"Ralt..."
Ralts kept her head down in despair. The word "Mom" seemed to trigger a massive emotional meltdown inside her.
It was a surge of sorrow mixed with deep, agonizing grievance. Lorze caught it flawlessly, and his heart couldn't help but ache for her.
Mother Lorze also frowned slightly. She obviously noticed that the Ralts seemed extremely unhappy.
What the hell was going on?
Why did the little Ralts look so miserable? Did her degenerate son actually do something sick and perverted to her?!
Seriously! No matter how incredibly horny you are for a Gardevoir, you have to wait until she reaches her third evolutionary stage before making your move!
She's just a little kid right now! How could you bring yourself to defile her?!
She immediately shot her son an accusatory, interrogating glare. Why did it seem like the Ralts absolutely hated their family? Did you actually capture her or not?!
Don't tell me we're going to waste money feeding her, only for her to sneak off because she hates living here, leaving us completely fucked out of our money and our Pokémon!
Lorze scratched his head. He wasn't entirely sure about Ralts's situation, but it was totally true that they hadn't formed any kind of emotional bond yet. If things went south, she might actually ditch him.
But that probably wasn't why she disliked their home. It had to be related to the word "Mom" from just now, right?
If he wanted to make her stay willingly, he had to figure out exactly what the hell happened to her.
"Ralts, do you miss your mommy?" Lorze hurriedly pulled her back into his embrace and asked softly.
"Ralt..." Ralts nodded, tears visibly welling up in her tiny eyes. It looked like she genuinely missed her home.
Lorze instantly had a massive realization.
Influenced by the Pokémon games and anime from his past life, he subconsciously thought catching a Pokémon was just about beating them up and throwing a ball, completely ignoring a crucial aspect of reality.
In the real fucking world, Pokémon have parents too!
Not to mention, this Ralts clearly looked like a newborn baby. Yet, she had been ruthlessly hunted down by some stranger for God knows how long, ultimately shoved into a Poké Ball, and forcibly torn away from her mother.
If you translated this to human terms, it was exactly like a three-year-old child suddenly losing her mother and getting abducted by some creepy old pedophile. How could she possibly feel okay about that?
Put that way, humanity's habit of tossing balls to capture wild Pokémon was practically the equivalent of brutally kidnapping other people's children!
Umm, why did humanity suddenly seem incredibly evil and fucked up?
However, from what he knew, social structures among Pokémon weren't quite that complex. They were highly accepting of the law of the jungle and survival of the fittest.
Once many Pokémon raised their young to a certain point, they basically kicked them out to fend for themselves.
Just like how bird mothers only feed their chicks until they fledge; once their wings are full, the mother never comes back to see them.
Therefore, in most cases, if you encountered a lone Pokémon in the wild, you didn't have to worry about kidnapping anyone's child. They were already out there "hustling in the hood" on their own.
Otherwise, why do you think there's always news about little Pokémon actively running into human households?
It's precisely because many Pokémon couldn't handle the brutal law of the jungle right after leaving their mothers, so they sought out humans as sugar daddies for protection and free meals.
But this Ralts was clearly far from being "fully fledged" and wasn't out here trying to "hustle." She was just a little girl who still wanted to cling to her mommy. She was forced to separate from her mother for some specific reason.
How could she not miss her mom?
Logically, though, a mother Gardevoir equipped with Teleport shouldn't have abandoned her child even in extreme danger. What the hell happened that forced her to ditch her baby?
Whatever, it was impossible to guess the answer anyway.
If Ralts just missed her mom, it was an easy fix. He'd just take her back to meet the parents. Who knows, he might even get to meet a breathtakingly beautiful Gardevoir MILF in the process!
"I'm so sorry, Ralts. I brought you here without considering your feelings. If you want to see your mommy, I can take you back. Let's go see her together, okay?" Lorze quickly deployed his loli-coaxing skills, needing to stabilize the little girl's emotions first.
But Ralts only felt even more deeply aggrieved, shaking her head while still looking absolutely devastated.
"You don't want to see your mommy?" Lorze pressed on.
"Ralt..." (Mommy got lost, I can't find her ever again...) Ralts said dejectedly.
No, no, no. You're the one who got lost, right?!
Lorze couldn't hold back the urge to roast her logic.
Still, something felt off. What kind of negligent-ass parents would let their kid just get lost?
There had to be another reason. He immediately asked with absolute patience, "Ralts, look, I'm your Trainer now. If you're willing, you can tell me what happened in your past. Maybe I can help you figure out a solution?"
"Ralt?" Ralts lifted her teary eyes to look at him, as if trying to verify whether this guy was actually trustworthy.
But after staring at each other for a short while, the intense fear in Ralts's heart overpowered her, and she buried her little face back into her Trainer's chest.
She wasn't terrified of Lorze; she was terrified of this entirely strange, terrifying new world.
Lorze's guess was spot on. She was indeed a very recently born Pokémon. To her, her mother was her entire universe. Since birth, she had been slowly adapting to the outside world solely under her mother's absolute protection.
Ralts's home used to be by a lake far, far away. They used a hollow tree trunk as their sanctuary and lived happily every single day.
But then, a bunch of incredibly evil men showed up. These bastards used wicked Pokémon to burn down her home, and relentlessly hunted and cornered them. In the end, to protect her, her mother had no choice but to hide her away and lure the bad men off all by herself.
Later, the severely traumatized Ralts searched frantically for her mom. Along the way, she was violently bullied by all sorts of malicious wild Pokémon. Her underdeveloped empathic abilities completely short-circuited due to the extreme, continuous terror, and she permanently lost the ability to sense anyone's emotions.
And then, that Scizor Trainer appeared. When she saw him approaching her, she had no clue what he was thinking because she couldn't feel a damn thing anymore.
Her mind was entirely consumed by the memory of her home engulfed in roaring flames. She was paralyzed with fear; all she wanted was to run away, to get back to her mommy's side.
But the weird thing was, despite her sensory block, during her desperate escape, she somehow managed to pick up Lorze's emotional fluctuations. So, without thinking twice, she turned and threw herself directly into his arms.
She was so fucking scared. She just wanted someone to protect her; she desperately craved the safety of her mother's embrace.
Now, hearing Lorze mention her mother, it instantly detonated all her pent-up longing. Her sense of security had long been utterly shattered.
...
Lorze patiently listened to the whole story from Ralts. He could feel her tiny body trembling violently the entire time. It was clear she was traumatized to the core.
Based on what she told him, Lorze deduced that the bastards who burned down her home were absolutely Pokémon Hunters, and an organized gang at that.
No wonder her mother left her behind. The world had an insanely deep, degenerate obsession with Gardevoir. Once spotted, they would stop at nothing to capture her. Trying to fight off an entire gang while protecting a baby was practically impossible.
He just didn't know what happened to that Gardevoir. Lorze could only pray to God she hadn't been captured and turned into someone's sex slave.
You could literally say Ralts's childhood was entirely destroyed by human greed. Just look at how they terrified the poor kid into completely losing her empathic powers.
Wait a second... didn't that essentially make this Ralts a "defective" Pokémon?!
Cough, cough. Alright, alright. Thinking about min-maxing stats in an emotional moment like this definitely made him a huge piece of shit.
Defective or not, it didn't fucking matter. The most broken, flawed Ralts on the planet was infinitely better than a damn Breloom.
Besides, wasn't she still able to sense his emotions?
What did that prove?
It proved that even God himself was acting as their fucking wingman, trying to hook them up!
As for why Ralts could only sense his feelings, Lorze guessed it probably had everything to do with his overpowered, superhuman mental "cheat code."
"Ralts, don't be too sad. Your mommy is definitely going to be fine. If we ever get the chance in the future, I swear I will take you to find her. Will you give me that chance?" Lorze comforted her again.
He knew humans had deeply scarred her, and he really didn't want her to reject him because of what those scumbags did.
"Ralt?" Ralts lifted her head once more, her eyes seemingly asking if he was actually telling the truth.
"Of course it's the fucking truth. How about we make a pinky promise?"
"Ralt? (Pinky... promise?)"
"It means that no matter what happens, we absolutely cannot break our word, and we can never betray each other."
"Ralt! (Pinky promise!)"
"Alright, pinky promise. Sworn for a hundred years."
Lorze let out a huge sigh of relief. Thank God little girls were easy to coax. It seemed she wasn't the type to harbor an eternal, vengeful grudge against all humans just because a few hurt her. On the contrary, what she desperately craved right now was a sense of absolute security.
Lorze quickly extended his pinky and hooked it around Ralts's tiny little finger.
The exact moment their fingers touched, Lorze inexplicably felt an entirely unique, indescribable sensation in his chest. It was as if, in that very instant, a faint but undeniable mystical bond was established between him and Ralts.
Was this the so-called legendary bond between a Trainer and their Pokémon?
From this moment forward, Lorze had truly, completely captured this Ralts.
Sure enough, in reality, catching a Pokémon wasn't as simple as just throwing a fucking ball. Grooming their affection and building an emotional connection was absolutely crucial.