- Future Trainers -
Alexa led William, Charizard, and Opheleia to the local pokemon nursery with a bit of concern. The two Lobasalt had left safely, although only after the two gave a bit of advice about how the ocean felt from that perspective before making a real swim. Kyle had decided he wanted an earlier start on other Gym options, and was busy finishing his shopping since he was leaving early, but had passed on that Miss Kangaskhan had wanted to speak with them after he got back to the Pokemon Center. So it was down to just her typical group plus the local she had transformed for the request to help out one of the few actual human victims of the Lugia issue.
"Oh, hello Alexa," Miss Kangaskhan answered the door, currently with a little sleeping Cyndaquil in her pouch. "You made it a bit earlier than I expected, most of my little ones are just waking up. If you're willing to help I could use some handing out breakfast."
"Mama?" a large Trevenant then questioned as they emerged from one of Opheleia's pokeballs. "Mama!" the ghostly tree said and rushed forward to hug the large Normal type.
"I think we can help," Opheleia agreed with a laugh. "Trevenant has missed you apparently, Miss Kangaskhan."
Alexa turned with a bit of annoyance to Opheleia, who should know what the Normal type's actual name was, and then looked back at Miss Kangaskhan. "We can help out, you asked us to come here anyway," she tried to say cheerfully despite that.
"All the kids in town have always called her that behind her back," Opheleia's voice said quietly from really close to Alexa despite being a longer distance away. Which seemed to be a Ghost type capability that Alexa had not learned to do yet. "This is either the greatest joke I've seen, or just long overdue."
Alexa was currently also a Spectslurry again, so she could understand the Ghost idea of a good joke, but she still found that a bit mean to say. Although the closet just inside the door had an apron that was surprisingly light brown colored and possibly was deliberately made to be Kangaskhan themed. It was far less rude to call someone a pokemon species if they were willingly wearing stuff themed like that pokemon.
"Ah, I got that one from the kids in town as a present," Miss Kangaskhan laughed, which made Alexa glance at Opheleia again. "I must admit, the color fits." The Normal type was also looking at the local pokemon-trainer.
A Lucario walked past with a large bag of food, and gave a double take at the sight of all of them. "Mom?" the pokemon asked about their presence quite clearly. Given even William didn't look human at the moment Alexa could guess why he is confused.
"Yapper, these are some pokemon-trainers I invited over to talk about the League's new requests. They will be helping us with breakfast first," the older pokemon explained. Miss Kangaskhan then led them to where Yapper had come from. A small storage area where the various bags of food were set on shelves.
"I take it you don't buy food from the Pokemart?" William questioned for reasons Alexa didn't know.
"I have it delivered, I need to get too much at a time for all the little ones to carry myself," Miss Kangaskhan confirmed. "But the smaller things, like care supplies, tools, and toys, aren't something I need enough of to justify getting them delivered." The Normal type glanced back at where the Lucario had gone. "I've considered sending Yapper, he's more than old enough for that and knows what we need, but I'm glad I haven't given how they reacted to me. He can write, but I don't think that would be enough yet."
Alexa couldn't really judge how old the Lucario is, but did know that Charizard had a lot to complain about how the attempt to fix that issue had gone the day before. "Probably something to wait on," Charizard agreed with her assessment.
"Are you looking forward to being able to have him do that?" William asked more positively, but Miss Kangaskhan simply frowned for an instant and led them the other way.
"I'm going to need to wake up this little one," the Normal type did say with a nod towards the Cyndaquil that Alexa had almost forgotten. "Soot oversleeps a lot," the motherly pokemon said fondly.
Alexa, Charizard, and William all briefly looked at the small pokemon, and Alexa at least was considering the last pokemon she had heard of with that name. It was a pity that Suicune was still off getting more details on the Lugia that transformed Miss Kangaskhan and couldn't meet the little Soot.
The room she led them into was full of young pokemon. A large collection of the famous local starters, Totodile, Cyndaquil, and Chikorita who all seemed to be a variety of young ages, even with a handful that had evolved to their second stage. There was also a single trio, keeping to themselves, of the Hoenn set of Treecko, Torchic, and Mudkip. Strangely enough given all of those, of the Kanto set there was only a tired looking Squirtle. A Phantump looked at Opheleia's Starter and happily waved at the Trevenant. Next to the tree stump spirit a laughing Dratini looked over at the group because of the rare Ghost/Grass type's movement. Yapper was in the middle of a small argument with a Riolu who seemed to not want the particular mix being offered to her.
"Oh, Sniffle is being difficult," Opheleia noted quietly at that final display. "She failed the Starter exams again?"
"Unfortunately," Miss Kangaskhan agreed but quickly instructed them on what needed to be done instead of explaining more about that. It consisted of a rather large number of details.
Most of the dried foods needed a bit of water to soften for the little pokemon, which Charizard was happy to subvert expectations by turning Water typed to help with. This amused the Water types, confused the Grass types, and made the Fire types and other pokemon look a lot more wary of him.
Then they had to deal with the issue of curious pokemon that wanted to try stuff that wasn't exactly safe for them to try, or worse those that annoyed the other pokemon to try and take their food. That ended up being something Opheleia was familiar with, and the other Spectslurry was more than willing to show Alexa how while Charizard kept things watered and William handled the final major task.
That last one was the simple reality that some pokemon, little or not, simply ate faster than others, or even didn't really eat at all. Which meant that those little ones needed to have some entertainment to avoid trying to make those who were still eating into entertainment. The older pokemon and Miss Kangaskhan both looked thankful for William's little illusion show and the presence of Wooper as someone new to play with for a bit.
Those older pokemon, particularly the evolved ones, took the chance to have a break for once and clearly had discussions that usually waited until after breakfast. Miss Kangaskhan spent the time moving food bags around and dealing with spills and some pokemon that simply did not like what they had received. Everyone of the nursery pokemon seemed to think this was the best day that any of them had in a while, up until everyone finished, and one of the Croconaw spoke up.
"I want to learn to speak human," the larger crocodilian declared.
"Chomper?" Miss Kangaskhan questioned uneasily.
"If I can speak human, then I could be a trainer," Chomper declared with a firm nod. "Then I could travel by myself!" There was a short pause, where Miss Kangaskhan looked sadly at them. "Mama?"
"Could I be a trainer?" Wooper questioned innocently when an answer didn't come immediately. Alexa blinked as she almost thought she heard a distant groan.
"We can ask your mother when the League is over," William suggested and that seemed to calm Kangaskhan down a bit.
"Alright, Chomper, we can get started on that later," the Normal type said with a somber tone that most of the little ones caught onto. "First I have something to talk about with our visitors."
The office didn't feel as friendly as the rest of the nursery, but that seemed to be more about the conversation that was about to happen than the normal state of the room. Alexa noticed that the desk chair was built up more than needed for Miss Kangaskhan, which made sense once she remembered that the older pokemon had been larger as a human.
Miss Kangaskhan sat down and clearly needed to collect herself for a moment. "The Pokemon League wants my little ones to take the trainer classes along with the Starter classes," the Normal type finally admitted. "Not with the humans taking those classes, but..." Miss Kangaskhan trailed off unhappily.
"Sniffle will probably pass that one first try," Opheleia said a bit distantly. "She might bite you if she ends up stuck with her kid-name, but her main problem is having a boss that isn't her."
"I don't know if I want to think about my little sister as a trainer," Yapper added to announce his presence. "I'm not taking either test. If the League wants more trainers that badly they can have my younger siblings who want that too, and I'm a bit too old to be someone's Starter."
"I like you, and I have a feeling your name fits," Charizard commented to the Lucario then turned to Miss Kangaskhan. "I had thought you already knew when they asked you to teach them writing. Then again, I guess I didn't get the news until I passed the classes. Please tell me you will at least tell them first?"
Given Miss Kangaskhan's horrified face at that information it did not seem likely to Alexa that she would not. "Wait, it isn't some strange joke. That is all you need for it?" Yapper asked while his mother figure collected herself. "Just being able to read and write?"
"I cannot even imagine not telling the little ones first," Miss Kangaskhan declared before anyone else could answer that question. "But that is not my main problem. No, my issue is that I don't know how to handle my little ones becoming trainers."
"I can imagine that is a tough thing to prepare for," Alexa started, unsure where she was going, but with a strong desire to help.
"I've handled them becoming Starters for years," the large Normal type laughed. It wasn't a happy laugh. "I was a human, and I can handle my kids becoming Starters better than becoming trainers."
"I'm pretty sure my mom has said she'd rather me be a Starter than a trainer," Alexa admitted.
"Alexa, I really hope that is a poorly timed joke, and not another place where you are more pokemon than me," William complained with a sigh.
"She pretended it was a joke, but I could tell it wasn't," Alexa clarified with a bit of confusion at this apparently not being something he had dealt with. "Because she had reasons. Like how trainers need to manage more stuff, and need to talk with people, and have to worry about getting caught without pokemon to protect them more, and a few others. So it is hard to call it a joke when the list gets that long."
Miss Kangaskhan laughed a bit more happily, and Opheleia looked a bit embarrassed. "I think my grandfather isn't human enough for his opinions to count the same," the other Spectslurry grumbled. "But those sound familiar."
"Thank you for that, Alexa," the Kangaskhan said with another chuckle. "I guess that my little ones have even more reasons than you had too. When you put it like that my fears seem a bit better. Still there, but not as strange."
"How will it be limited? Age or just education?" Charizard then questioned. "I know I was given both tests at my Starter training which was with my siblings who were the same age, but my family waits a bit longer than some Chars before we are allowed to do that part."
"If you've seen younger Chars than you appear to have been then somebody isn't following guidelines," Miss Kangaskhan grumbled. "Third League?"
"Second," Alexa corrected with a bit of a cringe. "And I do know I've seen tested Starters younger than he was."
"You are a bit older then required, but for reference, I think Sniffle might actually be older than you," Yapper said with amusement. "Actually, if you're only on your second League, then she might be older than both of you. I definitely am, but she isn't actually my younger sister by much."
Alexa paused for a long moment to consider the idea that the fussy looking little canine pokemon was older than her. "Huh, not the worst age gap I've heard lately," she eventually decided after remembering that the Mew who caused the Moomoo Farm issue was apparently over 30.
"I have a cousin who is twice my age and still a Zorua," William agreed. "Evolution doesn't always match with age, even if it sometimes does influence maturity. He's still a bit of a brat too." Yapper laughed at that.
"What about names?" Miss Kangaskhan then asked. "I know that for Starters my little ones mostly get a new name from their trainers. I just use the kid-names I make up to tell them apart."
"My parents gave me the name 'Charles Zard' for my paperwork," Charizard said to the horror of the locals. "I'm going with Charles Larch now because they never actually told me that either until this year."
"I'm going to risk letting any that do want to be trainers pick for themselves," Miss Kangaskhan then decided decisively. "They can't do worse than that."
"Why wouldn't I use 'Chomper'?" the Croconaw questioned when they started to carefully explain the idea to the still gathered collection of young pokemon.
Charizard could understand that question, although Sniffle looked horrified at the idea. His family had not gone with names while they were kids, this was honestly the first time he had even heard of that idea, but if they had he would have possibly tried to tell Alexa what he had been called before.
"You got a good name," the Squirtle that Charizard did not know the name of grumbled out loud. Unlike the apparently rather old Riolu the typical Kanto Starter was actually going to comment here. "Some of us got stuff like 'Bubbles'."
"Hey!" the only Mudkip shouted. "Use your own name if you don't like it!"
"Mine is worse than 'Bubbles'!" the Squirtle shouted back, and Charizard remembered lots of arguments from his childhood over who did something wrong in front of visiting humans.
"Don't ask for names just yet, they probably aren't thinking we can understand them," Charizard warned his trainer quietly. Those arguments were often disguised as play fighting, and the new translator issue was probably going to be hard to adapt to for those younger pokemon when it came to this sort of thing.
"They seem to be taking it well at least," Alexa said with a smile.
"I don't think any of us really knows what this means yet," William countered, and it was a point Charizard agreed with and was about to bring up himself. "They have until at least next League before they are going to really experience any of this."
"And you still need to work out if Wooper actually wants to try, and how she'd do that," Charizard added. "You might be able to argue she's too young, if you can work out how old she is, and you can probably delay until she can at least read."
"Reading," Sniffle then complained loudly. "Why would I need to take trainer classes?" the Riolu then questioned. "I wanna be a Starter."
"Nobody has to be a trainer if they don't want to be," Miss Kangaskhan said firmly. "No matter what the League or anyone else says to you, you do not need to become trainers if you do not want to."
"And you can still become a Starter or a trainer later if you change your mind," Charizard added. "I started out with trainer classes but didn't actually go out as one, because I figured out I wanted to be a Starter more instead." It wasn't quite the full truth, but it was close enough and more importantly it gave the right impression. "You can decide to be the other one even if you think you wanted to be one first and find out you were wrong."
"But only pick one if you actually want it," the motherly pokemon repeated with a nod. "I wouldn't mind whatever you want to do, Sniffle, just as long as you work for it."
"... I could be a pokemon's Starter?" Sniffle then questioned a bit more softly. "Because I wanna talk to my trainer."
"You need to pass your Starter tests first," Yapper told the younger canine. "Then we can see if you can be held back for a specific trainer."
"I wouldn't mind being Chomper's Starter," the Riolu admitted, and the Croconaw beamed and rushed over to talk about that idea more.
Alexa was happy that they had been able to help Miss Kangaskhan with her worries, but could only think that it was a strange thing to happen as they finally left the nursery.
"So," Opheleia started once the door closed behind them. "Want to go to my old trainer school and see if they will let the kids take Starter classes?"
Alexa looked at the other Spectslurry with a bit of annoyance. "Is that a joke, or do you mean it?" she asked. "Because I do think if we are doing this to pokemon we might want to do it to humans too." The Lobasalt had discussed that a bit with her as a question they had. She felt that if former humans could let their kids decide that then why shouldn't current humans get the choice.
Charizard and William both sighed at that statement, but Opheleia turned out to be completely serious.