Lucarious: The Riolu Years

	Within a green forest, an old hunter fully kitted out in woodland camouflage gear carefully stalked. He patted over the pouches of ammo he carried with a smile, excited by the thrill of the hunt. 
It was when he took a step through a bush in a thicket, his foot tapped against a blue egg that laid on its side. Quickly, he lifted his foot up and away from the egg,  his head turned as he expected some repercussion for accidentally invading a nest, he readies his gun. However, the lack of response from his intrusion made it obvious the egg was here by itself with no guardian. The old man stepped over the egg carefully then continued to the end of the thicket. His head turned towards the egg as he exited, then let out a deep sigh of pity. After brief contemplation, he walked back to it and he looked around his surroundings. He noted a lack of pokémon passing through, and the pokémon that did pass by were uninterested in him and the egg at his feet. Hours passed with still no sign of anyone or anything having taken a faint interest in the egg. Quietly, he kneeled behind a dense bush close to the exit of the thicket and waited in hiding. Even more fruitless hours passed before the realization that his waiting was for naught. With a quick gaze at the obscured sunset peaking from behind the trees, he could tell that he had wasted this day. He didn’t want to abandon the egg, but he was ill equipped for the encroaching night.       He emerged from his hiding spot to retrieve the egg, and carefully he cradled it in his left arm as he held his rifle in his right hand as he started his trek back to his truck.
      With the egg in his lap, he pondered over how he could take care of the egg until he could offload it. The thoughtful drive had him back at his modest cabin sooner than he expected. While larger than usual for a cabin, it was still single-story. As he entered his abode proper, the egg was placed onto his dining room table as he passed by it to retrieve his heat lamp and spare blanket in his “crafts room”.
	As he passed the first set of doors in the hallway in the back of the house, he heard cracking come from his dining room. Quickly his head turned back to the egg in a panic then forward again in a mad dash through the rear-right door. His crafts room shook from his muscular frame stomping a frantic path towards the cabinet in the back of the room, and when he stormed back out to the hatching egg. With a single motion he wrapped the blanket around the baby as it exited its shell, then lifted it up and onto his left arm. He freed the head of the creature that had just birthed, discovering a blue and black riolu within the blanket. Gently the man rocked his arm back and forth as his free hand pulled his phone from his pants pocket. He opened the web browser to search for a nursery or some other organization that took in orphaned pokémon, then  dialed a promising number as his attention went back to the riolu. Its eyes slowly opened, then scanned the room before they drifted back. A smile grew on its face as their eyes met, and he could feel a wave of nostalgia bring a smile to his own lips. However, the voice of a woman from his phone quickly brought him back from the nostalgia trip.
“Hello? Is anyone there?” said the woman politely. “Uh, yes,” he replied. Before the woman could respond he quickly fumbled a response in his deep and gravelly voice, “I’m sorry for disturbing your… uh… nursery. I must have accidentally dialed. Have a nice night,”       before he hung up. He pocketed his phone as his full attention was returned toward the riolu in his arm.
      “Hey, little fella,” he said as softly as he could, which elicited a big smile from it. “Sleepy?” he asked hopefully. The baby continued to smile, just happy to have the man’s attention.
The elderly hermit sighed then turned towards the kitchen. He opened the pantry cabinet tucked away between the wall and the kitchen counter, and looked for some sort of midnight snack he could feed it before bed. That’s when it hit him… can it even eat solids? When his head turned back to the canine in his arm, its face lit up as its tail wagged. He turned his head away out of curiosity, and the riolu’s tail stopped wagging as its face returned to being neutral. Once their eyes met once more, it was back to tail-wagging happy!      
      He played with this discovery for a good five minutes; turning his head away to look back with a silly face. The little guy loved this so much it started to imitate his faces or come up with a few of its own. The fun ended when he headed towards the bathroom. “So little buddy, what should we call you?” he asked it. Almost as if it understood, it turned his head and stared intently at the geezer, almost as if ready to judge his suggestions.
      “Let’s see, a male luca- I mean riolu-” he started, but the riolu’s sudden amazed expression made him hesitate, but before he could continue his train of thought a voice entered his head.
      “Lu!” said the childish voice. He looked around the room before it settled back on the riolu.
      “That was you, wasn’t it?”
“Hey!” the voice said in an attempt to imitate what he said earlier. 
Although he was impressed, the man still wagged his finger as he smiled and said,       “cut that out, you won’t learn proper speech doing that.” The riolu lowered his ears, and then opened his mouth.
      “L-Lu,” he spoke.
      “Alright then, Lu it is…” he said, then Lu pulled his arms out from under the blanket and hugged him as he made a happy sound. “But it’s short for Louis.”
      Quickly Lu stopped hugging, and determinedly locked his eyes with his. “Lu!” he protested.
      “Oh alright alright…” the guy said with a sly smirk. “It’s Lu…” and quickly, the riolu made a happy sound as he went right back to hugging him. “But it’s short for Lucas.” The riolu, as fast as he went to happy and content, quickly went back to protesting. The man’s grin just grew as he thought up of some simple word-based entertainment.
      “Lu!”
      “Oh fine, it’s Lu…”
      “Mmhhh!”
      “But it’s short for Francis.”
      “Lu!”
      “Oh ok you win you win, Lu it is…”
      “Mmmhh!”
      “But it’s short for Lu.”
This time when Lu opened his mouth to protest, he blinked as he realized that the name he offered didn’t change, then slowly resumed his snuggle. The man interrupted Lu’s snuggling briefly with a poke on the head. Once he had Lu’s full attention, he pointed to himself and slowly annunciated, “dad-dy”. Lu slowly mimicked dad’s mouth. “Da-dad… dada,” he annunciated slowly.       Lu’s attempt at saying daddy was adorable to dad, who smiled whole heartedly at his attempt. “You did great for your first time!” he said before he carried him off into the bathroom. “Let’s get clean and go to bed, Louis. I’m beat.”
      Hours passed into the night. Lu’s eyes opened slowly. Gently he sat up and yawned before he looked around. The soft bed didn’t move much as he started to crawl over to the footboard and then down the side of the blanket that draped to the floor. Leaving the small bedroom was as simple as walking along the carpeted floor and nudging the door inward, then he was out and free. He crawled his way to the kitchen area then took a deep breath. The smell of cheeses and meats made him peckish. His attention turned to the pantry cabinet. He had but a simple glimpse into it, but he knew from dad’s thoughts of the food within!  He made a beeline straight towards it, and stared up at awe of the open structure and the various contents within. Two rows down from the top was a red box amidst other colorful boxes, clashing with the rest of the various packaged foods. Something about the various pokémon on the side demanded his attention. He stood up the best he could, and grabbed the first shelf within arms reach. His legs found purchase on plastic containers and up he climbed, knocking over various boxes. Up past the canned food, up past the condiments, and finally to the snacks.
He proudly took a seat with a big smile as he overcame his climb with a red circus box reward. He shoved a fist through the top and ate his first cookie cautiously, savoring his snack as he scanned the room. He observed the cabinet behind the sofa, the desk with computer facing the right wall in the top right corner of the room. His gaze drifted past       the circular fireplace in the center of the room and fell upon the kitchen and dining room occupying the entire left part of the house. Shortly after, his gaze turned back to the hallway. There were four wooden doors. The first door on the left was the one he exited from, the bedroom. The first door on the right was the bathroom dad cleaned him in. The two doors in the back were still a mystery to him. There was also a string that dangled suspiciously from the ceiling in the back of the hall way. Even in such a small house, there was so much to explore!
      Lu’s train of thought was interrupted by the loud slam of the bedroom door hitting the wall when it was thrown open! Out burst dad with handgun in one hand and flashlight in the other. Lu covered his eyes as the light blinded him, and dad upon seeing Lu sitting on his pantry shelf lowered his gun. He scowled at Lu as he turned the lights on, who just held a cookie towards him. He couldn’t hold his scowl though, Lu’s innocent smile and offering brought out an amused grin. He took the cookie then a bite from it as he eyed Lu up and down in slight bemusement.
      “You shouldn’t be making a mess this late at night,” he chastised gently as he looked around at the mess on the floor. As a finger tapped his chiseled chin he spoke, “I’ll clean up for you, but you’re going to clean up one of my messes someday,”  with a playfully sinister tone. Lu tilted his head in response before he offered another cookie, but dad declined when he put the box back. He put his light and gun onto the kitchen counter before he placed Louis onto the table to clean up then retire to bed.
Dad awoke from his slumber as the sun peeked through the windows and into his eyes. He nudged Lu gently, who stirred awake, then turned over.       “NOW you want to sleep, huh?” he asked incredulously as he got out of bed. He turned to lean over Lu to whisper, “I know it might be soon, but I have to start teaching you things you need to know. I’m not gonna be here your entire life.” To ease him awake. His only response was to angle his ear towards dad as he snoozed. Dad sighed before he got his clothes and left to take a shower. He returned to the sight of Lu still asleep in his bed. He carried Louis to the sofa, who awake to the sight of index cards on the coffee table.
      He was gently seated before dad went off to the rear right door. Lu watched him leave, a confused tilt to his head as he turned back to take a better look at the index cards. He took a single white card, and on it was just the letter A, both upper case and lower. As Lu turned it around dad called out, “Smile!” and as Lu turned to face him, a camera flash surprised him, causing him to fall onto his back. Dad just chuckled as he took a seat next to him before lifting him back up. “I’m probably going to be doing that a lot…” he admitted with a big amused smile on his face. “So maybe get used to it.” After a quick look at the picture preview, he set it onto the coffee table then turned his attention to Lu. As Lu blinked, he took the note card, then turned it to show him the letter, “Repeat after me… A. Eeeeyyy…”
For hours, Lu practiced pronouncing the letters on each notecard. His progress was quick! Within that day, he had managed to say his first word! As the days passed, Lu grew restless. During his studies, he fidgeted and would frequently stare out the window. Any time this became distracting, dad would place Lu on his feet, and he would teach him how to walk. Left foot, right foot, he marched around the house and he loved it. Lu frequently demanded to be lifted and loved his time spent with dad. “Up! Up!” he would eagerly demand with his arms up high.      
“Looking to be with your old man?” dad teased as he picked him up and held him above his head. Lu laughed as he was spun, but almost as fast as he was picked up he was put down again. The fun had ended much too soon for his likes, and he called out to dad who was headed to the front door. As dad turned and their eyes locked, Lu stood up and he raised his arms, a hopeful smile on his face until he fell backwards. “Sorry Louis… daddy has to go out. I’ll try to get you a little something,” was all he said with a smile and thumbs up before he exited and the front door locked with a click. Lu smiled weakly at the promise, but shortly after he crawled to the door and reached desperately towards the doorknob.       After a few minutes of fruitless scratching, he turned his attention to the rest of the room. With only a quick glance, he decided to make a beeline for the sofa then climb onto a seat.
      He turned around and sat on the right-most cushion. The comfortable feeling of the springy cushion pushed him back up and he smiled. He bounced softly, increasing his vigor with disregard to the noise of the sofa colliding with the coffee table. With enough banging, the remote that sat on the table edge fell to the floor and turned on the T.V. He dropped himself to the floor to approach the remote, as the sound of a DVD menu played from all around him as a menu appeared on the screen. Slowly he picked up the remote, carefully examining the strange device. He pressed the big round button in the middle and the movie started to play. He watched the opening credits scroll up from the bottom and took a seat as the music commanded his attention.
      Lu loved everything about the film! The instant the credits finished, he picked up the remote and swung it around as he made swooshing noises with his mouth. Despite having fallen over constantly he had fun swinging his imaginary sword around, vanquishing imaginary foes. He stumbled his way into the kitchen and his eyes lit up upon seeing a roll of paper towels on the edge of the kitchen counter. He grabbed the nearest chair and quickly the paper towels were nabbed. With the remote discarded and the paper towels removed from the roll, the chair was experimentally bopped, then harder again. Soon he started banging it against everything around him. It was great, but something was missing. He hurried into dad’s bedroom, and leaped up to the robe that hung from the back of his door. They both dropped to the floor and Lu emerged wearing the oversized clothing. He headed back out to the kitchen as he swung the “sword”, the sleeves of the robe would swallow his arms often. He struck everything around him with the tube, a satisfying hollow thunk accompanied each strike.
The sound of the front door being unlocked halted him in place. He scurried as fast as he could towards the door then sat up. Surely enough, dad opened the door. Bewildered, he looked over Lu and his robe. Seeing Lu raise the cardboard tube triumphantly over his head to greet him prompted an eyebrow to raise over this bizarre scene. Slowly, the memory of last night crawled into his mind, and dad winced as he slowly scanned the room. Lu stood up and raised his other arm as he early said “Up!” Dad obliged and picked up Lu, wrapping him up in his robe as paper towels fell  in clumped balls as the robe bottom was upside down. “Is this how you greet me? Stealing my clothes and my paper towels?” dad asked as he stifled a laugh.       Lu’s response was to make a “Bzzt” sound as he touched the cardboard tube against dad, who cried out in playful and ham-fisted pain. He dramatically limped his way to the sofa then dropped Lu onto it. With a last gasp, he collapsed next to Lu, and makes a whimper.
“Were you doing this all day?” he  asked as he sprung up to his feet to quickly get to the front door.       Lu’s response was an excited “Mhm!” as he sat firmly on the sofa, all giddy as dad came back in with shopping bags and a big smile. The groceries were stuffed away as Lu fiddled with the remote. He made his way to the sofa with wrapped treats and replaced the remote in Lu’s hand with a treat. Lu crawled into dad’s lap as he started the movie once more. ”I hope you don’t mind watching it again,” he said as he wrapped an arm around Lu, hugging gently as he opened his snack. Dad sighed as he settled in, Lu starry eyed stared at the opening text crawl once again. The rest of the night was uneventful, except for random bops from the cardboard tube.
      Dad wanted to do his best to raise Lu to be happy and healthy with the time he had left, but could he do it right?