#also - Broke: Killing Mama Charizard so Sycamore can adopt Alan
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So since you're taking fandom asks uhhhh do you have any more thoughts/ideas about your pokemon fantasy au? Specifically about Alan? I just love him and that au a lot<3
Just so you know, I am always taking fandom asks. I might not answer them right away because I havenât spent as much time on tumblr ever since I got my new job last year (because tumblr is blocked there for being a âvideo sharing site,â hilarious though that is), but I love talking about fandoms and am always down to take questions about them.
That said, I sure do!
I donât know how much of this Iâve shared here before, and if I repeat anything you already know then my bad, but what I have so far is:
â Alan hails from the Kingdom of Kalos, and is one of the Keepers of the Spirit of a Mythical PokĂ©mon â in his case, Keldeo.
â And on that note, before we proceed further, that is a change I made. I originally had him as the Keeper of Victini, but I decided to change it to Keldeo because even though Victini is my favorite mythical and fire-type suits him more than water-type, Keldeo fits Alan to a T. Orphaned at a young age but happily adopted, determination to become stronger, so determined it has a resolute form, and Alanâs leitmotif in The Strongest Mega Evolution / XY&Z is actually sampled from Keldeoâs theme from its movie, âThe Legend of the Sacred Swordsmanâ. Everything fits. So in conclusion, the boy is the Keeper of Keldeo, I donât make the rules. I mean, I do, but my hands are pretty tied on this one. Moving on . . .Â
â Soon after his birth, one of King Lysandreâs mages, Xerosic, identified infant Alan as the Keeper of Keldeo. Highly motivated to bring as many Keepers into his service as he could (and raising one from infancy to be loyal to him was the best situation he could ask for), Lysandre sent his knights along with Xerosic to obtain the child and bring him back. Lysandreâs knights did find baby Alan and his parents living in a remote town, but unlike in canon, Alanâs parents were not willing to hand their baby over to the king and a fight broke out. Alanâs motherâs familyâs guards fought against the knights, and ultimately, were unsuccessful. Many of the guards and pretty much all of Alanâs family, his parents included, were slain. But somehow, Alan himself was lost in the battle. Lysandreâs knights searched through all corpses and burnt wreckage, but they couldnât find the infant anywhere. Assuming him to have died and his body too mangled to identify, they reluctantly returned to the castle to deliver the news.
â In reality, what actually happened is that Alanâs mother, knowing that the battle was going to be lost and not wanting her son raised by the king, did what any panicked and terrified mother would do and put her son in a sling around the neck and shoulders of one of the familyâs Charizard and sent the dragon away with baby Alan and the Charizardâs own baby Charmander (who, incidentally, hatched from his egg the very same day Alan was born). The Charizard was offended â she felt she should get to stay and fight â but ultimately the safety of the babies won out (particularly since, like any other pokĂ©mon, the Charizard could sense the Spirit of Keldeo within baby Alan and knew that he was someone to be protected) and so she took off with both human infant and Charizard baby in tow.
â And so, for the next few years, Alan was raised by a Charizard in the mountains, an absolute feral child. He didnât know how to speak human language, nor did he know how to speak Charmander / Charizard (he made growls and similar sounds, but thatâs not the same as language), though he could communicate with them well enough. Mama Charizard made sure that Alan stayed fed, fed him curing berries when he got sick (which didnât work as well as they did for pokĂ©mon, but she tried), and he grew up with her baby as his brother. The two often wrestled and play-sparred, which resulted in quite a few injuries for Alan at first as the Charmander didnât quite realize that Alanâs human skin wasnât as tough as a fellow Charmanderâs scales, but the two bonded exceedingly quickly and would remain inseparable for the rest of their lives.
â However, as mentioned, this only lasted for a few years. Neither King Lysandre nor Xerosic truly believed that Alan had perished in that battle, and so Xerosic had continued scrying for him ever since while Lysandre sent out search parties to the mountains. Every time they got near, Mama Charizard took both her babies and flew to another remote location, deeper and deeper into the mountains. It was deep in a cavernous ravine that tragedy struck; an earthquake triggered by Lysandreâs knights battling wild Tyranitar caused a rockslide, and though Mama Charizard managed to get her sons out of the way, she didnât manage to escape herself. Boulders too heavy for her to move and at too awkward a position for her to melt pinned her to the ground. Her wings were crushed; she wouldnât be able to properly defend her babies if danger came.
â Fortunately, danger did not come, but help did. A powerful sage named Olympia foresaw this tragedy, and though she knew that she couldnât do anything to interfere with it happening because that would put the future too far off course, she could prevent it from getting any worse. She arrived soon after the tragedy struck, and though Mama Charizard was at first very defensive against her (believing her to be one of the humans out to hurt her human son), Olympia was able to convince her that she was there to help. Olympiaâs psychic pokĂ©mon moved the boulders pinning Mama Charizard, freeing her so that she could move again . . . but only in limited capacity, given the breaks and tears in her wings. It was then that Olympia told Mama Charizard that she could take her and her babies to someone who would keep all three of them safe. Still wary, but with no other options, Mama Charizard relented.Â
â It was a long journey, given that Mama Charizard could not fly and would not consent to a pokĂ©ball, but eventually Olympia moved all three safely to a quiet village â and, more specifically, to the home of an alchemist named Augustine Sycamore. Sycamore was, of course, pretty shocked to see Olympia show up with a severely wounded Charizard, a toddler Charmander, and a feral human toddler in tow, but after Olympia explained the situation (Mama Charizard was too injured to survive in the wild anymore, the toddlers wouldnât survive on their own either, the human boy should probably become civilized and was also the Keeper of Keldeo and needed to be protected by a trustworthy guardian), Sycamore agreed to take them all in.
â As an alchemist rather than a monster trainer, Sycamore didnât exactly have the qualifications to care for injured dragons. Despite this, he had a very spacious plot of land that he had inherited from his family, and as such Mama Charizard had more than enough room to recover, even if she would never be able to leave again due to her injured wings. Additionally, Sycamore made sure she knew that he wasnât intending to take her babies from her, although in the eyes of the law he was adopting the human boy, but that didnât mean he would prevent Mama Charizard from being part of his life. (Also, Mama Charizard could not fly, but she could still melt boulders, so Sycamore wasnât going to push his luck on that one.)
â That said, if he was going to be adopted by a human parent, the feral child did need a name, and calling him âKeeper of Keldeoâ would do the exact opposite of what Olympia said needed to be done to ensure his secrecy and safety. As such, Sycamore named him âAlanâ, and set about teaching him how to do things like read, write, speak, and otherwise live in human society.
â When it came to being civilized, three-year-old Alan did not go quietly into the good night.
â For starters, he hated clothing. Heâd never worn clothing before in his memory before Olympia found him and yanked things over his legs and tugged something over his head, and heâd been just fine. He didnât understand why Olympia or Sycamore wanted to put him in clothes all the time and thus took them off at every opportunity. He also pitched a fit every single night he had to sleep indoors in a bed versus outside with his mother and brother. Eventually a compromise was made that both Alan and the Charmander would sleep indoors in the bed, but even then, Sycamore woke up no few mornings to find them both outside with Mama Charizard again. (And Mama Charizard was of no help in this department; if nothing else, she looked Smug when Sycamore saw the boys curled up against her chest beneath her wing.) Additionally, for the longest time Sycamore thought he was making no progress teaching Alan human language; he went over books with him every single day, but still Alan wouldnât say a single word to him, with his only vocalizations being growls instead. It wasnât until a full six months had passed before Alan looked at Sycamore one day and said, âWhy donât you call my brother anything?â
Sycamore stared at him for a long moment before he sputtered, âYou can talk?â
âYes.â Alanâs glare was unwavering. âWhy doesnât my brother have a name?â
Sycamore didnât know whether to be elated the lessons had worked, bewildered why it took Alan so long to show that the lessons had worked, or a bit defensive at being so suddenly interrogated.
â Eventually, Sycamore told Alan that he and the Charmander should work out a name for said Charmander together, along with Mama Charizardâs input perhaps, and the name the two eventually came back with was Lizardon.
â Although Alan put up a stubborn fight pretty much every step of the way, by the time he was five heâd mostly acclimated to living like a human, and by the time he was six he took an active interest in Sycamoreâs alchemic studies. By age seven he was helping with some of the experiments, and by age nine he considered himself Sycamoreâs apprentice and hoped to one day become an alchemist himself. In other words, though it took time, the two bonded and came to love each other as father and son, and Alan came to be quite embarrassed about all the times he bit Sycamore when they first met. (It was quite a bit. He really didnât like that whole âwearing clothesâ thing.)
â As for Mama Charizard, she too gradually warmed up to letting Sycamore co-parent the boys. She also came to fall in love with Sycamoreâs Garchomp, Gabrielle, so soon Alan and Lizardon basically had two moms and a dad. All in all, things were going quite well for them.
â And then, as it always does . . . misfortune, steered by destiny, came knocking.
â All these years, Xerosic never stopped searching for the Keeper of Keldeo, and by the time Alan was 13, Xerosic finally found him. This time, Lysandre took a more measured approach to things; at age 13, Alan would not be as malleable as he would have been had Lysandre been able to take him as an infant. If Lysandre had his soldiers abduct Alan now, no doubt he would put up a fight, and the Spirit of Keldeo was one of Determination. If the Keeper wanted to leave, he would leave. Lysandre had to find a way to make him want to stay. As such, he decided to stage a danger that would convince Alan that he needed to join Lysandreâs knights. Once he did that, everything would fall into place.
â So Lysandre sent his spies, led by Malva, to gather recon. They returned with intel that Alan was being raised by an alchemist and aspired to become one himself. They reported that he seemed very attached to his family and his home, and that it would be unlikely that heâd want to leave . . . but that there was a high probability heâd want to protect his family and his home. As a result, Lysandre staged things in three parts:
1.) He and his knights visited the village so that they could âcheck inâ to see if there was anything they could do to enrich the lives of the people there. When Lysandre spotted Alan in the crowd, he made particular note to introduce himself to the boy, and make a comment about how perhaps Alan would like to join the knights one day, to help protect the kingdom. With Sycamoreâs hand on his shoulder, Alan replied that he wanted to be an alchemist. Lysandre smiled and said, âWell, you never know what the future will hold.â
2.) A few days after that, he staged a disaster; I donât have a clear idea in mind for what the disaster was at the moment, but it was something that put Sycamore, Mama Charizard, Gabrielle, and others in danger. Alan and Lizardon did their best to defend but they didnât have training to do very much. I think Lysandre probably staged this so that it looked like an attack from one of the neighboring nations (perhaps the Kingdom of Galar) to make it extra clear why it would be wise for Alan to join the knights to protect his family and his home.
3.) A few days after that, Lysandre and the knights visited again to help the village recover from the attack. He also, while there, once again suggested that Alan could learn to defend against attacks like these if he joined the knights.
â And that was all it took. Alan didnât want to leave home, but he also couldnât stand the thought of anything terrible happening to his family. So he asked Sycamore if he could join the knightsâpleaded, even. Sycamore didnât want to say yes for multiple reasons, the warning Olympia had given him about Alan being a Keeper and thus needing to be kept away from those who might use him in mindâbut he could also tell by the fire in Alanâs eyes that he was not really going to take ânoâ for an answer, and so he relented on the condition that Alan write weekly letters. Alan agreed without hesitation. Mama Charizard, meanwhile, had no use for letters, but she agreed only so long as Lizardon went with Alan, because she believed them stronger together. Of course, neither Alan nor Lizardon had a problem with this, and as such they both left with Lysandre that afternoon. Just as planned.
â Things changed for both of them pretty quickly once they got back to the castle. For one, Lysandre forced Alan and Lizardon to begin using a pokĂ©ball, as was kingdom law. For another, while Alan was technically a squire like any other beginning knight, he was also much younger than the rest and thus would receive personal lessons from Lysandre himself in order to get him where he needed to be in terms of strength and training. Alan had no qualms about this, of course; he wanted to get as strong as he could as fast as he could.
â The first bit of training they went through was Alan testing out different weapons to see which one he was best suited to using. In honesty, he had aptitude for multiple; his sharp eyesight made him proficient with a bow, and he wasnât half bad with a sword and shield. Ultimately he chose to specialize in polearm, though he would still practice with sword and bow semi-regularly in the years to follow.
â Other forms of training included Alan sparring with Lysandre himself (which especially in the early years consisted mostly of Lysandre kicking Alan around the training grounds), and melee matches with other knights and their pokĂ©mon. It was in one of these matches that Alan was seriously injured; Lizardon, a Charmeleon now, let out a startled cry as one of the knights hit him with the blunt end of an axe and knocked him to the ground. Distracted, Alan rushed to Lizardonâs aid, only to be hit by Lysandreâs Pyroar from his blind spot. Pyroarâs claws raked down the side of Alanâs face, blood everywhere, and the training session was halted. Lysandre scolded Alan, telling him this was what happened when he got distracted in battle, before he sent him off to the infirmary for treatment. The wounds healed, but scars remained down his cheek from then on.
â For what itâs worth, Alan did write weekly letters back home. But after a year of never receiving a response he stopped, figuring that Sycamore must be too upset with him for leaving in the first place to want to write back. In truth, Sycamore never received those letters. Lysandre ensured that they were never sent.
â Ultimately, harsh and cruel though it was, the training paid off. By the time he was fifteen Alan could best most of the other knights in combat, including the generals, earning him the rank of General himself (as well as Lysandreâs top General, though that was due to his nature as a Keeper in all honesty; Lysandre wanted to keep him on a short leash). This, naturally, made him very unpopular with the other knights, who felt he was an upstart who didnât deserve such a high rank, but Alan didnât join the knights to make friends and so he mostly ignored their scorn.
â While he had standard armor at first, Lysandreâs training fast-tracked Lizardonâs evolution, as well as his and Alanâs ability to Mega Evolve. Charizard scales shed naturally, and by the time Alan was 17 enough scales were collected from Charizardâs mega evolved form that they were able to forge custom armor from them. This armor, naturally, was fireproof, and his ability to withstand flamesâalong with the Spirit of Keldeo giving him unnatural determination that allows him to keep fighting even after sustaining what should be life-threatening injuries, that fire inside him only burning out once the battle is throughâearned him a fearsome reputation. Being sighted standing engulfed in flames, his refusal to go down . . . both of these earned him a reputation as a âdemon knight.â
â Once Lizardon evolved into Charizard, he became Alanâs sole sparring partner. Unlike the play wrestling of their youth, Alan and Lizardonâs sparring was much more skilled now, with Alan using his polearm and Lizardon deftly avoiding strikes while trying to pin Alan to the ground. So far, Lizardon has ultimately won every spar, successfully pinning Alan to the ground and drenching his face with kisses. These moments are pretty much the only time Alan really laughs after joining the knights.
â At the time the story kicks off, Alan is Lysandreâs top general and he does not know that he is the Keeper of Keldeo. He is also completely unaware of Lysandreâs sinister machinations and aims. Sycamore is incredibly worried about him and has been ever since he went to the castle never to be heard from again, and has been making contacts across the kingdom to get as much information as he can. (He has tried to seek out Olympia for her console, but her whereabouts are unknown.) Lastly, Alan ends up saving a young aspiring bard named Manon when sheâs attacked by brigands, and she immediately attaches herself to him, deciding that he is the perfect inspiration for her ballads and stories, no matter how many times Alan stresses to her that he is King Lysandreâs top general and he goes into battle a lot and she will get hurt and die if she continues to follow him.Â
âIf youâre a general, then whereâs your platoon?âÂ
âI donât have one.â
âThen howâre you a general?â
âItâs just a title. A rank. Iâm different from the others.â
âAnd thatâs why youâll be great epic poem material!â
â[long suffering sigh]â
Eventually, Alan will learn the truth about the kingâs intentions, but whether he learns the truth in time or not . . . that remains to be seen.
#pokemon fantasy au#champion alan#the bond that overcomes reason#stay tuned for Sycamore's upcoming book ''How to Co-Parent With a Charizard''#guaranteed to be 1 on the Kalos Best Sellers list#Anonymous#also - Broke: Killing Mama Charizard so Sycamore can adopt Alan#Woke: Keeping Mama Charizard alive & having her co-parent with Sycamore & giving her a Garchomp Wife#in this house we don't fridge (important) moms and also Love Wins
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