An alarm goes off in Lazarus's room as the sun shines upon Jubilife City, basking the arena building in a golden glow of the early morning.
Lazarus opens his eyes and finds himself seated at his workstation. Last night he fell asleep sitting here, while he was watching replays of the matches Chimchar fought in the arena.
He gets up from the chair, stretches his neck and shoulders before entering the bathroom. Around twenty minutes later, he exits the bathroom having showered and freshened up.
Looking around the room, he sees Aurora and Kamish sprawled next to each other on the bed. The room also has a new feature that it didn't have few days ago, there is an incubator with an egg inside that was put here at Lazarus's request the day before Kamish and Nuzleaf had their rematch.
Lazarus walks over to the incubator and touches the glass shield protecting the grey metallic egg inside, which is very close to hatching. It is already showing small cracks on its surface.
"Any day now." Lazarus mutters with a smile, excited to have a new pokemon join his family, and if luck is on his side, this won't be the only pokemon to join them before they leave.
Lazarus stays like this for a minute and runs the schedule for today in his mind before he decides to wake up his two pokemon.
He approaches the bed, crouches next to his pokemon and gently nudges Aurora, she is a light sleeper, a gentle touch is all that is required to wake her from her sleep Kamish on the other hand…
Aurora opens her eyes and like always sees Lazarus crouching next to the bed. She yawns and stretches her back before licking his hand.
"Morning Aurora, wake Kamish up, will you?" Lazarus leaves the task of waking up the dragon to his fox.
She gives him a yip as she tackles Kamish out of the bed. Moment before Kamish hits the floor, the shock of falling from the bed wakes Kamish up instantly as he floats in the air.
Kamish floats back up and looks at Aurora with annoyed eyes, who just smiles in return.
Kamish gently slaps his trainer's arm with his tail, a small revenge for letting Aurora waking him up like she did.
"Morning to you too, Kamish," Lazarus says with a smile, as he picks up Aurora into his arms and goes back to sitting on the chair.
He then pulls out a grooming kit from the side desk drawer and starts combing her fur.
Aurora yips, thanking him.
"So, you guys ready for today?" Lazarus asks.
And when Kamish hears that, the drowsy look in Kamish's eyes is replaced by excitement as he nods. Aurora also gives a calm and composed nod.
"We are going to ask the Chimchar to join our team today. We didn't get to talk about it yesterday so I want to know how you feel about him joining us in our journey."
Aurora and Kamish remember what Lazarus told them about the Chimchar. How it's trainer abandoned it after thinking it wasn't strong enough.
"Mike says the Chimchar is waiting for its trainer to return, but I am personally not sure if that is true. I believe the Chimchar is aware of its situation but just refuses to accept it because he has nothing else to live for. I want to invite him to our team and give him a new purpose, are you guys fine with that?"
Kamish and Aurora waste no time nodding, Aurora feels bad for the Chimchar and would also like to have another brother, Kamish would also like someone else to fight and play around with.
Lazarus smiles, "I'm glad you guys agree. I personally would love to have another pokemon join our family, that way we can all better protect each other. We will go meet him after we take a trip to the cafeteria. But before all that I'll tell you how we are going to do this, I'm sure Chimchar wants a family but he still hasn't come to terms with its abandonment. We need to make him accept that fact first."
—
Chimchar wakes up on the floor of the training room that it's been sleeping in for the last two months. The pokemon was offered a proper room by the arena staff but it refused, since this is where it last saw its trainer when he was teaching it how properly control its flames.
There is a small pokemon bed inside the room. It doesn't remember going to sleep last night, so it probably just fainted in the middle of training and fell asleep, which is not an uncommon thing, this happens frequently from time to time.
Chimchar get up from the floor and properly stretches its body, feeling quite tired, it still hasn't recovered from last night's training and the match against the Piplup.
The training room is in the same configuration as it was two months ago, there are flame absorption targets dangling from the ceiling meant for fire pokemon to train their endurance and accuracy, along with ball throwers for dodging and evasion training.
Chimchar presses a button on the wall which makes all the targets move around the ceiling. From time to time a specific target lights up. Chimchar takes it slow, first only doing a small flame projectile attack like a Ember.
Ember hits the target and Chimchar is alloted a numerical score based on its accuracy and some other metrics, the score is projected on a wall by a very small projector embedded into the ceiling.
Chimchar has no idea what the score actually means, a member of the staff tried to explain to it what numbers are, but Chimchar can't read them so it just ignores the numbers and looks at the up or down arrow next to the number which indicates if the score is higher then last time or not.
Chimchar keeps up the Ember strategy for an entire hour and soon starts to slow down a little, this is also around the time that a member of staff brings it some food to eat. Chimchar usually switches the Ember with a Flamethrower after it has had some breakfast and then back to Ember at lunch and cycles back to Flamethrower after dinner.
The door of the training room slides open and Chimchar stops training to see if it's one of the humans who brings it food every day.
But no, this is someone else, someone it hasn't seen before. He has blond hair and is carrying a bag in his hands, accompanied by two pokemon, one in his arms and one floating behind him. The pokemon in his arms is white and fluffy with pale blue eyes, it is the most beautiful pokemon Chimchar has ever seen, and the one slithering through the air behind him looks formidable especially with those spiky things on its tail.
Chimchar is curious about what these new people want from it.
Lazarus makes eye contact with the Chimchar and says in surprise, "Oh, hey little one. Did we disturb you? I thought his place was empty, we didn't know you were here."
He looks around and asks, "Where is your trainer? Are you alone here?"
Chimchar sadly nods.
"Really." Lazarus puts "Then can we train alongside you? We promise not to disturb you too much. In fact would you like to train with my pokemon? They can help you train as well."
Chimchar hesitates, then hears a yip from the fox in the man's hands. She gives it the most innocent eyes and Chimchar can't help but nod. The room is big and it feels very quite when its taking a break in between training sessions, so it would be nice to have other pokemon around.
Aurora cheers when she sees Chimchar nod. She jumps from Lazarus's arms and approaches the Chimchar who is curious about what she is going to do, she pats it in the head which makes the Chimchar strangely happy. It has never been patted by anyone like that before.
"Nice, thanks Chimchar." Lazarus smiles as he looks around the room, "So what training are you doing? Target practice?"
Chimchar nods.
"Can you show me? I would like to see it as well." Lazarus says.
Chimchar shrugs, it's going to do the training anyway, so it doesn't mind.
A target lights up on the ceiling and Chimchar fires Ember at it. The Ember hits the target perfectly.
"Impressive." Lazarus says with an impressed look on his face, "I see you have been training really hard, haven't you?"
Chimchar feels happy about the praise and excitedly nods.
Over the next thirty minutes, Chimchar continues its training with Aurora and Kamish joining in on the target practice as well.
Chimchar feels weird seeing how much praise Lazarus gives his pokemon and even to it as well.
Eventually Lazarus announces they are going to take a little break.
Chimchar decides to go take a little nap before continuing its training.
But is woken up by Lazarus who asks, "Did you have breakfast yet? I don't think you have eaten yet. We brought an extra lunch box with us. Come eat with us."
Chimchar hesitates, but it is feeling hungry from all that training, so it accepts.
"Awesome." Lazarus smiles and puts down the bag he is carrying, "Let's find someplace nice to sit first, shall we?"
They all sit in a circle with Lazarus in the middle, Kamish on his left, Vulpix on his right and Chimchar in front of him.
Lazarus passes the boxes to each of the pokemon. For Kamish and Aurora it is their fav stuff. Grilled meat, berries, and cream. For Chimchar it is a nutritional meal optimized for a fire type pokemon who spends a lot of energy generating flames.
Chimchar taste the dark brown berries, and loves the taste of it.
"Do you like that? It's good for you fire type pokemon, helps with keeping you cool," Lazarus says and picks up a sweet berry from his own lunch box and puts in it front of Chimchar, "Here try this, I love the sweet of this, you might like it as well."
Chimchar accepts the offering and loves it, but can't help but feel confused. Is this how pokemon and their are supposed to have food?
They all shared their food with each other, Aurora and Kamish gave some of their food to Chimchar to taste as well. Chimchar has never eaten like this with its trainer and his other pokemon before. They all ate separately.
After they finish their food, Lazarus asks Chimchar a question, "So, Chimchar, have you been training here all alone since you last saw your trainer?"
Chimchar slowly nods.
"Are you still waiting for him to be back?"
Chimchar nods again.
"Do you really believe that he will come back?"
Chimchar doesn't like him questioning it like this but it nods nevertheless but Lazarus doesn't fail to miss its hesitation.
"You know. If he was going to come back for you then he would have done it already. But you already know that don't you? He abandoned you here all alone, a trainer that loves his pokemon would never treat their pokemon like this. It's not fair that you agonize over someone who doesn't care about you in the slightest."
Chimchar remembers the last thing its trainer said to it right here in this room. That it was a liability to him and that their paths are different, someone else will come and take it with them.
"He is not going to come back. You don't have to be loyal to someone who wasn't loyal to you."
Chimchar's shoulders tremble. It's been two months. Two months of constant training so that one day its trainer would come back for it and take it back after seeing how strong it has become. Everyday Chimchar waited for its trainer in the same training room it was abandoned at, and everyday it went to sleep disappointed and heartbroken.
People tried to convince it that its trainer wasn't coming back but Chimchar didn't want to believe them. It held onto the hope that his trainer was just busy with other things and would eventually come back. Chimchar wanted to get strong for his trainer so when he did come back, it would be able to help him in his journey of becoming a powerful trainer. But now…
Chimchar breaks out into sobs, it is the first time it has cried in its entire life of six and a half months, it didn't cry when it lost all those matches, it didn't cry when it's trainer didn't come back, but now that it has finally accepted the situation and has lost all hope, warm tears flow from its eyes like a small waterfall.
Aurora and Kamish hear Chimchar's crying and howling and it breaks their little hearts. They try to think how they would feel if Lazarus abandoned them and just the thought alone is enough to drown them in misery.
Lazarus reaches out to the sobbing Chimchar and embraces it.
"It will be okay child. It will be okay." He says as he cups its head to his chest. "Everything gets better I promise. Someone who left you all alone doesn't deserve your tears."
Chimchar is a fire pokemon but never has it felt such warmth as it feels right now. In his arms, being allowed to finally be weak.
"Chimchar, I want you to be part of our family." Lazarus asks the Chimchar with an earnest look on his face, "What your former trainer did to you was reprehensible, no pokemon deserves to be treated like you were. Will you come with us?"
Chimchar stops sobbing and looks at Lazarus with teary eyes, it wants nothing more than to say yes but it can only take so much betrayal, if he gets abandoned again…
"Please come with us." Lazarus says, as he cups its cheeks in his hands, "All of us would love to have you in our little family. We will protect you and also depend on you to protect us. But if you don't want to come with us that's okay, I understand, I just hope that you do accept someone and go with them. You shouldn't keep waiting for someone who will never come back."
Chimchar looks around and sees an earnest look in Aurora and Kamish's teary eyes, silently encouraging it to say yes.
Lazarus looks at Chimchar and sees that it has come to a decision, Chimchar looks back to him and nods and jump hugs Lazarus.
Lazarus smiles, "Welcome to the family, buddy."
After that matter is settled, the four of them keep training all day and eventually go to back to their room.
Lazarus opens the door to his room and sees a pokemon floating in the middle of the room. The pokemon has a long metal body with a set of claws sticking out of its rear end. It has one large, red eye in the center of its nearly spherical head, which is set into a ball-and-socket joint at its front end.
The Beldum looks and Lazarus and sees him smile.