on the eggs too. They’re pretty durable afterall.”
And that much was true. Ethan had been extremely worried about dropping an egg or holding it too hard, but all of that was unnecessary.
Pokemon eggs were tough.
While he could still break or smash an egg if he really tried, a casual jostle wouldn’t do anything. Even dropping the egg onto the floor while standing would do nothing—not that that’s something you should be doing. He’d need to physically stomp with all of his might to destroy a pokemon egg, and since that’s something he’d never do, he didn’t have to worry too much.
Ethan left Smeargle with the eggs as he went out to clean up the berry fields. Shuckle and Dunsparce were probably on the case, but he’d help out anyways. He also needed to have an important chat with his berry buddy.
As he left his home, Ethan spotted Pachirisu returning from the forest. The electric rodent had his back turned to him, struggling and tugging on an item near the treeline. “Need some help?” Ethan asked, causing Pachirisu to pound his tail on the ground, signifying that yes, he indeed wanted help.
Ethan hopped down the steps of his patio and crossed in between the sleeping Gloom and Oddish to make his way to Pachirisu. As he arrived, he saw the issue. Pachirisu was trying to pry a fist sized, jagged stone with smooth faces from out in between some roots. Ethan knelt and tried to finagle it out with his dexterous hands, but it was locked in there—almost like it was caged. “Did you drop this? Or was it here already?” He asked as he struggled.
Pachrisu pointed and rambled his name in a long winded explanation that Ethan couldn’t understand. What he did understand was the voice which spoke to him.
“A new hand touches the beacon.”
Ethan released the stone, stood up, wiped his hands on his pants, then nodded once to Pachirisu. “Okay. Go roundup every single pokemon on the ranch. We’re obliterating this rock.” He said flatly, resolute in his resolve. Not him, not here.
Pachirisu gave him a salute. “Pachi-pach!”
As Pachirisu turned to leave, he paused when a different, more familiar voice spoke into their minds.
“I’m sorry, kind one.”
With a small blip of Teleport, Gardevoir appeared right beside him with her right hand grabbing the scruff of Ralt’s neck. The Ralt’s flailed around and mewled, having an absolute fit. The Ralt’s eyes glowed and Ethan heard the original voice once again.
“Listen! Hear me and obey! A foul darkness has seeped into these woods! A darkness you will—”
Gardevoir yanked Ralt’s up and down, shaking the small pokemon about. Then, once she let go and had the little girl spinning in circles like her evolved form from dizziness, she shot out a series of centric rings, putting her to sleep—Hypnosis if he had to guess. Gardevoir ran a hand over her head, almost as if she was tucking her hair behind her ear, then sighed mentally into his mind. “I’m sorry, kind one. This little one plays too many pranks. We have come to partake in your berries. Might we have some more?”
Ethan blinked in confusion, then looked between the stone beneath the roots and the small sleeping and drooling Ralts. “That’s not the same Ralts from before, is it?”
The Gardevoir gave him a stare of a mother taking care of a rowdy child. She was completely done with everything, but trying to be cordial. “It is not.”
“Then… the beacon?” Ethan asked.
“She read your surface thoughts, she will be punished. Now, the berries?”
“Oh, yeah, sure. Feel free. But, If you don’t mind me asking, what do you need so many for? You took a good amount with you the last time. How big is your little… coven?” Ethan knelt down and tried to work on the weird stone once again as Pachitisu played moral support in the background, letting him do all the work.
“We are many. Many berries have useful properties. We use the berries for those when the times arise, or we eat them for enjoyment and nutrients. Far north, there is a building of humans. Old, timeworm, and infested. The distorted appear there. They wander, and we deal with them from time to time. Thank you for the berries.”
Ethan jerked back, finally managing to dislodge the weird fist-sized rock. When he turned to face Gardevoir once again, she was standing next to an enormous pile of berries. The pile stood nearly as tall as he did. His mouth dropped open from shock, but with another blip, Gardevoir, Ralts, and the mountain of berries were gone.
“Shuuuuuuuuuu!”
Shuckle’s cry caused Ethan to scan his fields, finding that every single fallen berry had been taken. The tree’s themselves were still full and bustling, but the rows between them were now clear. Shuckle could be seen near the entrance to the first row, he laid on the ground, defeated, his limbs sprawled out like noodles, unmoving.
“Pach!” Pachirisu jumped up and stole the weird stone from within his hands.
“Shuuuuuuu!” Shuckle mourned the loss of his berry work.
“Dunsparce…” and Dunsparce did his best to comfort the downtrodden rocky-bug.
Ethan put his hands on his hips and sighed. “Well, that was interesting.”
