Charmander was sitting in front of the television, a program about the history of the apricot pokeballs playing on the device. “I could help you, but your dad has a point. Basic addition is a bare minimum to do much of anything,” he lamented.

<”Stanley, this quiz doesn’t have the answers on it, so why don’t you retry it? Just get a new piece of paper and try working on it until dinner” Eric suggested. He wanted his son to succeed, and thought the home environment with no pressures might give him the chance. Stanley, realizing that his father didn’t require him to do things alone, grabbed a pencil and fresh paper from his bag, placing them on the table next to the quiz. I can do this, Stanley resolved, I just need a little help.>

Watching Eric turn away, Charmander slid over to the table, reading the page. “Ok, your first problem was… three plus two. Wait, we did this at the grocery store, how did you forget?” he asked incredulously. The remaining problems were all the same, single-digit addition. “Stanley, you know how bad this looks, right?”

Charmander froze, mentally struck by the equivalent of a thunder wave attack, before pinching the bridge of his snout. “Okay, plan B,” he sighed, scampering to Stanley’s room and returning with a handful of plastic construction toy pieces. Waving to get Stanley’s attention, the lizard placed three pieces on the table in one pile, and two pieces in a separate pile. “Here, we have three pieces, and two pieces. If we combine them into one pile, we have five pieces. Therefore, three plus two is five, get it?”

“Look, three pieces, two pieces, same as the problem,” charmander repeated, separating the two piles again, and motioning back and forth between them. “Please tell me you can count, I’m just trying to help.”

“Listen, Stanley, I know you know your numbers, which means you can count. If you can count, you can use this method to practice addition and subtraction. Just please, trust me, understand me,” Charmander pleaded. The vocalization had clearly drawn Eric’s attention from nearby, but he said nothing, merely watching.

“Yes, two plus three is five, good job” the small lizard groaned, now fully aware of the mountain he was going to carry his partner up.

“Oh sweet heavens, did you answer two for all of them? Surely that was the answer to at least one problem?” Charmander leaned up and over the small table, confirming both that Stanley had indeed written two as every answer, and that none of the problems would have a correct answer of two.

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“Yes, four plus four is eight, good job,” Charmander confirmed. He relaxed, turning back to watch television and let Stanley finish the quiz. The television continued explaining the merits of apricots, and how the primitive humans first got the idea of the pokeball. “You know, the games never really explained how people managed to convert a fruit into a device capable of conversion between energy and matter,” he pondered aloud, aware that nobody could understand him and now seriously questioning why his entire future was tethered to the individual who had just been taught how to count for solving addition problems.

Charmander spared a glance to the kitchen, where he locked eyes with Eric. There was an unspoken pause, an agreement, before they broke their shared gaze and returned to their normal activities. “If that doesn’t get his attention, I don’t know what will,” the lizard mused.

A few minutes passed, with hushed conversation in the kitchen as Eric was on the phone to someone. “Stanley,” Eric called from the kitchen, hanging up the soft off-white phone in its cradle on the wall. “I just had a conversation with your teacher Miss Potts; I explained the situation and she agreed to try letting Charmander help you in class Monday. But she expects the both of you to behave, and any funny business means you can’t bring him back.” His explanation was clear, with zero wiggle room.

“How about you go get ready and we’ll visit the park for a bit?” Eric suggested, walking into the living room and turning the television off. The boy, still absent any sort of visible emotion, made for his room to get ready to go. Eric leaned down, whispering to the pokemon “I took a risk doing that, make sure it pays off.” Charmander, caught off-guard by the sentence and the fact Eric’s voice sounded different, tried not to let the panic show on his face.

“What do you mean a risk?” the pokemon asked, walking beside the man as they went towards the front door.

“Listen, you can clearly understand me, but it’s one-way. I know you tried to leave me a note on the coffee machine, but you need to be smarter if you want to get past it,” he said in a hushed whisper, quickly standing up after noticing the boy returning from his room.

The trio stepped outside, as Stanley led them towards the town park. Eric glanced down at the Charmander, their earlier conversation interrupted. Charmander gave a grim resolute nod, as the three walked on under the cheerfully oppressive sun.

Waking up, the charmander bolted off the bed and made a Combee-line for the bathroom. Not trying to be quiet, he hastily lifted the toilet lid just in time for the dinner he was being forced to remember eating to squeeze itself from his body. His head was throbbing, mouth burning from bile, and body starting to collapse from exhaustion from the trip he supposedly had enjoyed for several hours. Confident his belly was fully empty, he wearily reached up to flush before closing the lid and attempting to use the faucet of the bathtub. The main disadvantage of being barely a foot tall was an inability to access tall surfaces, like the human-sized sink. He gargled the cold water until he couldn’t taste anymore, using the bottom of a towel to wipe his mouth.

The orange pokemon slid to a seated position, his back against the edge of the bathtub, as he felt the pain recede, the memories done flooding in. He sat motionless for a while, in the dark, with only the light of his tail to illuminate the room; the only light in the oppressive overwhelmingly large darkness. It was small, weak, and barely strong enough to even reach the walls as the shadows danced menacingly in its trifle light. There was a small plop sound, as droplets from the bath faucet would rhythmically trickle to the bottom of the tub. Charmander glanced back and forth between his tail and the faucet, lingering a little too long on the water drops. Slowly, he began to move towards the front of the tub, before turning the faucet on full blast. Gently, he brought his tail around and the tip towards the gushing water.

He froze like a Stantler hit with a flash as the room was fully lit. A glance at the doorway revealed Eric and Diane, both looking concerned in their nightgowns. Before the charmander could proceed, Eric rushed over and turned off the faucet as Diane grabbed the little thing from behind and swept them into a Beartic hug. Eric and Diane shared a concerned glance, before he too embraced his wife and the small pokemon. The charmander struggled for a moment, trying to escape her embrace. After a short bout of a fit, he stopped struggling, his eyes drenched and leaking all over. The two adults doing their best to soothe the fragile wreck took turns holding him, trying to reassure him that they would all make it through this.

Just remember little guy, you aren’t alone.