Egg

"Jeez man, it surely is getting warm." I said while shading my eyes slightly from a couple rays of sunlight that pierced the thick roof of leaves over our heads, before deciding it was way more comfortable without my jacket on and so I took it off in a few swift movements.

"Gassstly." My friend commented with laughter gleaming in his eyes at my plight, floating next to me as we kept on walking through the forest, probably only a couple hours away from reaching the exit, if we hadn't walked in a circle somewhere.

"Ye ye, laugh it up you purple menace." I responded, all the while chugging the small training leather ball at Joker, who adeptly dodged it without much problem on his part. Maybe I should have started with a different exercise, considering I could now no longer just throw something at him to express my indignation at his actions. But hindsight is 20/20 after all as they say.

"Consider yourself lucky you don't have any pores on you. It really isn't feeling all that great to be sticky and sweaty all over. But then again, you don't have a real body, so ye. There's that." I finished, now with myself snickering slightly and Joker being the indignant party, before the both of us shrugged our "shoulders" and grinned at each other.

It really was getting warmer, which must mean spring was about to arrive. According to my Dex at least, as it had been comfortably warm before already, but now it was getting only warmer day by day, confirming what previously had only been an announcement on my Dex.

But I wasn't mad at the rising temperatures, despite behaving like a little bitch right about now. After all, I had been born in May and loved the first days of spring when it become more and more apparent that winter was finally over and the cycle of life started anew.

And although the forest around me had been green before as well, it got only more vibrant with each passing day, as if life returned from its slumber back into the earth and trees all around us, with small flowers beginning to sprout all over the green grass on the ground and upon the tree trunks that filled the forest like hay a haystack.

Even the air feels more vibrant and fuller with every breath I take, always bringing a smile to my face.

"Gastly." Joker said suddenly however, pulling me from my musings about the wildlife of Viridian forest and spring as a whole, all the while breaking the comfortable and peaceful silence that had fallen between us, and readjusting my attention back onto him.

"Something the matter?" But he didn't answer in words but only looked into a certain direction, causing me to turn my head slightly to our left, askew from our future path and into the nearby thick foliage.

And it was a good thing that I had, as what I saw left me standing there in a small shock of silence.

"Is that what I think it is?" I asked my friend, promptly marching forwards and crouching down next to our discovery in wonder.

"Gaaastly!" He responded, equally as surprised and even a little excited by the looks of it. I couldn't blame him.

"What do you think the chances are that we would stumble upon a Pokémon egg of all things in the middle of nowhere? And where are its parents?" I asked Joker, causing him to "shrug" in response to my musings, drifting around the tree and its nearby companions, looking for any signs, but found nothing judging by the shaking of his head.

Sliding my hand over the smooth shell of the Pokémon egg at the base of the tree next to us, I couldn't help myself but feel slightly awed at the whole situation. After all, Pokémon eggs weren't something your usual run of the mill trainer just happened upon, as Pokémon and Pokémon breeders alike guarded their progeny like a hawk its prey.

And yet, here an egg lay. At the base of some tree in the middle of the forest with no guardian in sight.

"Aren't Easter eggs supposed to be made out of chocolate? Maybe the Easter bunny fucked up or something?" I wondered, causing Joker to snort in humour at my bad joke, after which he "shrugged" once more, which really only is an up and down bobbing of the gas gliding around his black face, as if to say: "what can you do."

"Ye, you're right. And even though I would really like to just take this egg with me, and hopefully have a new companion hatch from it to add to our team, I would feel pretty damn bad just taking this egg with me, without knowing if its parents are really not coming back or are only out to grab themselves something to eat real quick." I mused, before deciding we weren't in any rush and could afford to stick around for a little while longer.

Thus, I sat myself down at the base of the tree next to the Pokémon egg and took out half a conserved Oran berry for a small snack, which taste incredible, let me tell you.

They are both freaking juicy, sweet but not too sweet and fill your stomach like you've had a full course meal consisting of five different dishes. Which made me wonder even more what Sitrus Berries would taste like. Would I explode from fullness after taking but a bite out of one of those? Only time will tell, I guess.

"What do you think will hatch from this egg?" I asked Joker while we waited and the hours seemed to have slipped away every time I checked for the time on my Pokédex, filling it up with Joker meditating and playing around with the energy inside himself while I kept working on strategies and possible team constellations.

"Gas, Gastly." He replied, and something I had been really shocked by the first time I realised this happening is that I could actually understand what he means. Not word for word but for some reason I understood very well what Joker wants to tell me, as if his words contained way more meaning than was normal. I was really curious if this would happen with my future team members as well, after I had spent some more time with them. How that worked however, I had not the slightest idea.

"A bug type? Curious. Any further clues?" I continued to needle, after which Gastly seemed to concentrate on the egg at my side with energy gleaming slightly inside of his eyes, giving them a deeper and more menacing appearance, tinged with a slight film of red as they now were, until they returned to their normal tone of white.

"Gastly!" Now that was even more curious. A fire type? Damn, that really reduced the number of Pokémon that could hatch from this egg. After all, there really weren't many bug Pokémon with a fire attributed nature.

Now I really hoped the parents wouldn't return, even though that feeling of hope and anticipation made me feel a little guilty, I just couldn't help myself. I just simply wanted that egg for myself!

Thus, a couple more hours flew by and we decided to simply make our camp right where we were, having come to the agreement that we would wait only until the come morning and then take the egg with us, as no parent would stay that long away from their progeny if they cared at all for it.

Of course, there was always the possibility that something had happened to the parents and that they weren't absent for no good reason but that only validated in my eyes that the we were in the right to take the egg into our custody. After all, toddlers didn't survive for long on their own, be it human or Pokémon.

Once again I had created a small fire and rolled out my bedroll before sitting down to have some lunch and finish of the day with some more contemplating and talking with Joker, who had been training nonstop today as well and deserved some down time of his own, even though he seemed to really enjoy working on his energy reserves and control. Not that I could blame him. If I had an incredible energy like that coursing through my veins, with easy excess to it, I would play around with it all day every day as well.

And while I sat there, chatting with Joker about this and that and our future goals concerning our journey, I suddenly had a crazy idea pop up inside my mind.

"Hey buddy, do you think the egg would like it if we placed it inside the fire?" Thus, I asked Joker, who seemed to be taken a little aback by my sudden change of topic, before he seemed to seriously consider my question for a second.

"Gastly!" And he seemed to think that to be a good idea no less. I had come up with that idea since, according to Joker, there is a fire Pokémon inside of this egg, which are famous for preferring ridiculous temperatures to live and grow in, temperatures that would be absolutely lethal to anything but fire Pokémon. Like Magma for example, who lived inside freaking Vulcanos occasionally!

And so, I took the egg from its former place and gently lowered it into the gleaming embers glowing and flickering hotly under the dancing flames atop their fiery bed.

And while I had at first been a little hesitant to go through with my idea, I soon came to the realisation that I had been absolutely right in my assumption, as the egg actually began to shake slightly!

"Holy cow! It isn't really hatching already, is it?!" I said, stumped a little, while turning to my ghostly partner in crime, who seemed to grin in excitement at getting to witness such an occasion personally.

Turning back around, I returned my eyes back onto the more and more agitatedly shaking egg inside the fire, until a small crack began to spread from the top of the egg, and growing in size as it travelled down its length with every passing second.

My heart hammered in my chest, while excitement and anticipation chocked the breath from my throat like a snare, my eyes never leaving the growing crack for even a second.

Until only a moment later the egg stopped to shake, before its shell burst apart in a small eruption of embers and wood from the fire below it, leaving only its occupant behind, still sitting comfortably in the smouldering embers of the remaining campfire, staring right back at me with its ember coloured eyes.

And before I could even manage to croak out some form of welcome at my new little friend, it tilted its small head to one side and asked with a slightly high-pitched voice clearly belonging to a new born Pokémon: "Laaar?", and promptly jumped right into my face with a small but impish smile on its face.

That was how I met my new Larvesta for the first time, and I doubt anybody has ever been greeted in such a weird way by a new member of their team. But I wouldn't trade this small heated ball of fur for anything in the world. After all, I now had a Larvesta of all things!

Thank you, Easter bunny! You will never be forgotten!

/////

And somewhere, on its way out of Viridian Forest a small but vibrantly green coloured Bunnelby sneezed to the high heavens before continuing its way back to the north pole to report back to its boss, Santa Claus.