A Late Start

Coming Home

I stood on the doorstep of my own home, I knew mom was inside and Lucy was standing behind me. This will be the first time the two have seen each other in 12 years. God, I hope this goes well.
"Alright, Lucy. I'm going to head inside, and tell mom that I have a surprise. When I open the door again, come in and introduce yourself," I declared.
"Alexis, do we really need a dramatic reveal? Can't I just come in with you and explain the situation to her?" Lucy replied flatly.
"Oh, uh. I guess we could do it that way too if you think it's a better idea."
"There's no need to complicate everything with needless plans, child."
"Alright, fine. Come on in," I sighed, defeated. I pulled open the door and called out "Mom, I'm home."
"Good to see you back hon, I was beginning to worry about you." She called from upstairs.
"Mom, we've been over this, I can take care of myself. I'm sixteen you know?"
"I think you've given me more than enough reason to doubt your ability to take care of yourself." I didn't really have a response to that.
"Could you come downstairs, please? I have a surprise for you."
"In a minute hon, I'm just drying my hair." Silas jumped off my shoulder as I walked past the kitchen counter and put my bag down.
"Any of you guys hungry?" I asked the three pokemon standing behind me.
"We're fine." Came Lucy's response. "The Eevee would like some though." Silas glanced back at her, a look of shock on his face as he hadn't even moved after dropping onto the counter.
"She can read your aura, buddy. Lucarios usually know what someone is thinking or feeling. Sometimes even before they do." He scoffed at me "don't get all pouty, do you want dinner or not?"
"Voi..." he chirped dejectedly.
"That's what I thought." He looked up at me when I placed his bowl in front of him. "You know as well as I do that we ran out of berries, we'll go out and get some more tomorrow." He reluctantly started eating, so I turned away and started preparing something for myself.
"I know how you feel, pal. I never much liked that stuff either." I was surprised to hear Lucy speak to him in English.
"His name's Silas if you were wondering."
"Ah, well it's an honour to meet you, Silas," Silas grumbled in response. "He seems... cheerful."
"He hates losing, so he's probably bummed out that we didn't catch anything today," I told her.
"Why were you so desperate for that catch?"
"It was a stupid bet I made with my friend, Ethan. If I caught a pokemon by the end of the day he was going to give me 3000 bucks. I hadn't caught anything by the time I ran into you and well, you know the rest."
"And what do you owe if you lose?"
"He wants me to enter some tournament with him, and he's taking whatever we win."
"Why not go out and catch something now? The night is still young."
"Mom has me on curfew after a recent... Incident. I don't really want to get into it."
"Then I won't pry, but I know there were plenty of other pokemon in that forest, why were you after Erah specifically?"
"Who? Oh. Right, Honestly, no real reason other than showing off, I didn't want to go for something too easy and since he wasn't paying attention I was able to sneak up so I thought it worth a try."
"Even after he ran off?"
"Well, I didn't want to just give up on it, Riolu are incredibly rare."
"I could have killed you."
"Yeah... I guess you could have. I wasn't expecting you to be there though, It's rare to see pokemon as strong as you around here."
"Rare, but not impossible. Had you considered what might have happened if it was some OTHER Lucario, one that didn't know you?"
"Not really, it hadn't occurred to me that it was even on the table."
"A little foresight can go a long way, Alexis. You should be more careful."
"I've been getting that a lot recently..." I couldn't help being a little mad, even if it was just because they are looking out for me.

I heard mom's footsteps coming down the stairs.
"Alright, so what's this surprise then?" She called out on her way down. She stopped at the base of the stairs staring straight at Lucy. "You, brought a Lucario home with you?"
"Ahah, yeah, about that..."
"Please tell me that this is YOUR Lucario and not just some wild one you led to our home."
"Well, it's not exactly mine, per se."
"Alexis... what did you do?"
"Mom, you remember Lucy right?" She froze as soon as I said the name, now staring straight at me.
"Yes. I do. Why?"
"Well, You'll never guess who I ran into out at the ranch." I gestured towards Lucy.
"Long time no see, Sarah." Lucy introduced herself calmly.
"No. This can't be. You can't be." Mom stammered.
"You met each other just outside of Virbank City, 20 years ago on the 19th of July. I was still just a Riolu back then. You were in complete awe of how cute I was when we first met."
"Lucy..." moms face began twitching, I could see tears behind her eyes as she began to fall to her knees. Within the blink of an eye, Lucy had rushed to her side, catching her on her shoulder. "It's good to see you again." Mom sobbed
"As for you." I glanced across at Silas, who had stopped eating and I noticed the Riolu also ended up on the counter with him.
"Hey, uh, sorry about chasing you through the forest earlier," I said quietly. The blue pokemon did a hand gesture, indicating that it was no big deal.
"What took you so long to come back?" Mom continued.
"I did try to come back once before, but I overheard you speaking about pokemon with such distaste I thought it unwise to return with fresh wounds."
"You were probably right, I don't know if I would have been happy to see you back then. Even until recently. After Seymore disappeared. I had such hatred of pokemon and their trainers. I did everything I could to stop our daughter from following the same path. Some that I regretted even at the time." I noticed she had balled her fists behind Lucy's back. I felt like I wasn't supposed to be hearing this.
"You were afraid of losing another family member. Your feelings were justified."
"C'mon, Silas, we're leaving," I said quietly. Silas gave me a confused look. "I said we're leaving. Now come on." I picked him up gently and headed out the door.