[potential trigger warning: nothing graphic happens but there's a whole lotta mean words]

Aiden kept on rubbing Nutmeg's belly, as innocent as could be. Both of them were utterly oblivious to their guest perched atop Dialga's head. The Fletchling ruffled her feathers in annoyance and scoffed. She was too high up in the air for the ginger or his fat pig to hear her. The bird's patience (thin as it was) ran out after maybe six seconds.

"Do y'all fuckers know how to be anything other than be a bunch o' lazy ass laggards?" Her beak clacked together indignantly with each hard consonant, and she made a point of speaking loudly enough to get her words through their thick skulls. The boy and the Tepig looked up in unison, the former shielding his eyes from the sun with a hand and the latter squinting its eyes and blinking stupidly in the bright light. "Wh... what?" Being snapped from such a peaceful, simplistic reverie was uncomfortable and for a moment, Nutmeg was quite sure she'd heard wrong. What other reasonable explanation could there be?

The Fletchling scowled and hopped off of Dialga's stony head. She spread her wings and coasted toward the duo's eye level. If birds aged like humans, her feathers would've been tinged with gray. "I said," Fletchling continued, enunciating each syllable as though Nutmeg was too stupid to understand otherwise. "Do y'all know how to do anything except be lazy?"

Nutmeg warily found her way to her hooves and backed up to the edge of the statue's platform, leaning her body weight against Aiden. He opened his mouth to say something and closed it just as quickly. On the one hand--a Fletchling! Yay! They evolved into a big beautiful fire bird! That was amazing! But on the other hand--this Fletchling was insulting his starter. That was maybe not-so-yay. "We're not lazy," he said carefully, placing a hand reassuringly on Nutmeg's back.

Fletchling scoffed. "Not lazy? Bu-u-u-u-u-ullshit," she cawed, all but singing the drawn out syllables of the latest insult. "Boy, I've raised six nests full of blank shootin' mewling quims like you. I know lazy when I see it, and the two o'you've got it written a-a-all over your faces."

"Mew... Mewling quims?" Nutmeg's voice quivered when she repeated the phrase, since she was maybe eighty percent sure she would regret finding out what that meant.

She was right.

Fletchling's eyes locked on her, burrowing deeply into Nutmeg's soul. Without a moment's hesitation, the bird clarified: "Whining cunt."

"That's enough," Aiden said, finally finding his backbone somewhere in the middle of his daydreams about flying around on a big, strong Talonflame one day. "You can't just come out and toss around insults left and right! We haven't done anything to you." If Fletchling had actively been a fire type (instead of just a pokemon who evolved into a fire type later), Aiden might not have had the guts to stand up to her. He might have just silently fawned over her while she buried them under a tsunami of her mean, mean words. But she wasn't, so there they were. "Why did you come over here at all?"

Fletchling was still hovering in the air when he interjected. Before responding, she finally coasted all the way down to the ground. "'Cause you're the only one I see 'round here with a pokemon." She stood up straight, wings folded perfectly back, beak held defiantly in the air. It was a posture befitting a pokemon much larger than the one-foot-tall bird.

Tepig's quivering intensified at her comment. "You're... you're not saying... you want to fight?"

For the first time, Fletchling grinned. (How she managed it with a beak is a mystery, but she pulled it off somehow.) "You're damn right I do! Momma's spent her whole life takin' care of babies all alone, now it's time for momma to do something for herself. And, listen good, porkchop: momma wants to evolve."

"You... You're old enough to have babies, but not to evolve?"

Fletchling laughed. "My momma was convinced that a hen's only purpose in life is to raise babies. Raised me and all my dumbass lil siblings that way, too. Told us if we started young, we'd be able to enjoy adulthood while other birds our age were still raising lil hatchlings." She shook her head at the thought. "Ungrateful little turds." She was talking about the hatchlings there, but with the pause between sentences, it sounded an awful lot like she was talking about Aiden and Nutmeg instead of--or perhaps in addition to--her children. (Granted, Aiden and Nutmeg had nothing to be grateful for, at least not when it came to the Fletchling. But that had never stopped her from guilt trips before.)

"Didn't tell us girls there were other choices. Trainers and fights an' all that, that was for cocks, she said. Not hens. She ne'er told us the child rearing never stops. Ne'er told us what it takes out of a bird, putting all that bullshit energy into someone else." Fletchling hopped forward, talons scraping the pavement beneath her. Nutmeg shrank further into Aiden, as though hoping her orange body might blend into the boy's blue shirt. "But... but... why do you want to fight... a mew... a mewling..." Nutmeg got choked up at the word and couldn't find it in her to complete the nasty phrase.

Fletchling only rolled her eyes at the dawdling Tepig. "I raised six nests all alone, no man 'cept during mating season, no support, no nothing. I never had time for any o' that fighting nonsense. Too busy feeding their greedy lil mouths." Fletchling's heart thrummed eagerly in her chest. "The chicks've all left the nest now, so this ol' hag's finally got some time. And, honey..." Her voice trailed off while she looked Nutmeg up and down. She hadn't been excited for anything in such a dreadfully long time, but she was excited now. The exhaustion and the cynicism and the foul mouthed tendencies were all still burning strong, sure, but there was an undeniably eager glint in her eyes. "You look like a fair fight."

For once in her life, she was going to stretch wings for her own benefit. She was going to tackle that little piggy again and again, she was going to get stronger, and she was going to get bigger, and then she was going to evolve. She'd be a Fletchinder in no time if she had her way. And after a lifetime of not getting her way, she was ready for a win.

Nutmeg was much less certain. She looked up at Aiden warily. His eyes had a similar glint as Fletchling's. The normal and flying pokemon had ignited Aiden's competitvie side. Underneath all that bullying bravado, she was a fire type in the making, she was ambitious, she was bold, she was fearless. She was a powder keg and, well, Aiden had always been infatuated with fire. Who was he to say no?

"We'll take you on." He pulled Nutmeg close to him, whispering so only she could hear what he said next. "You said you wanted to get in shape. This is a great opportunity. And she's never fought before. You'll kick her booty, Nutmeg. I believe in you." Nutmeg's legs shook beneath her and she looked up at him anxiously, but found herself nodding her head. He was her trainer, he'd chosen her, and she didn't want to let him down.

He'd been very explicit about wanting to be an active trainer back in the lab--he wanted gyms, he wanted tournaments, he wanted the whole shebang. She'd agreed to come. What kind of starter pokemon would she be if she backed away from the very first fight, just because she felt a little bit like peeing herself? No. She was better than that. She was. She looked around the wide platform and took a few anxious steps backwards. Once she had enough room for a running start, the overweight piglet charged forward and leaped, throwing herself towards the ground. It wasn't a long fall so she landed on her feet without injuring herself--it just wasn't the prettiest landing in history.

Nutmeg puffed up her chest and stared down the Fletchling, who grinned. Fletchling had half expected the Tepig to rely on her human to get down from the statue's platform. She admired the independence. None of her kids'd had that level of gumption. (Perhaps because Fletchling tore their self confidence to ribbons every chance she got. The crude bird would never've put those two together, though.)

"All right, Nutmeg," Aiden called out while he stood up. In reality, Aiden towered over both pokemon--so much so that it was almost comical. But in his imagination, he saw them as their final evolutions, a majestic Talonflame squaring off against a mammoth Emboar, a battle of titans. "Use your egg move, then Tackle her!" Nutmeg nodded and took a deep breath. She shuddered as the curse worked its way through her, stiffening her muscles and slowing her down while simultaneously bulking up her attack and defense.

Momma Fletchling had never seen Curse used before--not even by a ghost type, and certainly not by a fire type. She had no idea what was happening and she snorted with derision. "Ya feeling okay there, porky? Y'look a little constipated." Fletchling flapped her wings experimentally once, then again, and then hopped forward. She spread her wings and took to the air, staying less than a foot off the ground. The goal wasn't to escape the Tepig's line of fire, but to tackle headfirst into the pig before the pig could start a tackle attack of her own.

Fletchlings were relatively faster than Aiden's Tepig, but she wasn't fast enough. Curse had settled in by the time Fletchling had covered half the distance between them, and the souped up Tepig opened her eyes. She pawed the pavement with a hoof then ran forward. Aiden found himself grinning at the sight of the first stage babies charging at each other. One day, they would be powerful enough for this display to be truly intimidating. That day couldn't arrive fast enough. (Much like the Fletchling, patience was not Aiden's strong suit.)

The pokemon collided. Twenty eight pounds of Tepig plowed into four pounds of Fletchling and it was no contest. The bird's beak made Nutmeg's chest sore from the impact but the bird went flying backwards. The wind was knocked out of her and she collided with the ground. "Told ya, Nutmeg! You've got this! Great job, girl! Amazing!" Nutmeg had the world's most unsure smile toying at the corner of her lips. Had she just done something right? Had she just done something well? It felt... good. Aiden carried on cheering like a maniac behind her and her heart soared.

A moment later, Fletchling hopped back to her feet. One little tackle wasn't enough to keep her down. She opened her beak and let out a soft, childlike growl. For a moment, Nutmeg forgot about all the horrible things Fletchling had said to them--and all the horrible things Fletchling had said specifically to her. For a moment, Nutmeg forgot that Fletchling was a mother several times over, forgot that she was an adult, forgot everything. For a moment, Nutmeg was convinced that the Fletchling was a helpless little infant; the bird's small stature played right into the image. She was hesitant about charging forward now, and Fletchling used that hesitancy to her advantage.

Fletchling powered forward again, this time swerving to the side. She aimed a tackle at the now-morally-torn Tepig's side, so retaliation would be more difficult. The bird's momentum carried her into the pig's rib cage like a bulldozer and her small, sharp beak almost broke skin. Nutmeg squealed indignantly and swerved around. She charged after Fletchling with a tackle of her own (albeit a weaker, more halfhearted one than before). Fletchling angled upwards, flying out of reach of the Tepig, then barreled down for a third strike.

"Let her come to you, Nutmeg! Let her do the work for you!" With the wind rushing past her ears, Fletchling couldn't hear the command and so she couldn't plan around it. She just saw the Tepig taking steps backwards, which she interpreted as fear. She pulled her wings tightly around her so she was moving as fast as physically possible. Then, when she was low enough to the ground, Tepig jumped into the air, as high as her pudgy legs could carry her. It was barely an inch or two, but she turned her head mid-jump and thwacked her skull into the torpedoing Fletchling. The bastard child of a Tackle a makeshift Headbutt sent Fletchling tumbling off to the side once again.

This time, she couldn't hop up quite so quickly. She did stand up, but her legs were shaking and her tiny chest was rising dramatically with each panting breath. Aiden raised an eyebrow. "No more clever insults for us?"

"You--" she said between gasps for air, "You cocksucker--"

With a few semi-successful attacks behind her, Nutmeg was uncharacteristically giddy. "That's not very nice," she chided.

The Fletchling opened her beak to say something but Aiden beat her to the punch. "If you really want to evolve, it's gonna take you a long time with that strategy." She clamped her beak shut. Like it or not, he had her full attention for the time being. It was her one goal in life, after all--the only goal she'd ever pursued that had actually meant something. "But, uh. I don't know if you know this or not. But a trainer's pokemon level up faster than a wild pokemon on their own. And if all you've got in your arsenal is that Tackle... you're gonna have a rough time leveling up alone."

She scowled at him. This was the perfect moment for more insults but none came. "And I happen to be a trainer who really, really likes fire types. We'd have to work on the attitude a bit, but... I think we could help each other, you 'n me. If you're interested. Or we can carry the fight out to its bitter end. Whichever you prefer."

The implied threat--or we can have Nutmeg here pound the daylights out of you with another tackle--hung over Fletchling like an cartoon anvil. That wasn't what worried her.

The whole getting a trainer thing was what actually worried her. She didn't like the idea of relying on anyone else. Never did, never had. But the way he said it... we could help each other. It was intriguing.

"I guess tubby over there could use a sparring partner... to help her lose weight," she conceded. It was more her way of buying time than outright agreeing. But maybe they really did need someone like her in their lives? After all, they'd been loitering around Cassiopeia and doing nothing of value until she'd come around and whipped them into shape. Maybe the little fuckers needed her help more than she needed theirs.

WORDS → 2,518
POKEMON → nutmeg the tepig & wild fletchling
NOTES → trying to combine boorish and hopeful killed me fitz... hashtag i tried

Nutmeg gains 1,259 experience. She grows to level ten (9/325 remaining) and will be exhausted in two more levels (trainer perk). She learns Ember and Odor Sleuth.