#2 Pokemon Breeding 101─Deirdre Brennan

[Cal Emerson]

Cal tapped his pen on the desk along with the beat of his music. He made sure not to blast it as loud as usual, knowing it would probably annoy those around him. While he was daydreaming about nothing in particular and bobbing his head to music he noticed the teacher speaking. Of course it was only her lips moving since he couldn't hear anything, but at first it didn't even click with him. After a few seconds his eyes cleared with recognition that the class had actually started!

Quickly he pulled down his headphones and switched the music off, hoping the teacher hadn't noticed. Luckily it hadn't seemed like he missed much since she was still introducing herself. She began to speak about the incident with Team Origin, yet he hadn't been a part of it so he knew it wasn't exactly meant for him. When she mentioned giving eggs out last time an excited flutter let out in his stomach. This class gave out eggs? He grinned widely, totally glad he decided to come to this class and not skip it like he was told he could.

Since he was going to be a Breeder one day, having all the experience he could hatching eggs would be vital. Still brimming with excitement he tried to focus on what the teacher was saying but found himself drifting into his thoughts on what egg he would get. Even when she began asking questions he didn't notice. Though he hadn't been a part of the last class so it didn't exactly pertain to him anyway.

[Annie Prince]

Class started happily. Annie was surprised to see that several people had already hatched their eggs, but she supposed that she had just taken too long about the matter. Hers was getting very close indeed to hatching... perhaps that day, or the next, would be the time it finally did.

She looked around at her classmates. Just how busy had they and their Pokémon been with making new baby Pokémon?

Apparently very much so, she noted. Recently hatched Pokémon were everywhere, and the only person talking--a girl from Mana Dorm--had a shy and recently hatched Larvesta which was comforted by a Misdreavus. Something about this tableau struck Annie as (there was no other word for it) cute, and she smiled faintly while the girl talked about her Pokémon.

[Akihito Kamakura]

Before the teacher began class a boy from Bolt Dorm came in and sat next to Aki and Drago. He introduced himself a Aile, after asking about Dragos name. "His name is Drago, and I'm Akihito. But I prefer Aki." Aki finished just as they teacher started class. Aile had a Totodile on his head and an Aron at his feet. Glancing around as the teacher spoke he noticed Alice with her Larvesta. She must had gotten it since the meeting in the beach. She also mentioned her Absol, and that made Aki remember the comment he made to her. Once Alice finished Aki spoke. "I just recently acquired a Dratini egg from a fellow student. Its really close to hatching."

Aki reached into his bag and pulled the egg out and showed it to the teacher. Setting it gently on he desk, Drago moved to let the egg be the only thing on the desk. Now sitting on Akis head Drago looked over to the Totodile on Ailes head and smiled.

[James Wharton]

Listening to the teacher he took out his pencil, and began to write his name upon the name card.  Once finished with the task it would read "James Wharton" in neat handwriting.  Placing the pencil back into his pocket James listened to what the teacher had to say, which was fairly interesting.  Apparently you could acquire an egg from this class at the end of each period.  Or that might have been just a small thing for the first class, which would suck.  But, moving on from the slight disappointment that he might not get an egg from this class he simply listened to what the other student's had to say about their eggs.  One sounded like they acquired a Dratini egg outside of class, while another sounded like they got a Baby Absol from the class.  It was interesting, hearing other student's answers to what she asked, so he simply listened to what everyone had to say.

[Vivienne Montmarche]

Considering she had only arrived at the Academy a few days prior and the event of the recent attack, Vivienne thought she was doing good on time. Of course, even with her map, she wound up getting side tracked more than a few times trekking from her dorm to the classroom; hence, her late arrival.

"I'm so sorry!" She whispered to the teacher upon entering the room. She gave an apologetic bow of her head, and the Pokemon in her arms giggled lightly. "Someone had a bit of a fit eating her breakfast this morning." That someone, said Pokemon, was a Budew. A baby Pokemon, and one of the obvious reasons for her being there. Raising young Pokemon was tough, but raising young Pokemon who were also lumped into the "Baby" category was even more challenging.

She snuck to the nearest empty seat and mimicked the nearest student, a boy wearing a uniform in one of the colors of her dorm, if she was correct. The Budew took a seat, and in a slightly quick scrawl the girl filled out her name-card. Vivienne Montmarche was a lot to fit in large cramped writing, and the swirling flourish underneath it was a bit much, but Vivi was only half thinking about it. The Budew, meanwhile, was staring at their neighbor with it's beedy, slitted little plant eyes and the vacant, somewhat eerie half smiled babies could occasionally get.

[Crispin Yates]

Grinning around at the rest of class as they showed their hatched eggs, Crispin patted the little Skitty that sat on his desk.  "For me, ah've got wee Emer 'ere.  She seems ter be doin' well so far, although... ah'll admit for sendin' 'er oyt in battles oi should'n've, an' fale tarable for it."  Emer tilted her head a bit, craning her neck to look at her trainer curiously.  Scratching behind her ear he smiled down at her, a slightly guilty look in his eye.  Still, he wanted to at least admit to it, in case there was something to learn.

[Tanya Christianson]

It was a bad sign that Tanya was already starting to drift off. Trying her best to keep focused, when Ms. Brennan started talking, she could feel her focus slowly starting to shift, instead focusing on minor things like the posters on the wall. However, she quickly shook her head, telling herself to pay attention to what Ms. Brennan had to say.

She was glad she did. It seemed that the teacher had noticed that Tanya had the egg she brought to class. Nicholas bristled with happiness at being noticed while Tanya took a moment to understand what her teacher was saying. "Oh yeah, his name is Nicholas." Tanya admitted, rubbing the back of her head and smiling sheepishly.

"I also made another egg with Nicholas and my Pikachu Christina, since they were both electric types I thought it would work. Turns out it did and I got a new Shinx. I think she's with Astrid now though." Tanya mentioned, feeling a bit proud about how she managed to breed successfully. She smiled at Ms. Brennan, making an effort to pay attention.

[Aile Reese]

Aki...and Drago. Seems simple enough, Aile thought to himself. Though after this introduction with someone that Aile thought could be his new friend, he felt rather jealous of all the other students raising and showing off their eggs, or occasionally, rather the pokemon that came from their eggs. But Aile couldn't really help it, he was new here, so he wasn't able to receive an egg, or even to really have time to make an egg. Nevertheless, Aile just dropped his head and sighed," All the babies are cute. I wish I had some more, but Chompers and Mega are still good as any of them." With this, he took Chompers down from his head gently, and bringing him to his chest, where the young Totodile received a tight hug.

However, Chompers wasn't paying attention to this. He was paying attention to the young Axew that was smiling at him. Pointing his little arm at the Axew, he stuck out his tongue, in a nonverbal proclamation of his new, at least temporary rival. This only received a pat on the head from Aile, as he whispered, "No no, Chompers. Be...nice, who knows, Drago might be a good friend someday."

[Deirdre Brennan]

[/font] she paused, reading the card of the one who had been a troublemaker last week but was doing quite well this week, “Thank you for not releasing him right into this class then William. I don’t think that would have been the best of ideas.” She chuckled a little, shaking her head. Glancing over to Tanya she beamed, glad that one of the students had bred an egg on their own.

“Good! I am so glad. Nicholas is a wonderful name. Very intuitive thinking, too, although the Pokemon’s typing goes further than that for breeding. I’m happy you brought that up, because that brings me to the topic I wanted to discuss today.

“Egg groups. It’s a very simple concept to start with, but one of the most important ones. Obviously, Pokemon of the same breed are able to make eggs together. But what about different breeds creating eggs together? Take Melon and Plum for example,” she paused as the Sylveon Plum jumped from her desk, walking over to the Luxray to nuzzle his face momentarily and sit down next to him. “They are both different breeds of Pokemon, and yet both have made eggs together. That is because they both belong to the ‘field’ egg group. The field group is the largest group, and easiest to find different Pokemon of. They are easily defined as more animal like and terrestrial.

“What egg groups do is help determine which Pokémon are able to interbreed. Similarly to types that Pokemon can have, a Pokemon may belong to either one or two Egg Groups. We will discuss the benefits of Pokemon belonging to two Egg Groups down the road, for now we’ll just be going over the basics of how the Egg Groups work. It’s not too complex, though; as long as your two Pokemon are opposite Genders and belong to the same Egg Group, they will be able to have eggs together. With very few exceptions, Pokemon will retain their Egg Group through their evolutionary line. Now…” She grinned, raising an eyebrow mischievously. “Can anyone tell me what Egg group Miss. Olive belongs to over there?” She asked, gesturing to the Nidoqueen that sat by the windows. As she was mentioned, the Nidoqueen stood, nodding her head gently to the students.[/ul]

[Vivienne Montmarche]

Pokemon producing eggs wasn't exactly breaking news anymore, or at least not to someone who'd bothered trying to do a little studying to catch up. But Egg Groups? That wasn't covered in the chapter she'd read through. Well.....what did the Nidoqueen look like? Vivienne pouted her mouth to one side for a minute, the Budew following her concentration and plopping down on it's little green behind, the stubby legs and feet poking out.

"Um...." Vivienne said, raising her hand sheepishly. She wasn't the sort to normally speak up that much; the less attention you attracted to yourself, the less likely people were to remember you when they, oh say...called the police. Still, this wasn't Laverre City, and if she wanted to get home and prove her point she was going to have to do decent enough. "Is she......a Dragon maybe? She kind of....looks.....draconic.....sorta?" The girl didn't even look at the teacher for more than a few seconds before staring down at Marmalade. Honestly, Vivienne didn't know the first thing about egg groups, but she had to at least take a shot, even if it was in the dark. If that meant beating other people to the punch and getting it wrong, so be it. Hopefully Miss Brennan gave credit for effort; she was going to need it at this rate.

[Akihito Kamakura]

Aki sat watching the different students pile in and heard his neighbor say something to his Totodile about Drago. Smirking a little he turned his attention to the teacher. This class was the one he was going to excel at because of his mother being a Breeder. Watching the Sylveon jump down and sit next to the Luxray. Listening to the lecture then the question was asked. He knew the answer, even through Nidoqueens were native to Kalos. "She is in the Undiscovered egg group, unlike her male counter part Nidoking" Akihito said with a confidence that he got it correct. Though he wasn't trying to show off, and make the Nature girl feel bad. Thought it was a good guess because of the looks of the Pokémon.

[Tanya Christianson]

Tanya felt really happy at Ms. Brennan complimenting her, smiling widely in her seat. Nicholas seemed to be pretty happy as well, standing confidently as if showing off for the rest of the class. While Tanya had been lucky to guess that her pokemon to breed, it seemed that there was more to breeding than met the eye with regards to which pokemon could breed.

While she had done a little research into what pokemon were able to breed and not, she didn't do anything too in depth with regards to what specific pokemon were able to be bred together. Tanya was sure to take notes, making a mental note that Nicholas probably belonged to the Field Group since Luxray was a member of that group as well. Therefore, it would only make sense that Christina was a member of the Field Group as well. She made sure that she remembered that. If it was the biggest group, other pokemon in her team were probably Field as well.

"Nidoqueen can't breed." Tanya said out loud, wondering if Ms. Brennan was asking them a trick question. "Would that mean that they don't have an egg group?"

[Alice Geissler]

"I think Olive might be in the Undiscovered egg group. It's a bit strange that she is unable to breed with Nidoking or another Poison Pokemon for that matter. I wonder why is that." And she had been researching this kind of egg group which was kind of strange that Pokemon belonging in that group would not be able to breed. Perhaps, the Nidoqueen had no desire to breed with one of her male counterparts yet or there was another reason. And Flynn looked at the Nidoqueen sitting at the window curiously. Missy stayed by the baby Larvesta's side while she listened to the teacher's lecture. Alice had actually knew that Missy was in the Amorphous egg group along with the other ghosts that might be in it a well. She might try to research more on Nidoqueen's species and the reason why they cannot breed.

[James Wharton]

And apparently from the sounds of things Nidoqueen from from the undiscovered egg group.  A bunch of students seemed to suggest that, so he simply rolled along with it being the correct answer.  "Miss Olive, and her male counterpart, are in the undiscovered egg group I believe."  He said, assuming that since Nidoking, and queen, were basically just different genders they would both have the same egg group.  They were literally the same Pokemon to an extent, just different genders with different moves, and maybe different abilities.  "I believe they're in the same egg group anyway, since they're basically gender counterparts and all."  He said, feeling as if he would need to explain why he chose that answer.

[Benji Aldaine]

Benji tapped his chin slightly, staring at the Nidoqueen as he thought of his answer. He knew the answer, and it wasn't as simple as most thought. Once the other students had spoken up he decided to as well. "As the others said, Nidoqueen is of the Undiscovered Egg Group." He paused squinting his eyes for a moment. "Which makes it odd that she's unable to breed with her counterpart Nidoking. You would think they would be able to breed being basically the same Pokemon but of different genders." He tilted his head a bit confused. "I guess they are more different than meets the eye." He finished, knowing he had pretty much said what others had, but he wasn't the type to really keep quiet.

He hoped Ms. Brennan could clear up this issue, he was quite curious to find out what the truth really was. Nidoqueen sure was an interesting Pokemon and could muster up a huge discussion as it already started to. As he waited for the other students to finish he scribbled down some notes and thoughts of his own.