Help me I keep befriending weird beasts

My name’s Ruth! I use she/her and they/them pronouns, and I’m an ace demigirl. I’m from southern Unova, and have only been a trainer for a few years, but I’d like to think I’m at least a halfway decent one. I’ve kiiiinda tried the gym challenge but it’s not a huge priority of mine, I mostly just wander around wherever and then stuff and things happen to me. Isn’t that just how life is? Anyways I’ve got ADHD and also am not the best at doing the whole being a normal person thing, but I’m still happy to chat and answer questions and stuff when my executives are not being dysfunctional. I’ve only been lurking for, what, 3 years…

I have more than six Pokémon, but I’ll go ahead and introduce the usual party I have with me.

Red Tide: Dhelmise that showed up while I was minding my own business tossing pokébeans into a saltwater canal and then followed me even after I ran out. Technically my starter since they were the first Pokémon I ever caught but as you can imagine the situation was far from the usual planned or scheduled or otherwise not spur of the moment sorta deal. Something something insert comparison to Ponyta girl movie trope minus saving a farm. They’re pretty docile and don’t seem to have much interest in battle, but apparently they’re really old and really strong?? Certainly saved my behind a few times, I can say that much… Oh I should also probably mention they’re the red Dhelmise in my profile picture. No, I still don’t really know how they were holding that toy. Red Tide does what Red Tide wants.

Lumen: Chandelure, but I caught her as a Litwick. Basically I was hoping to get a birthday gift for my mom and found her terrorizing a Bed Bath & Beyond by trying to burn all of the actual candles. Decided I’d try to do the employees a favor and ended up having to spend most of my cash on candles to convince the little arsonist to follow me, and then she didn’t stop following me even after the bait candles were destroyed, and the rest is history. Nowadays Lumen is only mostly a little shit(affectionate) who I can somewhat trust not to do arson if left to her own devices. On one hand it’s nice that her mischief isn’t destructive, on the other you have no idea how many times I’ve been woken up because SOMEONE decided to use the smoke alarm to get attention. At least she quickly figured out trying to pick on Red Tide was a great way to get a liquidation to her whole self.

Soul: Aegislash, I found him as a Honedge at a Renaissance Faire looking really confused and lost. Er, well I mean he kinda found me and I just didn’t notice for a while... Might’ve started hanging around when I visited the booth selling replica swords, he would’ve blended in perfectly there. Almost had the world’s worst high-five when noticing Red Tide’s little shadow, but things worked out and I guess the two liked each other enough for him to want to join the team. Or maybe they were doing the Dewpiderman pointing meme at each other over being red. Anyways, he’s always been shy, even after evolving, but he’s definitely not nearly as timid as he started out. Still tends to hide behind anyone or anything he can in unfamiliar situations, though. And also definitely didn’t get his name from a final boss in a game series I really like on account of them both having similar colors and one eye. Lumen doesn’t terrorize him anymore but I don’t think they have much of a bond either, just tolerance.

Kazoo: I and everyone around me always expected I’d be a bug trainer, but it took all the way until finding Kazoo to have my first bug type. He’s a Galvantula now, just kinda showed up in the house one day and kept unplugging my 3DS to feast at the outlet, and like. What was I supposed to do, kick out a little Joltik in the middle of a hailstorm? Just a little creacher whos only crime was being hungy and not knowing what an electric bill is? Send him out to get conked in the head by ice chunks almost a fifth of his own size? I simply could not do it, and that’s how I ended up with funny little guy who probably has one or two thoughts throughout any given week. He didn’t even care about being held like burger! What a guy. I don’t think any of my Pokémon don’t get along with him— Soul actually warmed up to him really fast, even— though Red Tide does sometimes get tired of having their wheel used as an inconvenient perch that spins around. He used to help me save on dryer sheets by simply eating the laundry static, but now I have to deal with a spider who really wants his mandated warm laundry basket bed time and long story short be careful what you teach your Galvantulas as Joltiks. Small price to pay for Kazoo.

Barque: Lapras, and the only core team member I actually battled to capture— that situation was what actually got Kazoo to evolve. Red Tide needed an ocean buddy, fully evolved Lumen needed to be kept under control, and I needed a Pokémon that could use Surf and actually move faster than a walking pace. She’s probably the most interested in battle out of the gang, even more than Lumen, and uh… They don’t really get along, but that’s mostly because local chandelier likes causing problems on purpose and local boat animal likes stopping her from causing problems on purpose. For better or worse. It’s not on sight anymore thankfully. She gets along great with everyone else, and seems to do a good job of keeping the peace when everyone’s out of their balls. Out of curiosity a while back I had some testing done, and apparently she’s all the way from the coast of Galar! Quite the trip to have made.

Cheerio: They are a Meltan and I found them in the trash. Legit had no idea what they were at first because my ‘dex didn’t recognize them, but folks online were able to give me the important info. If Kazoo is baby, then Cheerio is like, mega baby. Creacher with a baby license. Fittingly, they’re best pals with Kazoo, and it’s really cute to watch them hanging out. Soul seems suspicious of them, and Red Tide used to be(and I think is still a bit intimidating to the lil fella on account of being hugelarge), but they were quick to figure out what metal is off limits so I don’t see any problems arising there. Barque is actually a bit protective of them and Lumen wasn’t even given the chance to try and pick on them like she did Soul, but I get the feeling even she wouldn’t have really had it in her to bully what is more or less a metallic blob baby. When not in their ball Cheerio likes hanging out under my hat or on Barque’s head. They’re heavier than you’d expect, but then again they are made of metal, so… Anyways if anything happened to them I’d KO everyone in the room and then myself.

… Huh. That’s what I get for going based on what I remember them looking like normally instead of just looking up pictures of them and making direct comparisons. Glad to know the little creacher is healthy.

Uhhhh… Lemme just list them out I’m bad at numbers. In no particular order there’s Red Tide the Dhelmise, Lumen the Chandelure, Kazoo the Galvantula, Cheerio the Meltan, Barque the Lapras, Soul the Aegislash, Pepper the Scolipede, Ghost the Volcarona, Neo the Metagross, and the newest member of the family Gauss the Magnemite as of a few months ago. There’s also been a cute little Fomantis that’s decided to commandeer one of my flower pots outside that I was just growing random weeds in that I’ve thought about trying to catch, since it looks really chlorotic all the time, but I don’t wanna stress the little fella out. Local rangers said there wasn’t much they could do since I live in an unincorporated area that limits their ability to intervene when people aren’t in danger, and Fomantis isn’t a species native to my area. Let nature take its course kinda situation I guess. Plus I can’t just catch every Pokémon that shows up in my life, there’s no way that’ll end well long-term.

There’s also Cobble and Mulberry but I haven’t actually caught either of them for uh… Well actually since I’m a nobody on here it’d probably be fine to say I don’t know what the regulations are for handling Ultra Beasts and that should be enough to explain the hesitation. Cobble just hangs out in the woods in my neighborhood and usually just watches what I do when I hang out there, they seem content enough and I’d feel bad bringing people over to bother them. ‘Specially after the tree branch protection incident, I kinda owe them for helping me not get hospitalized. Mulberry sometimes shows up to be a little pest but seems harmless enough, only stained one of my good shirts but it was old and had holes in it anyways… Weird little floating gremlin.

Neo’s a Metagross that jumped me in the woods, I’m only still in one piece because Red Tide’s Anchor Shot managed to get between us before I evolved into a corpse. I didn’t have much confidence in the idea of having an actual battle(especially since there was no guarantee I wasn’t their win condition, to put it mildly) and if it isn’t obvious I don’t really do well under pressure, so I just… Chucked a quick ball to buy myself some time to run. Was not at all expecting the dex registration notification after that. Turned out Neo was in rough shape to begin with— probably had a run in with a few dark types in the area— so it wasn’t like I was just gonna leave them there, even if they had just been trying to hunt me. I was planning to release them after leaving the Pokémon center, though— I was still working with another new team member at that time and it just felt like it’d be awkward given the whole “you wanted to eat me” thing.

Alas, they decided it would benefit them to stick around and be civil in exchange for free food and access to information, and like. C’mon, if someone who was definitely capable of reducing you or someone else to a bloody pulp said they wouldn’t do that if you made it so they didn’t have a reason to, is agreeing to it really that unreasonable? I know I’m not smarter or faster than a Metagross, I didn’t want to find out what they were capable of when in good condition! Not an ideal choice to have to make but better safe than sorry.

That said, I have not known peace since. It has been a whole two days since they have beamed the request for filet mignon directly into my brain. I already have to set aside money to pay for it every once in a while in exchange for not having to worry about them stealing my credit card number and ordering it themself.

Wow what a great day to get normal asks about normal things. Anyways what do you think I am, a cop?