Rye Amaldo was jerked awake by the sudden sound of the doorbell, which had snapped him out of the blank dream he had been having. He opened his eyes and grumbled a little, not used to being woken up this early. He had gone to bed rather early last night because of the heavy storm that had suddenly sprung up and had been ready to sleep all the way through it, but when he had woken up earlier to find it was only 6:00 AM and it was still pitch-black out, he had assumed the storm hadn't let up. But now it was 8:00 AM and the sun was shining rather brightly into his room as if the storm had never been there. He had never known any thunderstorm to blow over that quickly, but weird weather was considered normal in this state, so he figured it was just another bad call on the weatherman's part.
The doorbell rang again, which prompted Rye to sit up in bed and shed his covers, revealing his rather scrawny body. He couldn't have weighed more than 150 pounds and he was fully grown, but it seemed no matter how much he ate, he never gained even an ounce. His metabolism was unusually high and he honestly thought if there was a contest for thin men instead of strong ones, he would definitely win. It wasn't that he was anorexic or starved himself for any reason. In fact, in the eyes of professional doctors, he was perfectly healthy, albeit a tad underweight. It was just the fact that he was able to shed calories just as fast as he put them on with little to no effort on his part.
, Rye's concentration was broken by the sound of the doorbell ringing again. Groaning in frustration, he finally rolled himself out of bed, slid over to his dresser, grabbed a shirt, put it on and went to go answer the door. He wasn't wearing any pants, but he knew people tended to get annoyed when they had to ring the doorbell more than three times. Thankfully, he managed to make it to the door before it rang again and he opened it, expecting to find a flustered person waiting for him.
On the contrary, however, there was nobody in sight. It was as if they had just vanished into thin air, which didn't make any sense since he doubted a ding-dong-ditcher would have bothered ringing the bell three times before running off. It was really unusual, too, since his front door was at the end of a fairly long sideways ramp that would have certainly delayed anyone that tried to run from him. And since there were no footprints in the wet grass in front of him, it didn't seem like anyone had hopped the railing to get away anyway.
Rye was about to go back in when he heard a sound that prompted him to look down and nearly drop his jaw right off his face. There was a large basket sitting on his front step with a bundle of blankets in it that could only mean one thing: someone had abandoned a baby on his front step. This didn't seem possible or even fair that someone he probably didn't even know had dropped their responsibility on him for no reason at all. And even if he were to go to the police with the child, he doubted anyone would believe his story that someone had rung his doorbell three separate times just to run off and leave him with a baby for no reason at all.
But just as Rye was about to have second thoughts, he heard the sound again, which caused him to duck his head down enough to see under the hood of the basket at the baby itself. What he saw nearly gave him a coronary in surprise. There was no doubt that there was an infant in that basket, but the sound it had made and the face he could see under those blankets seemed to deny the very laws of reality themselves. Not only wasn't the baby human, but the identity of the face he saw poking out of the blankets was almost like a gift from the gods.
"A... A Lugia..." he found himself saying.
There was no doubt about it. There was an actual living baby L.U.G.I.A. curled up in the basket, its eyes wide open and looking at him with a truly soft and beautiful pair of round, blue eyes. This was a creature that only should have existed in the video game world, but yet there was a living one sitting on his doorstep.
In an attempt to make absolutely sure he wasn't dreaming, Rye reached down and gently peeled away the blankets to see the creature in its entirety. Sure enough, once the blankets parted, he saw the rest of the body that belonged to the avian head poking out the top. It couldn't have been more that 18 inches in length and resembled a Lugia in every way, shape or form. It was currently lying on its back, but once the covers were pulled away from it, it rolled itself onto its thick, rounded feet and turned to look up at him with a smile that made Rye's heart melt with adoration. It was just so cute that he couldn't believe this was really happening. Even though he knew Lugia were supposed to be in upwards of ten feet tall and over 17 feet in length, this rather petite baby looked like it had just been born last night. Why anyone in their right mind would abandon such a beautiful creature in the first place was beyond him.
Wondering if it was safe to touch, Rye gently knelt down and very carefully held out his hands as he slid them under the Lugia's wings and slowly lifted it up. The Lugia didn't protest and Rye's legs almost went to jelly when he felt the incredibly smooth, firm, rubbery, silver skin beneath his fingertips. It was rather warm and incredibly cuddly, and as he held it up to his eye level, the Lugia looked at him with a gentle smile before it made a kind of crooning sound and moved its head to one side to gently lick his hand. Rye almost dropped it in surprise, but he managed to catch himself as he slowly pulled it close to him so they were eye-to-eye. He had heard Lugia were psychic, but he doubted this Lugia was old enough to communicate with him mentally or otherwise.
But even though this was like a dream come true for him, Rye still had no idea what to do with it. It didn't seem right that someone would abandon such a wonderfully innocent creature probably just moments after it was born, and expect him to take care of it. Human babies were one thing, but Rye had absolutely no idea what to do with a baby Lugia. He wasn't even sure he was qualified to take care of such a wonderful creature. He didn't even know what to feed it.
However, even though he had no idea what to do with it, Rye decided to accept the responsibility and would deal with everything as it occurred. The first thing he figured he could do was find out what to feed it. He figured young aquatic birds required mashed up fish or something, even though he was completely winging it. He looked at the Lugia, who was smiling innocently, and spoke very calmly to it.
"I bet you want something to eat, don't you?"
The Lugia responded in a rather unusual way. It made a kind of chittering noise that had a bit of a whine mixed in. Unsure of what to make of it, Rye decided to start with the basics. He gently took the Lugia in his arms, closing the door with the basket still on the front step, and carried it into his kitchen, where he set it on the counter and then went over to a cupboard to look for some canned tuna for it. When he located it, he turned and found a rather comical sight playing out in front of him. The baby Lugia was having quite a time trying to get a grip on the slick countertop. Its smooth, rounded feet kept slipping out from under it and it was flailing around like a novice ice skater. If it wasn't for its long, broad wings keeping it upright, he was sure it would have crashed quite a few times as it struggled to get some footing on the counter.
Laughing a little at the comical sight, Rye reached into a drawer and pulled out a small hand towel that he laid out on the counter before gently placing the Lugia on top of it. It wobbled a little as its grip was adjusted, but it seemed to have much more success in keeping its footing on the coarse towel.
"There ya go," said Rye happily, patting it on the head and hearing it croon happily. "I guess it doesn't help that you don't have any footpads, does it?"
The Lugia chirped playfully and Rye smiled as he brought the can of tuna over to the electric can opener and started to open it. He was actually in fairly high spirits. It seemed rather easy to please and Rye was just glad it wasn't bawling its head off like a human child would be. He had never been comfortable with loud noises, much less those of a bawling baby.
Once the tuna was open, Rye grabbed a plate and tapped the can upside-down over it, resulting in a cat food-like plate of tuna fish with a bit more water than that. He then brought it over to the Lugia and placed it in front of it. It looked curiously down at the offering before it and then back up at Rye.
"Go on... try it out," he said, gently stroking it on the neck.
The Lugia looked apprehensive as it leaned over and sniffed the tuna. Even though it was rather offensive to Rye, the Lugia seemed to smell a wonderful odor because it opened its mouth and started slurping up the mashed fish. It took large mouthfuls of the tuna and swallowed it without chewing it, each time making a happy trill as it continued to eat. And once the plate was clean, it went back for more but found there was nothing left. It frowned a little, which concerned Rye that it wanted more, but then it made a soft, purring sound and sat back on its tail, resting a wing on its belly before letting out a soft yet deep belch.
But just before Rye could excuse it, something truly bizarre started to happen.
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