Childcare

This counter agent meant that the poison wouldn't spread but it unfortunately meant that the effected area would be lost to the poison as well. It was a bit of a hassle to be honest as it also meant I needed to avoid any poison or tail related moves when I eventually trained the little one in the future. I also needed to work on creating antidotes for the little ones poison as well which will be a pain in the ass. The reason for this was that I needed to chemically speaking reverse engineer the poison to counter itself harmlessly.-

It was annoying but the only other alternative was to leave the little one in Samantha's care until she could do it herself. This was very much against my own plans as that would take at least a month if we were lucky and much longer if we were not. That was a considerably amount of time I could have been bonding with the little one gone. I very much doubted that the young mon saw me as anything other than his parent so just leaving it behind like that was cruel even by my standards.-

While true it wouldn't be a permanent arrangement it would certainly seem that way to the little one that hadn't even been hatched that long. No I would rather be slightly inconvenienced than subject him to an experience like that. A sentiment that Samantha actually agreed with surprisingly enough. "In majority of cases pokemon stay with their parents until they reach maturity not because they can't leave but because during that time they are most vulnerable to outside influence and need to be guided. A single wrong influence not caught in time can ruin the rest of their lives unless someone were to subject them to serious training to correct it." She said seriously.-

I understood what she meant as well as it was a well studied fact that baby pokemon try to take after their caretakers in most cases and if said caretaker wasn't the same species as them it can go very badly. For example if a baby fire type is raised by a water type then the fire type might just wander into the water and die thinking that was the way things were supposed to be. Pokemon themselves also seemed to realize this as well which is why cross typing fostering of orphaned baby pokemon are highly uncommon.-

In fact in the vast majority of cases when a different type pokemon comes across an orphaned baby pokemon they just take the little ones to the nearest pokemon of whatever type it is before leaving. Thankfully in this regard it wasn't a problem as the little one had every typing so there simply wasn't any wrong behaviors it could learn that would prove detrimental to it. Watson showed up shortly after I began getting my stuff set for the trip to Lavaridge after I got the counter agent.-

"Wahaha! What an cheerful little fella! Thought of a name for him yet?" the old gym leader asked as he spoiled the little one with rubs and candy he just had on him for some reason. I shrugged "It's too soon to try and give him a name , you of all people aught to know that names have power and I don't want to force a name on him that doesn't suit him." I said honestly. Watson thought about it for a moment before nodding in agreement "For what I gather from the reports the little one is suited for any name really but you are right to be cautious in this matter."-

"It's important to let the little one grow enough to understand the importance it's name will have. Seen too many folks give a fierce pokemon a name like fluffy only to find the thing turned into a house pet. Nothing wrong with that of course but we both know pokemon were built for greater things than that." he said seriously. I very much agreed with him on that particular philosophy as I personally believe the creatures were made for battle.-

I don't mean that they are merely made for combat but all the facts point to that being their primary design function. Armorlike skin , sharp claws , poisons and many more traits are highly prevalent in even the most peaceful of pokemon species and I refuse to believe that wasn't by design. Once or twice was a coincidence but in EVERY pokemon? That's a pattern. The why of the matter was the part that bothered me however. For what reason could the godly pokemon responsible for the normal ones creation have making them all capable of extreme violence innately.-

Humans didn't have any of those advantages. We weren't particularly fast , strong or durable so it wasn't to keep us in line but no matter how hard I thought about it I couldn't figure it out. 'Whatever I'm sure I am just over thinking things like usual.' I thought as I got back to chatting with Watson about the little one. He had a whole bunch of advice about raising a baby pokemon from the times he himself had to since he couldn't afford to get an adult of a particular species he may have wanted. The best advice he gave was to start the little one out play fighting as it matured so it had a good foundation when the real training started.-

Nothing really intensive or rough but enough for it to not freeze up in combat as it didn't know what to do. According to Watson it was a problem many who raised a pokemon from an egg had as they tended to not give the babies any preparations for their future role so when they were suddenly introduced to it they had no idea what to do and froze up. It could be worked out with a bit of effort on the trainers part but it still wasted time that could be used to progress instead.-

Watson also suggested I try and work in light move training as well so the little one is familiar with how to use it's moves after it matured. I had an even better idea at this suggestion however as I could practice with pure type energy alongside the little one as we both could use every typing. What better a thing to compare my own progress to than a baby pokemon learning it for the first time as well?-

Obviously I was also going to take into consideration that the little one was definitely more talented than me since it was a pokemon and a variant to boot but I could still get a fairly decent assessment from witnessing it's own growth. Once the little one went to take a nap in the dive pouch I confronted Watson about the matter of my custom healing move getting leaked. I hadn't forgotten about it and was definitely still VERY unhappy with it getting leaked. Don't get me wrong I understood why it was done but that didn't mean that someone hadn't gone behind my back with it.