Shadow Chase
"It's your lucky day, kid," my superior beamed as soon as he barged into my office unannounced and uninvited. "And why is that, sir?" my voice dragged. "Today you'll be witnessing the first-ever attempt to breed Shadow Pokemon. With any luck, it won't be the last." "Is such a thing possible?" "Sure. The gene for Shadow Pokemon should easily be able to be passed on through breeding, since it's DNA-based. Same way you got your goldilocks from your dad," the last sentence came as a chuckle. I stifled a groan.
"Anyway, the only difference is it's not as easy," he went on. "Why not?" "I'll explain on the way. Come on." He headed out the door, and I followed suit, glad to get a moment or two away from paperwork. He kept his word and continued as he led me down the hallways, "The reason it'll be difficult is because we're not breeding just any old Pokemon." i'Well no duh.'/i "We're breeding dragons." "Dragons?" I felt my eyes widen a little. I'd never had any experience with dragon Pokemon. "Why dragons?" "Because this is a rare opportunity," he smiled, unlocking the door to one of the holds where the Pokemon themselves were kept.
The second he did so, and almost physical wave of growls, shrieks, roars, squawks, and all else poured out over me. We went in quickly and he shut the door, making sure to lock it. Some of the Pokemon stopped their noisemaking upon seeing us. A few even backed into their cages. Others glared and growled at us. "As I was saying," my employer went on again, making an effort to speak over the noise, "the female Flygon's fertile right now, and her battle wounds have healed up nicely." He led me toward the back of the huge storage room. I could only assume the aforementioned Flygon was there.
"Dragons don't get fertile often, either. What's even better is that she's already chosen a mate. It'll e a perfect chance to knock his aggression level up a bit." Now we stood directly in front of the caged Flygon, who was shelved above a sleeping Honchkrow. The apparently fertile creature glared at me and lashed her tail. The Houndour in the fireproof tank next to hers did so more viciously, barking and snarling. Smoke rose from between its fangs with a readying fire-based attack. The Pikachu on the opposite side even looked mean, with black electricity sparking from its cheeks, visible fangs, and flexing claws.
I shook it off and returned my attention to the lesson I was being given. "How so?" "If the male sees his mate being taken by anyone other than him… I dunno about you but I think hell get pretty pissed. I know I would." "I thought you said the female had already chosen him?" "It's weird, the way dragons do it," he appeared to be contemplating aloud. "Females have no say in it. If a male manages to overpower one, they mate. It's not often dragons mate without a fight. This way, only the toughest will get to pass their strength on to the next generation." That made enough sense. I couldn't help but feel a twinge of pity for the two Flygon, but hey, I wasn't the one who'd decided to do this.
"Should I get the tranquilizer?" I offered. "No. We'll move the Flygon at the same time, awake, into the desert training area. "How?" I honestly had no idea how. Those beasts were huge enough already without their containers adding on an extra 20 pounds each. "We'll get a luggage carrier. And by 'we,' I mean 'I.' Hold down the fort here." At that, he left without bothering to lock the door again.
I let my gaze rest on the Flygon that towered above me. I think she'd figured out by then that something was about to happen to her. I could tell she was flustered; she was looking past my shoulder, at the wall of cages behind me. She made a distressed sort of grainy sound one might hear in a movie such as Jurassic Park. I turned, instantly recognizing what was upsetting her. There was a different Flygon in a tank behind me, on the bottom shelf. With even footing, it was about a foot taller than me. It answered the female with the same sound, but its voice had a lower pitch. i'Must be the male,'/i I assumed.
His attention fell from his mate to me. He brought his face closer to mine and gave me a cold glare, spreading his wings as if to look more threatening. He emitted a more fierce sound this time, closer to a hiss. Maybe he was warning me not to harm the female, or something along those lines. I'd heard dragon Pokemon were very intelligent. I wished I could've apologized to him in some way; I knew every one of these Shadow Pokemon had gone through a painful transformation that only 1 in 3 survived. The resulting monsters shared a common resentment toward all human beings.
the dragon craned its neck and hissed again, glancing up at the female as it did so. i'It's not me you'll have to worry about,'/i I wanted to say. He might not have understood me even if I had said it. Either way, it was clear that he was very protective of her. His glare never faltered, his jade green wings were fixed in their spread position, his unusually sharp claws glinted, and his long, oddly furry tail lashed back and forth, daring me to make one wrong move and pay the consequences. I took the hint and left him alone.
Not long after, my boss came barging back in through the door, driving a luggage carrier not unlike something you might expect to see in an airport. He parked it right next to me, directly in front of the female Flygon's enclosure, and dismounted it. "Help me get the tank on here," he ordered, already tugging at the aforementioned structure from the right side with only a little success. I took up the left side, and with some effort we managed to drag the burden into place on the bed of the carrier, receiving loud protests from the Flygon, Pikachu, and Houndour. Getting the male Flygon onto the bed was more of a challenge. My boss made sure the two glass containers were pushed up against each other, close to the front of the bed. I rode further back, taking this chance to observe any possible intimate behavior between the two creatures. Studying the behavior of Shadow Pokemon was only my job, after all.
To this day, I've never seen such a genuine display of affection between Shadow Pokemon. Both reptiles simultaneously pressed their foreheads against the glass, as if trying to get a close to each other as possible. Their gazes locked and they pressed their hands against the glass to match their foreheads. The female's carmine-edged wings and onyx antennae drooped as gave a minute sound as close to a whimper as any Flygon could make. The male, in response, pressed himself even harder against the barrier that kept them apart.
Within minutes we reached the enclosed, outdoor area that resembled a desert in every way except the extra heating devices here and there. My manager halted the vehicle and climbed off of it, standing between it and the monitoring room for this training area, which was safely guarded against any possible stray attacks that could kill a grown man, but allowed a clear view of the battled that would take place outside. "Get inside," he warned me, "or you'll regret it." I didn't have to be told twice. I made sure to leave the door cracked open so he'd be able to get in quick after releasing the monsters. He released only the female, than ran back inside the building to fetch the dragon she was to be mated with.
The jade and ebony reptile now sat in a tank with an open top. She hesitated, but soon gave a few strong flaps of her wings, lifting her into the air. It didn't last long; she landed right on top of the other tank, on all fours. She slashed and tugged at it/ struggling to find a way to open it. The male showed similar distress, jumping up and bashing at the lid with his back and shoulders, but to no avail. The female even tried pulling on the lid while flapping her wings rapidly to pry it open, but this also yielded no success.
This went on until my superior rode another luggage carrier into the area. This one, however, held a caged Shadow Salamence. He repeated his previous process to release the Salamence, who took no hesitation in approaching his Flygon target with a deep, demanding roar. The female answered him with a hiss, crouching over her partner's cage. The Salamence gave no notice of her protests, nor did he acknowledge her companion's display of fury.
The indigo-blue reptile spread his dark violet wings, letting a low growl rumble in his throat, slowly approaching his query, who took flight and hurried away in response. Then I noticed a few dark clouds looming overhead. "Sir, this doesn't look like good weather for the occasion… is an artificial storm really necessary?" "There's a theory that dragons' passionate behaviors are intensified by storms," he nodded. "That doesn't make a lot of sense…" "Pokemon are weird creatures, kid. Get used to it."
Now the Salamence was chasing the Flygon through the gathering clouds. He soon tired of this and began using attacks. He blasted a fierce Dragon Pulse that the Flygon was barely able to dodge in time. She, in turn, ascended slightly and lowered her speed, scraping his backside with her large hind claws as he passed under her. He roared in pain and slowed to a halted hover with a single flap of his wings.
All the while, the male Flygon thrashed about in what little space his enclosure gave him, deperately attempting to escape. He roared furiously, going to such lengths as to bash his head and scrape his claws against the glass. "See? He's gettin' pissed," my employer pointed out. The beast stopped for a moment to catch his breath and watch the scene unfolding in the darkening sky far above. It wouldn't take an expert to tell he was disgusted by what he saw.
Rain began to fall as the Salamence pursued his target by air. When he was finally close enough, he chomped down hard on her left wing, causing her to cry out in agony, while her mate roared in pure hatred, unable to defend her. The indigo dragon forced her down to the ground, landing directly on top of her, with her wing still clamped firmly between his jaws. She struggled to get away, kicking, screeching, and flapping her other wing in desperation and vain. Her attacker was just too strong and heavy to shake off. He kept her pinned to the ground, face down in the mud.
I badly wanted to look away when he started thrusting into her from behind, but this was still part of my job. She emitted a frighteningly loud screech and flailed violently like a fish out of water flails for its life, but she still couldn't manage to escape. Only a few yards away, the male Flygon exhibited bevahior far worse than anything I'd seen yet. He actually head butted the glass tank so hard it fell off the luggage carrier and cracked. A few more tries and it broke open. "Sir-!" "There's nothing we can do now," he addressed my concern before I could voice it. "If we interfere, it could be fatal."
The bull Flygon shot off through the heavy rain and knocked his adversary away. The dark indigo dragon was shoved over onto his back, snarling. His attacker landed in front of the female protectively and hissed, fangs and claws glinting in the light given off by a brilliant, lingering flash of lightning. The Salamence's responding roar was lost in the booming thunder that followed.
He got to his feet and angrily flapped his wings to become airborne. His jade enemy shot an Ice Beam that glowed brightly without warning, landing a direct hit to the target's gut. He screeched, moving away before he could take too much damage. The two then simultaneously blasted Dragon Pulse attacks at one another, which collided and caused a small explosion that blew the two back a little.
The female being fought over head butted the Salamence from the right, catching him off guard. He lost his balance and fell a distance, but caught himself well before hitting the ground., vigorously flapping his wings and clawing at the air and rain in an effort to pull his weight up and make up for lost altitude. Before he got very far in this endeavor, the opposing male leaped at him with one strong force of his wings and legs, harshly gripping a foreleg with his fangs in what I understood to be a Crunch attack. He received a deafening sound somewhere between a screech and a roar in return.
Black claws tore through green fur. Lightning flashed. Thunder cracked. Rain dampened the sound of pain-induced roars echoing off of the now mire terrain. Then, with one last flash of electricity and one final roar, the dark blue reptile went crashing to the ground, headfirst. I could just barely hear the bones in his neck snap over the pattering hydration dropping from the black clouds. The body lay sprawled out in the muck, unmoving as water ran off and pooled around it...