Chapter Sixteen
Mother Annabelle

A week passed in the steady comfort of routine.

The Sandshrew babies grew quickly under Annabelle's careful nurturing. Paul's private thoughts were that, at first, they were boring. They snuffled around in a makeshift bed Annabelle constructed from whatever blankets she conned from the duty Nurses and a few of her own woolly jumpers, only livening up when they were fed.

They opened their eyes after one day. Started squeaking on the second. After three days, and much to Annabelle's paranoid distress, they started crawling around on their own. Yet it took Annabelle four days to name them.

She claimed it was down to not being "certain on their gender" but Paul could have told her from the offset they had hatched one male and one female. The female had a shorter tail, shorter claws and slightly rounder eyes. Amateur stuff, he teased her.

Annabelle settled on Cleopatra for the female – quickly shortened to Cleo as the day wore on. The male started out in life with the uninventive name of Spike which Annabelle changed to Indiana after half a day's consideration.

"Mother Annabelle", as Paul christened her, reared her ugly head nearly the moment the twins were born. She was an intimidating matriarch, structuring every minute of every day for the benefit of the twins. She threw around buzzwords like "attachment forming" and "child-directed speech" and "developmental age", all of which meant less than nothing to Paul. Eventually, it became stifling and after a heated argument, he packed himself and Ledyba off to the National Park for a walk.

He was glad of the peace and quiet the National Park at night brought. Newborn babies were loud. And Annabelle's insistence on "putting them in a routine" meant eating at set times and going to bed at set times. "It's them that are the children, Annabelle, not me!" was the mantra that quite often went unheeded.

But of course, as he was rapidly learning, a bit of "peace and quiet" was never long to last. A few minutes into his walk, he and Ledyba were assaulted by a hoard of angry Spinarak. Paul's heart had sunk, his immediate instinct just to run away, but Ledyba had jumped out, taking the entire Spinarak hoard on by himself.

Paul was amazed. This from the Pokemon that probably couldn't even take out a Caterpie by itself. Now he had despatched five or six Spinarak one after the other. Sure, it wasn't like he had taken on a Tyranitar by himself, but in all honesty? It didn't matter. It was a victory. Optimistic seeing Ledyba's prowess in battle, Paul began spending as much time as he could with Ledyba in the Park.

The improvement was slow, but steady, and by the end of a week, Paul barely recognised the little bug by his side. After the Spinarak hoard, Paul had sought Weedle; an opponent that was both threatening and non-threatening enough to provide good experience. Ledyba had struggled at first, taking well over a day and an entire reserve of potions to finally get the better of one. And when one eventually did get taken down, the aftereffects of Weedle's Poison Point sent Paul scurrying back to the Pokemon Centre in search of an Antidote.

A few frustrating days later, it was like a switch had flipped. Ledyba suddenly seemed to fall into a comfort zone against the Caterpie and Weedle. Even though he only had one attack, it grew stronger and more confident with every encounter. And Paul's confidence grew with Ledyba's. And instead of hurriedly shepherding Ledyba away from more intimidating enemies like Paras and Venonat clinging to vines and trees overhead, he sent Ledyba forward to try his luck.

And amazingly, the little bug came through.

With every Pokemon defeated, the more Ledyba grew. Paul had been sitting down on a bench, lazily watching Ledyba circle a particularly aggressive Weedle out the corner of his eye, when a strange noise brought him out of his stupor. Looking up, he was greeted with the image of Ledyba proudly watching over a dazed Weedle running headlong into a tree over and over again.

"No way." Paul had said, immediately getting to his feet. "Did you just learn Supersonic?!"

"Le, Le! Le!" Ledyba had cheered, waving its arms in affirmation.

"Bitchin'!" was all Paul could say as the confused Weedle was despatched with another expert Headbutt.

Supersonic soon led the way to Comet Punch, a move that Paul had anticipated Ledyba learning ever since he had been saddled with it. He watched his Ledyba in an odd mixture of pride and disbelief as the tiny little Pokemon rained down blow after blow on the mindless bugs around them.

Every night, he eagerly reported Ledyba's progress to a bemused Annabelle who balanced feeding Cleo and Indiana with listening to his excited ramblings. It became a comfortable routine, a familiar and warm feeling, like slipping on a favourite jumper.

On the morning of the eighth day, Paul sprang out of bed early and grabbed Ledyba's Pokeball. Today was the day, he had decided. Today was the day Ledyba was finally going to master Reflect. He had been showing promising signs of developing it the past two nights and Paul just knew he was close to accomplishing it.

Grabbing some breakfast to eat on the road, Paul was half out the door when a voice called him back. Turning around, he saw Annabelle approaching, brandishing some sheets of paper and two Pokeballs. She promptly planted them in front of his face.

"What's this for?"

"Registering Cleo and Indiana." She stuffed the pages into his hand. "Here. Read it."

Paul wrinkled his nose, glancing briefly over the pages of the thick document. They were full of long words, jargon and technobabble with the occasional empty box. "Registering?"

"Yeah. It's a standard issue form for when Pokemon become old enough to be officially registered to go into Pokeballs. Breeders deal with them a lot. Seriously, I think I could fill out one of these in my sleep." She said with a giggle. "I've dealt with the more boring legal stuff, so you don't need to worry about ticking the wrong boxes or whatever. I just need you to read the declaration, sign it and date it, and I'll submit it onto the system. The nurse here is letting me use their computers to do it. Then, after that, we can finally get going."

Paul stared at Annabelle over the imposing document. "…what? We're leaving that soon?"

Annabelle misunderstood. "Well, I know what it looks like. Cleo and Indy are small, yes, but they're right about the age when they can be transferred into Pokeballs. So long as they're not in there constantly, they should be fine. You know, they did a study on that? Pokemon kept in Pokeballs for longer periods of time since birth were more likely to have behavioural problems later in life. I mean, it's kind of obvious, isn't it? I mean, keep anything cooped up all the time and there's bound to be repercussions."

"Annabelle, do you have a point?"

"I do!" she nodded. "Yes, they're still young and small. But we can register them and carry them for short bursts. Their immune systems are strong enough now, so as long as they stay warm and well-fed, everything will be fine! So we can head towards Goldenrod now!" she concluded with a cheery smile.

"…oh."

Annabelle hesitated. "Why? Is something wrong?"

"N-no." Paul surprised himself by the strength of his disappointment. "It was just… I was hoping to get enough training to get Ledyba learning Reflect properly. He's… almost there. It would have taken one more day at the most I reckon."

Deflated, he walked away from the Pokemon Centre doors and sat down heavily in one of the plush sofas in the middle of the lobby. His exhale blew the greasy fronds of his hair from his forehead.

Annabelle took a seat beside him. "Don't worry," she said lightly. "There's plenty of opportunities to train and battle on the way to Goldenrod. And even more when we get to Goldenrod." She was thumbing through the papers now, setting out the ones Paul needed to pay attention to

"I don't wanna battle people…" Paul muttered under his breath.

"What's that?" Annabelle murmured distractedly.

"Nothing, nothing." Paul sighed. "So, what am I doing?"

"You're just signing and dating this form. Standard procedure from when a Pokemon becomes from having no legal owner to being kept in a Pokeball as proof of ownership. Like I said, nothing to worry about."

"Okay…" Paul picked up the pen and a thought occurred to him. "Wait a minute. Shouldn't I have signed one of these when I picked up Ledyba?"

A vivid blush darkened Annabelle's face. "Well… uh… I suppose so, yeah…"

"So… the fact I didn't sign one…? Won't I get in some sort of trouble?"

"Well… technically you didn't."

"Meaning?"

"I kinda forged a signature on the paperwork."

"Why the hell did you—?"

"I signed it way before you had the trainer license, okay?" Annabelle's face flushed even redder. "Because if I hadn't done that, we could have been delayed ages because I had no way to get the change of ownership registered in time… A-and we had to leave as soon as possible! I'm… I'm really sorry."

Much to Annabelle's surprise, Paul was smiling. "Wow." He chuckled. "That's pretty bold of you."

"You're… not mad?"

"Why would I be?" He said with a shrug. "My signature is pretty much a scrawl anyway. I'm pretty sure I never sign it the same way twice. So I don't care."

"Thank Arceus." Annabelle breathed out. "A-anyway. Putting that aside. Which Sandshrew do you want? Cleo or Indy?"

"I don't know." Paul shrugged. "Is there one in particular you want?"

"I love them both equally." Annabelle said tactfully. "Although, I have been monitoring them quite carefully. If I had to take a guess, Indy was displaying signs of… what I guess gamers know as an Impish nature."

As Annabelle predicted, Paul's face lit up.

"And I'd say Cleo had something like a Timid."

"I'll take Indiana then."

"I thought you might," Annabelle chuckled. "Well, here." She passed over several bits of paper. "These are Indiana's forms."

Paul signed and dated the forms and handed them back to Annabelle, who folded them away into her bag. "That's great." She smiled. "I'll patch this into the system with the nurse and get Indiana and Cleo into their Pokeballs. I'll meet you back in half an hour with all the stuff and we can move on?"

"Sure, I guess…"

Annabelle was already gone before Paul could even finish his sentence. By the time he dragged himself back up the stairs, wrestled his heavy luggage down the stairs and back into the lobby, an impatient Annabelle was bouncing around the front doors, waiting for him.

She pounced on him the second he approached. "Here, here, here!" she pushed a Pokeball into his hands. "You are now the proud owner of a Sandshrew! Now you actually have a team! Or at least the startings of one."

"Great," Paul pocketed the Pokeball with a wry smile. "Another thing to train right from the beginning."

"I suppose. It can be a little difficult to train Pokemon right from the beginning, I guess. But it does mean you can train them exactly the way you want them."

"Hm. I guess you're right."

"But don't you dare try and push Indiana before he's ready!" Annabelle scolded as the two of them left the Pokemon Centre, laden down with all their bags.

"I was teasing." Paul clarified.

Annabelle cast him a disapproving look, unconvinced. "Anyway. It'll take us… quite a while to reach Goldenrod. I hope you're prepared for this."

"As prepared as I was for any of the other routes you've dragged me on."

"Ha-ha." Annabelle said dryly. "Anyway. We can get a ferry sailing from Goldenrod to Cianwood once we get there. They're every day or two days, I think, so hopefully we'll make it in time. Then we'll have to figure out our case to present to the Breeder Association…" she was wringing her hands together, talking more to herself than Paul as the scenery melted into grassland around them.

Paul shut his eyes as she continued to talk blithely to no-one in particular. Then with one question, he came back to earth with a bump.

"Is there anything you wanna do in Goldenrod?"

"Huh?" He looked at Annabelle as if she had spontaneously grown another head.

"Well, it is a big city. There's lots to do. Training dojos, shopping centres, possibly one of those Appraisal houses. I might even stop by at one of the Breeding Centres they have there. So, do you wanna do anything?"

"I can't think of anything… Unless I visit my sister."

The words slipped out before he could verify them.

"Your sister?"

"Y-yeah." Paul said nervously, hoping that would be the end of it.

"Is this your big sister? The one you mentioned earlier?"

"Yeah. She's a doctor in a private health clinic in Goldenrod. She's also supposed to be getting married soon."

"Oh? Well, we can visit her if you want?"

"Maybe."

Paul's words were tinged with finality and Annabelle thought it better than to pursue it any further. "O…kay, then." She murmured. "Well, at least we're a long way off reaching Goldenrod so we can decide once we get there."

"Sure."

They walked for some time in silence. Annabelle hummed to herself while they walked, some vague sense of a tune that Paul didn't recognise. Paul on the other hand kept his eyes peeled, glancing around every tree and bush that they passed in search of any Bug Pokemon that would be a good opponent for his Ledyba. But the route was full of passing trainers and Paul wasn't entirely confident in challenging any of them.

They stopped for lunch at a secluded spot. The baby Sandshrew were still mostly being fed with milk with the occasional soft pellet to get them used to chewing and swallowing. Paul scarfed down his sandwiches, glaring at Dusty the Shroomish, whenever he got too close. Annabelle neglected her own food, focusing mainly on getting the babies fed.

"You really should eat." Paul said, long after he finished his own food and started to eye up Annabelle's abandoned meal.

"Indiana isn't feeding properly…" Annabelle protested, trying in vain to get the baby to latch onto the bottle. He was wriggling profusely, trying to escape Annabelle's grip while Cleo sat nicely.

"Give him the pellets, then. Maybe he doesn't want milk."

"I don't even think it's about feeding." Annabelle flailed desperately, trying to keep a hold of him. "I think he just wants to get out and explore."

"And you don't trust him to do it?"

"He's too small yet." Annabelle looked at him reproachfully.

"And mothering him horribly is going to fix that?"

"I'm not mothering, I'm just looking out for him!"

"Oh, for God's sake…" Paul muttered, just as Indiana finally wriggled out of Annabelle's grip and lurching forward, making a beeline for the closest exciting thing possible.

Paul had to admit, the baby Sandshrew was good on his feet, wobbling around with surprising confidence. Annabelle lunged for the baby but just missed him and the baby went scurrying away, squeaking in delight.

"Oh, let him be." Paul grumbled as the baby Sandshrew teetered around in-between a frowning Dusty and an indifferent Abigail. "He's not doing any harm."

He regretted his words when the baby Sandshrew lunged for Ledyba with his tiny, needle-like claws. The Ledyba let out a howl of pain at the unprovoked contact, jumped back and made a noise that sounded like an irate hiss. The baby Sandshrew squealed excitedly and hurtled forwards again.

Ledyba only just avoided Indiana's assault, but the aggravated and spitting of Ledyba only made Indiana more determined.

"Indiana, stop that." Paul warned as Indiana barrelled forwards again.

The Pokemon didn't listen, this time narrowly missing Ledyba by a few centimetres.

"Le! Le!" Ledyba cried, jumping backwards. He thrust his arms into the air, waved them back and forth and a bright blue rectangular barrier sprang up in front of him. The Sandshrew, completely oblivious, crashed headlong into it and fell backwards.

"Well…" Paul said in amusement. "Talk about killing two Pidgey with one stone."

"Oh for Arceus's sake…" Annabelle reached out and pulled the unconscious Indiana into her lap again. She checked him over quickly and visibly relaxed. "I think he's fine. He's just a bit dazed."

"I keep telling you, you're mothering them too much."

"I am not!"

A well timed cry from Cleopatra sent Annabelle lunging for the other baby. Scooping up the female Sandshrew, she cuddled both of them close, murmuring to them comfortingly.

"Yes. Not at all motherly." Paul remarked with a knowing smirk. "You just need to remember. They're going to grow up whether you like it or not."

"Uh-huh." Annabelle murmured, not really listening.

"You can raise Cleo how you want, but Indy's got an ideal nature. I want to raise him to be a battler." He chose not to add on "With an ideal nature he'll be great to present to Dest".

"All I'm saying is," Annabelle said patiently. "…don't be so quick to raise him. He's still a baby. Don't rob him of his childhood too soon."

Not knowing what could be said to that, he compensated by saying "Eat your sandwich. We should get going."

Author's Note

Hi everyone. So so sorry this took forever. I've had a lot on and struggled to find time to work on this.

I hope this doesn't disappoint. I have some fun stuff coming up after this, including a character arc for Annabelle, a couple of fun cameos that hardcore fans should spot, and FINALLY some team-enhancing and meeting Dest!

Thanks everyone for all your continued support. It really means a lot to me.

It's typical now that all the new Pokemon have been released cos now I wanna write them... somehow!

I'll see you all soon!