A/N: It's been more than a month and only two new Pokemon episodes? That's depressing.
Eggxactly as Planned
3. Pokemon Centre
Even their little village had a reasonably sized Pokemon Centre, and that was Ryouga's first point of call.
He'd never cared to know much about Pokemon, but he thought that if others could consider them friends, companions and life partners, they couldn't be too different – aside from the obvious – to humans. Nurse Joy treated humans more often than Pokemon, something that spoke well for that assumption. So it wasn't unusual for pity to strike; a newly hatched Pokemon spewing black smoke couldn't be much different than an infant gasping for air.
Ryouga considered it a simple humanitarian act: picking the smoking child up (in a fistful of jacket after burning himself for not realising Magby's red body emitted actual heat) and taking it to Nurse Joy.
He'd hoped to rid himself of the encounter thereafter, but Nurse Joy kept him late, first for her Chaney to rub aloe Vera onto his blistered palms, and then to be brought up to speed on the Magby's condition.
Ryouga didn't want to know, and he finally said it – screamed it to the mercifully empty lobby and a shocked Nurse Joy. He felt unexplainably frustrated; he never went to his grandparents' check-ups. He didn't want to know about failing conditions or falsified hopes – not until it was over and done with and accepted – because it couldn't be changed. Death could never be changed.
Maybe he did care about his grandparents and could kid himself into believing he didn't, maybe he couldn't help it because they were still his family, but everyone and everything else were different – Magby was different – and he didn't care. Because if he cared just the slightest bit, he'd have a connection he didn't need or want.
He left in a fit of anger he couldn't really explain or justify.