Well, here's the first, of many hopefully, major story from me. This is a long time in the making so I hope even a couple of people can enjoy it. Please comment with how I can improve (or to just tease or interact with Cody or Casey) and favorite if you're crazy and want me to write more things.
Here we have Cody, a growlithe who up until very recently had been an orphan now a student at one of the most prestigious battling school around. And now the little diaper pup has been giving the news that he's going to have his first real and graded match since becoming a student, now begins his panicked preparations to not completely blow it.
Cody and Casey owned by Me
Mitch owned by takinoue
Teddy and Vanessa owned by and the icon for the story by The_Lost_One
Pokemon owned by Nintendo/Gamefreak
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First You Have To Crawl - Part One
Mitch was an instructor for one of the best battle academies in Kanto, where only the best and most skilled students went to learn how to use their skills and all the ins-and-outs of arena combat. Many of the tops of the pro-leagues have traveled through these halls on their way to being the best, and many more will follow. Mitch, or Mr. Williams as he was more commonly known, served as the head Fire Gym Coach for the school and a veteran part-time firefighter.
In his spare time he helps students that are falling behind in the fire-aspects of their training, but aren’t quite at the level of needing remedials. That’s what he was doing on this afternoon. A new late addition to the school’s roster, a growlithe by the name of Cody, had quite the natural talent for battling and on those grounds had been cleared for entry by Mitch himself at the judging. Sadly that natural talent came with the negatives of being solely self taught, and therefore a potential danger to himself and his fellow students. Mitch naturally came to the decision that the puppy-pokemon needed extra training to achieve his full potential.
“You’re doing well Cody! Keep up that pace!” The charizard called to the puppy pokemon currently running laps in preparation for his training, stretching his wings as he did so. He needed to stay limber after all. Mitch watched with a smile on his dragon-like face as he watched the growlithe keep going with his steady, confident movements. He was proud of how far the freshman had come in just a few sessions.
Not long after the watch around Mitch’s neck sounded the puppy’s release. Stumbling to a stop all semblance of confidence seemed to flee the growlithe. Mitch watched as Cody approached him, diaper crinkling loudly in the near empty gym. Even Mitch had to admit that Cody was abnormal for the school, the puppy was under 4 feet, diaper dependent, and scrawny beyond belief. Overall the puppy looked more like he belongs in a kindergarten or grade school, his proportions and looks being youthful to match his height. The last two, Mitch recalled, could be chocked up to the puppy’s long history as an orphan. He could only assume the height and looks were a strange bit of genetics.
Yet, almost as if to contradict what you’d think purposefully, nature gifted him with incredible fire power and strength, relative to his size at least. He clearly had all the potential to be a great battler, and Mitch was intent on helping his student reach it. “Alright buddy, let’s get your stretches started.” As per usual, jogging was followed with stretching. The puppy needed to be fully warmed up before attempting fire-based attacks.
Mitch watched closely as Cody began the standard stretches. Arms across the chest, bending down to touch his toes, which incidentally was made adorable by showing off his diaper, and sitting down to stretch out each leg. “Cody, new stretch today. I want you to lay on your back and reach for your toes please.” A moment of confusion and the puppy was hastening to comply.
Somehow Cody looked even younger on his back like that, reaching for his toes desperately and failing. The little things constantly just out of reach of his stubby fingers. Mitch didn’t really plan for the puppy to be able to do this properly first try, this was more or less an experiment to see where he might need more improvement. And that’s when Mitch saw several large scars across the puppy’s stomach.
“Hold on a minute Cody… how long have you had those scars?” Injuries like that, if recent, could be cause for serious alarm. Especially if they managed to damage his diaphragm in anyway. Mitch couldn’t help but wonder why this was left off the medical report.
Cody was hoping for this not to be brought up. His scars are a sore subject for him… but there wasn’t much choice but to explain them. “T-There about 9 years old I think…” While he couldn’t place his age all too well Cody could remember the incident like it happened yesterday. He could hardly forget when it repeated in his dreams like clockwork.
Before he needed diapers, back when he could boast he had “big boy undies”, back when he was still mostly normal. A young puppy of about 6, Cody was already an orphan. He’d been an orphan at Marble Hills for almost 5 years at that point… 5 years of utter Hell. The owner and head “caretaker” of the institution was a sadistic bastard and loved to treat the children under his care as living punching bags. Cody would never forget that sick grin the mightyena wore.
An older child chose to train himself as a battler to try and fight his way out of the orphanage decided to demonstrate to the littler kids, including Cody, his newest move, Seed Bomb. The pansage boy lost control of the attack almost immediately and sent most of the crowd to the hospital. Cody took the worst of it. This incident, on the bright side, did lead to the investigation and subsequent closel of Marble Hills Orphanage.
“That’s good. They shouldn’t affect you too much, but let me know if you have difficulty getting full breaths at any point or if they start to hurt. Okay little buddy?” Mitch’s voice shook Cody from his reminiscent stupor. The puppy nodded, not really sure what the zard had said, and stood up. Practice was ready to begin in full force.
“Keeping with that train of thought, we’ll start your breathing exercises.” Mitch smiled at the puppy pokemon, seemingly unaware that Cody wasn’t entirely their or that he’d been lost in thought. “Have you been practicing your breathing exercises, like I showed you?” The much larger mon asked in the way a parent might ask if a child had done their chores before eating ice cream. The kind of tone that, without intending to, made anyone receiving it to squirm like a naughty toddler regardless of their answer; Cody being no exception to this, especially since he had to answer in the negative, was left rubbing the back of his head and rocking on the backs of his feet.
“W-Well, about that…” What could he even say? Cody had no intention of telling his gym teacher anything about his after school “acting” job… he barely even wanted to think about it. With a sigh he just decided to go with a half truth, those were better than outright lies right? “I tried… don’t have a lot of free time after school right now…” The folded arms and “you messed up” look Mr. Williams was giving the puppy made him wish he could just melt right here and now.
With a shake of his head Mitch let out a condescending sigh, the kind one might use with a little kid that kept hiding stuff around the house, “You have to practice or you will go to remedials, Cody.” That got the puppy’s attention as he began trying to explain himself, stumbling over his words and slurring his words quite badly. A note on his charts came back to Mitch, the puppy suffered from a minor speech impediment. One of the few things not from the orphanage at all, just another poor pick from genetics.
The charizard put a hand on Cody’s head and shushed him softly. “I’m trying to help you. So, let me keep helping you. Start your breathing exercises.” A second to calm down and the puppy was taking a deep breath in and holding it like Mitch had shown him… almost. “No, no. Let it out. You need to get it deeper!” Cody released the breath, and then took another deep breath in. “Not deep enough. Again.”
It continued in this fashion until, finally, Mitch placed a hand on the lower portion of Cody’s chest and had the puppy inhale until he was satisfied. After that Cody seemed to have a handle on the breathing and so kept at it for a few minutes longer. “Okay, that’s enough buddy. Now we come to the serious part, non-contact fire moves.” The charizard said, giving Cody a stern, parental look that just screamed “safety first.”
Cody sighed and nodded, letting his breathing return to mostly normal. “I want you to show me your Flame Burst. Do it how you normally would.” Mitch said to the puppy, shifting into a more ready pose after years of firefighting. Cody nodded and took up position, legs spread a bit, shoulders squared, deeeeeep breath in… and finally a fairly large ball of fire rocketing out of Cody’s mouth and into the floor several feet away. It quickly fizzled out, but not before firing off it’s own smaller flames in its typical splash damage fashion.
Mitch nodded his approval and looked down at the puppy, “Now, hit the same spot. Exactly.” The most important part of safe arena battling for a fire type is good control over flames. Even Cody understood this as he nodded and sucked down air once again. Again the Flame Burst rocketed from the puppy mouth and… hit the same spot. A proud smile formed on Mitch’s face as Cody looked on it utter disbelief. It was the first time he’d managed to do it exactly right, usually he had a discrepancy of a few feet or more. “You’re improving Cody! Now, again. Same spot, please.” Cody repeated his actions again, with similar success.
“Now, let’s try and change it a bit.” The dragon-like pokemon pointed to a dummy setup for target practice, “I want you to hit that with the strongest Flamer Burst you can muster, without Sunny Day.” Stepping around the charizard Cody got in line with the dummy.
“Alright… I can do this…” Cody mumbled to himself, doing nothing to assuage his anxiety or fear. Breathing in deep the puppy could feel the heat boiling up inside of him, more intense than normal. Any non-fire type would likely seriously injure themselves trying to build up fire power like this at this skill level. Those thoughts faded as the switch flipped and Cody unleashed a ball of fire that looked much too large for the puppy and sent it careening at the dummy, Cody almost felt sorry for the thing. The ball of flame crashed into the fire-retardant figure and exploded, causing Mitch to immediately pull Cody back out of instinct, the charizard’s slightly torn and damaged wing wrapping around the puppy like a security blanket. Like before, though, the fire fizzled out thanks to the special coating on the gym and dummy.
After a moment the wing unfurled and Mitch looked down at Cody with a proud, almost parental, smile, “Nice! You’ve got a lot of firepower in those little lungs.” Cody couldn’t hide the pride that comment made well up inside him, the puppy’s tail wagging and ears perking. “Now, I want you to do the weakest one you can.” And that caught Cody a bit off guard, but after giving Mitch a quizzical look the growlithe marched forwards a few steps and sucked in a small breath. A small ball of fire, baby sized in comparison to the huge one that it followed, shot at the dummy. It barely made it move, but Mitch nodded approvingly anyways.
“Alright, buddy, another really strong one. Think you can manage?” Cody actually puffed up a bit at that comment, which really only served to make him look like an adorably pouty kindergartener being asked if he can open his juice box by himself, “Of course I can!” Cody chirped before sucking down as large a breath he could handle. Releasing it a large, not as large as the earlier one, ball of flames launched from the puppy’s mouth and struck the target. This final blow being enough to knock the dummy off it’s hook and onto the ground. “Great job Cody!” Mitch grinned, looking down to find Cody on his bottom coughing flames and looking dazed, “Break time then? Alright, gives me time to set the dummy back up.” And after quickly making sure the puppy hadn’t hurt himself at all, the faux-dragon walked off to do just that.
And just like that Cody was alone with his thoughts. “Good job Cody… a few attacks and you’re on your butt like a baby…” The puppy mumbled to himself, pulling one knee close to his chest and resting his chin on it. “Go ahead and prove them right why don’t you…” Sighing Cody tried to shake the thought away and focus on something else, anything else. The last thing he needed was to spiral here. The last thing he wanted was to start crying here. No, no that’d just make them all right, wouldn’t it?
Nine years. Nine, excruciatingly long, psychologically crushing years. Cody spent the nine years between the… incident and getting adopted being passed around between the hands of various understaffed, underprepared, underfunded, orphanages that were nowhere near as bad as Marble Hill. Sadly that didn’t place them high on the scale by default. Most of them were close to it, minus actual physical abuse.
Just about every orphanage treated Cody one of two ways. Either he was just another toddler they had to take care of, or he was treated even more delicately and as if he had serious mental developmental problems. Either way the baby gloves never came off. One of the worst offenders, Lake Purity, comes to mind. He spent the most time their past Marble Hills, a year and a half if not a bit more, and the entire time he was treated as no more than an infant. Cody was subjected to the same bedtimes, same wake-up times, same bathtimes, meal times, meals, play times, changing times, everything the infants were. If he tried to speak up or call for them to stop he was spanked, or pacifiered, or laid down for a nap.
Eventually Cody fell into the rhythm. He looked forward to his bottles of formula. He looked forward to going out to the sandbox with the other babies. He even stopped thinking for the most part.To this day he still deals witht he issues that left him with, one of which is an oral fixation that either his thumb or a pacifier typically has to indulge. The other being crippling self-esteem. As far as Cody’s concerned they were right, and it’s going to take a lot to prove them wrong to himself.
“Bad knews. The hooks melted, gonna have to wait for the maintenance guy to fix it tomorrow.” Once again Cody was rudely, and thankfully, ripped from his self loathing and remembrance. The puppy looked up at Mitch, who towered over him even more since he was still sat on his bottom, who had a disappointed expression on his face that would look at home on a little kid who learned he’s not getting an ice cream. “You’re free to go for today Cody. But I want you to do the exercises we talked about, okay?” Only after Cody nodded did the big zard smile, ruffle the puppy’s hair, and walk off.
Cody stood a few moments after the charizard had left through the large gym doors. “Guess I should go get dressed…” Patting his bottom lightly the puppy grimaced and started towards the doors., “Uhg, first a trip to the nurse I guess.” Cody still wanted to deck that pansage boy in the face, hard.
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Cody fussed with the hem of his shirt as he exited the nurse’s office. The shirt was a bit big on him, but that’s how the puppy likes them, this way his shirts hang a bit lower and cover and diaper that might peak out of his jeans. Of course it was trading looking childish in one way for another, but this way seemed much less embarrassing to Cody.
Finally getting his shirt how he wanted it Cody set off for his locker. “Alright, homework and then home.” He mumbled to himself as he waddled through the mostly empty hallways. School had ended almost an hour ago at this point, so he figured anyone still hanging around were dorm students or their friends. Cody sighed a bit and strived to keep his head down as much as possible to try and draw the least amount of attention.
It didn’t take long to reach his locker, which was unfortunately right in the main hall and meant he was more exposed than he’d like, and put his combination in. Though what greeted Cody was very unexpected. Sitting at the top of his text books was a small, white envelope sealed with the school’s crest. Terror the likes only school administration could muster welled up within the puppy pokemon as he hesitantly reached for it. Was this it? Was his scholarship getting dropped? Was he going to full remedials? Cody did not feel ready for this, but regardless his morbid curiosity drove him to peal back the sticker steal and take out the message.
Cody’s heart skipped a beat. And then his tail started to wag a mile a minute. “Cody Ignatrum-Sulnaphic, you are scheduled for an official, graded match against Casey Talas…” The rest of the details barely even registered to the puppy as he read over and over that first line. He had a battle? A REAL battle? The puppy could almost shout with glee, his first real battle ever!
“This is fantastic!” Cody whisper-shouted to himself, hugging the letter close. “I’m finally gonna prove myself… THIS IS GREAT!” No hint of a whisper this time as several students turned their heads towards him. The freshman looked confused, but all the upperclassmen present had knowing grins. Everyone got excited for their first match of the year. But one freshman in particular looked even more confused; a short-ish buizel boy watched what was obviously a lost kid cheer to himself after digging something out of some poor student’s, a big sibling hopefully, locker and no-one seemed to be doing anything. Maybe the culture here in Viridian was just weird.
Weird being subjective since the buizel looked fresh from the beach despite that being a fairly difficult task to achieve. No shirt, a necklace with some sort of clock on it, and board shorts were all he was adorned with (which would certainly make anyone in his age group interested in guys have a nose bleed with how fit the buizel is.) Never one to leave a child alone in need the freshman walked up and gently patted the head of the little growlithe toddler, “Hey little guy. You lose your mommy or somethin’?”
It took Cody a moment to understand what the water type had just said to him, his accent was very thick and he seemed to be doing nothing to try and lessen it. “What are you on about?” The puppy quickly fished his school ID from his pocket, this was enough of a regular occurrence that he was one of the few students that actually carried it everywhere, “I’m a student here.” Cody presented the annoying buizel guy with the badge.
“Huh…” Did they really let toddlers into this school? Maybe they had some sort of kindergarten he hadn’t been informed about… “Well, do you need help getting back to your carer?” The smile on his face was so genuine and good-natured it almost hurt to look at it.
“I’m 15! I’m a freshman!” Shoving the badge closer to the, what seemed to be around a foot, taller buizel’s face. This time it seemed that the buizel actually took the time to read the ID as he chuckled and backed off.
“Sorry for that dude. M’name’s Casey by the way.” He stuck his paw out for Cody to shake, Casey already forgetting any hint of conflict that may have been boiling. Cody on the other hand looked flabbergasted, as a look of realization slowly dawned on Casey, “Wait a minute… I’m supposed to fight you! Yeeeah, Cody from the letter, bro this is sweet!”
Cody could swear this guy came straight from some surfer movie. It was starting to seriously annoy Cody. “Yeah, whatever. Just leave me alone.” Turning away from the now hurt looking mon the fire-puppy started to waddle off. His annoyance clouding his judgement since it had yet to hit that the walking surfer-stereotype was his opponent… meaning he was facing a water type for his first match. So much for proving himself.
The puppy quickly shoved his books and notebooks necessary for homework later that night into his bag and took off. The sound of his locker slamming making several mon cringe, and earning him a couple dirty looks. Not that Cody cared, he was busy fuming internally about the condescending prick and how he looked forward to knocking him down a peg or two when… they… battled…
“Shit!” Once again Cody earned himself some dirty looks, this time from the passerbys on the street who were convinced someone was teaching their toddler to curse. Blushing Cody hurried along the sidewalk, trying not to listen to the mutterings about “babies” and “corrupted youths” as he made the trek back to his apartment. Neither of his parents were due back home for a few hours, he’d have time to think about things then.
Cody could see the building rising in the distance. Nothing about the apartment was exceptional. A worn green paint on the outside that did nothing to hide the weathered stucco beneath. Two outcroppings marked the second and third floors of the building, stairs sat exposed to the weather to let anyone climb to the apartments above. Cody’s was on the second floor and almost dead center of the building, not exactly the primest of reality.
With a groan Cody began carefully climbing the worn concrete steps to his apartment. The slickness of the steps coupled with his short legs made this a tedious climb that he only wished he didn’t have to endure everyday. What would normally be a couple minute climb at most for a normal mon his age took Cody a good five or more to finish. The puppy sighed as he leant against the door to his apartment and fished his key out.
A moment later Cody stepped in, and a moment after that he was unexpectedly pounced on by a slightly taller litleo boy. The door slammed shut behind him as Cody crashed into and the ground, a kitten holding both his shoulders and staring him in the eye. “Teddy… what the HELL!?” Cody’s anger flared up for a moment before he saw the adorable concern in his little cousin’s eyes… an unusual sight to say the least.
“You have a match!” Teddy squeaked out in his childish voice, his nervousness only making it sound all the cuter. The fourteen year old lion cub slowly realized just how… adorable he must have looked in this position and slid off, “S-Sorry Cody. Um, you have a match, right?” The sheepish look Teddy wore so naturally made any annoyance Cody may have still had melt away, a smile growing in it’s place.
“Yeah, I do. Next week.” The puppy pulled himself up onto his feet and wiped the dust off himself. “What are you doing here?” Cody had really been looking forward to a little down time to think. He needed to plan this carefully or else he’d lose… well, lose worse than he probably was going to anyways.
“We came over when we saw you had a match.” Cody cringed slightly as he heard the tell-tale, way more mature than he or Teddy, sing-songy voice of his older cousin. Vanessa. The vulpix girl appeared from the kitchen holding a tray with some cut-up berries on it… and two baby bottles. The blush Cody wore would have made any clown jealous.
Vanessa set the tray down on the coffee table and walked to the puppy and kitten and started looking them over to make sure both the littler mon were unhurt. Once she’d kissed the “boo-boo” Cody had gotten on his elbow she lead both the tiny teens to the couch and sat them down, taking a seat between them, and grabbed the bottles, “Here, drink up.” And Cody realized just how distracted his cousin was then as the vulpix handed Teddy a bottle of milk alongside the puppy getting his. Teddy wore a blush and fidgeted nervously, but obeyed his surrogate big sister by popping the bottle in his mouth and drinking.
Cody took his with much more hesitation, he knew he needed it, but he was really uncomfortable with his only a few months older cousin being in charge of them. While Teddy’s bottle was, hopefully, just normal milk Cody’s was a special formula designed to help the malnourished puppy put on and keep on weight that he desperately needs. An embarrassing way to take the medicine, but better than an IV drip in Cody’s opinion.
“Cody… you, you know that your opponent is a…” Vanessa stumbled on her words, a rare occurrence, as Cody gave a look that could kill and somehow managed not to look adorably silly behind his baba. The fox nodded and continued, “You know… good. Please be careful Cody, we don’t want to see you get hurt.” With a single motion Vanessa brought Cody’s head down onto her lap and was gently petting his hair, all Cody could manage was an undignified squeak of surprise.
As the gentle coddling and fussing continued Cody couldn’t help but debate on whether or not it’d be worth resisting. As much as the pup liked his dignity he couldn’t really bring himself to hate the affection, especially after being starved of it for most of life. And then there was the fact that Vanessa really was just worried about him, not exactly something he could fault his cousin for right?
Before he could make a decision Cody found himself suckling on air from his now empty bottle. The fact he had to actually force himself to stop brought the shame of having a residual suckling reflex front and center in the puppy’s mind. Somehow the fact he sucked on bottles and pacifiers and even his own thumb seemed more humiliating than the fact he piddled himself all the time… on second thought, no, no it didn’t. “Vanessa? Can you show me how to look up battle records in the library tomorrow?” Cody asked, needing to do something to break him from the spiral of self-loathing he was about to slip into… again.
“Of course Cody.” That sing-song tone came back in droves as Vanessa took both the empty bottles from the boys. “I used to look them up all the time for Big Top, so I’ll show the both of you.” As Vanessa hugged both the boys to her a small grin formed, “It’ll be just like when I used to take Teddy for story time at the library~!” Both boys groaned, Teddy much louder than Cody, as Vanessa launched into a story about Teddy as an even littler kitten for the umpteenth time that week.
Here we have Cody, a growlithe who up until very recently had been an orphan now a student at one of the most prestigious battling school around. And now the little diaper pup has been giving the news that he's going to have his first real and graded match since becoming a student, now begins his panicked preparations to not completely blow it.
Cody and Casey owned by Me
Mitch owned by takinoue
Teddy and Vanessa owned by and the icon for the story by The_Lost_One
Pokemon owned by Nintendo/Gamefreak
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First You Have To Crawl - Part One
Mitch was an instructor for one of the best battle academies in Kanto, where only the best and most skilled students went to learn how to use their skills and all the ins-and-outs of arena combat. Many of the tops of the pro-leagues have traveled through these halls on their way to being the best, and many more will follow. Mitch, or Mr. Williams as he was more commonly known, served as the head Fire Gym Coach for the school and a veteran part-time firefighter.
In his spare time he helps students that are falling behind in the fire-aspects of their training, but aren’t quite at the level of needing remedials. That’s what he was doing on this afternoon. A new late addition to the school’s roster, a growlithe by the name of Cody, had quite the natural talent for battling and on those grounds had been cleared for entry by Mitch himself at the judging. Sadly that natural talent came with the negatives of being solely self taught, and therefore a potential danger to himself and his fellow students. Mitch naturally came to the decision that the puppy-pokemon needed extra training to achieve his full potential.
“You’re doing well Cody! Keep up that pace!” The charizard called to the puppy pokemon currently running laps in preparation for his training, stretching his wings as he did so. He needed to stay limber after all. Mitch watched with a smile on his dragon-like face as he watched the growlithe keep going with his steady, confident movements. He was proud of how far the freshman had come in just a few sessions.
Not long after the watch around Mitch’s neck sounded the puppy’s release. Stumbling to a stop all semblance of confidence seemed to flee the growlithe. Mitch watched as Cody approached him, diaper crinkling loudly in the near empty gym. Even Mitch had to admit that Cody was abnormal for the school, the puppy was under 4 feet, diaper dependent, and scrawny beyond belief. Overall the puppy looked more like he belongs in a kindergarten or grade school, his proportions and looks being youthful to match his height. The last two, Mitch recalled, could be chocked up to the puppy’s long history as an orphan. He could only assume the height and looks were a strange bit of genetics.
Yet, almost as if to contradict what you’d think purposefully, nature gifted him with incredible fire power and strength, relative to his size at least. He clearly had all the potential to be a great battler, and Mitch was intent on helping his student reach it. “Alright buddy, let’s get your stretches started.” As per usual, jogging was followed with stretching. The puppy needed to be fully warmed up before attempting fire-based attacks.
Mitch watched closely as Cody began the standard stretches. Arms across the chest, bending down to touch his toes, which incidentally was made adorable by showing off his diaper, and sitting down to stretch out each leg. “Cody, new stretch today. I want you to lay on your back and reach for your toes please.” A moment of confusion and the puppy was hastening to comply.
Somehow Cody looked even younger on his back like that, reaching for his toes desperately and failing. The little things constantly just out of reach of his stubby fingers. Mitch didn’t really plan for the puppy to be able to do this properly first try, this was more or less an experiment to see where he might need more improvement. And that’s when Mitch saw several large scars across the puppy’s stomach.
“Hold on a minute Cody… how long have you had those scars?” Injuries like that, if recent, could be cause for serious alarm. Especially if they managed to damage his diaphragm in anyway. Mitch couldn’t help but wonder why this was left off the medical report.
Cody was hoping for this not to be brought up. His scars are a sore subject for him… but there wasn’t much choice but to explain them. “T-There about 9 years old I think…” While he couldn’t place his age all too well Cody could remember the incident like it happened yesterday. He could hardly forget when it repeated in his dreams like clockwork.
Before he needed diapers, back when he could boast he had “big boy undies”, back when he was still mostly normal. A young puppy of about 6, Cody was already an orphan. He’d been an orphan at Marble Hills for almost 5 years at that point… 5 years of utter Hell. The owner and head “caretaker” of the institution was a sadistic bastard and loved to treat the children under his care as living punching bags. Cody would never forget that sick grin the mightyena wore.
An older child chose to train himself as a battler to try and fight his way out of the orphanage decided to demonstrate to the littler kids, including Cody, his newest move, Seed Bomb. The pansage boy lost control of the attack almost immediately and sent most of the crowd to the hospital. Cody took the worst of it. This incident, on the bright side, did lead to the investigation and subsequent closel of Marble Hills Orphanage.
“That’s good. They shouldn’t affect you too much, but let me know if you have difficulty getting full breaths at any point or if they start to hurt. Okay little buddy?” Mitch’s voice shook Cody from his reminiscent stupor. The puppy nodded, not really sure what the zard had said, and stood up. Practice was ready to begin in full force.
“Keeping with that train of thought, we’ll start your breathing exercises.” Mitch smiled at the puppy pokemon, seemingly unaware that Cody wasn’t entirely their or that he’d been lost in thought. “Have you been practicing your breathing exercises, like I showed you?” The much larger mon asked in the way a parent might ask if a child had done their chores before eating ice cream. The kind of tone that, without intending to, made anyone receiving it to squirm like a naughty toddler regardless of their answer; Cody being no exception to this, especially since he had to answer in the negative, was left rubbing the back of his head and rocking on the backs of his feet.
“W-Well, about that…” What could he even say? Cody had no intention of telling his gym teacher anything about his after school “acting” job… he barely even wanted to think about it. With a sigh he just decided to go with a half truth, those were better than outright lies right? “I tried… don’t have a lot of free time after school right now…” The folded arms and “you messed up” look Mr. Williams was giving the puppy made him wish he could just melt right here and now.
With a shake of his head Mitch let out a condescending sigh, the kind one might use with a little kid that kept hiding stuff around the house, “You have to practice or you will go to remedials, Cody.” That got the puppy’s attention as he began trying to explain himself, stumbling over his words and slurring his words quite badly. A note on his charts came back to Mitch, the puppy suffered from a minor speech impediment. One of the few things not from the orphanage at all, just another poor pick from genetics.
The charizard put a hand on Cody’s head and shushed him softly. “I’m trying to help you. So, let me keep helping you. Start your breathing exercises.” A second to calm down and the puppy was taking a deep breath in and holding it like Mitch had shown him… almost. “No, no. Let it out. You need to get it deeper!” Cody released the breath, and then took another deep breath in. “Not deep enough. Again.”
It continued in this fashion until, finally, Mitch placed a hand on the lower portion of Cody’s chest and had the puppy inhale until he was satisfied. After that Cody seemed to have a handle on the breathing and so kept at it for a few minutes longer. “Okay, that’s enough buddy. Now we come to the serious part, non-contact fire moves.” The charizard said, giving Cody a stern, parental look that just screamed “safety first.”
Cody sighed and nodded, letting his breathing return to mostly normal. “I want you to show me your Flame Burst. Do it how you normally would.” Mitch said to the puppy, shifting into a more ready pose after years of firefighting. Cody nodded and took up position, legs spread a bit, shoulders squared, deeeeeep breath in… and finally a fairly large ball of fire rocketing out of Cody’s mouth and into the floor several feet away. It quickly fizzled out, but not before firing off it’s own smaller flames in its typical splash damage fashion.
Mitch nodded his approval and looked down at the puppy, “Now, hit the same spot. Exactly.” The most important part of safe arena battling for a fire type is good control over flames. Even Cody understood this as he nodded and sucked down air once again. Again the Flame Burst rocketed from the puppy mouth and… hit the same spot. A proud smile formed on Mitch’s face as Cody looked on it utter disbelief. It was the first time he’d managed to do it exactly right, usually he had a discrepancy of a few feet or more. “You’re improving Cody! Now, again. Same spot, please.” Cody repeated his actions again, with similar success.
“Now, let’s try and change it a bit.” The dragon-like pokemon pointed to a dummy setup for target practice, “I want you to hit that with the strongest Flamer Burst you can muster, without Sunny Day.” Stepping around the charizard Cody got in line with the dummy.
“Alright… I can do this…” Cody mumbled to himself, doing nothing to assuage his anxiety or fear. Breathing in deep the puppy could feel the heat boiling up inside of him, more intense than normal. Any non-fire type would likely seriously injure themselves trying to build up fire power like this at this skill level. Those thoughts faded as the switch flipped and Cody unleashed a ball of fire that looked much too large for the puppy and sent it careening at the dummy, Cody almost felt sorry for the thing. The ball of flame crashed into the fire-retardant figure and exploded, causing Mitch to immediately pull Cody back out of instinct, the charizard’s slightly torn and damaged wing wrapping around the puppy like a security blanket. Like before, though, the fire fizzled out thanks to the special coating on the gym and dummy.
After a moment the wing unfurled and Mitch looked down at Cody with a proud, almost parental, smile, “Nice! You’ve got a lot of firepower in those little lungs.” Cody couldn’t hide the pride that comment made well up inside him, the puppy’s tail wagging and ears perking. “Now, I want you to do the weakest one you can.” And that caught Cody a bit off guard, but after giving Mitch a quizzical look the growlithe marched forwards a few steps and sucked in a small breath. A small ball of fire, baby sized in comparison to the huge one that it followed, shot at the dummy. It barely made it move, but Mitch nodded approvingly anyways.
“Alright, buddy, another really strong one. Think you can manage?” Cody actually puffed up a bit at that comment, which really only served to make him look like an adorably pouty kindergartener being asked if he can open his juice box by himself, “Of course I can!” Cody chirped before sucking down as large a breath he could handle. Releasing it a large, not as large as the earlier one, ball of flames launched from the puppy’s mouth and struck the target. This final blow being enough to knock the dummy off it’s hook and onto the ground. “Great job Cody!” Mitch grinned, looking down to find Cody on his bottom coughing flames and looking dazed, “Break time then? Alright, gives me time to set the dummy back up.” And after quickly making sure the puppy hadn’t hurt himself at all, the faux-dragon walked off to do just that.
And just like that Cody was alone with his thoughts. “Good job Cody… a few attacks and you’re on your butt like a baby…” The puppy mumbled to himself, pulling one knee close to his chest and resting his chin on it. “Go ahead and prove them right why don’t you…” Sighing Cody tried to shake the thought away and focus on something else, anything else. The last thing he needed was to spiral here. The last thing he wanted was to start crying here. No, no that’d just make them all right, wouldn’t it?
Nine years. Nine, excruciatingly long, psychologically crushing years. Cody spent the nine years between the… incident and getting adopted being passed around between the hands of various understaffed, underprepared, underfunded, orphanages that were nowhere near as bad as Marble Hill. Sadly that didn’t place them high on the scale by default. Most of them were close to it, minus actual physical abuse.
Just about every orphanage treated Cody one of two ways. Either he was just another toddler they had to take care of, or he was treated even more delicately and as if he had serious mental developmental problems. Either way the baby gloves never came off. One of the worst offenders, Lake Purity, comes to mind. He spent the most time their past Marble Hills, a year and a half if not a bit more, and the entire time he was treated as no more than an infant. Cody was subjected to the same bedtimes, same wake-up times, same bathtimes, meal times, meals, play times, changing times, everything the infants were. If he tried to speak up or call for them to stop he was spanked, or pacifiered, or laid down for a nap.
Eventually Cody fell into the rhythm. He looked forward to his bottles of formula. He looked forward to going out to the sandbox with the other babies. He even stopped thinking for the most part.To this day he still deals witht he issues that left him with, one of which is an oral fixation that either his thumb or a pacifier typically has to indulge. The other being crippling self-esteem. As far as Cody’s concerned they were right, and it’s going to take a lot to prove them wrong to himself.
“Bad knews. The hooks melted, gonna have to wait for the maintenance guy to fix it tomorrow.” Once again Cody was rudely, and thankfully, ripped from his self loathing and remembrance. The puppy looked up at Mitch, who towered over him even more since he was still sat on his bottom, who had a disappointed expression on his face that would look at home on a little kid who learned he’s not getting an ice cream. “You’re free to go for today Cody. But I want you to do the exercises we talked about, okay?” Only after Cody nodded did the big zard smile, ruffle the puppy’s hair, and walk off.
Cody stood a few moments after the charizard had left through the large gym doors. “Guess I should go get dressed…” Patting his bottom lightly the puppy grimaced and started towards the doors., “Uhg, first a trip to the nurse I guess.” Cody still wanted to deck that pansage boy in the face, hard.
*******************************
Cody fussed with the hem of his shirt as he exited the nurse’s office. The shirt was a bit big on him, but that’s how the puppy likes them, this way his shirts hang a bit lower and cover and diaper that might peak out of his jeans. Of course it was trading looking childish in one way for another, but this way seemed much less embarrassing to Cody.
Finally getting his shirt how he wanted it Cody set off for his locker. “Alright, homework and then home.” He mumbled to himself as he waddled through the mostly empty hallways. School had ended almost an hour ago at this point, so he figured anyone still hanging around were dorm students or their friends. Cody sighed a bit and strived to keep his head down as much as possible to try and draw the least amount of attention.
It didn’t take long to reach his locker, which was unfortunately right in the main hall and meant he was more exposed than he’d like, and put his combination in. Though what greeted Cody was very unexpected. Sitting at the top of his text books was a small, white envelope sealed with the school’s crest. Terror the likes only school administration could muster welled up within the puppy pokemon as he hesitantly reached for it. Was this it? Was his scholarship getting dropped? Was he going to full remedials? Cody did not feel ready for this, but regardless his morbid curiosity drove him to peal back the sticker steal and take out the message.
Cody’s heart skipped a beat. And then his tail started to wag a mile a minute. “Cody Ignatrum-Sulnaphic, you are scheduled for an official, graded match against Casey Talas…” The rest of the details barely even registered to the puppy as he read over and over that first line. He had a battle? A REAL battle? The puppy could almost shout with glee, his first real battle ever!
“This is fantastic!” Cody whisper-shouted to himself, hugging the letter close. “I’m finally gonna prove myself… THIS IS GREAT!” No hint of a whisper this time as several students turned their heads towards him. The freshman looked confused, but all the upperclassmen present had knowing grins. Everyone got excited for their first match of the year. But one freshman in particular looked even more confused; a short-ish buizel boy watched what was obviously a lost kid cheer to himself after digging something out of some poor student’s, a big sibling hopefully, locker and no-one seemed to be doing anything. Maybe the culture here in Viridian was just weird.
Weird being subjective since the buizel looked fresh from the beach despite that being a fairly difficult task to achieve. No shirt, a necklace with some sort of clock on it, and board shorts were all he was adorned with (which would certainly make anyone in his age group interested in guys have a nose bleed with how fit the buizel is.) Never one to leave a child alone in need the freshman walked up and gently patted the head of the little growlithe toddler, “Hey little guy. You lose your mommy or somethin’?”
It took Cody a moment to understand what the water type had just said to him, his accent was very thick and he seemed to be doing nothing to try and lessen it. “What are you on about?” The puppy quickly fished his school ID from his pocket, this was enough of a regular occurrence that he was one of the few students that actually carried it everywhere, “I’m a student here.” Cody presented the annoying buizel guy with the badge.
“Huh…” Did they really let toddlers into this school? Maybe they had some sort of kindergarten he hadn’t been informed about… “Well, do you need help getting back to your carer?” The smile on his face was so genuine and good-natured it almost hurt to look at it.
“I’m 15! I’m a freshman!” Shoving the badge closer to the, what seemed to be around a foot, taller buizel’s face. This time it seemed that the buizel actually took the time to read the ID as he chuckled and backed off.
“Sorry for that dude. M’name’s Casey by the way.” He stuck his paw out for Cody to shake, Casey already forgetting any hint of conflict that may have been boiling. Cody on the other hand looked flabbergasted, as a look of realization slowly dawned on Casey, “Wait a minute… I’m supposed to fight you! Yeeeah, Cody from the letter, bro this is sweet!”
Cody could swear this guy came straight from some surfer movie. It was starting to seriously annoy Cody. “Yeah, whatever. Just leave me alone.” Turning away from the now hurt looking mon the fire-puppy started to waddle off. His annoyance clouding his judgement since it had yet to hit that the walking surfer-stereotype was his opponent… meaning he was facing a water type for his first match. So much for proving himself.
The puppy quickly shoved his books and notebooks necessary for homework later that night into his bag and took off. The sound of his locker slamming making several mon cringe, and earning him a couple dirty looks. Not that Cody cared, he was busy fuming internally about the condescending prick and how he looked forward to knocking him down a peg or two when… they… battled…
“Shit!” Once again Cody earned himself some dirty looks, this time from the passerbys on the street who were convinced someone was teaching their toddler to curse. Blushing Cody hurried along the sidewalk, trying not to listen to the mutterings about “babies” and “corrupted youths” as he made the trek back to his apartment. Neither of his parents were due back home for a few hours, he’d have time to think about things then.
Cody could see the building rising in the distance. Nothing about the apartment was exceptional. A worn green paint on the outside that did nothing to hide the weathered stucco beneath. Two outcroppings marked the second and third floors of the building, stairs sat exposed to the weather to let anyone climb to the apartments above. Cody’s was on the second floor and almost dead center of the building, not exactly the primest of reality.
With a groan Cody began carefully climbing the worn concrete steps to his apartment. The slickness of the steps coupled with his short legs made this a tedious climb that he only wished he didn’t have to endure everyday. What would normally be a couple minute climb at most for a normal mon his age took Cody a good five or more to finish. The puppy sighed as he leant against the door to his apartment and fished his key out.
A moment later Cody stepped in, and a moment after that he was unexpectedly pounced on by a slightly taller litleo boy. The door slammed shut behind him as Cody crashed into and the ground, a kitten holding both his shoulders and staring him in the eye. “Teddy… what the HELL!?” Cody’s anger flared up for a moment before he saw the adorable concern in his little cousin’s eyes… an unusual sight to say the least.
“You have a match!” Teddy squeaked out in his childish voice, his nervousness only making it sound all the cuter. The fourteen year old lion cub slowly realized just how… adorable he must have looked in this position and slid off, “S-Sorry Cody. Um, you have a match, right?” The sheepish look Teddy wore so naturally made any annoyance Cody may have still had melt away, a smile growing in it’s place.
“Yeah, I do. Next week.” The puppy pulled himself up onto his feet and wiped the dust off himself. “What are you doing here?” Cody had really been looking forward to a little down time to think. He needed to plan this carefully or else he’d lose… well, lose worse than he probably was going to anyways.
“We came over when we saw you had a match.” Cody cringed slightly as he heard the tell-tale, way more mature than he or Teddy, sing-songy voice of his older cousin. Vanessa. The vulpix girl appeared from the kitchen holding a tray with some cut-up berries on it… and two baby bottles. The blush Cody wore would have made any clown jealous.
Vanessa set the tray down on the coffee table and walked to the puppy and kitten and started looking them over to make sure both the littler mon were unhurt. Once she’d kissed the “boo-boo” Cody had gotten on his elbow she lead both the tiny teens to the couch and sat them down, taking a seat between them, and grabbed the bottles, “Here, drink up.” And Cody realized just how distracted his cousin was then as the vulpix handed Teddy a bottle of milk alongside the puppy getting his. Teddy wore a blush and fidgeted nervously, but obeyed his surrogate big sister by popping the bottle in his mouth and drinking.
Cody took his with much more hesitation, he knew he needed it, but he was really uncomfortable with his only a few months older cousin being in charge of them. While Teddy’s bottle was, hopefully, just normal milk Cody’s was a special formula designed to help the malnourished puppy put on and keep on weight that he desperately needs. An embarrassing way to take the medicine, but better than an IV drip in Cody’s opinion.
“Cody… you, you know that your opponent is a…” Vanessa stumbled on her words, a rare occurrence, as Cody gave a look that could kill and somehow managed not to look adorably silly behind his baba. The fox nodded and continued, “You know… good. Please be careful Cody, we don’t want to see you get hurt.” With a single motion Vanessa brought Cody’s head down onto her lap and was gently petting his hair, all Cody could manage was an undignified squeak of surprise.
As the gentle coddling and fussing continued Cody couldn’t help but debate on whether or not it’d be worth resisting. As much as the pup liked his dignity he couldn’t really bring himself to hate the affection, especially after being starved of it for most of life. And then there was the fact that Vanessa really was just worried about him, not exactly something he could fault his cousin for right?
Before he could make a decision Cody found himself suckling on air from his now empty bottle. The fact he had to actually force himself to stop brought the shame of having a residual suckling reflex front and center in the puppy’s mind. Somehow the fact he sucked on bottles and pacifiers and even his own thumb seemed more humiliating than the fact he piddled himself all the time… on second thought, no, no it didn’t. “Vanessa? Can you show me how to look up battle records in the library tomorrow?” Cody asked, needing to do something to break him from the spiral of self-loathing he was about to slip into… again.
“Of course Cody.” That sing-song tone came back in droves as Vanessa took both the empty bottles from the boys. “I used to look them up all the time for Big Top, so I’ll show the both of you.” As Vanessa hugged both the boys to her a small grin formed, “It’ll be just like when I used to take Teddy for story time at the library~!” Both boys groaned, Teddy much louder than Cody, as Vanessa launched into a story about Teddy as an even littler kitten for the umpteenth time that week.
Category Story / Pokemon
Species Pokemon
Gender Multiple characters
Size 366 x 455px
Listed in Folders
Congrats on your first big story! =D *hugs you* Hope to see more in the near future~
Now, as for interacting...
Hey Casey, what'cha think about all these toddlers at the school~?
And as for Cody...
*gets him swim diapers and water wings* You're gonna need em~
Now, as for interacting...
Hey Casey, what'cha think about all these toddlers at the school~?
And as for Cody...
*gets him swim diapers and water wings* You're gonna need em~
Thanks... hope I can make something decent of this little series.
Casey: It's weird... does the school run a daycare or somethin'?
Cody: ...-not saying anything, since he doesn't know how to swim-
Casey: It's weird... does the school run a daycare or somethin'?
Cody: ...-not saying anything, since he doesn't know how to swim-
I'm sure you can =3
Dunno, heck there's a team of them would you believe? Name Team Pre-K. Goofy, huh~?
Don't mention that around Vanessa, she'll talk your mommy into signing you up for baby swim lessons come next summer~ =P
Dunno, heck there's a team of them would you believe? Name Team Pre-K. Goofy, huh~?
Don't mention that around Vanessa, she'll talk your mommy into signing you up for baby swim lessons come next summer~ =P
Way to go Cody~ Very good first Big story! Can't wait for the next one~ :3
[Interacting Time in Rockruff Form] (Why Rockruff? cause it's basically the closest pokemon that matches me.)
So Cody? Think the Big Boy can handle Casey huh? *grins as he scratches under Cody's chin like he's a little pup, boosting your "big boy" ego*
[Interacting Time in Rockruff Form] (Why Rockruff? cause it's basically the closest pokemon that matches me.)
So Cody? Think the Big Boy can handle Casey huh? *grins as he scratches under Cody's chin like he's a little pup, boosting your "big boy" ego*
Hope to have the next one out before the years end, and really hope it can live up to your expectations!
Cody: *just grumbles and pouts*
Cody: *just grumbles and pouts*
If it don't, that's okay~ It'll at least be a cu- uhh interesting read~
Flint: Hey~ I'm just playing with you man. >wO *stops scratching only to lay him on my lap and belly drums on his tummy softly* Besides there's more to battling than Type Advantage. :3 I'm sure you'd find a way to sizzle out his water moves. ^w^ *sits you up for a hug and a stealth, diaper check*
Flint: Hey~ I'm just playing with you man. >wO *stops scratching only to lay him on my lap and belly drums on his tummy softly* Besides there's more to battling than Type Advantage. :3 I'm sure you'd find a way to sizzle out his water moves. ^w^ *sits you up for a hug and a stealth, diaper check*
Oooh... This is going to be a good match^^ hehe.. just do your best, lil Cody. and try some not so thick diapers for the match =3
Not so thick diapers or swim diapers, one of those two is going to have to happen for lil Cody~
Yush... get not so thick ones... but look for adorable ones for lil Cody =D
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