A Thousand Words

by Fiona Agnew

"A picture is worth a thousand words" is almost a cliche in this business. Whether you're taking pictures for an advertisement, a League-sponsored event, or a magazine cover, getting the right shot can pull an entire piece together. When the editor of Frontier Trainer magazine sent out an open call for cover photos accompanied by the stories behind them, I knew what I had to put up.

Go on and look back at the cover. Awesome, right? I've had people ask me time and again, how in the world did you get two Blaziken to pose for you just like that? Well, here's the story.

I'm a frontier photographer. While the human-Pokémon connection is usually explored on the roads or in the cities, I've always found myself drawn to the real wilds, miles off the beaten path. I love seeing how Pokémon live without us, and the raw beauty of Pokémon-dominated nature. Not only that, but I often get to interact with species that are more shy of humans and don't come around much.

On this particular trip, Tommy (the handsome Machoke in the straw hat, pictured below) and yours truly had been going up this small mountain in the plains of Hoenn, to the northwest of Mt. Chimney. The sunsets in that area are famous among photographers, and I knew I could get an awesome shot of that orange light off of a flock of Skarmory or something of the like.

If I'm being honest, I had a double purpose in being out there. My niece had just turned ten, and my sister had been asking me for months to find a nice Pokémon for her on my travels. It's our family tradition that a girl's first Pokémon be a gift, but they're also supposed to be tough. My first was Tommy; my sister's was a Geodude. And if you want a tough Pokémon, you go to the mountains.

So Tommy and I reach the top of this mountain, and the view is perfect. The sun was maybe a few minutes from going down, and there were a lot of flocks flying west, since the Skarmory tend to hunt Seviper and Swablu nearer to the coast as night falls. I set up my camera, and when the sun is hovering right over the summit, I set it to start taking pictures.

That's when I hear the noise. Clucking and screeching, and then the sound of claws on rock. You don't spend as much time as I do in the wild and not recognize a territory brawl starting, so I looked around and saw a Blaziken, running up the side of the mountain at top speed. At this point I'm scared out of my mind, because if this mountain is Blaziken territory I'm going to have to battle my way out, and Blaziken are not known for their fragility. But then a miracle happens.

The Blaziken I can see leaps...and another one comes up from the other side of the mountain. They both land short of the very summit, then leap, twist, and kick. Their legs crossed in mid-air and this huge ring of fire blasted out from where their legs connected. All that happened in the space of maybe two seconds. Then they were flying back down the mountain, screaming and kicking and blasting fire. I realized they were competing for a mate, and took my camera to grab more pictures of them.

They fought for a few more minutes. One of them had a much more polished and effective physical technique, while the other was using more blasts of fire and making a spectacle. I looked around and saw a female watching, and when the fight was over, she picked the more physical one. I guess it's no surprise Blaziken self-select for fighting technique. They're some of the rarest and toughest fighting types out there.

I had an epiphany. I was going to wait for the two to mate, and then steal one of their Eggs for my niece! Genius, if I do say so myself. So I snuck down the mountain to their little eyrie. Contrary to what my friends will tell you, I did not in fact take pictures of them mating. If you want to see Blaziken mate, you can get a camera and find out on your own time. But the next morning, a fat clutch of eggs was in the nest.

When Blaziken have Eggs, the usual model is that they don't actually need their parents' warmth. The Eggs are so hot that they incubate themselves. Instead of sitting on them, the more adept fighter (in this case, the mother) guards the nest while the better hunter (in this case, the father) leaves to get food. So my problem became "how to beat up an angry mama Blaziken and steal her eggs before Papa arrives and ruins my day".

We approached the nest quietly, but there was only so close we could get before she noticed us. Tommy ran up to her and started throwing punches while I flanked and ran for the nest. True to form, she immediately tried to come after me, but while Tommy wasn't as quick as her, he was every inch as strong. Every time she tried to get away he'd suplex her, and I managed to snag one of the Eggs, slipping it into my backpack. Then me and Tommy made eye contact and ran like hell. Jets of fire followed us, but the mama wasn't willing to leave her nest exposed to chase us down.

Tommy and I kept running for a few miles. By this, I mean I ran for five minutes and Tommy carried me the rest of the way. Then I plugged my camera into my computer and looked through the pictures I'd taken, since there was no way I was going back to that mountain with the stolen baby of a Pokémon that lived there. And then I saw it. The Picture.

The moment the two Blaziken's legs had met, a little ring of fire had formed around the point where their calves collided. That ring had gotten huge in just moments, but at the precise point of contact it was small enough that the sun setting over the mountain was perfectly centered inside it. The picture was perfectly symmetrical, two male Blaziken performing the same kick over the summit of a mountain as the sun set. The colors, the composition, even the ring of fire. I knew right then that this picture was the one.

But I have to say, even with the honor of getting a picture on the cover of Frontier Trainer, my biggest reward was the look on my niece's face when I handed her a Torchic as her belated birthday present. ✦