89-Spawn

Walking down the trail in a comfortable silence just after lunch, Amelia is struck once again by how different it is to travel with other trainers instead of just her partners.

She glances up at the big puffy clouds until she spots the tiny speck in the distance she knows to be Swellow, flying off as he does whenever he’s not training or hanging out with them. With Chansey trailing behind so they’re barely within earshot so she can work on protect, both her partners are busy.

She’s not sure exactly when Swellow stopped heading back into his pokeball at every opportunity, but he almost never recalls himself anymore. Couldn't be more different to the other trainers whose partners are almost constantly in their balls while they’re hiking, the confused blinks as they get their bearings when they exit proof that they’re all the way into full stasis instead of the half conscious state that keeps them aware of their surroundings and able to leave the ball themselves.

She glances up into the sky again, where Swellow is gently circling a high thermal.

On an… intellectual level she understands him constantly flying around and being outside of his ball means a larger food budget, but Chansey’s already blown that up and the rewards for beating a gym means she’s barely halfway into her savings, they’re not hurting for money just yet.

…Plus there’s still however much money Chansey has. She keeps forgetting about that, and the one time she’d looked over the ledger of stocks and other finance words she’d not been able to make heads or tales of it. If there was a bolded number saying how much money is in there she couldn't find it.

Walking further down the trail in this silence, some small morbid part of her whispers the other reason people keep some of their partners recalled so much. That aging slows to a near stop in the ball, and the biological fact that humans are on the upper end of the median in lifespan.

With proper medical care Swellow will live to fifty five average, but with just eight hours a day recalled their averages match.

The Joy grimaces as she catches her train of thought.

Everyone knowsthat kind of thinking is wrong, selfish and bordering on abusive. Yet at some point everyone does that same math.

Amelia shakes her head to clear the dark thoughts and smiles at Tyler, having drifted forward so they’re walking side by side.

Whatever, they’re both way too young for her to be thinking about that stuff!

“So! I know it’s a little rude to ask but… I saw you training your team and I couldn't figure out what you were training them for. What are your goals?”

There’s a hitch in his step as her voice cuts through the silence, then he rubs the back of his neck with an embarrassed smile.

“Ah ha… well… I guess we don't actually have a goal, I’ve been working on just… generally training Grovyle, he’s pretty fast but he loses to any ‘mon that’s fasterthan him. I’m trying to teach double team but the training book I bought just… it’s just…” He trails off with a frustrated grunt, shaking his head and abruptly shifts topics. “He needs to hit harder, but any move strong enough to do some serious damage means he has to stop moving, which–”

“Why?” Amelia interrupts.

Tyler blinks.

“Why what?”

“Why can't he move andhit hard at the same time?” She asks, pulling her notebook from her pocket and opening it to her observations on the fights between Chansey and her two friends. “Grovyle tried to use absorb a few times and Chansey disrupted it with an attack, sure, but why can't he move?”

The question seems to bring the trainer up short, opening his mouth for a moment before looking down at where Grovyle is resting on his belt.

“...Huh. I mean we havetried to do two attacks at once but it always disrupted his concentration. But… I mean we can train concentration. Just starting off with him priming a power move while I shout in his ear will… then… hmm…”

She reflexively flips to a new page of her notebook to start writing things down, only realizing halfway through the first stroke that Grovyle is not her partner, so she clicks her pen and snaps it shut.

“Well– I mean– Or do whatever! You’re the trainer.” She hastens to add, stuffing her notebook back into her bag’s side pocket with a smile. “I saw you training Shroomish and Shroomish on… spore attacks?”

Tyler hesitates, then shrugs.

“Ehhh… I’m just trying to train their stamina with moves that will be useful aftertheir evolution.” He explains, accompanying his words with charade-like gestures. “Once they evolve they’re gonna have the same body type as Grovyle so then we’ll be able to train with the more physical stuff. Grass type has a lot of challenges but with a little bit a synergy with rock or dark type I’ll be able to–”

“Oh! You’re not going monotype?” Amelia asks, slightly shocked as she looks glances the trainer up and down, his light brown hair underneath a wide brimmed hat, lightly tanned skin covered by a sun bleached t-shirt that’s some shade between white blue and green. “I mean– I thought–”

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The two trainers in front of them quietly giggle as Tyler lets out a tortured groan.

“Ughhh! It’s not a gardening hat. It’s just a hat!” He says, more shouting at the two in front of them than talking at her. “You’ll all be feeling prettystupid when you’ve got sun spots in your fifties!”

His continued arguing of some previous conversation only has the two laugh harder, to which he can only sigh and look back over at Amelia and lower his voice again.

“...No my dad was a monotype grass trainer and he got thrashedon his journey. He called it a, quote unquote ‘learning experience’ to get absolutely destroyed every other battle.” He says with airquotes and lips in a tight line. “Maybe it worked for him but I’d rather learn by winning.”

Amelia nods a bit hesitantly, understanding his feelings but caught slightly off guard by the undercurrent of… almost angerbeneath it.

“Sorry for assuming, but I mean…” She trails off, gesturing at his belt, the three pokeballs occupied as they walk through midday sun, to which the trainer laughs.

“Oh no I get it, me and Grovyle were meant for each other, but when the starters got transferred to the center and Nurse Joy started doing the meet and greets I tried so hard to convince myself that this one torchic was my partner.” He laughs again, patting his partner's ball, then pauses, looking at her with a question on his face but says nothing.

“...What?” She asks after she can't bear the anticipation, to which Tyler shakes his head and rubs the back of his neck.

“No– I mean– It’s a stupid and probably insulting question so I– Aw screw it.” He cuts himself off and takes a breath. “Are you, you as in all Joys, clones?”

Amelia almost faceplants.

“Wh– What?!” She half shouts, noting how the two in front of them flinch and speed up. “Clones? Why would you think… We’ve been around for thousands of years, how would that even–”

“No sorry! I mean, not like grown in a lab clone! Like a plant clipping– Shoot!– No! Not a plant!” His frantic hand waving and verbal scrambling eventually ends with him banging the top of his fist against his forehead hard enough it has to hurt before looking back at her and continuing in slow, measured tones. “Ok. I may not be a genius, but I know how genetics work, and from what I can tell a Nurse Joy has always looked the same. If your genes are that dominant everyone in the worldwould look like you. However, since we don't all look like you, they’re not, so–”

“So to keep looking exactly the same there must be something keeping my DNA from changing, and your theory is that I’m an exact genetic duplicate of my mother, and every other Joy. Implying my clan can perform parthenogenesis.” She finishes his thought with a sigh.

He was right, the question is both stupid and insulting.

“Yea…” Tyler mutters, sounding ashamed for asking. “Sorry. Forget I said anything. I’ll–”

Amelia cuts him off with a roll of the eyes and a laugh.

She has to give him credit, she’s never heard that one before. Because of how close she lived to Jubili town she wasn't as much of an oddity compared to most other small towns. But even there the running half-joke/half-theory was that her family were secretly a kind of pokemon.

“No no. It’s fine. Honestly I can see where you’re coming from but nope.” She rebuts, keeping her voice friendly to cover for a trace of irritation. “Well… I mean technically I could be a clone, I’ve never gotten my DNA sequenced. But I have a dad–” Somewhere. “–and we’re all genetically distinct.”

It’s at this point Sam looks over his shoulder at her with a confused look.

“So wait, I’m sorry, how does that work? Your genes must be super dominant, so why don't we allhave pink hair?” He asks, to which Amelia can only shrug.

“No one knows, but if a member of the family stops being a nurse her grandkids are almost guaranteed to not look like...” She gestures herself up and down. “Current popular theory is that it has something to do with being surrounded by so much healing energy, but it’s just a guess.”

Her answer satisfies neither of the trainers looking at her, but eventually they both nod.

Then Tyler chuckles, a sound that has the two trainers in front turn around again with a warning glare that he ignores.

“So you really are just one massive family huh?” He asks rhetorically. “I wonder how many steps you are from the Nurse Joy back home.”

Amelia blinks at the thought, then covers a slightly vindictive smile as an idea forms, a little payback.

She gives a practiced smile.

“Well… where do you live? I mean you’re right, we are family, so I probably know who she is if you have her name and posting.”

Tyler's face rapidly flashes between panic and guilt as he realizes he’d gone in for another social fumble.

“Well, Lake May, but no I was– I was just joking–”

Embarrassingly enough Amelia does actually know who’s running the Lake May center, mom went to school together with her. But it’s too late to back out now.

“Oh! Yea that’s Aunt Lynn, she’s great. Brings this berry crumble thing around on holidays, it’s delicious.” She proclaims with a smile and speeds up, leaving Tyler sputtering in shock.

“No wait! Hold on! I was joking! How in the world can you–”

Then his words cut out with an alarmed choke as everyone slams to a stop as if they’d gone face first into a brick wall, eyes wide and suddenly darting about the underbrush all around them, eyes flicking between the ‘mon in front of them and the ‘mon they know is nearby.

Because sitting in the middle of the trail, staring at the group with claws bared and a growl though clenched teeth, is a teddiursa.

And where there’s a teddiursa, there is its mother.