In Which Zane Is Produced (2026 Version)

"Hello, gentlemen. I have a proposal for you."

With the finesse of an entrepreneur giving a business presentation, Arlo swept into the living room, plugging his phone into a converter box so his slide presentation appeared on the TV.

Spark side-eyed both Ronnie sitting next to him and the screen. "What gentlemen? All I see here is Ronnie."
"Oh, great weighing in from the missing Backstreet Boy!"
"We all know that the only reason you pretend to like metal is that you were born too late to be in a boy band."
"Well, you're -- uh -- smell...fuck...yellow?"
"I see your train of thought was delayed at the station."

Arlo drummed his fingers impatiently on his phone case.

"You two have to learn to get along already. It's been over a year. Neither of you are going to get rid of the other. Besides, we can't have the baby giving up with this much strife in the house!"

Both Spark and Ronnie stopped entirely, rejecting looking at each other to transparently gape at Arlo.

"If you'll refer to my slides..."

Ronnie rolled his eyes, but didn't stop himself from smiling. "Of course you made a fucking PowerPoint."
"What do you take me for? I use open document formats. Anyway..."

"First order of business: Spark and I have been talking about wanting to become parents someday, and given our ages and our now having a house, and my promotion to head of R&D allowing me to spend more time at home, now is a good time to do it."

Ronnie raised his hand.

"Please save all questions until the end. Second order of business: due to...concerns about legal consequences in the event that something went wrong, adoption and surrogate agencies won't adopt or surrogate out to anyone with large Pokemon in the home. Even having them in their balls isn't enough; they'd need to be kept offsite or in PC boxes until the kid's old enough for a trainer license, and that's not fair since they're family too."

Spark turned his head down and sadly shook it, muttering something under his breath. Ronnie looked uncharacteristically contemplative.

"I mean, yeah, that makes sense...not that I think your critters would eat people, but your dragon thing is a giant lizard that breathes fire and basically acts like a toddler. Even if it was just trying to play, it could kill a normal human baby, so if somebody adopted a kid to you knowing you have it, they'd get into hella legal trouble. And so would you, and maybe the dragon."

Spark turned to Ronnie with a glare. "So it's acceptable to you that Pokemon trainers who can't have biological kids need to abandon their companions for the privilege?"

"Dude, you're not even supposed to have big dogs too close to babies, and those can't breathe fire or shoot lightning! Would you rather that no one get to adopt kids because one loser got a baby eaten by a giant snake or some shit and the agency had to shut down for negligence?"

Arlo had been shuffling uncomfortably in place during the entire exchange, fidgeting with the pen he'd been using as an emphasis pointer on his slides.

"...point is, it isn't an option, and none of the women in our lives would be willing to carry. But, this doesn't mean that we can't start a family! Ronnie, you were sentient in the 90s. You remember the original Mewtwo, right?"
"...oh yeah, that's the cat thing that Team Rocket experiments made that killed everyone in the lab then ran off to a cave, right?"
"Yes. And it just so happens that I've gotten approved for a grant to reinstate Team Rocket's synthetic Pokémon efforts. We lost the original documents when the Pokemon League made us surrender them and then our backup on Cinnabar Island got crispy-fried, so it's taken the greater part of 30 years to get back to what we had."

Spark and Ronnie turned to look at each other, Spark shrugged, and then they both turned back to Arlo. Spark was the first to speak up.

"...uh...is this going where I think it is? Because if it is, I'm not volunteering my genetic material."

"If where you thought it was going was that I'm gonna grow us a kid in a clone tube in my basement, yes. I need to test the machine with something more complex. Humans are less malleable, and also do less damage if they turn out...unstable, so it's a great test to make sure it works properly with complex sapient creatures before we restart with Pokemon!"

"..."

Both other men remained silent for nearly an entire minute, Arlo excitedly fidgeting and expectantly blinking at them while they sat numb on the couch.

"I don't understand why you're so unconfident about this. Don't you trust me?" Arlo focused on Spark and batted his eyelashes as innocently as possible.

"It isn't that I doubt that you're a competent scientist, dear...it's just that, well, the last time Team Rocket tried cloning a sapient Pokemon, it didn't go well for anyone involved, and that was without Shadow Pokemon residue involved?"

"I've tested the tube; it's as sterile as possible from both physical and animum factors. The previous Shadow Pokemon work in this building should be entirely irrelevant."

"Okay, but Mewtwo still came out evil without that!"

"Mewtwo did not come out evil. It came out powerful and in need of affection, and became evil when it was abused and treated as a weapon instead of a sapient being."

"Look, I understand that your heart's in the right place and that you honestly think this is a viable way for us to start a family, but I'm not comfortable contributing any of my material to this...if nothing else, I think I'd have a hard time seeing a baby me as their own person."

"I know. That's why before you interrupted me, I was going to ask Ronnie to be the donor." Arlo made a grandiose flourish in Ronnie's direction, the latter looking stunned.

"Uh. Well..."

"I know your dad's been bugging you about grandkids. You deserve a chance to be raised by people who accept you for all you are, and while we can't undo the past, we can make a better future."

"Plus, you're already evil, so no amount of mad science could make you worse!"

"...yes. Thank you, Spark. It also avoids raising too many questions from the Pokemon League. If the kid looks too much anyone affiliated with them, Spark could get in trouble for using Team Rocket tech for personal gain. No one's going to suspect a baby Ronnie."

"...I assume that if you got a grant for it, human cloning isn't a normal thing in the future. Everyone knows that you and Spark are gay. You just said that since you have monsters, you can't adopt or surrogate. How are you going to explain where this kid came from?"

"We don't. If anyone really wants to pry, it's yours and we're co-parenting. No one would think you getting some girl pregnant after a show and ending up as a single dad would be out of character. Well, except for how the other you actually did that and has opted to ignore the kid entirely and have her mom do all the work, except having his 5 year old daughter in the super gory video about him killing himself..."

"Okay, so you're using me being an irresponsible man-slut who either had a pang of morality and decided to raise his son himself or got left with the kid by some chick as cover for your human cloning experimentation. Cool. If you and Spark are the parents, can I be the uncle who's a bad influence on the kid?"

"I wouldn't expect anything less of you."

Ronnie and Arlo shared a hug while Spark tried to not look too uncomfortable with the whole situation. He did tell Arlo he wanted kids. He didn't realize he had to specify whose.