Speaker 1: He Hello, friends from across the nation and around the world.
I'm Martin and you are listening to Dad's bedtime stories.
Tonight we're going to be headed back into the Spaceship universe,
which if you've never listened before, it's completely fine. Well
you really need to know is you are a kid
with a magic spaceship and you go explore different planets
and stuff. And if it's the first time you're listening
and you like the episode, there's like four hundred more
almost Spaceship episodes alone, so you can check those out too. Now,
as most of you know, I love to take listener
suggestions for my episodes most of the time, and today's
no exception, So let's check out what we have on
the voicemail.
Speaker 2: Hi, my name is Landon and this is my sister Sullivan.
So we would like to request a story of you
go to this world called pet World and you meet
this girl named Landon who owns pet World. So basically
what you do in pet World is you get a
pet and you get to name it, and then you
get to train it for these big obstacles that they
do every year and well like every month, and so
you get to train with Sullivan who's the trainer, and
you get to be really good friends with Sullivan and
Landon and some of the pets that are there are
like they have these like magical powers that they can
like wield ice and fire and water and that kind
of suss.
Speaker 3: Beal.
Speaker 2: We love her stories.
Speaker 1: Well, thank you to Landon and Sullivan for that suggestion.
I think that's exactly what we're going to do tonight. Also,
big shout out to Avitt, who also left me a message.
I get the impression Ave it might be related. Maybe not,
who knows.
Speaker 4: I also want to shout out some of my Spotify commenters,
specifically Jacob who told me that in his town's Humane
Society there's a cat named Oliver that hates everyone and
I actually I think that was in my head when
I made this episode.
Speaker 1: Two. Last, I want to shout out some of my
newest Patreon sponsors. Thank you first of all to Max
and Griffin as well as JG from Peterborough, Ontario, a
place that I actually go quite a lot. I have
to travel there a lot. It's not too far from
my house. I really appreciate the support everyone. Yeah, it
goes a long way to keep the podcast alive. Additionally,
a big shout out to Stacy B and Alicia G
who both joined Patreon as well. And if there's anyone
you guys want me to showed out, just let me
know through the messages on Patreon.
Speaker 4: There.
Speaker 1: But now it's time to get on with the story.
So close your eyes, get as comfy as you can
in that bed, and imagine yourself doing what the kid
in the story does. Imagine yourself waking up on board
your very own spaceship. You get up out of bed,
stretch your arms and legs, and head out of the
bedroom area into the main section of the ship, which
is sort of an open concept ship with a living room, kitchen,
play area, little book nook, and of course the command
center of the show, where Spaceship's digital face is currently displayed.
Good morning, Spaceship says, oh, good morning, Spaceship. Well, anything
on the docket today, you ask, Yes, I have found
several extremely interesting planets. First of all, there seems to
be a planet inhabited entirely by popcorn dragons. Are you
serious popcorn dragons? Yes? However, that is not the most
interesting thing I have found. My probes have also discovered
a planet where computers seem to grow on trees. It
looks very interesting. Or last, a planet where you train pets,
many of which have elemental powers. You think for a
long while about which place you want to visit first.
You can always go to the others afterwards. After all, well,
maybe we'll go to the pet planet first. You decide, understood,
setting course for pet training planet. The ship turns to
the left and jumps into super hyper drive once again,
creating a sort of wormhole around your ship that transports
you at incredible speed to almost anywhere in the galaxy.
You eventually stop above a very beautiful but somewhat small planet.
It looks kind of earth like, lots of green with
little bits of blue, but it's really really small compared
to Earth. You jump in the command seat and steer
the ship down through the clouds over top of the
beautiful landscape of trees and green, green grass, until you
eventually come to a set of structures and little houses.
As you look out the window below, you see, well,
you see all sorts of animals making their way through
all sorts of different obstacle courses. It looks kind of
like a pet show if the pets had well superpowers,
fire powered cats blasting across bridges, ice powered donkeys, miniature
earth courses of some kind, all making their way through
a series of different obstacles. There are humans scattered around, too,
and they sort of look like they're well cheering everyone on.
You carefully land in a large clearing one that resembles
a parking lot. With a hiss and a clank, The
ship lands on the ground and the back door opens up.
You head outside and see that two of the people
are making their way towards the ship. Hi. There, one
of them says, welcome to the Pet Training Planet. My
name is Landing and I own this place. Wow, you
own this whole training facility, you say, no, well, yes,
but I actually own the entire planet. My sister and
I created the whole thing to be a pet training
well oasis, I guess, she explains, This is my sister Sullivan.
Sullivan says, Sullivan's my main trainer here. Oh what is
this place, you ask, Well, it's basically what it sounds like.
It's a place where we train very special pets to
go through very special obstacles. Once a month. We actually
have a competition for it. Today happens to be the
day of the month. We do that too. Want to
come check things out and well, maybe do some pet training,
she asks, Of course I do, you respond perfect well,
I have some other things to do, but well, Sullivan
here is one of the best pet trainers I have.
I'll let her show you around. Hey, follow me, Sullivan says,
weaving towards you to follow after her. As you follow
and look around, and you see all kinds of very
interesting animals doing very interesting things. There are tiny unicorns
with glowing horns. There are puppies with sparks dancing around
their paws and bodies, cats with leafy tails, what look
to be hamsters floating around in little bubbles of air,
dragon lings that are no bigger than house cats, flapping
flower petal wings, and well creating flowers all over the place.
Eventually you come to a stop outside a little covered building. Well,
the first thing you have to do is pick a pet,
Sullivan says, uh, okay, I can pick any pet in here.
That's right, Sullivan says, every pet here has a power
two some have fire, some have ice, water, wind, grass, clouds, flowers, lightning,
or even other mysterious powers. You look around the little
fenced in area outside the building. Most pets are running
and playing, jumping, rolling, shooting fireballs or strange magical energy
at each other. But one pet is not. A little
cat is just sitting alone atop a scratched wooden crate.
It has black stripes, sharp yellow eyes, and the grumpiest
face you've ever seen on a living creature. He looks
like he's been personally offended by well, everything that Sullivan
says is Oliver. Oliver hisses at a butterfly that passes it.
The butterfly decides it has somewhere else to be and
quickly makes its way out of there. He looks You
start to say mean, Sullivan continues, well, I was gonna
say annoyed. Well, Oliver's been here for a while. Lots
of kids have tried to train him, but he just grabvels, scratches,
and pretty much refuses to do anything. We have never
convinced him to do a single obstacle, which is kind
of the whole point of this place. Oliver turns his
head and stares at you directly. You immediately feel judged
and well, as if his distaste is being reflected straight
at you. What powers does he have? You ask, still
uncomfortable from his gaze. Well, we don't know, says. Every
time we try to test him, he just refuses to
do anything, and sometimes he just scratches us. You make
your way inside the enclosure and move over towards Oliver.
Oliver lifts one paw and gives a tiny angry But
something about it doesn't sound right to you. It doesn't
sound mean, it sounds hurt. You walk a little closer,
and Oliver hisses, turning sideways and sticking his back straight
up in the air, becoming well like a giant puffball.
May I interject, Spaceship's voice says, coming from your watch,
I believe scanning this animal may provide possible answers as
to its grumpy behavior. Would you allow me to do so? Uh? Sure,
Sullivan answers, a little bit confused about why there's a
robotic voice coming out of your watch. You hold the
watch up and a blue light shoots out, scanning the
little cat. Oliver tries to swat the beam away, but
it doesn't work. Scan complete, Spaceship says, it seems that
Oliver's right back knee has an untreated injury, likely very
old movement, probably causes him a great deal of pain
that may explain his grumpy behavior. Sullivan's eyes go wide
his knee. Oh, Oliver, we didn't know. We had the
vet look him over, but she didn't find anything. If
you would allow me to assist, spaceship, says, My ship
is equipped with the highest level of medical care. I
should be able to fix the cat in no time.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 1: I guess that's okay. Sullivan answers, and soon a little stretcher,
being carried by little helper bots, floats over from the
ship and lands beside Oliver. The other pets move backward,
and Oliver backs away, hissing and sticking his back up
in the air, until one of the robots quickly moves
beside him and injects the cat with well some kind
of medical device. He instantly closes his eyes and falls
over completely asleep. The medical bots very cautiously move the
cat onto the stretcher, fly up in the air, and
straight back towards the ship. You and Sullivan follow close behind.
When you enter the ship, you see that a large
part of the back section has been transformed into a
little medical bay. Oliver sits on a floating cushion in
the center as the helper bots begin to scan his knee.
The procedure is minor, Spaceship says, repairing damage tissue, reducing inflammation,
reinforcing joint structure. All you really see is the team
of little helper bots shining blue lights over the cat's
knee as he sleeps. But apparently it's working. Procedure complete.
Waking Oliver up. Now, a robot injects something else into
the cat. His eyes pop open, and he stands straight up.
He takes a step forward, and then another. He bends
his back legs and then jumps straight onto your shoulder.
Sullivan gasps, I've never seen him jump before. Oliver rubs
his face against your cheek and purrs so loudly that
you can feel the vibration. Purring intensity has increased. I
believe this indicates a successful operation, Spaceship says, you smile. Well,
I think maybe he wants to train like the others.
I guess maybe he does. This is amazing. Well, follow me,
we can find out if he really does want to train.
Back outside, Sullivan leads you to the training course. All right,
she says, before Oliver starts, I'll show you what some
of our trained pets can do. First comes a little
fire puppy with orange fur and floppy little ears. This
is hot Dog, Sullivan says. Hot Dog barks proudly. His
paws burst into tiny flames, but they don't seem to
burn the grass or anything, which is kind of weird.
He races forward to a row of tall wooden hurdles
and blasts little fire jets behind him, launching himself up
over each one. Eh, he has fire boost jumps. It
really helps with obstacles like this, Sullivan explains. Hot Dog lands,
spins in a circle, and sneezes a puff of smoke. Next,
Sullivan brings up a green cat with leafy looking whiskers.
This is grassy. Grassy runs toward a tall wall covered
in vines. She grows new vines straight out of the ground.
They twist into a stair case, and the cat easily
trots up and over the wall as if it was nothing.
Then comes a little tiny hamster floating inside a swirl
of air. This is stream, short for air stream, of course,
she explains. Stream squeaks and spins around in a circle.
A little tornado of air forms under her, lifting her
up through a set of floating hoops. Oh wow, you say, yeah,
airpower can be of benefit, Sullivan answers. Next, comes a
rainbow puppy. This is Cloudy, Sullivan says, cloudy. The rainbow
pup Cloudy bounds forward and creates soft little rainbow clouds
under her baws, bouncing from one to another over a gigantic,
well human made canyon. Finally, Sullivan brings out a small
dragonling with pink and green scales. This his Rose. The
flower dragon Rose flutters into the air, breathes out, and
a stream of glowing petals appears in front of her.
The petals stick themselves together, forming into a bridge, which
the dragon uses to get across a muddy pit. Couldn't
the dragon just fly though, you ask? Well, yeah, but
it's not as impressive looking as a flower bridge, Sullivan says, right,
you see Oliver still sitting on your shoulder, luckily not
digging its claws in watching every move they make. His
eyes are sharp, now, not angry, more more interested. Sullivan
looks at him, Well, Oliver, are you ready? Oliver jumps
down off of your shoulder and moves over to the
starting line, straight across from the hurdle jump Take it. Slow,
you say. Oliver crouches, then his paws glow orange, just
like hot Dogs. He launches forward with a burst of
fire and clears the first hurdle, then the second, and
then all five. Hot Dog barks in astonishment. Sullivan drops
her clipboard. Did did he just copy hot Dog's fire boost?
Maybe he's a fire type, she says. Oliver sits and
licks one paw, pretending like it was nothing. All right, Well,
let's try the vine wall, Sullivan says. Walks up to it,
flicks his tail, and green vines burst from the ground,
just like they did for the other cat. They twist
into steps as they did for Grassy and well. Oliver
bounds up the steps to the top of the obstacle,
looking very proud, and again quietly licking his paw and
then wrapping it on the top of his head.
Speaker 4: Ho it's a.
Speaker 1: Grass type two, Sullivan says, in confusion. Next, Oliver steps
up towards the floating hula hoops, the one the air
hamster made its way through with such ease. His whiskers
start to glow pale blue, and wind starts to swirl
all around you. It forms a little tornado underneath it,
lifting him up into the air and allowing him to
fly smoothly through the spiral of little hoops. Sullivan just
watches in amazement. Nacs the cat walks up to the
little Man made well canyon and starts to produce little
rainbow clouds beneath its paws, one and then another. He
hops from one to the other as if they're little
stepping stones, until he reaches the other side, where he
has to cross a muddy pit. Oliver takes a breath,
releases a stream of glowing petals, which all form a
path across the mud. He walks over it with his
tail held high. Sullivan just stares. He doesn't have just
one elemental power. He's he's a mimic or a multi
elemental cat or something. She says. Correction, spaceship interrupts from
your watch. Oliver appears to possess adaptive elemental mimicry after
observing another pet's power. He can produce it with high accuracy,
So he has like any pet power you ask, likely yes,
provided he sees it used first. Oliver moves back over
beside you and rubs against your leg. You bend down
and scratch him behind the ears. Wow. This is incredible. Oliver,
you're quite the pet. But uh well, it's almost time
for our actual competition. You too want to join? She asks,
you look down at Oliver, who just in response, I guess.
So you spend a little more time practicing with Oliver
as Sullivan gets the competition ready, but by the afternoon
the place starts to fill up with all sorts of
kids and their own pets from all across Pet World.
There's a mini unicorn that looks like you can shoot
beams of light out of its horn. There's a little
griffin baby who controls wind with its wings, an ice
fox who freezes the ground ahead of it, a water
turtle who creates floating little water bubbles or shields or something.
There's also an animal that looks rather creepy, some sort
of lightning ferret you believe that moves as fast as lightning,
and a little yellow blur. There's even a frog that
looks like it's made out of lava. The ground burns
and melts beneath it. Sullivan's sister Landon steps up to
an announcer booth. Welcome everyone to this month's Pet World
Obstacle course. The crowd cheers. Today we will test your
pet training and your pet powers to see who the
best obstacle pet is. Winner gets this cool trophy. She
holds a large trophy up in the air. The crowd
cheers again. You and Oliver sit and watch the first competitors.
The first one is sparklehoof the mini Unicorn. She races forward,
lights up her horn, and creates glowing ramps over the hurdles.
She finishes rather quickly, and the crowd cheers. The little
griffin baby apparently named feather Top is up next. It
uses its powerful wing gusts to soar over the pits
and through the hoops, again, finishing with almost no problems
at all. The ice fox goes next, freezing the ground
in front of it and just sort of slipping its
way over the obstacles, through the hoops, and across a
giant beam of ice. The water turtle goes next, simply
floating in little bubbles across canyons. The lightning fairet zaps
through the tunnel maze so quickly that well, honestly, most
of the crowd, including you, entirely misses it, and the
lava frog, well, the lava frog just accidentally melts everything
beneath it and never finishes the race, but after rebuilding,
it's finally your turn, all Oliver. Oliver responds by purring loudly,
and now Landon says on the microphone, we have Oliver,
the mystery cat and former grump. The crowd murmurs. Some
kids recognize him and immediately look towards their old wounds
from attempting to train this particular cat. You bend down
beside him. Don't worry, just do your best. It's your
first competition after all. He bumps his forehead against you,
and you scratch him on the side of the head.
The starting bell rings and Oliver explodes forward with hot
Dog's fire boost, clearing the first row of hurdles in
an easy single jump. He reaches a wall, his paws
glow like sparkle hoof's horn, and he creates some sort
of ramp of light straight up the side. He races
up and over the top before getting to the spinning
hoop section. He gathers air underneath him, floats up in
the wind, and flies straight through the thing with the
power of stream or well, perhaps that Griffin. It's hard
to tell exactly who he's mimicking. In this case. He
comes to a balance beam next and projects ice straight
over top of the thing, moving, running and sliding across
in an instant. The crowd is amazed. Next, he moves
up to a muddy pit and combines the hole, rose
power and grass thing together, growing vines with beautiful blossoms
covering them across the pit, and then well simply running
across them with the balance and reflexes of a cat. Last,
he comes to a canyon. He takes a deep breath
and blows out a giant bubble. The cat jumps inside
the bubble and floats across the canyon. The bubble pops
on the other side, and Oliver lands on the ground,
standing proud. Right on the finish line, the crowd goes crazy.
The once grumpy cat that used to simply hiss and
scratch everyone as just well finished the obstacle course in
almost record time. I mean it was slower than the
lightning ferret, of course, but it was impressive. You follow
the crowd as they move towards the stage where Landing
and Sullivan are currently standing ready to hand out trophies. Well,
very good. Our main trophy, of course, goes to the
lightning ferret. It blew the others out of the water
for this particular competition in terms of speed. Anyways, the
kid and the lightning ferret make their way up onto
the stage, grab the trophy, and everyone cheers. However, as
many of you know, we often give out special prizes,
and this time we think one is warranted. So the
prize for the most improved pet with the greatest style
goes to Oliver the mimic cat or whatever it is.
Sullivan pulls another trophy from behind the podium and lifts
it up. You look down at Oliver, who jumps up
onto your shoulder. Once again. You make your way onto
the stage, take the trophy and hold it up in
the air as all of the other kids cheer. Soon
the crowd's part and you find yourself standing across from
Landen and Sullivan once again. Well, thanks, guys, thanks for
letting me train Oliver here. He's a pretty cool cat. Yeah,
he sure is. Well, I kind of have to get
going to other adventures. Uh, you guys able to take
care of this little guy?
Speaker 4: You ask?
Speaker 1: Of course we can. We'll train him with all of
the best pet powers on the pet training planet. They say.
You kneel down one last time and give all of
her a scratch on both sides of his cheeks. He
brushes up against your leg and then moves over towards Sullivan.
You walk back on to the spaceship, turn around as
the ship lifts up off of the ground and the
back hatch closes. You lay down on the couch as
spaceship flies up through the atmosphere and out into space
once again. You close your eyes, lay your head down
on the pillow, and just start going through your memories
of the day. With each breath, you let go of
the tension and your muscles. You let your arms and
legs melt into the couch. You release the tension and
your shoulders, your neck, and even your face. Then you
let your mind wander off to thoughts of new dreams,
new adventures, and new superpowered animals to come. Goodnyed Everyone.
Speaker 3: Union name a New York. No more Union, no amo
of thing, no more m one one never