Pokemon: Childhood Dreams

After I decided to stick with the egg I had found in the main room I was immediately buffeted by wind from Elise’s wing which sent me tumbling across the floor.

“Heehee! Ha! Serves you right for rejecting her egg while resting against her.” Grandpa chortles with glee.

As I picked myself up, I contritely looked at Elise and then kowtowed to her directly. “I’m sorry Elise, I’m sure your child will be an extremely strong charizard. But my heart is leading me to this egg.”

After a minute of holding the position, Elise gives a forgiving snort.

Phew. I didn’t want to be on the bad side of Elise.

“Well, get going Orick. I have a feeling you didn’t finish with your cleaning of the main egg room. For now, you can take “your” egg to your room with a spare incubator.

“Thanks, Gramps.” I said as I rushed back to the egg room. While the eggs were in the egg room, they had the perfect conditions to grow and hatch. If I was going to remove my egg, I would need the incubator to simulate the conditions.

In a hurry, I finished my chores in the room and quickly left with the egg in an incubator. As I held the egg, those emotions flared up in my mind brighter than before.

Two weeks passed by in a flash. Partially because gramps put me on an exercise regimen that seemed like it was for elite soldiers. Leaving me tired and repeating similar actions by day and falling asleep quickly at night.

Today, I had a rare rest day as charmander’s egg was about to hatch. I needed to be present for it to hopefully imprint on me, so that we can grow closer as partners even before the Blood Bond. Everything depended on the outcome of today. If the charmander was too unruly and didn’t get along with me I wouldn’t have a chance at blood bonding with it. And I’m sure Elise would not be okay with me choosing her offspring as a second choice.

I tried to clear my mind as I meditated while holding the egg on my bed. After some time, where I totally didn’t fall asleep, I was startled by a cracking sound. I confusedly looked around and then my eyes settled on the egg on my lap with spreading cracks.

Holy Shit. What do I do! What do I do! Calm down, breathe Orick. This is only the most pivotal moment of your life. As I tried to order my thoughts, the egg broke bit by bit and an orange snout stuck out the top.

I froze as the rest of the head erupted from the egg and our eyes met. As we stared into each other’s eyes, I could see the determination in the baby pokemon. This sparked something within me and I stared determinedly back. This caused a feedback loop where we both ended up with our eyes blazing with determination. Seriously, I felt I could drill run straight through the heavens!

Our mutual pumping up ended with a cute “Char!” As charmander broke off his stare to begin eating the pieces of his shell. I slowly came back from my heightened sense of desire and purpose. I knew then that we would have a great friendship.

The past year has been spent training Drako and myself to the bone. Myself to ensure I survive the Blood Bond and Drako to make him the best fire spitting lizard ever.

Once, after a couple of months of my hellish training, I smiled at Grandpa Ozai because I was getting used to the pain of doing all the exercises and told him that I think I’ll be able to handle the pain he mentioned if I wanted to Blood Bond with Drako. He actually fell on the floor laughing.

“This pain is nothing! Heh! The pain I mentioned will occur during the Blood Bond Ceremony.”

Needless to say, this scared the crap out of me. I decided to duly try to ignore that I would have to go through an extremely painful ceremony. For Drako, I thought, as I pulled myself up to continue training.

*BANG* I was pulled out of my thoughts by Drako headbutting the inner gate. I smiled as I opened the gate and Drako jumped into my arms.

Ough. Drako’s getting a bit heavy for me, but I don’t complain because he won’t be able to do this when he becomes a charmeleon. Right now, Drako stands head and shoulders above the rest of the charmander which are further in the enclosure. Although he is one of the oldest charmander in the enclosure, there are others that hatched at the same time as him. His scales are also a darker shade of orange than his peers, both naturally and hinting at his upcoming evolution into charmeleon.

Drako has been suppressing his evolution for a couple of months now, because he knew that we needed to complete the Blood Bond Ceremony while he was a charmander.

After swinging him around a bit, I plopped Drako down and we both were sort of jumping in anticipation.

Then my phone rang.

“Orick! You know today is a special day! Come and get ready!” My mom shouted at me once I picked up.

Right, there’s a bunch of stuff I have to do to prepare for the ceremony at noon.

“See ya soon, buddy.” I say as I pat Drako on the head.