~~~ Chapter 24 - Purple ~~~

Leavanny, the mothering pokemon. Leavanny are thin, bipedal bug- and- plant-type pokemon. Despite being known for their tailoring and tendency to care for members of their nests, their red eyes and permanent grins are unnerving for many, especially young children. They are extremely food-and-gift motivated, and require copious access to sunlight, shelter, trees, and general greenery. Their species is one of many grass-type pokemon threatened by overuse of industrial chemicals, insecticides and herbicides, however, due to being both bug and plant, their situation is particularly dire. Waste-based poison types, including, trubbish, muk, and grimer, are considered invasive species, and many have integrated said toxic chemicals, threatening the sewaddle line.

Leavanny are on the upper-end of the maintenance spectrum, and require access to wide spaces with arable soil and access to plentiful foliage for shelter, nesting, and crafting. Their primary living area should have at least three trees, some open soil, and one other member of the sewaddle family. Leavanny that are nesting can be quite territorial. They will naturally grow and tend their own crops and gardens. Like many bugs and plant-types, they will hibernate. During winter months, the shift in available foods, along with shorter sunlight and declining temperature all factor into how they prepare and acclimate for winter. See the section on hibernation for suggestions surrounding maintenance if you're looking to maintain competitive activity during winter. In short, you must have enough resources and space to maintain a large greenhouse.

Diet: Leavanny should be fed a diet of fruits, veggies, seeds, nuts, with supplements of (low fertilizer, rich in nitrogen and potassium) soil. They do not digest or dissolve the seeds they consume. During digestion some seeds may sprout. During this process, the leavanny’s biology will naturally integrate the seed in their internal root structures. The Leavanny species are particularly vulnerable to, and should be regularly checked for, parasitic hitchhikers.

Tailor: Tailoring is the Leavanny’s second-most well-known trait/ability. Using their body and their line’s natural compatibility with leaves, as well as their specialized silk, most leaves of Leavanny do not grow directly from the root system that spans across their bodies. Instead, they are grafted on, like living clothing. Variations between Leavanny are expressed via this grafting of leaves: via combination of the style the Leavanny naturally prefers, and the leaves they use for grafting. Because of this, no two Leavanny or nests look the same. Leavanny will learn each other’s traits and styles and assist other Leavanny with their tailoring efforts.

~~~

The skorupi's scents had gone from a hungry lavender into a slightly sweet that rolled softly off the cute and dark little violet scorpion, lightly glowing as it approached me under the dim light. I just couldn’t help but swoon. Its tail-graspers were relaxed, raised only to about a third of my height. Purple was my color, and anyone telling me otherwise just wasn’t something I was going to accept.

It clicked its claws at me, softly announcing its presence to Leaf, who finally rose from torpor at the presence of our unexpected new friend. Lanky didn’t seem quite so enamored, choosing instead to wander across the room over to the swadlies who sat among their favored trees.

Unfortunately for how much I wanted to play, the venipede rudely interrupted us by letting out a squawk, giving us the evil eye. Okay, it wasn’t doing anything, staring down at us as it sat with its trainer on the branch, but its scent was distastefully metallic. Not quite as angry as the venipedes I met trying to shelter under rocks back in the wild, but unpleasant nonetheless. Leaving my skorupi buddy with a bit of a curtsey, he returned to rest on the clay and dirt, its soft, sweet scents wafting away. A few green leaves would really add to his style. Some silk and a leaf, and it would be like a little sticker. It would work, at least until the silk degraded and the dead leaf fell off. Too bad he wasn’t part plant, like me.

The sheets I had made for Leaf were a big pain to make and replace. And even the ones that Cebi gifted me weren’t refined. With a single leaf, my natural ability to harden them was like thin strips of leather. They took the cushion from certain scrapes and were a good buffer for electricity, but it still only bought me a single hit. A single sheet of leaf wouldn’t help from piercing attacks or if the ampharos had taken me more seriously from the start.

Lanky and the girl exchanged blahs, though Lanky did say my name a few times. I stood over a patch of small plants that had recently sprouted, under the branch that Bonk was sleeping on. From where he sat, he was at a bit more than twice my height. Somewhat higher than the professor’s backyard trees. I knelt down, then sprung, easily reaching the branch with both arms. Swinging up and over, I gathered my leaves.

Skorupi’s trainer (or Sundresser, as I’ve taken to calling her) called her scraggy and krokorok to her as Lanky fiddled with some switches by the gym entrance. They both pulled out sleeping bags and went to sleep on the floor, Lanky by the atrium door and the girl and her pokemon a few trees away. With the swadlies either silently watching or sleeping, Leaf and I worked until our stores of silk ran out. By the end I had sewn an improved skirt-armor design, the swaddlies smells shifting dryly as they shuffled between sleeping or watching us work. After what felt like hours, my reserves of silk finally ran dry.

I looked down at the skirt that surrounded me now. Like layered chunks of leather armor, the new skirt was divided into four major sections: front/back, left/right. And instead of a single piece over each key body part, the skirt was closer to my helmet in actual operation. Strips of about twenty-thirty medium-sized leaves overlapping each other, cascading downward, stopping about midway down from the ground.

In the darkness and the brown floor, with only Leaf, Bonk, and the rest of the swadlies watching, I stretched. The skirt came close, but never actually touched the ground unless my abdomen touched it. The additional airflow was nice, and would probably provide some insulation in a fire. Working on the upper-body armor would wait until later.

I took a drink of water from a dripping line. The skirt leaves were going to be notably heavier than my last armor. I’d probably tire a lot faster, if it weren’t for the extra sun I’d be getting. The mishmash of cascading, checkerboarded leaves would also be too thick to reliably let my abdomen breathe if I wanted to add an under piece for the bottom of my abdomen. None of the really scary attacks I’ve had so far came from right below, so leaving my abdomen open from the underside was my only option. If something could actually grab me and hold me still, I probably made bigger mistakes than missing abdominal wrapping leaves.

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

I felt a lot better about the results of the second fight with ampharos, but it still overpowered me with sheer abilities. Stray arcs of electricity jumping to my abdomen would be a problem for the new armor. Even so, the extra flexibility and the fact it would be heavier would probably outweigh those costs.

With Sundresser and her pokemon staying the night, it would be best to table a nighttime excursion attempt. Climbing back up Bonk’s tree, I laid down on a branch next to him.

A flash of red light and I could hear and sense the vibrations of the forest around us, the smells of cherries in the air. Bonk and Leaf were out, Leaf crawling through the bushes, looking for who-knows-what. A hint of stale, synthetic dust accentuated the air as my antennae moved through. Little flower buds covered the bushes; soon they would bloom in the springtime sun.

Lanky had my pokeball, silently smiling as he motioned to the forest around us, as if to say, “Go, explore!” Bonk and I took the invitation, leaving him and Lanky. We passed a cherry bush. The leaves on the bush swam in slight red, as I was reminded of the trip on cherry conditioners. How many pokemon could speak?

“Where are you going?” I tried, as I followed Bonk, but only “Eeaa neee yyy” came out. He paused and turned to me, clicking, then kept on waddling. Together, we roamed through the woods, slight dots of blue sky poking out through the blurry forest ceiling.

A sour, bitter and pale smell wafted through the air. Bonk and I entered into a clearing, stumbling on a boy with dark, almost clear hair, covered in, blue and red bruises, shivering and wet. The smell in the air shifted, stinging of bleach and chlorine. My abdomen vibrated, and I felt pressure in my chest. The kid needed help!

As I stepped forward, Bonk appeared in front of me, and said, “Can I eat them?”

“What? No!” I cried. “We don’t even eat meat!” I said. “Eeeaaa eee eee aaa nnnyy neea” had come out instead. My antennae twitched. I stepped forward to stop him, but as I stepped, I slipped on the tile of the forest floor.

The red swadloon’s mouth turned upside-down as he approached the child.

“EEEaa!” I cried again, as he opened his mouth, the boy lying down, their scents crying out for help. I stepped forward to intervene once more, this time stopped cold by a sticky webbing on my thoracic chest. I put my leg down on the ground and tugged further, my legs refusing to obey me as they also became covered in webbing. My antenna twitched again. I knew, with every fiber of my being, that I had to save that kid.

The swadloon’s mouth stretched wide as he began to swallow the kid whole. My abdomen vibrated and convulsed as I was pulled into the waiting limbs of the red-haired nurse, picked up and held in their hands, wrapping me up in the red webs in their hands.

Unable to move as I was cocooned, the swadly said “Maybe next time.” My antennae twitched, picking up the scent of sticky, silky leaves. Bonk chirped once more as light disappeared, among the vibrations of small chirps.

“Eeea!” I cried, rolling around and trying to cut myself free. In the blindness, I cut through my silk cocoon, a “leee” responding to my attempt to fight free.

Browns and greens of the leaves and branches of our perch returned to focus. It was still dark. I was still in the tree. Bonk wasn’t on his branch. I flicked the leaves on my thorax, still tasting Bonk’s smell nearby. The fading sweet softness in the tree lightly emanated metallic from below.

Leaf’s necklace was gone. Lost from the ampharos fight. Was he sad it’s gone? That would explain why he didn’t want to play. A small shirt of leaves were half-attached to my thorax. Bonk had seen exactly what I was working on, and knew what I was doing.

Leaf was coming to Bonk and I’s tree, a lavender concern drifted in. I hopped down, and was faced with a leavanny about the same height as I, and with the same smell as bonk, looking over a scrape on their blade. Bonk had evolved overnight, and he’d been busy. This makes twice that a swaddle has evolved in the night and woke up with a gift.

Lanky had heard our cry and was sitting up.

Sorry, bitch, but us bugs don’t need eight hours of sleep.

Sundresser slept soundly as both krokorok and scraggy watched us. Lanky walked over, his smell a bit more sour, having just woke up. He held up his pokedex at Bonk, before turning back to his sleeping bag and returning to sleep. Sleeping didn’t seem so great if I was going to get more dreams like those. That had been the first dream I’d had since I’d heard real human speech. Even if I learned to understand what they said over again, I wouldn’t be able to speak it, and playing games of tones and chirps was annoying.

Leaf and Bonk and the rest of the team of swadly I still needed to name had already intuited what I wanted and needed, no conversation required! Were it so easy to get humans on the same page! Not much later, Lanky had fallen back to sleep, and Bonk had patched up his own leafblade. Leaf and I’s stores of silk still slowly restoring, there was nothing else for the three of us to do.

The venipede monitored our movements as we walked to the atrium door, only about twenty feet away from either Lanky or skorupi’s trainer. Doing as I did in the morning, we pushed on the door handle. The door creaked. Lanky rolled over, facing away from us. The girl didn’t move, and I couldn’t sense anything but mixed smells of slightly unpleasant metals and bits of salts from sweaty sleepers.

We went into the locker room. That scent of dried berries was gone, and cherries still there, but fading fast. No music from old-man janitor-man this time. Leaf and I went into the shower, “Eaaa” I moaned, clicking in annoyance. We would be going after gym badges soon, and if the conditioner actually worked, it would simplify my life a lot!

I turned back, pulling the also-moaning Leaf and modestly-confused Bonk along with me. Maybe I could bully Cebi and have her fix me. We approached the door, and I was about to try and open it, when it slammed open and shoved me into the tall garbage bin that sat against the wall. Dazed and sitting on the tile I decided to sit, where Lanky, not completely awake, didn’t see me, but Leaf, and Bonk all stared at my misfortune.

Thanks for the help.

I clicked as I stood up and left the gym lockers. The bottle of conditioner hadn’t just been left high—it was gone. What remained was fading artificial cherry, soon to be drowned out by the sour taste of fatty soap and shampoo in the shower air. Juniper junior and her older, non-trainer partner had taken the stuff to wherever they left.

An hour later, the venipede’s agitation at her own trainer still sleeping woke her up, and finally our two teams ate breakfast. The vibrations of the city around us were increasing. The sun would be out soon. I speared my fruits and veggies, Leaf and Bonk scooped. The swadly had already begun to emulate us, some trying to scoop and others trying to spear, one on the end having cut a little poker out of their leaf blanket.

After our two teams ate our food, Lanky had pulled out the metal canister, and was showing it to the girl. A second of fiddling, and a bike unfolded, basket in its handlebars.

Oh no.

At least, the start of the grind I'd feared didn't quite matter yet.

Since, well, Lanky didn't quite know how to ride a bike.