Capítulo 1217: 11
Chapter 11: Worth the Girth of Birth
Winter was gunning it. Our usually standard pace was being eclipsed, rushing as we were. I felt anger, rage even. Winter was responding to my emotions, trying to bring us back to the Charicifc Valley as quickly as possible. We were traveling at his max speed, a number I didn't even know. It was certainly closer to 300 miles per hour, though by how much I was uncertain.
But I wasn't thinking about his speed. Not really. My mind was awhirl with other thoughts.
The end of my fostering?
Fuck that.
The moment I read that text, I knew I needed to leave. Jasmine and Johnny were understanding, giving me their contact information just before I left. Johnny wanted a battle soon, and Jasmine wanted to keep up with me. If I happened upon a Steel type for her to trade a Flying type for, well…
The great stone gate of the Charicifc Valley was before us, the large statue of its first Charizard inhabitant gazing down at me. Winter entered the sanctum, flying over the Charizard. They were very active this morning, scurrying about the Valley in a manner I'd never seen previously. Normally they would sleep until noon, then battle and stretch before taking afternoon naps.
We landed directly in front of the cave that Liza's home was built into. I returned him and ran up to her door.
"Liza!" I shouted, banging on the barrier. "Liza! Let me in!"
The locks began to unlock themselves, the door opening from the inside. I made my way in, Liza locking it up once more from behind me. I was staring at the living room of her home, my stuff packed away and my eggs in their singular incubator, the smaller incubator missing.
Why was my stuff here? Where was my incubator?
"What the hell is going on?"
"Language," she chided me, tiredly.
I whirled around, glaring at her. "Language? I don't care about my language! Why are you kicking me out of the fostering program?"
"I'm not," she sighed, hand on her head. There were bags under her eyes. Had she slept?
Wait, why do I care about that right now?
"Then why," I bit out. "Did you say it was?"
"Jon, I never said that. I'm not kicking you out of the fostering program. I'm talking about it ending."
"That's the same thing!"
"It's not!" She yelled back, glaring at me. I matched her glare easily. "Kicking you out means that I think you were wrong for the position. You're not, you're doing fine. I'm ending it."
"But why?!" I yelled, fists clenched.
"Because if I don't then a Pokémon will die!"
Wait, what?
"What the hell are you talking about?" I asked, bewildered. That was quite the statement to make.
She huffed out a few breaths of air before walking to the kitchen. She returned with my incubator, a yellow egg inside of it.
"What is that?" Well, it was an egg. That much was obvious. Why is there a third egg in this room? In my incubator?
"This," she said, jostling the incubator lightly. "Is a Charmander egg."
"No, it's not," I denied. "I know what a Charmander egg looks like. They're orange, not yellow."
"Yes, it is a Charmander egg," she said. "And yes, it is yellow."
It took me longer than I wanted to admit my realization of what she was talking about. Then, all of a sudden, if clicked for me. My eyes widened and my breathing went short.
The Pokémon within that egg was a Shiny.
"…Why are you giving me this?" I whispered, unable to comprehend. This thing was worth a fortune to the right person. What was she doing giving it to me? She of all people would understand its value.
Liza groaned, flopping down on a couch. I joined her, looking over the egg. It really was a Charmander egg, the pattern the same as the others, the only difference being the coloration.
"Eleven years ago," she began. "Back when I fostered here, a Charizard had a clutch. In this clutch was my Charla's egg, but more than that, there was another egg. A special egg. It was twice as large as any other egg in the clutch. It was so large it nearly killed the Charizard that carried it. When the eggs hatched, a Charmander half the size of its siblings was born. It quickly grew to be thrice their size. It possessed the King gene."
My breath hitched. The King gene was rarer than a Shiny, easily. They could be equated to Legendary's depending on the breed. The rarer the Pokémon, the rarer the gene. A King of the Charizard line was definitely up there.
The vast majority of Pokémon look the same as their own species, minor differences such as height and weight and eye color being the ways to differentiate between them physically most of the time. Charla's using a bow wasn't a fashion choice, Liza needed her own Charizard to be recognizable, else she wouldn't have a clue where her own Pokémon was.
There are only two exceptions to this rule: Shiny's and Kings. A Shiny Pokémon is a Pokémon with a different coloration set. In the case of this egg, a Shiny Charmander would be yellow, a Shiny Charmeleon a deep gold, and a Shiny Charizard quite different, a dark grey, almost black. While the difference in color didn't have anything to do with strength, the uniqueness of these Pokémon made them sought after by many, myself included.
But Kings were different. Whilst a Shiny was a Pokémon that was colored differently, King's were natural rulers and their bodies were predisposed towards combat. Standing between three and five times the size of their counterparts, a King was born with a firepower to match its size. The bigger a King was, the more it could dish out. They were juggernauts, natures way of saying fuck off to the world.
I was more than a little confused when I came upon the King gene in my research. Professor Elm of Johto was the one to release information about them, being one of the few people to own a King, a Raticate he happened upon when he was still a trainer. Elm estimated that when compared to a Shiny, a King was ten times less likely to occur, and thus, they were ten times stronger than their species in order to balance out the scales. Now this was more of an opinionated piece than anything, proper research on the King gene not having been completed due to lack of available Pokémon possessing said gene, but his point still stands.
Actually, the King gene is one of the major reasons the Pokémon of Fairchild Island were protected. Their increased sizes were reminiscent of the King gene, and lots of people wanted to take advantage of that. To own a Pokémon possessing the King gene was a step shy of having a Legendary.
"That Charmander was slow to evolve, taking years, but when it became a Charizard it became the alpha of the Valley," she announced. "It normally hides itself away, only coming out to breed or to hunt, but there are other times it comes out. The alpha likes its power, it likes the status it holds. It thinks any other Charmander or its evolved forms that happens to be special, being a Shiny or another King, needs to be killed. To a certain degree, this is understandable. But… we discovered the extent it was willing to go three years ago, when a trainer who had a Shiny Charmeleon began a fostering. The King appeared, and the Charmeleon died, eaten alongside its trainer."
She shuddered. "That was when the League expelled the previous caretaker and I took his place. Not because he did anything wrong, but because he couldn't do anything to stop the King. There's no way I could do anything either, but I can at least prevent this from happening again. So, I'm ending the fostering. You have your egg, you have the Charmander you came here for. And now, I need you to leave."
I – What… This is a lot.
"Jon," she stated, looking me dead in the eye. She was serious. "I'll be honest, I don't want to give this egg to you. You haven't finished learning what I have to show you, and you're already bogged down with those two eggs. But I fear the alpha more than I think you're not ready, and that egg needs to be gone now. The alpha probably already knows of its existence: its sons report everything of importance to it."
"Where," I started. Becoming somebody's chow was not high up there on my list. "Where am I supposed to go? I'm not ten yet, I can't even start my Journey proper."
"Blackthorn," Liza offered. "Regardless of your feelings on Lance, Claire is your aunt and would love to have you. When the three eggs hatch, she would likely do a better job with helping you get started then I would. I work with Charizard's, not actual Dragon types."
I was thinking hard and thinking fast. A lot had happened in the past day, and now there was even more on my plate. I caught a Gligar, traded Arakh for a Skarmory, and I was now in possession of the egg of a Shiny Charmander. On paper, everything sounded like things were going perfectly.
But were they?
The Gligar was a good thing. A planned event in which I hunted for him. Skarmory was unexpected, and I hadn't realized how far my relationship with Arakh had deteriorated, but I could work with the way things went down.
This Charmander though…
Well, at the end of the day I came to the Charicifc Valley for one reason and one reason only. And I achieved that. I intended to just catch a Charmander, not hatch one, but at this point what was one more egg?
Certainly, I was disappointed. Not only was Liza a good teacher, but the Charizard in the Valley were great sparring partners. My team, while growing at a relatively slow pace, was still growing steady enough for me to be content. They were gaining strength at a respectable rate, faster than most trained Pokémon could gain power.
But I've never been the type to waste my time, not with serious matters. If I have to do something, I'm going to do it. If I have to leave to keep this egg, then I'll do it.
"Should I call Claire?"
"No," she shook her head. "I've already let her know that you'll be coming. Release Winter, get your belongings settled, and go. I don't know how much longer we have until the alpha decides to move."
The ground beneath us shook then, a quaking feeling that only seemed to grow and grow. A loud, rumbling roar echoed throughout the Valley, shattering a window in its fury.
That was my queue.
Liza had already packed my belongings, so I just grabbed my backpack, threw my spare clothes out of it and stuffed my newest egg inside. It barely fit, but it wouldn't have fit in the first place if those clothes were in there still. I grabbed the larger incubator unit holding my dragons by its upper handle and bolted, Liza behind me.
Releasing Winter, I didn't even explain anything. I hopped on his back, strapped the eggs down, and tugged hard on his scalp feathers.
He flew away, slower than I would have liked. He must have still been tired from our flight from earlier.
"Winter," I said, stroking his feathers whilst we were ascending. "I know you're tired, but you need to go as fast as you can. We're in danger. It's like Lightning Island all over again, bud."
As if to concur with the point I'd made, the alpha chose that moment to arrive. It was a massive Charizard, scarred all over. Looking to be roughly thirty feet tall and thick enough to match, the thing was bigger than Zapdos was. Easily.
It glared at me, dark blue eyes in a rage. It opened its mouth and a Flamethrower of roughly the same size as Zapdos's Thunderbolt was fired at us.
Winter understood quickly how fucked we were. With a war cry, he began to partake in aerial maneuvers, diving down out of the path of the Flamethrower, using Agility to keep us in a constant state of motion. It was a good thing that the Rider's Seat wasn't going to let me fall, I could focus all my attention on keeping the eggs secure and on steering Winter as needed.
The alpha didn't let up, however. It jumped up, wings flapping slowly. Each flap of the wing was a hurricane of wind, knocking the other Charizard away with ease.
But it was slow and Winter was fast. Even as it chased us, Winter was too far for it to reach. This fact seemed to only make angrier, spitting Flamethrower after Flamethrower at us, the heat of its fire so intense that it melted the clouds above, water dropping down onto our heads.
We escaped, but only by a bit. This wasn't as close as our encounter with Zapdos was, but it was still closer than I wish it were.
Hopefully this Charmander will be worth it.
Claire was happy to take us in, just as Liza promised. She embraced the role of the "fun aunt" as strongly as she could, happily spending time with me and being a generally cool person. She was also prone to random hugs, I learned. That was a nice perk.
She settled me into the familial wing of the Blackthorn Gym. Blackthorn followed the route of a traditionally Japanese home, with paper walls and tatami mat floors. I was given a futon and a small dresser space, and that was to be enough.
Which, really, it was. I didn't need much, certainly not when I was getting free room and board.
After putting my things away, we took a trip to the Pokémon Center. Claire needed to heal up her own Pokémon after a Gym Battle earlier this morning, and Winter had earned his break. I gave him to Nurse Joy and had her look over Umber as well. I didn't know Skarmory yet, so I didn't know if she could be trusted with Joy. And Gligar was a recent capture, thus I couldn't even let Nurse Joy look him over until he was trained up to a certain extent.
I also had her look over my eggs, all three of them.
And was I happy with her analysis.
My dragons were coming along nicely. Viserion's egg was indeed siphoning a little bit of energy from Lance's egg. Not enough to cause issue, but enough to allow it to develop properly. The fear that it wouldn't hatch was gone. Both eggs were healthy, and Joy said that within the next few weeks there was a decent chance that they would hatch.
The Charmander egg was a slightly different story. Healthy and hale and with no energy being siphoned, there was nothing wrong with it. But Charmanders are not Dragon types, and they hatch quicker than most other Pokémon. Charmanders tend to hatch within a month, and Joy thought that this egg might contain an early bloomer.
Accordingly, I might have them all hatch around the same time.
Which would be a bit of a headache. A headache that was worth the pain. They could imprint on one another, treating each other as siblings. That would surely make raising them easier, making it so they not only had me to rely on, but two others their own age.
I looked forward to it.
.
Time was slow to pass, while also quick. Time itself was a difficult concept to make sense of, so let us not worry about such inanities.
I took advantage of my newfound circumstances as best I could. My fostering at the Charicific Valley came to an early end, and I was instead to study under the leadership of the Blackthorn Gym up until I turned ten in December. That was what my papers said at least.
The truth was a tad different.
While I did learn a fair bit here, most of what I learned was along the lines of "Don't touch that, it'll eat you." Seriously, the amount of Pokémon here was ridiculous, especially when you considered the fact that they were Dragon types that were wild.
The Blackthorn Gym was, as previously stated, built in the stylization of olden Japanese architecture. And just like said architecture, it had many hidden secrets about it. One such secret being a hidden door, a bookshelf that turn in on itself, that led into an underground cave system.
This cave system was known simply as the Dragon's Den.
A reserve dedicated to Dragon type Pokémon, the Dragon's Den was high on the list of would-be trainers. Due to the creatures that lived there and the relationship the Blackthorn clan held with them, it was hidden away decades ago. Claire gave me access to it for two reasons. Number one, I was her nephew, and as a Blackthorn by blood I had the right of entry. Number two, I wasn't going to catch anything. Not only did I have my hands full with my Skarmory and Gligar, but I also had three eggs to worry about.
Previously, I had captured my Pokémon slowly, giving me the chance to work with them on a more one-on-one basis, earning their trust at a steady pace. Now I had gained two new Pokémon at the same time, lost one of the Pokémon I had gained the trust of, and then there was the quickly approaching addition of three more Pokémon joining the mix. I would have been a fool to capture another Pokémon right now, not only because they would respect me about as much as Dragonair did, but also because I couldn't give them the attention they needed.
So, yes. I was allowed inside the Dragon's Den.
It was quite a pretty place too. Dug out underground beneath the western reaches of Mt. Silver, there was space aplenty to be had. Streams of clear water that came from the mountain peaks were available to drink from, small holes of light open in the ceiling to bring in a layer of soft light. The Dragon's Den was just as its name implied, a giant den that Dragon types nested in.
The amount of space in here was legitimately ridiculous. Like, my Pokémon could fly around without feeling confined in an underground area. That is stupid.
And with that added space, we could train.
Winter and Umber weren't my priorities in this case. They were growing at a fair pace and had their own established routines. I trusted them to handle their own individual exercises, and they trusted me turn our newest team members into actual teammates.
Ah. Well, I trusted Winter with that. The only thing I could really trust Umber with doing was mothering the eggs.
It'd pass. In time.
Hopefully.
One at a time, I focused on my newest acquisitions. Gligar, as it turned out, was easy to handle. Giving him the appropriate form of attention was all that was needed. All I had to do was laugh at what he thought was funny and I held his interest and enthusiasm. If I asked for an inch, he'd give me a mile.
He was a load of fun, too. Really, most of the time the things he thought were funny genuinely were. Especially after I taught him how to use Dig. He would pop in and out of the Den and random times, trying, and many times succeeding in, scaring the denizens of the Den. I do think he's touched in the head, however. Half the time, when he tried to scare those Pokémon, they would attack, and I would have to bring him to the Pokémon Center. Then, when I came back to the Den, he would do it some more.
I named him Thoros, after a character from Game of Thrones (where else?). The Thoros from the show and the book series was known for being the first person to charge a castle in the middle of a siege, his sword on fire, laughing like a madman. My Thoros, while not that crazy, was certainly touched enough to earn the moniker. It came to me after a realized that even after being captured, he would still shit on people and Pokémon just for fun.
It became so frequent of an issue that I eventually discovered he could shit on command, and that he could actually control how much he let out.
I couldn't help it. I designated his shit as a legitimate attack that I called Guano, meant to enrage enemies and possibly distort their senses of smell, sight and taste depending on where it landed.
Anyways.
Thoros was receptive to my training and listening to me with minor complaints. Generally, his complaints came out in the form of more shit, so those days where I was clean were days I knew we were on the same page.
Skarmory was the issue.
Tough as steel with an untrusting nature, she was a tricky one. It was only after Winter beat her down in a battle that she began to listen to me, and even then, I she was reluctant. She wasn't happy to have been traded and never let me forget it.
I named her Valyrian, after the steel that never rusted and always held an edge, just like her attitude. She wasn't entirely on board with the idea of a nickname, not until I explained that Valyrian steel was the strongest metal in the known world, blades made from it capable of cutting through normal metal as if it were butter. She preened then, accepting her name haughtily.
I was smart enough to not let her know that Valyrian steel was the strongest metal in the world of Westeros, no the world of Pokémon. I have a sneaking suspicion she wouldn't be on board for that.
But yes, Valyrian.
I learned a fun thing about her species. It turns out that Skarmory, when forced into melee circumstances, are able to turn every part of their body into a Steel type attack. Iron Tail, Steel Wing, Metal Claw, Iron Head, Metal Sound, the works. And prickly as she was, she responded with heavy violence when people that she didn't accept, I.E. everybody that wasn't me or Winter or Umber (she still doesn't accept Thoros), approached. This had only been a minor issue up until she pissed off the wrong Pokémon.
When napping along a streambank within the Dragon's Den, a curious Horsea approached her, never having seen a Skarmory before. Valyrian, as expected, trounced the little guy and went back to sleep. Were that Horsea just a normal Pokémon, nothing more would have happened. It would learn not to approach her so casually again, and Valyrian would have one less pest to deal with.
But that Horsea was special. That Horsea was the son of Claire's own Kingdra.
Suffice to say, Kingdra wrecked Skarmory's shit. Their battle was fierce, but Kingdra was able to keep his range, which Skarmory was poor against, and held the momentum of their combat. She was down and out, injured beyond anything I had seen in our training together. I took a risk after finding her in that state: instead of taking her to the Pokémon Center, I chose healed her up myself. She earned those lumps and I wasn't going to let her forget it.
Curiously, my decision to heal her myself garnered her respect. Either she admired the fact that I let her suffer or she enjoyed my attempt at taking care of her. Regardless, by the time she was better, I had gained her allegiance proper, her aggravation at being traded gone for the most part, and found myself in a good position. She was still a difficult Pokémon to work with, but the fact of the matter was that I could work with her now.
Which led us to the here and now.
I came to the Blackthorn Gym twenty-three days ago. As previously outlined, I gained the allegiance of my Gligar and my Skarmory.
But I was not training them at the moment, nor was I working with Winter or Umber. No, I was indoors, staring at my eggs. They were out of their incubation units, all of them shimmering and moving in intervals that coincided with one another.
Finally, after worry and struggle, it was happening.
It was time.
Viserion's egg was the first. It shook and shook, shimmering and shining for me, before finally enveloping itself in a pure white light.
A thick form splayed out from where the egg once stood. Colored with blue scales and a white belly and muzzle, brown eyes looked towards me hopefully. Viserion was a small Dratini, as expected. The standard Dratini was roughly six feet long, whilst mine seemed to be just around four and a half feet long. But it was alive, it was hale. I could handle a small Pokémon, far better than a dead one.
Viserion cooed at me, recognizing me as its parent. It slithered towards me, making its way up my arm, coiling around my chest, resting atop my shoulders. It rubbed its cheek against my own, shivering in pleasure as I scratched its chin.
As I was getting to know my Dratini, the Charmander egg began the hatching process. Flopping on the ground from whence its egg came, a bipedal reptile stared at me. Its round head, yellow-gold scales and flailing limbs made an adorable sight.
Adorable, until it sneezed, its tail lighting up in flame, catching my carpet on fire.
I quickly stamped out the flame, earning snickers from Charmander and Viserion. I glared at them, but couldn't hold it and proceeded join them in laughter. Sitting back down, Charmander waddled over to me, laying over my legs. I rubbed at his scalp, earning a purr.
I would like to say that the last egg was quick to hatch. And it was, realistically speaking. But this last egg wasn't like Viserion, wasn't like my Charmander, who I decided to name Drogon after the elder brother of Viserion from the Game of Thrones series (where else?). The Drogon from the show was the largest of those dragons and grew quicker than its brothers. Charmander as a species grew quicker as well and based on the way he was going to look when he was a Charizard, it was a match made in heaven.
But back to the last egg.
It didn't respond to the peer pressure of its nestmates.
We waited for over an hour, Drogon and Viserion quickly losing energy and falling asleep atop me. I would have joined them in a napping bliss, were it not for the fact that the egg had been shaking like a motherfucker for the whole of the wait.
My wait was worth it, however. Finally, finally, it began to hatch. The egg shone brightly, brighter than Viserion's and Drogon's hatchings did. From the egg came a blue bipedal baby beast of a… Bagon? The whole of its body was blue, save for its belly and jaw which were tan, and the grey helmet of thick bone atop its head, running down the back of its neck. Its beady blue eyes looked around the room curiously, focusing on me. Those eyes lit up, and the Bagon let out a shrill cry before launching itself at me. I held out my hands, intent on holding it, before I came to a quick conclusion.
Bagon's were heavy.
So heavy, in fact, that I couldn't carry it. Thus, I was put flat on my back, Drogon and Viserion waking up from their naps with a start. They cried out in complaint, before realizing that the Bagon nuzzling into my gut was the last of their siblings to appear.
Curiosity overtook them, and the duo became a trio of chattering babies who thought I made a great spot to get to know one another.
Uncomfortable though this was, I didn't fuss. I was pondering. Not about this, though this scene was cute as all could be, but on what to name my Bagon.
In a Game of Thrones, the three dragons that Daenerys Targaryen hatches were named Viserion, Drogon and Rhaegal. Viserion for her brother Viserys, who raised her. Drogon for her husband Drogo, who died of an infection. And Rhaegal for her eldest brother Rhaegar, who she never got to meet.
But while my Viserion and Drogon would eventually match color schemes of hers upon reaching their final evolutions, Salamence did not match the color scheme of Rhaegal. Rhaegal was a green a bronze scaled wyrm, but the scales of a Salamence are teal and red, with grey, rock-like shells taking up their underbelly. Salamence and Rhaegal didn't match!
…I could make an exception. I had three babies before me, and two of them worked. The names I give them didn't need to be perfect representations of the dragons from the story.
Thus, the Bagon before me was named Rhaegal.
And just as Daenerys Targaryen was the Mother of Dragons, so too was I the Father of Dragons.
Or, y'know. Something along those lines.
Winter/Pidgeot – Male
Moves: Tackle, Gust, Sand Attack, Agility, Double Team, Whirlwind, Quick Attack, Wing Attack, Steel Wing, Twister, Fly, Hyper Beam, Sunny Day, Heat Wave
Ability: Keen Eye
Valyrian/Skarmory – Female
Moves: Steel Wing, Wing Attack, Fly, Cut, Peck, Screech, Metal Claw, Metal Sound, Slash, Night Shade, Steel Wing, Icy Wing, Sky Attack, Iron Head
Ability: Sturdy
Umber/Delibird – Female
Moves: Present, Icy Wing, Peck, Rest, Attract, Ice Beam, Hail, Blizzard
Ability: Hustle
Thoros/Gligar – Male
Moves: Sludge Bomb, Slash, Poison Sting, Metal Claw, Dark Pulse, Dig, Guano
Ability: Sand Veil
Viserion/Dratini – Male
Moves: Leer, Wrap, Thunder Wave, Water Pulse(Egg Move)
Ability: Shed Skin
Drogon/Charmander – Male(Shiny)
Moves: Growl, Scratch, Ember, Ancient Power(Egg Move)
Ability: Blaze
Rhaegal/Bagon – Female
Moves: Rage, Headbutt, Ember, Dragon Rush(Egg Move)
Ability: Rock Head
Jon Snow – Male
Date: Oct 4
Badges: N/A
Pokémon: Pidgeot, Skarmory, Delibird, Gligar, Dratini, Charmander, Bagon
Currency: 19670
Status de energia semanal
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