AN: Hi everyone, long time no talk and happy spring! I'm back for a moment to drop this story here that I wrote pretty much on a whim sometime around March 2020. It's a pretty simple drabble, nothing fancy. I basically improv'd the whole thing, I actually like to say I wrote this by accident haha. It's not really polished at all, but I feel like it's probably decent enough for someone on here to enjoy. Anyways, enjoy!
One fine early-spring day, a lucario emerged from a house. With a floppy-brimmed hat on his head and a bucket of gardening supplies in one paw, he let out a triumphant yip. With his trainer away shopping for groceries, he'd decided that today would be a good day to plant some flowers, as a surprise! His trainer always talked about doing it every spring, but the opportunity had never presented itself. That would change today though!
Walking out to the front of the house he and his trainer lived in, he settled down not too far from the door, setting down the bucket and kneeling down in front of where he aimed to plant the flowers. First, he pulled out his trainer's gardening gloves. Therein lay the first problem: not only was it made for human hands with five fingers, it also had no place for his wrist spikes. Tossing them back into the bucket with a huff, he decided to use this as an opportunity to practice some moves he'd been working on with his trainer lately. With a glint, his claws extended, using Metal Claw to cut a furrow in the earth in front of him, inadvertently sending a huge spray of dirt across the front wall and the doorstep. Looks like his accuracy still needed work, the lucario thought...but he could clean that up later.
Next, he reached into the bucket and pulled out a tiny packet of seeds. After looking at the back of the packet to make sure these were flower seeds and not seeds for Pokémon consumption, he encountered his second obstacle: his digits were ill equipped to tear precisely along the line at the top of the packet. Fortunately, another move came to mind and he smiled: that could work maybe! Holding the packet in one palm, he focused and held the other palm in front of it; suddenly, a shower of razor sharp rocks came from behind him, a Stone Edge attack! One stone cut the packet clean in half, sending only a couple seeds flying. He was about to cheer this success when he looked up and groaned: he hadn't realized he'd been facing the front of the house. Now, the facade was chipped with those razor sharp bits of rock, some of which still stuck out of the wood. That...would be harder to fix. But! He still had flowers to plant, his trainer would understand, right?
After taking a long time to try and replace enough soil to cover the seeds (which, despite his best efforts, were unevenly spaced), he thought about whether he was missing anything. Digging a hole, planting the seeds, re-covering them...oh, of course, watering them! Lucario did a little jump for joy: one of his new moves would be perfect for this! He'd actually just learned it last week from a weird but kind old man called the Move Tutor or something. He took a few steps back and put his palms together, beginning to concentrate hard. After a few seconds, a ring of water shot out: the Water Pulse had worked! What he'd failed to account for was the force with which the water impacted the ground; he watched in horror as the pulse slammed into the ground hard, sending a spray of dirt, mud, and undoubtedly the seeds he'd worked so hard to plant splattering across the front wall of the house. The mud dripped down the yellow face of the house into the sopping wet crater he'd made where he had once meant to plant those flowers.
Demoralized, he stumbled backwards with a whine; he'd messed this up badly. His aura receptors dropped as he thought about what his trainer would say when he saw what he'd done. He might not let him have any chocolate ever again! A couple tears welled up in his eyes at the thought. His ears perked up and his heart dropped as he heard the sound of his trainer driving back up the driveway: he'd been caught red-pawed. Not having time to do anything else, he turned to his trainer and bowed his head in shame.
His trainer popped out of the car, a few shopping bags in hand. He was still facing away from the house as he grabbed the rest of his bags out of the vehicle. "Hey buddy, I was thinking, what if this was this year we planted those flowers? I bought ya some gardening...supplies..." His eyes finally lighted upon the mess that was now his front yard, and at his lucario buddy not meeting his eyes out in front of it. "Wh-What were you doing bud?" The lucario let out a yip, but didn't reply, crossing his dirt-covered paws awkwardly in front of him...wait a second.
The trainer started laughing. "I can't believe we had the same idea...were you practicing your moves?" The lucario nodded his head, still not looking up. Noticing his friend's distress, he put down some of his shopping bags and waddled over to give him a one-armed hug and a pat on the back. "Hey, don't worry, I'm not mad at you..." The lucario's ears twitched and he looked up, not quite believing what he'd heard. He jerked his head towards the mess he'd made and gave his trainer a questioning look. His concern was met only with another chuckle and a pat on the head. "I know you were just trying to do something nice for me, and it looks like you used your new moves pretty well at least right? The mess is nothing, we can clean it up later. And after that we can plant some flowers, maybe in the backyard this time though. Sound good?"
Relief flooded through the lucario, and he nodded gratefully. He stepped forward to give his trainer a big hug, which his trainer was glad to reciprocate. "C'mon, buddy, let's get all this stuff inside, then we can get to work." The lucario went to grab the rest of the shopping bags out of the car; as he did, he saw a big pack of his favorite chocolate bars right at the top of one of the bags. He happily walked back towards the door to the house, tail wagging and excited to spend the rest of this spring day with his best friend.
