There is an author's note at the end of this chapter.

"Aww, I wish I could see more of this little guy!" Malia cooed, trying to pet my jangmo-o's crest scale. Wako (which was the name I had decided to call my partner after a long, sleepless night) followed her hand with his snout, and snapped at her fingers one they got too close.

"Wako! No!" My pokemon whipped its head at me and glared - probably using Leer on me - in defiance. "Bad dragon!"

"Jang!"

Malia giggled. "Kal, he's just a cute little baby" she said like a mother would talk to an infant. "He doesn't know the difference between right and wrong yet!" A smitten grin grew across her face, probably due to this alleged "cuteness" of my ferocious dragon.

I scoffed. "Cute? Wako is a pokemon of prey!" Wako turned to me and flaunted his crest. I supposed the large, heart-shaped scale on his forehead didn't help my case.

The ferry's fog horn sounded, signaling that it was leaving the marina soon. Malia jumped and swung her bag across a shoulder. "Oh! There's my cue."

I returned Wako to his pokeball. "Yeah, so…" I shrugged. "See you whenever, I guess."

Malia mirrored my chagrin, but shook her head and flashed me a smile. "Oh, don't worry. It won't be too long." But as she turned and climbed up the steps to the ferry, I couldn't help but feel that it would be a while until I saw her again.

I was kicked out of house soon after. It was a moment that my parents had waited years for, which was made all too obvious by the dumb smile on my mother's face.

The first thing that I immediately realized was that even through the years of obsession with dragons, I had neglected to do any research or preparation on training. So naturally, I learned a lot in the first few weeks.

My lack of preparation was noticeable, even on my first day. As the sun began to set, I rummaged through my backpack trying to find my sleeping bag, but as my searching became more frantic, it dawned on me that I didn't have one. I managed to construct a makeshift sleeping pad from some palm leaves and set up camp around that. Calling it a camp was probably giving it too much justice; I didn't even have a fire.

For heat, I decided that Wako and I would huddle together on the ground, but soon became apparent that I was very, very, wrong. Every time I would try to hold him near me, he would aggressively squirm out of my grasp and sprawl out on top of me and nod off. For only being a couple feet tall, his weight was enough to knock the air out of me.

I kept Wako out of his pokeball most of the time. I insisted that is was strictly for protection, but then again, I didn't necessarily mind the envious looks and glances I got from the other trainers.

The next thing I realized was that Wako was strong. Not so much in the sense of attack power, but more so in the defense department. It turned out that yungoos like to attack trainers out of nowhere, so Wako being able to take some surprise hits was very useful.

But no matter how many hits Wako could take or how proud I was to own such a powerful pokemon, he'd always try to remind me that he was the master, and I was his trainee. This proved especially difficult in trainer battles. Rarely would Wako obey be in a battle, and when he did, it seemed like he was going to use that move or tactic anyway. The trainers we won against didn't seem too enthralled to hand over money to a trainer that had no control over its pokemon. I didn't blame them.

And perhaps the worst habit that Wako possessed was his tendency to run off to anything that caught his attention.

Wako and I had been training for around two weeks. My dragon had just woken me up with a shaking of his scales, which was loud enough to shoo away any pikipek within a mile radius. I moaned and spat out some half-asleep gibberish to make Wako shut up.

"Mo!"

I let out a snort of air in amusement and turned to face him. "Did you just say no?"

"Jang!" He rustled his scales again.

"Geez, alright, I'm up, I'm up."

As I rolled up my newly-bought sleeping bag, Wako circled our camp, sniffing out every square inch of dirt around us. A growl - a loud one - rang through the air. Wako jumped and did a full 180 to face the hill beside us. And with one great "mo-o!", he sprinted off.

I let out a long-suffering sigh and turned my gaze up towards the top of the hill to find a small grey dot (which I assumed to be Wako) facing a smaller blue dot. I broke out into a brisk walk and followed my dragon up the hillside.

As I summitted the grassy peak, I found Wako rolling the small blue dot across the ground with his nose. He had knocked out a wild bagon. "You know how long I searched for one of those?" Wako sat down and looked up at me. "Way too long, that's for sure." He shook his scales in what I assumed to be pride. "And look at you! You found one in ten seconds!"

"Jang!"

I returned Wako to his pokeball and left the wild bagon where it was. I already had a dragon - no need for another one. I turned and to head down the hill, but a flapping noise caught my attention. A loud one. I craned my neck back, and froze in terror. A winged monster shot straight down and strafed the ground, donning the angriest look I had ever seen on a pokemon. Wako had upset mama bagon.

"Ok! No, no no! Back out! Wako! Back out!" I fumbled for the pokeball and released Wako, who came out ready to fight, but once my partner caught sight of the salamence, he make a noise that I had never heard him make before: a whimper.

Great, even my own dragon was scared.

The salamence landed on the hill with a final flap of its wings and a great gust of air. It opened its mouth, showing off its razor-sharp teeth and let out a pillar of flames across the hilltop, burning away all the grass in a matter of seconds. The heat drove me back a few steps, and Wako took off running down the hill. I couldn't follow. I was frozen in fear.

So this was how I was going to die. A trainer of two weeks killed by what he loved the most.

An unfamiliar, deeper voice shouted from behind me. "Geyser! Ice Punch!" A blue blur flew through the air and smashed its fist into the side of the salamence. The beast let out a ferocious cry in pain and looked down to face the pokemon before it. The salamence lunged forwards to strike its opponent with a bit, but the blue pokemon sidestepped the attack and retaliated with an Ice Beam. The blue pokemon, which I recognized as a poliwhirl, let out a shot of blue energy from point blank at the salamence's face, encasing it with ice. With its eyes frozen shut, the salamence stumbled around the hilltop and eventually flew away, its wings flapping in an unsteady rhythm.

I slowly turned my head behind and found a taller trainer, maybe seventeen or eighteen, with folded arms and a hurried look on his face.

"Th-Thanks." I stammered.

"Yeah, don't mention it, kid. The name's Julian."

"Kal. I, uh, owe you one."

Julian's eyebrows shot up. "Damn, no coaxing needed. Awesome." He reached forwards and grabbed me by my forearm. "You're coming with me. I need your help."

A/N: First of all, wow! I did not expect to get all the favorites and follows that I got after posting the first chapter! It really means a lot, y'all.

Second, you may have noticed some negative reviews on this story that did not pertain to the story itself. I implore you to disregard them, as they do not hold any verity and were written by users who are angry at me for reasons that relate to some elements that make up my writing style. (I'm talking about the reviews posted by Dragon's Blaze and Fire4Heaven.) Constructive criticism is always welcome!

I've decided that I'll be updating Scales every weekend (either Saturday or Sunday). If I'm particularly inspired to edit more than one chapter a week, the frequency might increase.

Thanks again for all of your support!