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Not many people take Magikarp on as companions. There’s plenty of jokes about them, and you find them tormented and abused constantly, or laughed at, used for sport. All of it because they cannot fight, only burble and splash water. And then everybody talks about how wonderful and powerful it would be to have a Gyarados, as though you can earn all that respect and love from nothing.
Laddie wasn’t even in a Pokemon adoption center, and I certainly didn’t buy him. I found him tossed aside outside a small gym, bruised and quivering. Left behind, it seemed, after a loss. Poor fellow. He was frightened and sad and none too bright, calling “carp, carp, carp” for his master, and he was weak enough that I could pick him up and take him home. He didn’t go into a Pokeball, he wailed and cried, afraid of being sent away or forgotten, and so I told him, I wouldn’t do that again, we’d be friends, him and I.
I wasn’t training Laddie, I wasn’t fighting him. He was just my friend, projecting his thoughts to me, punctuated with soft calls of “carp, carp, carp”, and that was enough for me. We traveled by foot together sometimes, but that proved difficult, with Laddie so terrified of going into a Pokeball, so we started travelling through other accommodations. Busses, trains, even by air. That proved our favorite, especially looking out the window. Laddie always got so excited, and was so happy.
That was just over two years ago. Now I was looking at a big, nervous, and most certainly irritable Gyarados, trying to get him to return to his Pokeball long enough to get through the TSA checkpoint. Big, broad, dragonish, Laddie was rumbling and whining loud enough by turns that I was sure glass was vibrating around the airport. I stroked his neck, feeling the flapping, gulping fins, the rise and fall of scaly ribs. “There’s a good lad,” I crooned to him, watching his rolling eyes. “There’s my good Laddie boy.”
I kept my hand to him, promising him, reassuring him, telling him I’d never forget him, never forget him or leave him alone, we were friends together. Keeping my hand on him was going to be crucial, until he calmed enough to go into his Pokeball. Now I was just under his fins and eye, running my hands along the huge frightened head.
“Hey. Hey, it’s okay.” I said, keeping away from the toothy maw.
“Gyaradosss!”
“I’m not going to leave you. I promise. You’ll be right there with me the whole time. It’s okay.”
“Gyar?”
“I won’t ever leave you. You’ll come out on the other side, after the flight, and I’ll take you out and take care of you.”
“Gyaarrr…”
My hand moves over the soft, leathery muzzle, talking to Laddie. “There you go. You know me. You know I’ve got you. Just go into your ball, just for a little while, and I’ve got you, my beautiful, sweet, darling one.”
Laddie whimpered, pressing himself closer to me, and then carefully, slowly, returned to his Pokeball.
I had him on my lap the whole flight long.