Work Text:
Well.
This was . . .
“I don’t know what to do with this Karma.”
Karma was unable to offer any advice being as Karma was a zubat and could not explain to Martin the daycare’s policy on what to do if you just happened to find a pokémon curled around an egg. The pokémon in question was a woobat that had flown down from its normal perch and when Martin had come out again . . . egg.
Martin really didn’t want to ask his mother. Last time he had checked Chansey had just managed to get his mother to sleep and it was best not to wake her, less she lash out at Martin or worse, Chansey. She berated the poor pokémon just as much as she did Martin, but Martin knew she didn’t deserve it! Chansey did all she could to take care of his mum. So he would figure this out himself.
Before he could come up with a plan for that there was a ding from inside, which meant a customer. “Stay here with the woobat, okay Karma?” He asked, and the zubat happily flew to a branch, hanging upside down over the woobat. Satisfied Karma would let him know if anything was wrong, he went to the front, blinking in surprise when he noticed the trainer who had dropped off his woobat and noctowl just a good hour earlier.
“Hey, was wondering if woobat laid an egg yet?” The trainer asked before Martin could even get to the counter.
“Oh, yes?”
“Cool. You know most daycares leave a signal for trainers to know but, look whatever. Can I have it?”
“Sure! Just a moment!” Martin rushed back out to the yard and gently took the egg from woobat. As soon as she seemed to realize he had her egg she flew off towards noctowl. He was glad she wasn’t angry about it, and hurried back to the trainer, carefully handing over the egg. “Here you go!”
“Great, thanks.” The trainer took it and nodded, heading back towards the door.
“UM!” Martin didn’t know what to say to stop him, so he was relieved when the trainer paused and looked back. “Don’t you want your pokémon back?”
“Nah. See you soon!” And then he left, the door closing behind him.
Weird.
What was weirder was fifteen minutes later there was another egg. Remembering what the trainer had said about daycares leaving a signal for trainers, he grabbed a paper and wrote the trainers name in large neat letters, followed by the word EGG. He went outside and put it on the door, though he didn’t know if he expected it to work.
He especially didn’t expect the trainer to enter a minute later. “Another one? Great! Hand it over!”
Martin, baffled, went and retrieved the egg, bringing it to the trainer, who then left with a careless wave.
To be honest, Martin really didn’t get it. And he wasn’t sure he wanted to. He instead busied himself with starting to make his mother’s lunch. The doctor had put her on a specialized diet that was supposedly going to help, but it hadn’t worked yet. Still, Martin was hopeful after another week or two maybe she could come and work with him. How cool would it be to show his mum how much he’d learned? And she would be all proud and pat him on the head and tell him he did a good job.
He had just finished when there was a ding from the counter. Walking out Martin saw the same trainer again. “Hello?”
“Just wondering if my pokémon had another egg?”
Martin blinked. “I can check?” He headed out into the yard and sure enough there was another egg under woobat. Taking it he returned to the front. “What are you doing?”
“Oh, I’m trying to get a shiny.” The trainer took the egg.
“A . . . shiny?”
“Yeah. Shiny genetics that give a pokémon wildly different colors and—Oh! It’s hatching!” The trainer pulled one of the eggs out of his bag and Martin watched with wide eyes as the egg shook and cracked and then, suddenly, there was a woobat! It flapped, a little wobbly, and Martin’s eyes widened.
“Woooah.” He’d never seen a pokémon being born.
“Ugh. Useless.” The trainer scoffed. “I’ll release it as soon as I’m outside.”
“What? Why?” Martin knew some pokémon trainers released pokémon after they caught him, but he didn’t think it was such a flippant thing.
“Like I said, I want a shiny. If it’s not shiny it’s trash.” The trainer turned to leave and Martin followed. True to his word, as soon as they were outside the trainer snapped the hinge off the pokéball holding the woobat, making it let out a surprised cry. “Go on, get out of here. Useless . . . ”
It was still just a baby.
Martin ran back inside, reaching under the counter for one of the heal balls he’d bought on his last trip to the store. He got them in case he saw an injured pokémon, but it would work in this case. Running back out the trainer was already heading off but Martin didn’t care about him right now. Instead he went to the woobat who was still hovering and letting out confused, distress squeaks. As he got closer he could see it was trembling. “Hey hey, it’s okay.” Martin moved closer and made soothing sounds before tapping the pokéball to the woobat. It immediately went into the ball and after only one shake it clicked.
Martin headed back inside the daycare, aiming towards his room. “Karma!” He called as he did, and the zubat was quick to fly through the open window and after him. Once in his room Martin drew the curtain to make it dark and then flipped off the light before letting out the woobat from the ball.
It made a similar sound to Karma, the squeaks that Martin figured were echolocation. “Hey hey, it’s okay. Karma is gonna help you calm down and relax in here. It has to be a lot, being born and all of that, so this way you can relax and calm down.” Martin couldn’t see very well in the darkness of the room, but he could see the shape of the woobat and gently pat its head. “Karma, make sure he’s okay?”
Karma landed on Martin’s head long enough to pap pap pap Martin’s head with his wing before flying to the bed where the woobat was and landing, making encouraging squeaks.
With that, Martin slipped out of the room. He glanced at his mums room as he passed but it seemed quiet and really, he didn’t want to ask her about this. She had told him he was in charge of running everything after the bad turn last week, and so if Martin made a new rule . . .
Heading out to the yard, he was relieved he didn’t see another egg. He called the woobat and noctowl back to their balls and then went to the counter to wait.
Unsuprisingly, he didn’t wait long. The trainer entered and Martin set the pokéballs on the counter. “You have to take your pokémon back. This is a daycare, not a breeding center for you to mass produce pokémon you don’t even want. It’s not allowed.”
The trainer had the audacity to scoff. “Seriously? No other daycare cares about it.”
“Well this one does. So you can take your business elsewhere.” Martin crossed his arms and the trainer narrowed his eyes.
“Who the fuck do you think you are to boss me around you little—” Before he could finish there was a silver stinger at his throat, accompanied by an angry buzzing. Martin gasped, not having expected the beedrill. Neither had the trainer apparently, who held up his hands in surrender and then pocketed his balls before pulling out his card. “Fuck, whatever, fine.” He paid without further comment, though his eyes kept flicking to bedrill.
As soon as he paid he left, leaving Martin alone with the beedrill and her trainer.
“H-Hello Miss Prentiss.”
“Hello Martin. How is your mother?”
“A-About the same?” Martin tried to smile but Miss Prentiss had always freaked him out a little. She ran a shop not far away and was always coming over to offer unique ways to help his mother, like chanting over her or crystals or letting her grubbing and weedle crawl all over her. Martin’s mother called her a crazy freak, and while Martin wouldn’t put it that way . . .
“Still not interesting in letting my children help her?” Jane called the bug pokémon she collected her children. She also didn’t believe in pokéballs, so when they got to climbing around there was no quick way to retrieve them. This had been a problem in the past when a large number of her worms had been attracted to the scents of a steenee the daycare had and covered Martin’s bedroom window as they crawled over the building to reach the sweet smell. It had given him nightmares for weeks.
She had helped in this situation though. And actually . . . “Um, I have a question though, is there anything you know about for helping calm a pokémon that’s had a rough time?”
“Oh! I do!” Reaching to her beedrill, Jane pulled a necklace from around its neck. It had a bell which gave a soft pleasant sound and Jane smiled. “This helps the pokémon’s vibrations reach a restorative level.”
“Thanks.” Martin said, though he wasn’t sure exactly what that meant. She then pulled out some rocks from her bag. “Um . . . ?”
“These will help purify your mother’s bad energy and cleanse her chakras. I charged them under moonlight with the help of my caterpies.”
“Thanks?” Martin was sure they were some kind of crystal—he’d heard Jane offering her ‘bug-pokémon infused crystal techniques’ when she’d came to see his mom last week, but his mother had said something very unkind that Martin wouldn’t repeat. Still, it was nice of Jane to try and help. He could slip them under his mom’s bed when he dropped off her food, it wasn’t like she’d check. “I hope it helps.”
“It will.” Jane said with all the confidence that Martin didn’t have about this stuff.
“Is there anything else?”
“No, I just wanted to check on my favorite neighbors.” Martin didn’t bother pointing out that outside the daycare and Jane’s shop there weren’t any other buildings on the route. “If you need anything you know where to find me.” Smiling, Jane then turned and walked out of the Daycare, her beedrill buzzing behind her and a grubbing clinging to the back of her red dress. (Martin would not be visiting because he knew for a fact all the horrible horrible worms that he would see there if he ever did visit.)
Feeling rather exhausted about everything Martin went back to the kitchen to finally take his mother her lunch. She was still asleep and it wasn’t like the sandwich would go cold so he left it on the bedside table and handed the poke-snack to chansey who was half dozing beside the bed. Then, as he’d planned, he slipped Jane’s crystals under the bed before leaving and going to his room to check on Karma and the woobat.
He didn’t expect the ball of fluff to fly to him immediately, snuggling into him and sticking its nose to his face. There was a hint of suction and then a pop as it pulled back. “Feeling better?” he asked with a smile, sitting on the edge of the bed. “You don’t have to stay here if you don’t want to—” At that the woobat tried to snuggle into him more and Martin couldn’t help the laugh. “Alright, alright. Then um, I need a name for you.” The bat was sweet and he wanted a similar name to Karma, since they were going to be bat friends. Maybe something else starting with K?
Knife.
No, that was a terrible name.
“How about Kudos?” he asked, and Kudos squeaked as he snuggled more into Martin’s sweater. There was a weight as Karma landed on his head and Martin smiled. “Now, I have to make lunch for us, and then you two can help me while I make up a new policy about people trying for shiny eggs.”
