Diverging Chapter 7: Charizard's Woes
The time period is before Xeno Lucario is captured by Team Rocket, and is given the nickname "Xeno" by the Boss of Team Rocket. During this time, Team Rocket operates as it always does, by focusing on making money out of money, and money out of Pokémon. Any personal feelings that came with that didn't matter, meaning that the ends justified the means.
This would come at the emotional expense of many a Pokémon that Team Rocket gathered en masse into their arsenal, be they captured, traded, imported, or bred.
In the case of one of the eventual members of Team Liberator, he was born into Team Rocket, molded by them. And before he saw the light, he saw only darkness.
Before becoming Charizard, he was a Charmander. And upon being born into Team Rocket, Charmander never grew up into a timid adolescent. He was born timid.
The first month of his life was spent in a biome that adequately highlighted the kind of environment a Charizard would be born into. Relatively rocky terrain, complete with locales of fire and even pools of lava to soak in. But because this was Team Rocket, this biome wasn't built for the comfort of the Pokémon. At least not for the long run. It was merely meant to house them until judgment day, where they would work as slaves for Team Rocket, or be disposed of by whatever means they best see fit. And with Team Rocket, they can be sadistically creative with the way they dispose of their Pokémon while simultaneously making it enjoyable to the Grunts.
They can cremate Pokémon by the hundreds in the underground furnace within Team Rocket Main Headquarters, watching their bodies become bloody popcorn. They can be diced like a fine salad, with their blood running as finely as any topping. They can be swallowed whole by larger Pokémon, such as Giovanni's Steelix. They can be shot dead by the weaponry in Team Rocket's arsenal. Or they can simply be beaten to a bloody pulp by veteran Pokémon in Team Rocket's ownership. It's become commonplace to the point where it's a scheduled spectacle for the enjoyment of the human Grunts, at the price of the Pokémon that they deem worthless.
Charmander's first month of life was a relatively awkward one. The surrounding Pokémon, innocent at the time, attempted to befriend him. But Charmander always appeared to withdraw himself from the attention of others, usually hiding from them as they looked for him in vain. It couldn't be helped in his part. They were playful Pokémon and he was the weird child that sat in the corner. As it turns out, that would only hinder them, as their innocence would be shattered much more harshly.
The day eventually came where each of these Pokémon, one by one, were plucked from their biome and examined by Team Rocket for any signs of strength that would make them worthy of fighting for Team Rocket, or die. Charmander saw each of these Pokémon that attempted to make him their friends dwindle by the hour, until he was the last Pokémon remaining. Charmander didn't mind this and merely saw it as peace and quiet.
…Until it was his turn.
Before Charmander knew it, it was in an indoor battle arena, with a few Grunts watching in the distance, here to observe Charmander's budding strength–assuming he even has any–and see if he is worthwhile to keep or to kill.
And they didn't hold anything back against this Charmander.
One of these Grunts stood opposite of Charmander, not as his opponent but as the owner of his opponent. He held out a Heavy Ball and casually tossed it in Charmander's direction. The Heavy Ball opened mid-flight, unleashing a mass of red energy that materialized into a larger ball, made of solid rock that soon unfolded its stubby arms, legs, and head before its opponent.
Charmander would have to face a Golem, and one that has been expertly trained albeit noticeably scarred from past battles. There were indentations on its rocky hide, as well as areas where it was harshly scratched and chipped away at.
Upon seeing this considerably larger opponent, Charmander fidgeted in place, tapping its claws against each other and shifting its eyes in a nervous gesture.
"Um…I'm not much of a fighter…" Charmander mumbled directly, never really making eye contact at the Golem. "I don't really want to fight either…"
"Shame, little flicker." Golem spoke with a telltale foreign accent and a voice of hardened experience akin to a soldier of established rank. "This is Team Rocket. To fight is to live. To show mercy is to die."
"But why do we have to–?"
"No talk! Fight now!"
Golem may be a slow Pokémon, but not in terms of attack speed. Charmander's oversized opponent already began tearing hand-sized chunks off of the battlefield and tossing them towards the Lizard Pokémon in the form of ROCK THROW.
With mild panic, Charmander hastily evaded each and every single one of these incoming slabs of hardened earth. Each one, whether Charmander knew it or not, would be super effective if it struck him, causing serious damage that may even break him at such an early state in life. But in that moment, all Charmander cared about was to survive, and avoided each attack as though his life was on the line. And in the end, all of the rocks left indentations on the walls and on the floor, none on Charmander's seemingly frail body.
"Good! Good!" Golem appeared pleased with Charmander's performance so far.
"Good what?!" Charmander exclaimed in a cold sweat. "Trying to kill me is good for you?!"
"You're not dead yet! That's good!" Golem appeared oblivious to Charmander's wellbeing and more on what Team Rocket demanded of him. "Now it's time to make the earth cry out in battle!"
"What's that supposed to–?!"
Without warning, Golem repeatedly jumped a couple of feet into the air. At first, it appeared asinine, especially when Golem weighs over 660 lbs and is clearly not built for vertical height. However, with each landing back down, the Megaton Pokémon unleashed varying tremors via its MAGNITUDE attack, their strength varying with the incremental shifts in height that Golem was able to reach.
Because of Charmander's diminutive size, his eyes were closer down to the earth. Therefore, as he saw each ripple in the battlefield branch out akin to water after a stone has landed over its surface, he didn't hesitate to jump up. Luckily for him, he was able to avoid most of the tremors through physical strength alone. But when gravity took over for the little Lizard Pokémon, so did his fire. From his open mouth, Charmander unleashed a FIRE SPIN attack straight down, catapulting him even higher and allowing him to avoid Golem's entire MAGNITUDE attack.
The only damage Charmander sustained was coming back down flat on his belly, never having jumped that high.
"Good! Good!" Golem commented approvingly at Charmander's evasiveness and interesting use of fire. "You used your hellfire cleverly instead of instinctively!"
"Hellfire?" Charmander didn't like the sound of that. "But my fire is meant for warmth, not for violence."
"Team Rocket wishes to use that fire to burn down their opponents!" Golem said with a disturbing smile that would no doubt be at the expense of others. "What you call warmth is what they call their final moments!"
"…I'm not a fighter! I don't want to be!" Charmander shouted at the hardheaded Pokémon. "I don't want to use my fire to kill!"
"Then prove it!"
Much to Charmander's surprise, Golem withdrew its arms, head, and legs back into its body. And after using DEFENSE CURL, Golem's body began to roll in place, at speeds that appeared to defy physics as Golem's body spun faster and faster without moving forward, or without any apparent physical aid.
And then Golem shot towards Charmander like a stampeding herd of Tauros, nearly flattening the Lizard Pokémon had he not dived to the left in time.
Before his face met the earth, Charmander felt the push of wind that Golem's massive body made across his tail flame, the last part of his body to avoid Golem's ROLLOUT. And as he stood up, he saw Golem appear to take notice of the fact that it missed and turned back around to come at him again.
In a blind panic, Charmander ran away from the living and rolling boulder, running just fast enough where Golem couldn't catch up to him but didn't exactly slow down either. And because Charmander was running and Golem was rolling, Charmander would grow more fatigued first.
So, in a mix of creative impulse and survival instinct, Charmander used FIRE SPIN on the ground to catapult himself into the air. And when Charmander landed, he wasn't on solid ground but directly on top of the Megaton Pokémon. This forced the Lizard Pokémon to run backwards in order to not fall off and to maintain balance for as long as Golem continued to use ROLLOUT.
"Don't think I can't feel your feet, little flicker!" Golem's voice rolled alongside its body, but it was still loud and clear to Charmander. "You're quick on them, but how long can you last on me?!"
Somehow, Golem sped up and used ROLLOUT at a much higher RPM than Charmander had seen so far. And despite running backwards to the point where he was almost certain his feet would fall off, he couldn't stay on top of Golem for long and inevitably fell off. And when Charmander's body hit the ground, he too rolled, painfully, and on his side. When he stopped rolling, he was flat on his face, bruised all over to the point where he didn't stand back up immediately. He attempted to nevertheless, and it took him about five seconds to successfully do so.
And when he did get up, he saw Golem standing directly behind him, no longer using ROLLOUT and no longer curled up within itself.
"Hit me." Golem said merrily.
"…Wh-what?" Charmander stammered in confusion.
"I said hit me. Hit me with your best shot." Golem repeated itself. "I want to feel your hellfire first hand."
"Why?"
"To personally see if you are worthwhile for Team Rocket to keep…or to kill."
Charmander felt his body grow cold from the ultimatum that Golem indirectly set for him. Charmander began to realize that Golem doesn't have the power here, but Team Rocket does. Golem is merely here as a Pokémon that has lasted long enough for Team Rocket to acknowledge its strength. That may be why Golem appears so cheery for Charmander, because it doesn't want him to die in failure.
That, or Golem is just hiding its pain with false happiness. Charmander was too naïve to tell the difference at this time.
Even though Golem was waiting for Charmander's attack, it never came. He was far too timid to attack by his choice and merely acted defensively or evasively at this point. All he did was look up at Golem, intimidated by his bulk, before fleeing in the opposite direction, straight towards the collection of rocks that Golem had thrown towards Charmander at the first moments of their "fight".
With a heavy sigh, Golem reached out a hand towards the rocks that Charmander was running off towards. And through the use of STEALTH ROCK, the "trap" that Charmander was literally running towards sprung. All of the rocks embedded on the walls broke free, and all of the rocks half-buried into the battlefield rose up. All of these rocks floated and homed in on Charmander, before surrounding and colliding directly into him.
The end result obliterated these rocks and left the Lizard Pokémon fainted on the ground, face down once again, only with a small puddle of blood acting as a crude pillow.
"Poor little flicker…" Golem lamented Charmander's sealed fate. "You are a kind Pokémon, but kindness doesn't survive in Team Rocket. Only brutality does."
Golem saw the Team Rocket Grunts that were on standby within the battlefield come to Charmander's aid and pick him up. And by no means were they ginger with him either. They merely picked him up by the base of his tail, uncaring if it actually broke or not during this battle, set him down onto a stretcher, and wheeled him over to what could crudely be labeled as Team Rocket's infirmary.
"If you can't consume all that you touch, then they'll consume you." Golem said before its owner returned it back into its Heavy Ball after a job well done.
In the few weeks that followed, Charmander faced similar opponents to that particular Golem. And regardless of the Pokémon that he faced, be they bigger and stronger than the Megaton Pokémon or small and diminutive to the point where any Charmander could defeat it in one blow, Charmander never retaliated or attacked.
At the end of each fight, Charmander would be brutalized either by the Pokémon that Team Rocket cast out to fight him, or by Team Rocket themselves. Larger Pokémon treated Charmander like a ragdoll, some of them at least attempting to have Charmander strike back out of pity for the timid Lizard Pokémon. But in the end, Charmander simply cowered in fear, attempted to run away, panicked, or any combination of the aforementioned.
Naturally, Team Rocket saw great weakness from this particular Charmander. To them, this Charmander was at the bottom of the barrel, forgotten and worthless, crushed underneath the weight of hundreds more before him that have far more value than he ever will. Hence the reason why Team Rocket cares less and less for his health in between battles, simply because they're attempting to put Charmander into a more dire situation where he'll retaliate in glorious hellfire. That was their "last hope" for him.
But this never worked. And at the end of the day, Team Rocket realized that they were just beating on a dying Rapidash and had to put him out of his misery and insignificance in the most satisfying manner possible.
…By tossing him into an open body of water and watch him get torn apart by a school of ravenous Gyarados.
"…Why must I be tortured so?" Charmander muttered at his dire predicament.
Tightrope/BIOHAZARD REVELATIONS ORIGINAL SOUNDTRACK (DISC 1)/Ichiro Kohmoto
(Song Begins)
For this particular manner of execution within Team Rocket Main Headquarters, Charmander alongside a few supervising Grunts were within a marine biome that is large enough to contain a single Wailord in captivity. Charmander stood within a solid, transparent cage with a platform that was designed to give way when the Grunts aforementioned pitched a Poké Ball into the center of a target that operated the dropping mechanism of Charmander's platform.
So in short, the few Team Rocket Grunts in attendance were going to play a dunk game. Whoever hits the Tauros-eye will win and everyone will receive the prize of seeing Charmander fall from a few stories in height and drown to death, either in water or in the stomach of one or all three of these Gyarados, depending on how voracious and quick they are.
And they were voracious, as Charmander could see by the way their dorsal fins breached the water's surface, circling directly underneath the cage. All of these Gyarados were no doubt starved and also knew of this little game that Team Rocket played. To them, this was just show and dinner.
Luckily for the little Charmander, he was far and away up from the ground to be within range of them, should they decide to jump the water and break the platform. Also, the cage he was within was a heavily reinforced barrier and state-of-the-art, designed to protect against an all-consuming attack that would threaten the lives of Pokémon Trainers during a Pokémon League tournament.
But when the transparent platform below Charmander's feet opens up, there will be nothing to protect him as he tries to swim with the fishes.
And it certainly doesn't help the Lizard Pokémon that the Grunts saw this as a game, never once considering or valuing the lives of the Pokémon involved.
Using traditional baseballs for this "game", each Team Rocket Grunt appeared to prolong Charmander's torment alongside the Gyarados' hunger by stepping back 100 feet and pitching from there. Their first few attempts in turn order were disastrous, none of them even remotely close to the target. But little by little, their aim steadily improved, until they were at least hitting the broadside of a barn.
Charmander looked on at their growing accuracy and eventually decided to look away, unable to handle the feeling of his heart dropping like a rock within his chest at the sight of each fast ball appearing to hit the target but fall short. He accepted his fate and sat down, while he still could.
"Why was I born into this life?" Charmander talked to himself, hearing his voice echo oddly within the six surrounding walls he was contained in. "Why do these people treat Pokémon with such disrespect? What did we do to them to deserve this?"
Charmander wasn't paying attention, but one of the Grunts decided to cheat and halve the distance separating him from the target, much to the support of the other two Grunts as they stepped closer as well.
"I don't want to fight. I'm not a fighter." Charmander's somber eyes began to give way to tears, and his voice began to give way to his inevitable cry. "Can't they see that? Can't they respect that?"
Through a blurred vision from the film of tears overlapping his eyes, he reluctantly gave one final look at the Team Rocket Grunts, unaware that they had halved their distance and only paying attention to one of their pitches.
…At the worst possible moment when one of them successfully hit the Tauros-eye.
When the mechanism was triggered and the platform dropped, so did Charmander's heart and body. In a blind panic, Charmander attempted to seize the edge of the collapsed platform, but it was much too smooth for his stubby claws and gave way much too quickly to give him this last thread of life.
Now, Charmander was falling straight down into the pool of Gyarados. And when one Gyarados saw him, all three saw him. They each built up a ridiculous amount of speed within a short distance by whipping their serpentine bodies across the water, allowing them to breach the surface in an attempt to eat him before he hits the water.
This time, Charmander did retaliate, but it was too little too late in getting him out of this situation. The best it did was prolong the inevitable, as he used FLAME BURST and struck the first Gyarados directly in the face, as well as the other two in the same spot from the resulting burst of fire. And with all three recoiling from the sudden fireball to the face, Charmander couldn't avoid a dip into the pool and fell into the water back first with a painfully resounding splash.
The three Team Rocket Grunts in watched through the transparent glass of the pool, amazed at how the little Charmander actually managed to stun all three of those Gyarados, one after the other after the other. However, that didn't stop them from laughing at Charmander's misfortune or suddenly contemplate second thoughts about their actions. They simply watched as each Gyarados eventually shrugged off the shallow burns they have on their faces and quickly lock their eyes onto a drowning Charmander.
Within the water, the only thing to emerge from Charmander were bubbles from his open mouth and steam from his dimly lit tail. The fact that the water didn't extinguish his tail is merely because he still has some life in him. Although being knocked unconscious by the fall into the water would've achieved the same results for his fire tail.
Regardless, all three Gyarados quickly spotted the Lizard Pokémon and opened their mouths even wider, racing towards their prey in an attempt to see who can swallow him whole first.
Charmander regained consciousness right then and there, and immediately held his breath to preserve what little oxygen he had left in his system. Both the fall and the water may have made Charmander's vision blurry, but his perspective focused quickly enough to allow him to witness the trinity of death that were homing in on him.
Upon seeing three bottomless maws triangulate towards his position, time itself appeared to slow down for Charmander. His heart rate ticked like a clock within his inner ear drums. His eyes dilated to take in every single detail of each of these three Atrocious Pokémon, right down to how many scales on their faces have been charred. The fire on his tail defied physics and began to grow to the point where he was adorned by it.
And when the water no longer touched his body, Charmander's instincts took over and all hell broke loose in one calamitous ERUPTION.
(Song Ends)
With a scream muffled by the water and carried to the surface through hundreds of bubbles, all of the anger and all of the pain that Team Rocket put onto a Pokémon too small to bear it all was unleashed. The water rapidly glowed sanguine from Charmander's blazing light. The trio of Gyarados backed away upon sensing a sharp spike in their surrounding temperature. They began to bang against the transparent walls in an effort to escape the growing heat. But in the end, they were cooked alive once the water surpassed boiling point.
The Team Rocket Grunts, watching on as the massive indoor pool suddenly became an oversized cauldron by such a young and small Pokémon, slowly backed away at the sight of billowing columns of steam rising up from the surface, hot enough to burn skin on contact. They attempted to flee from the growing white plume, but the steam moved too fast and they too were boiled on the spot. They could only scream and convulse in pain before falling over as reddened heaps of their former selves, their lungs burning from the heated air they were forced to inhale.
When the steam cleared up once all of the water was evaporated, so did Charmander's ERUPTION, before it could truly be unleashed in the hellfire it was meant to be. All that was left after the attack were three dead humans, three dead Gyarados, a melted room, the smell of melting glass, and a prone Charmander with its eyes closed and its tail fire extinguished.
"Sir! You need to have a look at this!"
"What is it?! Can't you see that I'm in the middle of an important business matter?"
"Sorry, sir, but what I have to show you will more than make up for it."
"Alright then. I'm listening. This better be good."
"Here, these are all documents regarding the Charmander that was scheduled for termination."
"…This can't be authentic."
"Sir, I assure you, it's the real deal. If you don't believe me, there are six other reasons to clear your doubt."
"…Where is that Charmander right now?"
"In critical condition but recovering, sir. It's in the Pokémon ICU at the moment. When we retrieved it, it's tail flame was extinguished. If we hadn't come in so quickly and revived that Charmander, I'm almost positive that it would've perished alongside its victims."
"It decided to reveal its power when its life was genuinely on the line? Hmm…there may be potential in this Charmander after all. If it can cause that much raw damage, just imagine what it can do as a fully-matured and realized Charizard."
"It would be a guaranteed powerhouse for Team Rocket, sir. Worth its weight in gold."
"It would indeed."
"But sir, what about the bodies? What should we do to them?"
"How boiled are the Gyarados?"
"…Um, to perfection sir."
"Then inform the chefs that we'll be dining on Gyarados tonight."
"Alright sir, but what about the human bodies?"
"We follow basic protocol. Inform their families of their passing and pay them their insurance fees."
"…But those three Grunts had no families to speak of."
"Then that money will be used to repair the room that the Charmander melted."
"And what of the Charmander itself, sir? What will we do with it once it recovers? I highly doubt it'll continue fighting after enduring that ordeal. Not that it did much fighting to begin with."
"Once it recovers, let me know personally. I have an idea."
Heavy Price Paid/Halo 2 Original Soundtrack: Volume 1/Martin O'Donnell; Michael Salvatori
(Song Begins)
Almost a month passed since Charmander's ordeal with the Gyarados and the fact that Team Rocket attempted to terminate him. His stay in the ICU wasn't a pleasant one. On more than one occasion, they had to defibrillate his heart, a direct response to seeing his tail flame go out. But that was only the first week and he barely recalled any of it through blinks of reality in between consciousness and unconsciousness, moments where he felt as though he had died and they brought him back just as he was glimpsing Arceus Itself. And from the second week to the present, he was monitored extensively, and probably given the best amount of medical care that most Pokémon in Team Rocket could only dream of. Sure, it meant that your body had to break and you had to be recognized for your strength to even be considered worth attending to, but Charmander didn't care. Nor did he realize just how lucky he truly was.
Once out of the ICU, Charmander wasn't brought back to his biome. Instead, he was brought into a different room altogether. Charmander was obviously unfamiliar with the schematics of Team Rocket Main Headquarters, and the only inkling he had about this room was that it was extremely high up from the ground. Or at least it felt that way when the elevator carried him and his "owner" Grunt.
When the elevator doors opened, a pitch-black hallway appeared to stretch on for an eternity. And regardless if Charmander wanted to be here or not, the Grunt forcefully nudged him into the right direction with his boot before the elevator doors closed between them and the elevator itself went down.
"Where am I…?" Charmander whimpered, clutching his tail and therefore holding his tail flame close to his face.
Charmader took slow and narrow steps, dragging his feet against the ground in case there was a gaping hole he wasn't seeing. His tail flame was bright, but the walls were just wide enough where they didn't reflect back the red glow of his flickering ember. At best, his tail only illuminated the ground within a three feet radius. His obvious nervousness and trepidation didn't help his illumination either.
Already having lost count of how far he's walked and how long he's been here, Charmander simply proceeds forward, knowing there was no turning back because the door behind him was literally closed shut, and his only "company" blatantly abandoned him. All he had within this apparently infinite darkness was himself, with no one really caring for him for all of the right reasons.
A few steps further, and Charmander stopped dead at the sight of a pair of overhead lights turning on about ten feet away from him. Those two lights quickly revealed to Charmander multiple things. The end of the hallway was within sight. The halls were narrower than they appeared. There were no obvious holes to fall into.
And there was a tall, couth man staring down at Charmander, emblazoned with an orange suit that glowed brighter in the white light than Charmander's own tail flame.
This man never introduced himself to Charmander. He just went straight to the point.
"Exactly one month ago, you were scheduled for immediate execution for failure to use your powers to defend yourself." His authoritative voice had no problems rebounding across the hallways to reach Charmander's inner ears. "Initially, you appeared weak, pathetic, and timid, the list of qualities we firmly stamp out of our Pokémon numbers. But when you were narrowly executed, your true power revealed itself, and we had a change of heart."
"Is that why…I'm still alive?" This man clearly intimidated Charmander. For all that he knew, he was speaking to the Boss of Team Rocket himself.
"We were able to save your life as a result of our immediate haste in preserving what we expect will be one of our greatest weapons." He continued, regardless of understanding Charmander's words or not. "But you're still timid. It's in your nature to be timid. And while we can't change nature, we can overlap it."
This man in the orange suit moved something other than his mouth before Charmander. He raised his right arm and snapped his fingers. What happened next completely startled Charmander as he saw a pair of spoons held by an Alakazam hover directly over his face.
Then, before Charmander could let out a scream at the third individual to enter this picture, Alakazam used HYPNOSIS and put Charmander into a state of deep sleep. Then, Alakazam awaited the Boss of Team Rocket's orders, to turn Charmander from a timid Pokémon into a slave for Team Rocket.
"You will no longer act out on your own accord. You will no longer have free will. You are now a pawn, at the mercy of anyone who wishes to own you and order you."
His commanding voice may just be ricocheting out across the hall. But thanks to Alakazam, every single word is being branded into Charmander's mind, and will forever alter Charmander's future and emotional demeanor.
"Every command you are given, you will initiate. Every complicated action you yourself must take, you ask for permission. Only your baser actions will be your own, with the rest under lock and key by those over you."
From his left pocket, the Boss of Team Rocket took out Charmander's Level Ball, before aiming it straight towards the Pokémon already captured by it.
"And when you wake up, you will remember nothing of our conversation."
(Song Ends)
"There is no such thing as freedom, (...). Sometimes, though, there's a chance to choose your master." —Orson Scott Card (262) ("Ender in Exile")
