A/N: Written for the Kanto Pokemon League Competition, round one with blind type #1 – flying. Including part flying types like Charizard.
Becoming a Bird
Dragons and lizards may be of the same kind, but the appearance of the wings put him at the same level of a bird, and that was a fact he wasn't too pleased with.
Dry flakes of skin still came off under his claws when he scratched, and he puffed them to a crisp without much thought. The extra size wasn't that hard to deal with; his claws had lengthened too, and become more flexible, and his tail could far more easily slither to the part of his back he couldn't otherwise reach. The wings though…they posed a different problem.
He could barely flap his wings once without floundering for balance and being whipped with chirps of laughter from nearby Pidgey. He could barely flap thrice before he would find himself flat on his face, new sturdy forearms complaining as he pushed himself back up. And he couldn't launch himself into the air without being cut by the tailwind of the rapid and flawless ascent of those Pidgeotto and Pidgeot.
Compared to them, a Charizard was just a blubbering mass of a ground-dweller, despite the wings that keyed them to the skies.
But he was stubborn, and he had seen Charizard flying as high as those Pidgeot in the sky in his youth, before he had evolved. Perhaps the land was more familiar to him – and certainly more so than those birds who could not walk straight upon the ground. But it was those birds with their magnificent plumes and their children that were so smug; they cared nothing for the ground, save what they could feed upon on it.
They were flying high now, above the clouds, and he skimmed the blanket of ocean far below. His tail was safe; his wings lacked the finesse of the pure breed of birds but they were strong. They had been made for strength, after all, while the pure-bred birds were built for speed. If they lowered their plumes of arrogance and accepted a fight from him he was sure he could defeat them.
He watched the shadows flash by in the sky. Showing off perhaps…or maybe spending their time in idle flight was what they enjoyed. As for him, skimming the ocean's surface had a second purpose; he was ever mindful of the flame-lit tail, careful to keep it above the water.
But even if he was displeased: of the tag of "Flying-type" that came with his wings, and of those other birds with which he shared a land, he remained and dug his home just a little deeper each day. Perhaps it was a thread of stubbornness at heart, or perhaps it was a challenge he recognised as a necessity: a challenge that pushed him past limits he would otherwise take years to overcome.
He gave his wings a mighty flap and rocketed upward, the birds having seen him coming long before and circling where he'd break through the clouds that split the sky.