A Berry in the Garden

A Berry in the Garden
Hatching an Egg!

To be honest… Peter wasn’t quite sure how he ended up with this egg. He hadn’t done much lately except renovate his store, having finally gotten enough cash to expand it and build a proper back room to store all of his supplies in. This had eaten up a large chunk of his time, and as such the Roserade hadn’t even participated in many of the local events being held on Raccolto. A little disappointing, to be sure, as he’d enjoyed the few he’d attended last year, but at least for now, work had to come first.

It had been on the night after he finished the upgrades to “A Study in Violets” when he found it. Having swept the remaining sawdust off the floor and shelving units, dragged out all his new merchandise, and paid the renovators for a job well done, the man had whistled for Martin to follow as he exit the store, intent on locking up for the night. Nothing more needed to be done before he finally re-opened tomorrow morning, and Peter was eager to get home and slip into bed.

It’s a miracle he didn’t step on the egg, if he were being completely truthful. Lying on the front step of his shop, in the dark, the thing almost blended into the concrete! Only Martin’s keen eyes and quick yowl of surprise kept Peter from crushing it.

He’d been unsure what to make of it at first. Careful examination, mostly done at arms length in case it was a prank and the thing exploded, led Peter to the conclusion that it was, in fact, real, and not even near hatching. Why would someone leave what appeared to be a perfectly healthy Pokémon egg on his doorstep? Where was its mother? Had she abandoned it?

One thing was certain, however; he couldn’t just leave the egg here. Anything could happen to it! A wild Pokémon could spot it and decide it would make the perfect snack, or some kids could end up using it as a ball in their games and smashing it!

And so, Peter took it home with him. What else could he have done?

At first, nothing major happened. Pepper acted unusually careful around the new addition to their house, seemingly aware that it wasn’t something to be played with or tossed about like her toys. Martin and Mallow, predictably, became the unofficial guardings of the egg, taking turns curling around it in the makeshift nest Peter built out of some old blankets. Even the newly evolved Morrigan, aloof Whirlipede that she was, seemed to take a shine to the egg, eyeing its progress with an eager glimmer in her eyes.

Numerous days went by like this, and despite his efforts, the Roserade had no luck identifying the original owner. Perhaps it really had been some wild Pokémon, unable to look after her offspring and leaving it somewhere that it might be found and taken care of.

After about a week of searching, Peter finally realized that he’d pretty much adopted a new member to his growing family. Determined to do this right, he managed to convince a rancher friend to let him borrow their incubator for a little while, deciding it must be better for the egg than some ratty old blankets. Though Mallow in particular seemed a little lost without being able to curl around the unborn baby anymore.

It took a month of incubation, with Peter carrying the egg with him from the house to the store and back again, even to long jaunts through the woods and along the beaches, for it to hatch. Oh, there had been the occasional wiggle that nearly gave Peter heart attacks whenever they happened, but no cracks in the shell of gurgling from whatever baby Pokémon happened to pop out.

Predictably, the hatching began as he was getting ready to close up shop again. Really, this egg had some of the strangest timing the florist had ever seen!

But he couldn’t deny his excitement, the anticipation and even a flutter of nervousness that spiked through his veins, when he realized the egg had begun to shudder. As the first hairline cracks appeared on its formerly smooth surface, he and the others gathered close, Morrigan having to be lifted up off the floor due to no longer having arms to climb with. And with baited breath, they waited, quiet and watchful, as over the next hour the egg cracked more and more.

When at last a small, mint green paw poked its way out of the shell, its three bulbous fingers looking much like a lizard or the aliens in those horror movies he used to watch, Peter almost jumped back in surprise. A round nose soon followed, a large tongue darting out to lick lips still sticky with fluid from within the egg. Then a foot, similar in build to the hand, and a tail that looked a lot like a large red tongue, only with the texture of a leaf.

When Peter finally reached over and removed the remaining shell from the baby’s head that he realized what exactly he had hatched.

For there, sitting atop his counter amidst the destruction of its egg, sat a baby Treecko. Slit, bulbous yellow eyes gazed up at him, blinking slowly and causing the creature’s third eyelid to slip strangely over its pupils. But it wasn’t… normal. At least, not completely. For although it seemed hale and hearty and to have all the correct fittings of a Treecko… it was the completely wrong color!

Not even daring to believe his luck, Peter took the youngster to the veterinary office that night, confirming that he had indeed hatched a perfectly healthy shiny Treecko! A male, to be precise.

And when asked what he had decided to name it, only one came to mind.

“Uh… Cassis. His name’s Cassis.”

THE END