Chapter 9: Inheritance

Clouds blanketed the dawning blue sky above Florville City as the sun rose above the eastern horizon. The city was only half awake with its inhabitants moving about in their houses to prepare for the coming day. Many pokémon trainers were already awake and eager to begin another day of training. Several people were out of their homes at daybreak to get to work on time or to do their morning jog. In just an hour, Florville was awake and bustling.

The Florville Pokémon Center was somewhat of a hangout for many pokémon trainers. The pokémon center was a long building. The entrance led into a brightly lit rectangular lobby lined with large windows. It was also built to accommodate sixteen trainers in four rooms equipped with two bunk beds each. A Nurse Joy and her three chansey operated the Florville Pokémon Center.

Inside, trainers were already ambushing Nurse Joy, asking to get a check-up on their pokémon. Trainers of all ages hurried in and out of the hospital, raring to start their day of training, and hoping to catch a new pokémon or even evolve one of theirs. On one side of the lobby, a teenage girl sat at a bench watching the teenage boy in front of her pace back and forth, lost in deep thought and panic.

Oh yeah, my brother is going to kill me. No! Grandma will probably feed me to her pokémon. Yeah, that's it. Christopher was pacing in front of Katherine, thinking of all the horrible things that could be done to him for what had happened. Last night, when Christopher, Katherine, and Whitney finally reached the Florville Pokémon Center and were given a room, he found out that one of the pokémon eggs were missing. They believe that it had fallen out of the hole sneasel had cut into the bag when trying to attack Christopher. They had searched the car and around the pokémon center, but could not find it. The missing egg was one of the five that were similar to the others; the ones that had blue and black dots.

Katherine tiredly watched the hypnotic pacing of Christopher's. They had been up most of the night searching for the missing egg. They even searched the city, even though they were in the car the whole time as they went through it. After searching to no avail, they concluded that it had fallen out between the times during the battle with gardevoir and when they had gotten into Whitney's car to escape. Katherine sighed heavily and pleaded, "Please calm down and sit. Your pacing is kind of attracting other people's attention, and you are making me dizzy."

"Fine," Christopher complied half-heartedly. He sat beside Katherine on the bench. The bag that contained the remaining five eggs was also laid on the bench. Christopher would not keep it out of his sight from now on. He looked over at where the hole had been, which was now patched up with masking tape they had borrowed from the pokémon center. "I'm sorry, but this is a hectic thing for me. Everyone trusted me with the eggs, and I couldn't keep one safe. For all we know, those bad guys have the egg. Who knows what they have planned? I've heard that there have been horrible experiments done with eevee because of their ability to evolve into five different pokémon."

"How do you know they have it? We didn't see anyone or anything else except that gardevoir. And you saw that gardevoir was busy fighting your brother. Maybe your family has the egg. Or perhaps one of the townspeople. We know that they can be trusted," Katherine said, trying to cheer up her friend's pessimistic mood.

"Yeah, you're probably right. I bet Nicholas has it right now," Christopher said cheerfully. "I wonder where he is though." He looked out at the city through the large windows, hoping to see brother come up to the building, or even Whitney's car.

Whitney had left at sunrise to look for the egg again now that there was light. She did not expect to find it with people walking around now. She told Christopher and Katherine that if she could not find it, she would file a report about the missing egg to the police. Hopefully, they would be able to track it down. She would not go near Lilac Town for now though. Nicholas had told her to stay in Florville until he came to them. She was worried, but figured that he was probably tired and resting after such a night.

Christopher silently sat, deep in thought, with his head down, keeping a close watch on the bag of pokémon eggs that was now on the floor between his legs. Katherine had left him to "mingle," as she called it, and see if she could get a pokémon battle out of anyone. Christopher admired her confident spirit. She never seemed miserable, or even hesitant in a pokémon battle from what he has seen. As he looked down at the eggs, he remembered something Katherine had wanted to ask his grandmother. Eevee are cool pokémon. Maybe I should ask Grandma if I could have one. But then again, after telling her about the missing egg, I'll be dead before I get a chance. Christopher sighed and closed his eyes just before he heard a girl's high-pitched scream.

Flying through the sliding doors of the pokémon center was a blue and red pokémon with a white underbelly. The swellow flew in a couple circles over the heads of the confused trainers before gliding down and landing in front of the boy with a bag sitting alone on a bench.

"Cut it out," Christopher fussed as the swellow clipped at his hands with its beak. Christopher then noticed that there was a piece of paper tied to one of the swellow's legs. Around the other leg was a blue PokéGear, much like the one his older brother owned. "Are these for me?" Christopher asked as he took the paper and device. Taking one look at the writing on the paper, he recognized it to be Nicholas' scrawled handwriting. This was his brother's first pokémon, swellow. Swellow gave Christopher one last friendly clip before flying out of the pokémon center, once again scaring a few trainers. Christopher had tried to stop it to ask if his family was all right, but it was too late. He found it odd that swellow did not fly in the direction of Lilac Town.

Katherine was quickly at Christopher's side. "Do you know that swellow?" All she received was a nod while he looked over the note. She became more curious when Christopher gasped with happiness. "What does it say?"

Christopher had a smile that reached from ear to ear. He almost had not heard Katherine's question until she shook his shoulder. "Oh, um...that was Nicholas' swellow. This paper has a note from him and my grandmother. It says that everyone is all right, and that it was the whole town that helped defeat that mysterious gardevoir. 'I have left Mom and Grandma at Lilac Town. They will be safe there. I am going to be at West Amarill Port,'" Christopher read. "He's asking us to go there immediately. I wonder why."

Katherine got impatient with Christopher's pace and sat next to him so she could read the note herself. "West Amarill again? That's pretty far. If we need to get there quickly, Whitney will have to drive pretty fast." She tried reading the second note from the grandmother, but she couldn't see over Christopher's hand as he used his index finger to pass under every written line. It was as if he was double checking what it said. "What did your grandmother write?"

"I can't believe it," he said with the same big smile across his face. "According to this, my grandfather had planned on breeding umbreon and vaporeon so they could give me an eevee for my first pokémon years ago. But it was delayed for a while after his death. When they finally bred they had six eggs, to my grandmother's surprise." Christopher stopped momentarily and frowned as he recalled that there was an egg missing. "She never expected so many and would not have known what to do with them." He stopped again. He could tell Katherine was deeply annoyed with his. "She wants me to hatch and train them all...as my own."

"What?!" Katherine nearly shrieked. "That's unbelievably awesome! Don't you know how lucky you are?" How about a trade?" she added jokingly. She saw that Christopher still had a frown on his face. "What's wrong? You were smiling a while ago."

"I still lost that egg. I will have to tell my grandmother eventually. Also, this letter never mentioned that they found an egg. I don't think they have it." Looking over the last few lines again, he noticed a short sentence that said "Good luck!" His mother, the person who wanted her youngest son to finish school first, wrote them.

"Yeah, I guess." Katherine had nothing else to say.

"Hey, you two." It was Whitney. She had come back. Unfortunately, empty handed. "Whatcha been up to?"

Christopher told her about Nicholas' swellow and the letter's contents. Although Whitney understood his sadness, she believed that the egg will soon be found and returned, and that Christopher should be happy that he would soon become a trainer.

"Nicholas says to go to West Amarill, huh? What's he up to?" Whitney asked no one. "Well, let's go then."

Christopher carried the bag of pokémon eggs the whole time while getting his stuff in the room. All the while, thinking about his future as a pokémon trainer. He was sixteen and already almost a trainer. He would be starting later than most people. He felt that he would be left behind. Will I be good enough...good enough to live up to the family name?

As he returned to the lobby, his thoughts of being a pokémon trainer were interrupted by an intense light coming from the bag of eggs. It drew the attention of the entire lobby. Everyone was quiet and stopped what they were doing to see where the source of the bright light came from. From everyone's view, it was as if he was emitting the light, as it nearly surrounded his entire body. The pokémon eggs were finally hatching.

Whitney was the only one who actually moved and quickly ran to Christopher. "Quick, get them out of the bag. They'll need some space." She pulled off the bag and carefully placed it on the cold floor near a long cushioned bench. She then quickly, but delicately, placed each egg on the bench. "Help me watch them to make sure none of them roll off."

"Could we offer some assistance?" It was Nurse Joy with a chansey. Each had brought out a stretcher with several blankets folded on top of them. Another chansey was trying to dispel the crowd that was starting to collect around the miraculous event.

"Thank you," Whitney said, picking up the eggs once again one by one and placing two on one stretcher and three on the other, then wrapping them in the blankets. As they moved swiftly, and with care, towards the hospital wing, the light of each egg was starting to dim, but the smallest egg remained as bright as ever. "Come on, guys, they're nearly hatching."

Christopher and Whitney, with Nurse Joy and chansey, stopped inside a room in the hospital wing. Other trainers pleaded with another chansey standing outside the wing to see the eggs hatch, but it would not let them.

"What took you so long?" Christopher asked Katherine as she entered the hospital wing a few minutes after he did. "I would think that you would be excited about this. I know I am."

"I just needed to use the little girls' room. Really, I am excited. I'm ecstatic! I'm just trying to contain myself from looking like a hysterical maniac," she added as a little joke.

"Oh my gosh, it's starting!" Whitney said enthusiastically. She watched as four of the eggs dimmed to a dull glow. She was curious, though, as to why the smallest egg had only slightly dimmed.

Simultaneously, the four larger eggs began to crack in random places all over their shells. Everyone silently looked on in awe as the cracks became longer and pieces started to disconnect from the rest of the shell. This was the first time Christopher had ever seen pokémon eggs hatch. He watched as Nurse Joy and Whitney slowly and meticulously removed the shards of the shells that were coming off. Looking over at the still-bright egg, his joy turned into worry. What is with that egg? he wondered.

An audible gasp from Whitney signaled that the pokémon were coming out now. She quickly grabbed Christopher and told him to make sure that the eevee looked at him so they knew who would be their "mother" or caretaker. The glowing stopped and four small furry creatures with four legs replaced the eggs, the shells of which were put aside. Nurse Joy and Whitney placed all four little eevee on one stretcher and stepped aside, leaving Christopher standing right in front of them.

Christopher watched open-mouthed as he saw the miracle of new life coming into the world. He grabbed a chair to sit beside the stretcher so he could be level with the newly hatched pokémon. The eevee were trying to stand up on shaky legs and continuously mewling. Once they were able to stand up without falling, it was clear that they stood no higher than one foot. Christopher petted each eevee to feel their soft brown fur. He felt their bushy tails and scratched behind their long ears, which they really seemed to like.

Nurse Joy said that two eevee were male and the other two were female. There were also some noticeable differences between the eevee's appearances and behaviors. The female eevee, which had dark blue eyes and a thinner-than-normal tail, on the far right seemed to like the attention it was getting and walked up to Christopher to lick his face. The male eevee next to it, which had odd pale eyes, was standing and turning around and around to look in every direction. The other male eevee next to that one had darker fur and was lying down with its head resting on its forelegs. The final, female eevee did not seem to look any different, but was moving around a lot and playfully trying to bite Christopher's hand with its still-small teeth.

"Could you two please help chansey clean them and make sure they are healthy while I tend to that last egg?" Nurse Joy kindly asked Katherine and Whitney. She giggled when she saw Katherine literally jump forward for her chance to get a closer look at the eevee.

Christopher followed Nurse Joy over to the now-dim egg that had yet to hatch. "Do you know what's wrong with it, Nurse Joy?" he asked worriedly.

"I don't think that there is anything wrong with it at all," she replied in her sweet voice. "It's just a late starter, that's all. Although, rare as it is to find an egg that is different amongst its siblings, it is possible. For all we know, it may be a special pokémon."

Christopher felt a little better. He was soon to become a trainer...a trainer of one of the uncommon species of pokémon no less. He reveled at that fact. But he still thought about the problems he might eventually face. He still had no idea who or why those people from last night had attacked Lilac Town. To make things worse, he still had not told his family that one of the eggs was missing. That would certainly rebuke his mother's blessing of becoming a trainer. Christopher was startled by a sudden outburst from Whitney.

"Oh my gosh, this eevee," she said while holding the eevee with the white eyes in her arms, "is blind!"

"What?" Christopher exclaimed, rushing over to the eevee in Whitney's arms. It was looking every which way and seemed oblivious to the hands that waved in front of its eyes. "But...how?"

"I was letting it walk on the counter while brushing its fur and it just kept walking into the wall," Whitney explained. "This is my first time seeing a pokémon born like this." She was thinking about all those times she had done fieldwork for her studies and had never seen a pokémon born blind.

"Erm...this eevee just turned blue like the water," Katherine said matter-of-factly. Inside the tub of water where she was washing the female eevee with dark blue eyes was a pokémon that was actually turning blue in the areas that the water covered. But its body was still in clear view through the water. "Odd..."

"That's impossible!" Whitney said, thinking back to her studies. "It's displaying the unique properties of a vaporeon. Vaporeon's structure is similar to that of water molecules, allowing it to blend perfectly into water. But this is an eevee!"

Christopher felt like his whole status as a pokémon trainer was crashing down before it even lifted off. Several bad memories from his early childhood came flooding back. He always felt he had bad luck with pokémon. He remembered when Nicholas' bulbasaur used to whip him whenever Nicholas wasn't looking. He remembered when he was helping a younger Whitney take care of some pokémon, and then almost dropping a slippery wooper, which resulted in gallons of water in his face. One of his worst memories was when he visited a ranch and rode a ponyta that nearly burned him with its fiery mane and flung him from its back. Fortunately, his father was there and caught Christopher with his victreebell. Even that victreebell seemed to be against him at some times, but that time, it was still in its trainer's sight. Nevertheless, Christopher remained determined to someday become a pokémon trainer just like the members of his family.

"Chansey!" the chansey cried out. It was pointing at the remaining egg. The egg had just flashed with light again, but only for a moment. Now there were visible cracks on the shell.

"It's hatching!"

Christopher and Nurse Joy rushed over to the hatching egg. Whitney also went over with the blind eevee still in her arms. Katherine quickly dried the "watery" eevee, which instantly returned to its original color as soon as it was taken out of the tub. The other two eevee were still on the stretcher and watched from there. Everyone watched as the cracks spread over the shell. Nurse Joy removed pieces of the shell before asking Christopher to come closer. As he got closer, the shell suddenly burst, sending pieces flying everywhere. Fortunately, they were too dull to be able to cut through the skin, or anything else for that matter.

Everyone was now looking at a smaller-than-normal eevee with ashen fur that gleamed in the light. It just lay on the stretcher with its eyes closed, its body moved as it breathed. Christopher looked at the eevee worriedly. He did not know whether this usually happened or not. He had an idea that it did not.

Nurse Joy and chansey did not hesitate to get to work, hooking eevee up to various medical instruments. "She has a fever. She's burning up," Nurse Joy diagnosed with her hand on the eevee's head, and also verifying that it was female. A look of surprise crossed her face suddenly. "No, wait, she's cooling down now." She then pulled her hand away quickly. For only a moment the body of the eevee looked as if was liquid held in the form of eevee, then it stopped.

"What's going on?" Christopher was scared. His would-be pokémon looked as if they were suffering from some unknown disease. Looking over at Whitney and Nurse Joy, he could tell that they were just as puzzled as the other.

"I really do not know," Nurse Joy said. "Her heart rate is above normal and her body temperature changes randomly. According to this equipment, it seems that its body is struggling to contain something inside. I believe that it's energy." It was obvious when a sudden spark of electricity radiated from the eevee's body. "That's odd...everything has returned to normal: heart rate, body temperature, and she is even in perfect health."

Everyone sighed with relief. Even the other eevee were happy. Katherine and Whitney placed the eevee they were holding on the stretcher with their other brother and sister so they could play. Whitney kept a close eye on the blind eevee to make sure it stayed on the stretcher while trying to see what condition the fifth eevee was in. But the time of peace was short lived.

"Eeeeee," the smallest eevee shrilled. Once again, her body sparked with electricity, but with more intensity. Both the boy and the nurse standing over her were nearly knocked to the ground. All the instruments near or connected to her received an overload of power and short-circuited. The lights in the room were either emitting strong light or exploding. Then a surge of a different kind of energy rushed through her body and was released, pushing back everyone and everything around it. Eevee's fur was now glowing brightly as it rolled over the stretcher, crying out.

The other eevee were reacting similarly, but were not showing the same symptoms. Just like their sister, they were crying out and fumbling on the stretcher. Their bodies were also shining, but not as brightly as their sister. The humans in the room had no idea what to do. Christopher was trying to get closer to the lone eevee, but was continuously repelled by a bolt of electricity. Chansey also tried to get to eevee to attempt to contain her, but every time she touched eevee, she was electrocuted and nearly blown back by another release of energy.

Outside in the lobby, the other two chansey were hurriedly guiding everyone outside the pokémon center. Any electronic devices connected to the wall were also acting oddly. They had decided it was time to evacuate the hospital when all the mysterious occurrences started.

It went on for a few more second before the little eevee finally calmed down, leaving the hospital room in one large mess. Papers and small instruments were scattered everywhere. Most of the large equipment was still in good working condition while others were damaged beyond repair. Nobody was hurt, but chansey had received some scars from trying to stop eevee. The four eevee on the one stretcher were panting heavily with sweat rolling down their faces. The eevee that caused all the damage alone was now unconscious.

"What just happened?" Katherine asked after rising from behind a bed on the other side of the room. Her hair, as well as everyone else's, was a mess because of the static electricity that had been released. She desperately started fixing it.

"I think that eevee just let out an incredible amount of energy," Whitney said, nudging her head in the direction of the unconscious eevee. "Never in my life have I seen such a thing. Such power like that in an eevee, let alone a newborn one, has never been seen. It's actually impossible." She had a tone of doubt now, after being a witness.

Christopher just looked at all the eevee. He had no idea what was going on. He did not know whether anything good was coming out of this because everything just seemed to be going bad. He went over to each eevee to see if they were all right. They all looked to be in good healthy condition, even the one that had caused the mess. Are you really okay? You are all going to be my first pokémon. Please be all right. Katherine moved up beside Christopher and put her had on his shoulder to comfort him.

"I am terribly sorry about the damage we have caused," Whitney was saying to Nurse Joy as she helped her and chansey clean up the room. "We'll pay for all the damages. I promise."

"Thank you," Nurse Joy kindly said. It took several minutes, but the room now looked decent enough to work in. "I fear for those eevee's health. I will need to run some tests to find out if there really is a problem. I think all of you should wait outside."

"Thank you very much," Whitney said. "I was wondering if I could observe what you do. I'm studying pokémon medicine and this would probably be a helpful experience. You know, I attend the Joy University here in Sohto."

"Is that so? It's great to meet a student. Of course you can watch. You could even help."

"Thank you!" Whitney said enthusiastically. She turned to Christopher and Katherine. "You two should probably get some rest and something to eat. You should also call your family, Christopher." She handed them some money and walked them to a nearly empty lobby, which was not as well lit as before. Most of the trainers were still outside while some had already returned inside.

Christopher slumped onto a bench. Katherine said that she would go find something to eat for them. He took out his brother's PokéGear from his pocket and looked over it. Why did he give me this? he wondered to himself. He looked through the saved data in the device and noticed that there were only three phone numbers.

Why would he have his own number in here? Christopher looked at the number listed under "Nicholas" and realized that it was not the same number as the one of the PokéGear. He decided to ask his brother about that later, and just call his mother and grandmother for now. Before he could select the phone number, it rang. He answered.

"Chris! What are you still doing there? You need to get to West Amarill now."