-The Dragon King-

  -Call to Arms: Ch 4-

  “Pokémon. Oh Pokémon, what wonderful creatures we share this world with.

  Isn't it fascinating how we can live side by side with these creatures, share our lives with them, call them friends, consider them family, and yet still not understand them even after all this time?

  I stumbled into the scientific community almost by accident, you know. Back when I was a scrappy young trainer, who always let my burning curiosity get the better of me- oh, barely ten years old, my how time flies!

  I couldn’t stop pestering my poor Pokémon with questions that they couldn’t possibly know about themselves. Why does Charmander’s tail flare brighter when it’s healthy? How does Pidgey know which way is north during migration? When a question got into my head, it would stick there and never go away, like burrs on a Growlithe’s fur, and I had to know the answers.

  Naturally my younger self almost immediately ran into the curse of knowledge- the more you know, the more you know you don’t know. Trying to reach the bottom of that well is like trying to catch a Gastly in broad daylight!

  It feels like every waking moment of my life since I was ten years old has been that same loop. I find a question, I try to answer the question, and in doing so I find two more questions that I need to answer!

  In those days, I’d tromp off to the nearest library (mind you, this was long before all the fancy internet nonsense) and dig through dusty books. But soon enough, my questions got too big for the pages, they became more specific and steered away from the research that the regional professor was specialized in. So, after pocketing some prize money from my fifth Gym badge, I took a break from the Gym Circuit (though I would eventually return to it and claim all my badges) and set off with my team to figure things out myself.

  Oh, those were the days. Just me and my team, wandering Kanto, trying to seek out the mysteries and legends of the Kanto region.

  No lab, no fancy tools, just a notebook, a sack of Poké Balls, and a head full of dreams.

  There’s something pure about those early days, though- more honest, somehow. Even if I was tripping over my own feet half the time.

  I’ll admit it took me a while before I stopped being stupid and decided to start writing down everything I found so that I could actually remember all the fascinating things I discovered, and not just forget them in a week or two.

  Then, one morning, I blinked and found myself in my fifties. Suddenly, the same professors I’d idolized my entire life, folks whose books lined my shelves, were asking me for advice!

  Five years back, The Unovan Times named me “Man of the Year”

  Can you believe it? I didn’t even know I was in the running! I only found out weeks later when my grandson shoved the paper under my nose.

  “Professor Oak, greatest mind of our generation.”

  Bah, who even writes those things? I certainly don’t think of myself that highly. I’m just an old man who loves Pokémon, trying to scribble down everything I can about them.

  To think, my simple project to make a compendium of all Pokemon I could find, would lead to this. It’s turned into something bigger than I ever dreamed. But there’s still so much left to discover. Why, just a few years ago, the scientific community celebrated the confirmation of a brand new Type!

  And that brings me onto the topic that I was supposed to be writing about today, before I got distracted.

  Sometimes I wonder if calling all Pokémon “Pokémon” is a bit of a stretch, and I worry we might have dug ourselves into a hole with that singular classification category. We humans have more physically in common with a Chimpchar than that Chimpchar has with a Vanillish, after all.

  What binds them together, really, is their ability to generate and manipulate Type Energy, that mysterious force that makes a Pokémon, well, a Pokémon!

  And yet, even among them, some stand apart. Like the Fairies.

  Fairy Pokémon are more than just a typing, just as Ghost Pokemon are more than just a typing.

  They’re something else entirely! They’re ethereal, elusive, like something out of an old Paldean bedtime story- the inspiration for many, if my suspicions are correct. They’re Beings of mist and moonlight, playing by rules we can’t quite grasp.

  An old friend of mine, Lance, despises Fairies. The weight of his influence was half the reason it took so long to get the Pokémon League to recognize them officially. Took years of pestering, a stack of research papers almost as tall as the ceiling, and a few stern letters I’d rather not revisit. I have words to say about the whole thing, but I’ll save that for another time.

  Lance calls them inhuman. And, as amusing as calling any Pokemon ‘inhuman’ is, I have plenty of evidence to suggest his instinct is correct.

  Fairies, insofar as I can tell, do not think like us, or like any Pokémon I’ve studied, for that matter. It’s not just their tricks, it’s deeper than that. They watch us the way a Pidgeot watches the wind: they see the patterns, predict the gusts, but they don’t understand how or why the wind blows. And it’s the same in reverse!

  I’ve spent hours, days, poring over their actions when they’re alone and not acting off of Humans, and can’t connect the dots. There are methods and reasons for why they do what they do, but for the life of me I cannot find a way to put it together, so it all seems completely random at a glance.

  How does a Sylveon know when you lie about your name? We know that the care put into preparing food is more important to their health than the food itself, so then why does learning names give them sustenance?

  Why do they value making a promise, any promise, over you just doing the thing in the first place?

  Why would anyone trade their life as payment to hear a song given for free?

  There’s logic there, I’m sure of it, but it’s like trying to read a book written in riddles. Every answer slips through my fingers.

  I know that there are cases of genuine friendship, and Fraries can come to care more deeply than any other Pokemon, but they are also prone to manipulation.

  This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  Emotional nudges here and there, and taking advantage of empathy to get what they want, and to further their own goals- although because those goals can be so vague, it’s hard to tell when someone is being used or not.

  A number of my colleagues, Lance especially, believe that they’re very dangerous. And, well, yes, of course they are! They’re Pokemon! And isn’t that half the fun of it?

  You might never fully understand Fairies, and they might not understand you, but that’s no reason to shy away from a friend. I’ve seen a Togepi mend a broken heart with a single chirp, and a Gardevoir stand guard over a sleeping child like a knight from some old legend.

  For every trick they pull, there’s a gift they offer, sometimes you just have to squint to see it. Approach them with an open mind and a steady heart. Bring a gift if you can- they’re partial to sentimental things and homemade food!

  Ask questions, even if the answers dance out of reach. That’s the life I’ve lived, and it’s brought me more wonders than I can count.

  The world’s a big place, full of Pokémon as strange and splendid as Fairy Types. Keep exploring, keep learning, and give your team an extra head pat for me. Who knows? Maybe one day you’ll be the one scribbling in a notebook, unraveling mysteries I never got to. And if you do, drop by the lab- I’d love to hear all about it over a cup of tea!”

  -Professor Samuel Oak, On Fairies, in a guest letter to The Kanto Chronicles

  -The Dragon King-

  “Faries weird”

  “Fairy type creepy”

  “Why do people not think Fairy types creepy?”

  “Fairy Dragon interactions”

  “Type Energy how work”

  “Fairy type emotion manipulation”

  “Can Fairy types manipulate emotions?”

  “How to resist mental tampering”

  “Tin foil properties”

  “Fairies evil?”

  Mark’s browsing history read like he was someone who was off their meds.

  He was trying to figure out why no one else thought that lady’s Sylveon was creepy as Hell, but all he found was a bunch of standard internet conspiracy rabbit holes of completely unverifiable information.

  The only concrete facts he did have were the following.

  A) The VAST majority of people thought Fairy types were cute or pretty.

  B) Every Dragon type user, be they a specialist, a Gym Trainer, a Gym Leader, a Dragon Master, all seemed to hate Fairy types when asked about them.

  C) Fairy Types had been scientifically proven to have the ability to feel, feed on, and (to a certain extent) influence emotions in other living creatures. The extent of this was heavily dependent on how powerful the Pokemon was, but due to how rare and secretive Fairies were, the phenomenon hadn’t been fully studied

  D) Dragon Energy and Fairy Energy did not play well together. Even compared to how other “opposing” Type Energies clashed, those two specifically were like water and oil.

  His current unscientific theory was that Fairy Pokemon had some kind of natural “glamour” that didn’t work as well on people who were baked in Dragon Energy all the time. It would explain why even someone as experienced as Professor Oak wouldn’t think there was anything weird with them outside of a scientific sense, he couldn’t see the “real” Pokemon behind the mask.

  He doubted he was the first person to reach this conclusion, considering that he wasn’t exactly a genius, and he was right. There were a number of people in the online fringes that were tossing around different versions of the same idea. The problem was that they were also all nutsos who were convinced that Fairies were demons, the Jenny’s were all Dittos, Rocket was running the Kanto police force, and that the League was either being mind controlled or were secretly aliens.

  They weren’t exactly good sources to help back up his argument- actually, just by existing, they were making his argument a harder one to take seriously. Already people were brushing off his concerns as “another Dragon trainer angy at losing to Fairies”, he didn’t need to call on a witness who came to the stand wearing a genuine tinfoil hat.

  BOOM

  A shower of tiny rock pieces rained down on top of Mark’s head, making him look up at the plume of smoke wafting from up high on the side of the ravine.

  BOOM

  A blue orb the size of his chest crashed into another section of the cliff face, exploding again.

  Shelgon’s task for the day was refining that “Dragon Pulse” into something that actually deserved the move name, instead of an unstable ball of raw TE and fire that would spontaneously combust at a harsh gust of wind.

  Shelgon was also getting annoyed about it. Mark didn’t have a worthless degree in Poke-Human communications, but he was pretty sure that every time Shelgon made angry noises and then bulldozed through a rock or small tree with a Take Down, it wasn’t as an act of celebration.

  Good thing that shell was good at absorbing recoil, eh?

  Mark had gone back into route 206 for training purposes, to get away from stingy law enforcement, and in the vain hope he might somehow stumble on Wayward Cave.

  If he was going to put on a good show for the tournament, then his boys needed to get back to work- there had been a lax period he’d been giving Shelgon after the Gym fight busted him up, but that was officially over.

  He needed him ‘mons in top shape.

  Speaking of his ‘mons…

  “Oi, Featherfuck! What are you doing!?” Mark shouted as he stomped over to the base of a distant tree.

  From up in the top branches, Noibat looked down at him, making a show of her facial expression to make sure he knew that he was disturbing her alone time.

  “We’re supposed to be training. Get back to doing those flight laps!”

  Noibat stood up but then exaggeratedly swooned and collapsed on the branch.

  “I don’t care if you're tired, because the enemy won’t care that you're tired.” Mark kicked the tree with the bottom of his boot. “Shelgon’s been going two hours straight!”

  BOOM!

  Another explosion punctuated that.

  Noibat sighed dramatically, then reached her mouth into the mane around her neck, and flung something small and shiny out into the air.

  Mark reached up and grabbed the piece of metal before it could hit his head, and inspected it. It was a 10P coin.

  “Are you seriously trying to bribe me? Where did you even get this?”

  “Nreap!” Noibat chirped happily, not answering either question.

  BOOM! There was another explosion followed by an angry shout from Shelgon, a crash, and then a panicked scream from Hellena.

  Mark narrowed his eyes and pointed at Noibat intensely. “Five minute break.” He said as he pocketed the coin. “Then you’re back to work, you thief.”

  “Haunter! Help!”

  “SHEL!”

  “Shelgon, you asshole, stop bothering Purple! Get over here and fight me instead!”

  -The Dragon King-

  The Eterna city concert hall was empty.

  After holding such a grand spectacle several days ago, it was now barren, the only people that roamed its gilded halls were maids and staff members. Tidying up the messes left behind by their guests- like where two attendees decided to throw a pair of crystal cups off the edge of the balcony.

  But there was one other. One that was not supposed to be here. One who was uninvited.

  But then again, that wasn’t anything out of the usual for him.

  A pair of gleaming red eyes watched the oblivious staff members scurry around from their perch up in the rafters. When the dumb humans finally got out of the way, the Pokemon swooped down, a foggy haze of shadows, and swept towards a balcony on the highest floor.

  Something had happened here. Something had been here, something that was even less welcomed than this Pokemon was.

  The Pokemon loitered in the area for a few minutes, bobbing in the air like a buoy in water, feeling the tiny lingering disturbances and slowly putting together a picture. And what a picture it was!

  Two of the three siblings had been here, including the one that was supposed to be locked away.

  “Golly! How interesting.” He smiled with a mouthful of fanged teeth.

  -End Chapter-