Pokemon Make Great Conversation Starters

5:30 am is a good time to be awake

There was a Growlithe barking outside.

Maxie blearily turned to face his alarm clock. The green numbers burned ruefully back: 5:28 AM. Great. Awesome. He actually goes to sleep early for once since his mind always registered 2am as being early, and some higher power decides to wake him up. Maybe he was just destined to be nocturnal, suffering in a diurnal world where the only light comes from his computer since no one at his workplace tries even a little bit to actually work like they are supposed to.

Groaning as his feet touched the ground that was a touch too cold for his liking, he grabbed his glasses and stumbled over to the window, sticking his head out to find the source of the commotion. It turned out that his work shirt was good for pajamas, but not good for protecting against the cool morning air and not even good in public as it was close to tatters anyways, with the light breeze making Maxie rub at the goosebumps forming at his arms since the breeze was finally coming back after a hard winter Maxie chose to ignore under the covers of his bed until his Camerupt would teethe at his blanket and drag him out of bead to eat or drink or even just sit up for a bit so he didn't die.

Squinting across the street, he had to get a new prescription soon, he could just make out the vague shape what appeared to be the dog type pokemon absolutely losing its mind in a neighboring apartment complex. A lone Skitty seemed to be on the outside of its owner’s window just next door to the abrupt fire pokemon. Maxie sighed, which was barely audible over the pokemon’s yodeling; he loved dog type pokemon, even more so when they were fire type, this one no exception, but he had to go into work tomorrow and this was his one guilt-free day of sleep before he died of coffee intake, or something close to that nature, which again was highly unlikely due to his Camerupt protective nature over him. He can't even count on his fingers how many cups the camel pokemon broke.

Suddenly, the fire type was pulled down off the window, and Maxie saw a man frustratedly directing commands to it to get it to stop. Or, at least he assumed they were commands; from his position, it just kind of sounded like various “hrrr”s and “gghhrrrg”s of exhaustion and just a tad of annoyance.

He would have seen more of the Growlithe´s caretaker if it was brighter but Lady Luck was not his friend.

In pointedly trying not to seem creepy, he had enough on his plate, he noticed that a handful of other people in their apartment complexes were also spectating, though their gazes were more I’m-irritated-that-I-was-woken-up-at-assfuck-o-clock towards the pokemon than the trainer, and even from down below there was a small group, maybe college students, gazing up with their own pokemon. The man turned somewhat, just a short gaze, noticed everyone staring and looked sheepish, hunching his shoulders and keeping his gaze down as he wrestled the dog pokemon. Finally, he managed to wrestle the Growlithe away from the window, and quiet it down somewhat. And from what seemed like a good minute of inopportune shuffling, the man slammed his window shut and disappeared from view.

The onlookers grumbled and went back inside, and Maxie did the same, flopping back onto his cheap mattress. Might as well get some sleep while he had the chance before listening into the hell he would work in the next day.

Maxie woke up once more, thankfully at the time he wanted. Well, no, if he woke up at the time he truly wanted, he’d sleep in until one PM. As it were, he was groggily staring up at his ceiling, listening to the automatic beeping blare from his alarm clock, if that wasn't the thing that woke him up the Mightyena he adopted only a few months before digging its snout into his uncovered leg would have. Maxie didn’t believe the claims that setting anything as your alarm noise would make you hate it, but he was kind of starting to feel the annoyance. He really had to change that before he started to despise even waking up more than he already did.

He tried to go through his morning routine as quick as possible, showering, brushing his hair, and getting dressed in clothing suitable to the public eye all in the span of about twenty minutes, as if, the process was riddled by his pokemon making their rounds around his feet so it took even longer than he wished. Walking into his barebones kitchen, he stuck some pop tarts in a toaster lazily and inwardly cringed at the verbal beating he would get from Tabitha later for his lackluster breakfast. Venturing a glance at his sink, he was met with his Crobat tucked neatly into the square steel, peering up at him from where it chittered in its form of talk.

In the middle of lifelessly eating and listening to his Wheezing and Crobat chitter and wheeze to each other from behind him, his phone rang, the caller ID simply reading Courtney. Maxie fumbled to reach his phone, and within three rings, he was happily speaking to his assistant, though at the expense of a pop tart that was now broken in two on his lap.

“Boss, how are you?” A pleasant calmness floated through the phone and relaxed him greatly, Courtney was anyways his favorite friend. Though there was some interference, there was no doubt that this was Courtney speaking. He could hear Tabitha murmuring beside Courtney, no doubt coming over to pick him up since they always drove through to get to their work.

“Hello Courtney.” Maxie stifled a yawn, patting his hand against his Mightyena for lazily.

“Maxie, you know you need to go to sleep earlier.” There was a faint murmur in the background after Courtney’s chastising tone. “Tabitha agrees too.”

“I - well, no, you’re right, but I did go to sleep early this time! There was just this Growlithe across the street that woke just about everybody up at maybe, like, 5 AM or so.” He waved his hand animatedly, tossing the soiled pop tart to his Camerupt after pushing off the crumbs on his legs.

“Mmhm. And when did you go to bed?” Courtney spoke calmly, almost teasingly since they both knew the answer to that.

“Um….. two o’ clock…” Maxie leaned back, scrunching up his nose after pushing up his glasses again.

“That’s what I thought.” Another faint murmur. “Tabitha has some criticisms of your sleep schedule, and asks if you’re eating well.”

Maxie anxiously glanced back at his Camerupt swallowing the pop tart he tossed, the latter of which left a small streak against the thigh of his pants “Uh. Yeah. I’m having, uh. Pancakes.”

A surprised noise of disbelief and loud shuffling made Maxie sigh as he knew Tabitha was grabbing at Courtneyś phone, no doubt ignoring the road. “Max I've known you since I got into the science industry I know you are talking out of your ass I’m grabbing you food.” Tabitha hissed, his voice wavering to yell at a driver no doubt cutting off the man. Courtney sighed out a “Well, Boss, we’re coming and Tabitha is angry, most possibly planning to buy you a whole fridge.”

“I’ll see you then.” He left no room for objection and Courtney seemed to recognize the finality of his huff.

The line dropped dead, and Maxie was suddenly aware of how quiet his apartment was, his pokemon quiet and watching him. He did a soft notion to the door with his head, pulling his bag from the crook he tossed it into the day before and pulled out his pokeballs, all but Mightyena tossing around to get back into their pokeballs. The wolf pokemon sat on a chair in attention, ears perked as Maxie rubbed between the soft flap of her ear "Protect the homefront.”

As he left his small apartment to wait outside on the bench that faintly reminded him of the ones back where he grew up in Sinnoh, he found himself distantly thinking that Sinnoh was a day ahead of Hoenn, he laughed softly and shook his head at the notion of Sinnohians having future sight due to the timezone, he wished he had future sight. He leaned back and patted at his back, hoping to at least have a better day.