Go get 'em cowboy
Gene hit the snooze button on the alarm clock. 'Its too early', he thought. It was always too early. Work was simple, wake up before 9, feed the pokemon, run the drills with the vulpix, growlithe, eevee, and houndour, walk the ponyta, and coach the cyndaquil, quilava, charamanders, charmeleons, and flareon on maintaining their streams of fire. After that, give them their second meal, read some of the younger ones a story, and go to bed after that. Every Sunday he would ride out with three of the six rapidash and re-supply for the on coming week. Usually he took three of the four female, Prissy, Sophie, Marie, and Venus, leaving two the males, Carlos and Gabriel, behind. He'd get food for the pokemon and himself, and occasionally new clothes and other things like medical supplies, story books, fire stones for the vulpix and eevee, and fire wood.
In all honesty, he was gentle with Marie, since that was his own personal rapidash that his late mother had given to them. All the eevee he had were bought from another breeding rancher friend of his, Moses, who brought in his eevee litter ever 6 months. Moses would take care of them for the first six months after they were born, and then sell them. Gene took care of them for 2 months after that before using the firestones he'd bought, evolving them into flareon. Then he would train them for another 4 months and sell them again.
All of the senior pokemon on his ranch could maintain themselves, and for every different kind was one that was his personal pokemon. His arcanine and ninetails, Bruce and Bon who were given to him by his father who specialized in dog type pokemmon, the houndoom, Crow his uncle Allister had given him, the typhlosion, Oso that his grandmother had given him, his charizard, Axel that his grandfather had given him, and finally his flareon, Dante who he had raised himself.
His ranch was about a good 20 acres of dry desert, with no plants. His ancestors had chosen this plot of land since raising fire pokemon could start fires if there were too much greenery. But outside of that there was life in the barren desert, not much, but life none the less.
All of the pokemon ate different foods, the dog and lizard types would eat a special mix of Tauros meat, the horse types would eat basic oats, and cyndaquill and eevee needed miltank milk.
After they had all been fed, Bruce and Bon would lie down next to each other, Gene would sit down and lean with his back against Bruce's warm flank, and the vulpix, growlithe, charmander, eevee, and cyndaquil would gather around a small fire while Gene would read them a bed time story. The ponyta preferred to stay near their mothers and protective fathers at night, and the houndour would stay under the protection of their leader, Axel, the only houndoom on the ranch. The only one who wasn't with a group at night was Dante. Dante loved having gene around him, but only when it was just Gene. Occasionally they would play when Gene had time, and sometimes Dante even came for the bedtime story, but usually would run off and stare at the moon until bedtime. Then Dante would curl up next to Gene in his bed and sleep by his side.
It was like that every week. He would work all week and take Sunday off to re-supply and just rest. Every week, every month, and every year since his father had died of old age and his uncle moved into the town to take care of the supply and demand. Gene was the only rancher left. And he enjoyed being with the pokemon every day, but sometimes he'd lie awake at night, lonely and wishing that he had someone to talk to; to have a conversation with. The pokemon would listen to him talk, understand his emotion along with key bits and phrases, but they couldn't talk back. In fact, the majority of his talking was commands, reading the stories, and talking to people in town every Sunday. Until she came along that summer, looking for somewhere to help out. Her name was Juliana, and her dad didn't want her getting into trouble due to boredom, even though she was almost an angel. And she was an angel, to Gene at least.
