I must've been silent for quite a long time as I processed it all in my head, because I felt Maya gently lay a paw on my left arm. "Are you okay Keiran?" She asked gently, worried I might be terrified or have another outburst.

I turned to her, a bit startled by being taken out of my thoughts and gave her a small smile, "Yeah… I guess. I just don't really understand it fully yet, I don't think."

She smiled back, "No, you probably don't. There's quite a few other things that may surprise you related to adoption, but you shouldn't worry about them right now, alright?"

I nodded, slightly exhausted with the information overload. I then decided to ask them a question rather nervously. "So…" I hesitated, I caught both of their attention as they silently encouraged me to talk, "What are… what are you guys going to do now?"

Maya and Roger faced each other than turned back to me quizzically, "What do you mean lad?" Roger asked.

I sighed, "Well you know, I'm going through with this adoption thing most likely. Are you two going home soon?" I couldn't really put it in words.

Maya shook her head, "We'd like to see you off with your new family. I want to make sure you get properly taken care of." She said making me blush.

I started to itch my arms nervously, "I'm… scared." I stated.

Maya put a paw up to my cheek, "Why are you scared sweetie?" She said comfortingly.

I shrugged, "I don't know… You two are really nice, nicer than most have ever been to me. But what if who I get adopted by isn't nice? What if…"

Maya gently stroked my cheek, "What if Jewel comes back? What if she rejects me, or if she isn't nice to me, what if she doesn't… what should I feel if she doesn't even come back for me?" I started tearing up and a few streams started.

Maya shushed me and climbed on to the bed to pulled me into an embrace from behind. "Firstly," she started, "If there is even the slightest doubt in my mind they won't be good parents, I'll make sure they're gone in an instant. And secondly, I promise you, one of the first to walk through that door to adopt you will be Jewel. And if Jewel isn't nice or doesn't come for you, if the worst scenario hits and nobody shows up, I will. There is no world where you aren't loved, do you understand me? If we have to adopt you, even if we are nowhere near ready for the task, we will make sure we do what we can. And you will definitely have a home with us, always."

I've never felt like this in my whole life. Maya was absolutely amazing, she made my heart just open up like nobody else. I turned to look up at her, with even more tears than before. She gave me a motherly smile and kissed my forehead, I nearly broke down at that point. I wrapped both my arms around her neck and just… bawled my eyes out to be perfectly honest. Maya just embraced me tighter, shushing me gently every minute or so, and I remember falling asleep in her arms.


I woke up to something repeatedly rubbing against my head, I then remembered what had happened before I fell asleep, I opened my eyes and was still in Maya's embrace, she was clutching me tightly to her chest as she was in the bed with me. I was still hooked into everything but, she didn't seem to care. I looked up at her, she blushed sheepishly, "Sorry it's just… You're so dirty from living on that mountain I just had to clean you up a bit. Plus the HAA worker will be here very soon." I realized she must of been giving my hair a tongue bath which made me laugh slightly. She gently released me from her grip, but stayed curled around me.

Just than the door opened and Roger came walking through with multiple bags in his hand, "I found the vending machines!" He announced triumphantly with a goofy smile on his face.

He walked over and dropped the bags at the edge of my bed, "Well, would you like a snack Keiran?" He asked me.

Maya groaned from behind me, "Roger, how much did you buy in junk food?"

Roger smiled smugly, "Hey it's not all junk food. Some of these are slightly passable as not unhealthy!"

Maya gave a bit if a growl, "If it's fighting to not be unhealthy than it's probably bad."

Roger opened a bag of chips and started to eat them, "Are you gonna eat any or just complain."

Maya talked under her breath, annoyed, but I still heard it. "Roger I love you, but I swear I'm gonna lose it one of these days…"

Maya rustled through the pile until one them caught her attention and she passed it to me, "Here you go Keiran. This one isn't actually that bad for you."

I looked down and she had passed me just a regular small bag of chex mix, I smiled at her and began to eat the familiar snack. 'At least they kept some things like they used to be', I said to myself fondly.

"Thank you." Maya just hummed out a positive response as she opened a bag of candy, but she must've noticed my 'really' look.

She blushed, "Look… You are recovering from almost a year diet of berries. It's important what you put in you, but don't judge me." She finished. We all shared a laugh at that and resumed having our little snack.

After a few minutes of eating and talking about snacks, I was surprised to find out the pokemon kept most of them the same. The only thing that changed was the ones in charge, but they decided to keep most of everything running strong. Just than the door opened and a mienshao with a clipboard and folder walked in, she kinda paused to take in the scene, which was probably rather unusual.

She lightly cleared her throat and smiled brightly, "Hello Keiran, and?" She asked expectantly.

Maya spoke up, "I'm Maya Coldcalm and that's my husband Roger." She introduced.

The Mienshao nodded, "Mr. and Mrs. Coldcalm." She said politely with a smile. "I am Raina Walker from the local HAA agency, and I am the caseworker on Keiran here."

I nodded, "What do you do, as my caseworker?" I asked.

"Well, I scan a list of applications other pokemon have sent in to request adoption, pick out the ones I see best fit for you, and we work from there usually. Though it looks like you have already made a choice without any papers?" She asked as she looked at Maya and Roger which both blushed and laughed awkwardly.

Roger shook his head slightly, "Not exactly, we're the pokemon who found Keiran, we just wanted to make sure he felt like he had familiar faces around."

Raina nodded understandingly, "My apologies, though I do have forms open for other parts of Keiran's family." She said.

Maya and Roger were both confused as Raina pulled out some forms and hand them to Maya. "It's not just adoption for parents we do. We can have you officially written down as an "Aunt" or "Uncle" so that if anything happens Keiran can end up with some family somewhere, whether it be relocation to a new adopted family or in some cases, parent death. You two would be looked at for temporary housing first and foremost."

Both Maya and Roger looked nearly ecstatic, and I had to admit that news kind of made me feel much happier as well. "Yes please, we will sign it!" Maya said, nearly bouncing.

The mienshao laughed and handed her the clipboard and a pen, "Each of you just sign right here, here, and here." She said pointing to various parts of the papers.

After that was done they handed it back eagerly and Raina smiled, "Congratulations that would make you three officially family." Maya and Roger both embraced me and I laughed a bit.

"Thank you," I said to basically all of them. Maya kissed my head, and held me close to her chest. I technically had an Aunt and Uncle now, which while odd, definitely made me feel less like I would be abandoned.

Raina nodded happily, "No problem dear, I just love bringing people together officially when they obviously love each other. Now Mr. and Mrs. Coldcalm are free to take you anywhere you'd like as your current acting guardians. Though right now we do have actual parents that would love to have you in their family to discuss."

My smile turned to one of nervousness as she started to hand me a couple of forms, "These are the forms I picked out to be best fit for you. I focused on couples with no kids yet so that you would be their full attention with the state you're in. I focused on families that confirmed they would deal with you gently and slowly to, make sure you could ease into their lives better. And lastly I went for mostly dragon type couples." I looked at her kind of oddly and she shrugged.

"What can I say? Their were a lot of dragon types that would like to take care of you. You were essentially a prodigy for dragon-types, and a lot of them hold immense respect for you. Others just want to make sure you feel comfortable with pokemon you already worked with extensively."

I could see she wasn't lying. I flipped through multiple forms to see the pictures, a goodra and haxorus couple, a salamance and a garchomp, a druddigon and a hydreigon, a tyrantrum and a noivern. Geez that tyrantrum is huge, never seen one in real life either. I did see one last couple, a charizard and a kommo-o, that looked rather nice, but it was still very overwhelming.

I began back at the first couple, and looked at what other things it had listed were. I read "How would you deal with Keiran's mental state and physical state in its current form?" Most of them had something nice like lots of love and care, a couple mentioned cuddling a lot, eating healthy, the tyrantrum one made me laugh because it said "lots of meat". But one said "excessive amounts of babying" which baffled me as I looked up at Raina.

"This one says excessive amounts of babying but what does that mean exactly?" I asked.

I heard Maya stir behind me as she snatched the one I singled out and read through it. "This one isn't getting passed me." It was the one with a hydreigon and druddigon.

Raina nodded kind of nervously, "I must of not been paying much attention to that one to have let it through. And I also thought he was aware of what it meant, my apologies. You see Keiran, lots of the new pokemon parents have decided they would like to treat kids a little less like their age and more like, well… babies." That didn't sit well with me in all honesty.

I just shrugged, "So… I just avoid them than?"

Raina looked at Maya and Roger, probably cursing them for not telling me, than sighed, "Keiran… Most parents support the act of babying humans. I bet she wouldn't admit to it but even Mrs. Coldcalm would probably do so if you were to allow her." Maya gave a bit of a glare with that but sheepishly nodded when I looked over at her.

If Maya supported it… I will try not to flip out about it. I asked calmly, "So… what would it be exactly? Like, baby talk and feeding me?"

Maya started, "Well it'd be… basically everything. Diapers, sippy cups, booster chairs, carrying, baby clothes, baths… changing." She slipped in at the end

I was slightly dumbfounded. I was beginning to understand it all and now they throw this weird as hell curveball at me. Babying? Diapers? The thought made me want to get up and run all the way back to my cave in the mountains. I only had one simple question, "Why?" I said.

The silence was very noticeable and awkward. Maya started again, "Pokemon want to keep you humans safe. A lot of humans were acting like babies when we acted as their fighters, so now we find it only fitting that we treat them like babies." That was… an odd way of doing things.

I kind of secluded myself from them, "Two wrongs don't make a right." I said with my arms crossed.

The room was silent for a moment before Raina spoke up, "We aren't doing this as a punishment or a cruel joke for the humans. We're doing this for your safety. Most humans wouldn't dare give up their relationships they have with pokemon, so we decided to strengthen it without giving the humans power. And you may be surprised but there are thousands of humans now who have happily accepted their new life, lots of them your age are loving it even. Some of them have accepted another program we have for body regression and mind regression."

"Body regression? That's possible?" I said, suddenly feeling slightly scared for my life.

Raina nodded, "Don't worry. Both human and pokemon parents have to sign to make sure it is legal. And at any point in the process the human can just stop doing it and return to normal. We aren't about to force anyone into it, lots of pokemon parents aren't too sure about it yet either.

I nodded, kind of coming to understand all of this, "It's definitely weird to hear but… I think… I understand." I said.

"As long as it's not shady and against my will I'm okay with it" I finished. I was definitely not okay with it completely, and still slightly freaked out and now kind of scared for adoption, but I wanted to be polite.

Raina nodded with a smile and pulled the papers I was holding from my hands. "Either way, most of this is a formality I'm required to show you. Here's the only file I think you'll really care about."

My heart stopped for a second as I had a feeling it was what I thought it was as she handed me the paper. And sure enough it was, Julia and Colin Northwing. Next to the name Julia was a slash that had the name Jewel. I could feel tears as I looked at the bottom right photo, a picture of her… my old friend. And a rather happy looking Dragonite. I was rather happy to see she did in fact find love, but… she hadn't forgot about me.

I looked at the other text as Maya shadowed my shoulder, reading with me. "How would you deal with Keiran's mental state and physical state once he is found?"

"We would give him a ton of love, and would feed him a healthy diet to get him back on track to a healthy state. Did I mention absolutely smothering him with love?" It had put next to it. Maya rubbed my back gently as more tears came down.

"If Keiran was hesitant for regression behavior how would you act?"

"We would try and gently ease him into it on his own terms, and if he came to the conclusion it wasn't for him we would stop immediately."

"If Keiran was hurt how would you deal with it?"

"Some good motherly kisses and hugs, a bandaid, or if worse, a swift trip to the doctor no matter the weather. And cuddling."

The final question, "Is there anything you would like to write for him if Keiran ends up reading this?"

"I love you so much and I'm so very sorry I had to leave you. But please, we can talk about it and you can yell at me all you want. I know it was selfish of me to leave you alone like that, and I can't stand the idea of thinking you may be hurt or worse, and that it would be all my fault. I just need to know that my little dragon is safe, even if you still hate me. Please come home, I miss you so much." It ended and my tears were flowing freely, and so were Maya's as she gave me a hug.

I handed the paper back to Raina who had a rather bittersweet smile on her face. As I handed it over I grabbed her hand and she looked at me expectantly, "That one… Please… Tell my mother that I'm alive."

She smiled brightly and nodded. "Right away Keiran, I'll schedule a meet up here in your room as soon as possible with your new mother and father. I'm sure she'll be absolutely elated." She finished as she hurriedly walked towards the door.

"Thank you Mrs. Raina." I said. She smiled, waved, than walked out the door.

A minute of silence passed as I sat in my reflection, what was I doing? I was the one being selfish this whole time. I may still feel slightly betrayed, but I shouldn't be thinking of rejecting her anymore. Even through it all she held hope they would find me, because she truly wanted to see me again. She cared about me more then anybody else in this world could even dream of. Maya put a paw on my shoulder, "Are you okay?" I nodded.

"Are you sure you're ready to see her?" Roger asked me.

That question made me pause for longer, "I can't hide from it. She is my family too." Maya seemed content that I'd finally come around, so she gave me a hug.

"That's a very mature decision." She said to me proudly.

"Thanks auntie," The look on her face was priceless and both me and Roger laughed.

'I should of expected this' I thought as she hugged me tight and bombarded me with nuzzles. I just giggled and hugged back. I felt like a weight had been lifted from my heart, and it was going to make things a bit easier from now on.