"So..." Ash said. "That happened..." He turned to Charizard. "So how has your training been going?"

"Eh...Not so great. I'm definitely getting stronger, but I'm getting the snot beat out of me three times a day. I'm putting up a fight, but you know how it is." He shrugged. "I've still got a long way to go." Charizard lowered his eyebrows. "But I know you didn't call me all the way over here to make small-talk, Ash. Don't BS me. What is it that you really want?"

"I called you because I wanted you two answer a question that's been bugging me for the past three years." Ash said, seriously. "Why didn't you listen to me after you evolved into Charmeleon? You were one of the best Pokemon I ever had up until that point, but when you evolved you wouldn't have anything to do with me. I mean, it's kept me up at night wondering whether it was me or you or...whatever. All I want to know is why?"

Charizard sighed and looked away, examining his feelings to see what he should do next. He looked back at Ash.

"Alright. Before I say anything, I want you to know something. I don't open up like this. EVER. Not even to Charla. The only reason I'm doing it now is because I owe it to you after treating you like dirt for so long, Ash." He turned to Bulbasaur. "No offense, green thumb, but you need to get out of here for now."

"No, that's okay. You can just think, Charizard, and I'll hear it. You don't have to say anything out loud."

"That's okay, Ash." Bulbasaur said. "I understand when someone needs a private moment. I'll just be over here." He turned and started to walk toward Squirtle and Pikachu, who were still fighting.

"Hey! Tell the other two not to come over here either!" Charizard added.

"Roger!" said Bulbasaur without turning around. Ash turned back to Charizard.

"Alright." He said. "You've got me alone. The guys aren't going to butt in and every other Pokemon in a thirty-foot radius is too scared of you to come any closer. We're alone. Now, tell me. Why were you such a jerk to me?"

Charizard sighed again. He looked down, working up the courage to say something. He shuffled his wings nervously and twitched his tail back and forth.

"It's because...when I evolved into Charmeleon, I was always so...I...I was..." He shifted his weight and started tapping his fingers together. "Scared." he finally said in a small, pathetic voice.

"Scared? Of what? Of me?"

"No, no. Not...not REALLY." Charizard breathed in deep to calm himself down. "I was the first of your Pokemon to evolve. Well...okay, not the first in all, but the first and only of the other guys." He waved his arm over at the other Pokemon, who had finally stopped wrestling and were lying, panting, on the ground.

"Pikachu, Bulbasaur, and Squirtle were and still are some of my best friends in the world. I was scared that evolving would put us at odds, y'know? These guys are my best friends and I thought I was gonna lose them because of you." He poked Ash sharply in the chest. "I blamed you for what had happened to me. I mean...I wanted to get stronger, yeah, but I didn't want to so badly that my friends wouldn't accept me anymore. I was alone for so long as a Charmander that I wasn't about to lose the only companionship I had. The only things that made me feel alive. Y'know when you found me? Out in the rain when I almost died?"

"Yeah?"

"I was...." Charizard nonchalantly scratched his eye, trying to hide the tear as best he could. "I was trying to kill myself. I didn't want to be alone anymore. There weren't any other Pokemon around that I could relate to. Most of the Pokemon around there were bug and grass, so they were all scared of me. I lit forest fires when I wasn't paying attention, I burned down some old couple's tool shed, and I once...I accidentally killed a Caterpie. I tried to save it, but there was a thunderstorm and I couldn't go too far out from under the trees. I felt so guilty afterwords. I didn't think there was any use for me in the world aside from destruction and death. The next time it rained, I sat out on the road and waited for my flame to go out, praying for forgiveness to...whoever would listen.

"Before my tail went out, I chickened out. I couldn't do it. I scrambled back to the trees, but I was too weak to get more than a few feet. I grabbed the nearest plant that I could to try and shield it from the rain. I thought that was it for me. A destructive existence going out with a whimper, not a bang.

"That's when you came along. Part of me wanted to thank you and part of you wanted to strangle you for taking control out of my hands. I was too weak to do either of them. I didn't know anything about humans or Pokemon trainers at the time, so I never considered joining up with one an option. As soon as I was better, Pikachu was nicer to me than anyone I had ever known. I was surprised that I was being treated like an equal and not as a roaming, burning menace.

"Then there was Bulbasaur, who REALLY caught me off guard. Here's a grass Pokemon, the same kind of Pokemon that avoided me like the plague and sprinted off screaming into the bushes whenever I came close, treating me not only like an equal, but like a friend. Like he's known me for his whole life. With the addition of Squirtle, a Pokemon who's entire purpose in life consists of fighting things like me, acting as if I was his own brother. I eventually warmed up to them and kind of latched on. I was almost as grateful to them for being my friends than I was to you for saving my life. Then, you made me battle...Well...no, 'made' isn't the right word. I don't mean that you forced me to do anything I didn't want to, but I didn't really have much of a choice. I was never really that violent before. But battling made me see that I had a purpose. That maybe I was more than a liability to the world around me. It also didn't hurt that I could unleash that fire on Pokemon that could actually take the heat. No more accidental deaths.

"When I evolved, I didn't really comprehend what had happened. I was stronger, bigger, and better. And no one else was. I understand that things change, but the last thing I wanted was for me to be the one to do the changing. I found myself alienated again, this time from my friends."

"But...why did you think we'd just abandon you?" Ash asked. "You know these guys would never do anything like that? Did you really think people and Pokemon were that cruel?"

"I didn't have any frame of reference other than my life in the wild, where I was different and hated for it. Now, I was the odd one out again. The only way I could cope with everything was battling It was the only thing I had that I could use to distract myself from my fears and anger. When there was something in front of me that was my enemy, I didn't want to beat them. I wanted to burn them. I always imagined my opponent burning alive before my eyes before every battle. I hated those other Pokemon. I hated them for being accepted and happy and feeling like they knew their places in the world. I hated them and wanted them to give some of my anger to them. I didn't realize until later that the one I really wanted to burn was you. The person that made me an outcast again.

"I always saw you as some kind of lumbering giant, figuratively speaking. Someone that caused so much pain and damage and didn't realize or care and I hated you for it. I didn't listen to you in battles because I was too blinded by my own rage to care what you were saying.

"When I evolved into Charizard, I didn't even care anymore. I didn't know much about evolution, but I knew that there was no going back to the way things were. Not only did I think of you as some kind of vague aggressor, but also as completely incompetent. You didn't know what you were doing and I got more satisfaction out of pummeling my opponent in my own way than your way. I still hated you as much as I always did, but it was more of a slow, simmering burn than the fiery blast that it was before.

"I was still scared that the other Pokemon hated me, but I didn't realize at the time that I was doing it to myself. I basically thought that I had lost everything that made me happy and I just didn't care anymore. That...that wasn't the case for long.

"Remember when we were on the Orange Islands? When we fought that guy with the Poliwrath and I almost died again?"

"Yeah."

"Do you remember what you did?"

"Yeah. You got frozen in a block of ice and Misty, Tracey, and I stayed up all night making sure you didn't freeze to death."

"No. That's not how it happened. Misty and Tracey didn't stay up all night helping me. You did." Charizard said. "At about five o' clock in the morning, you passed out. I woke up and saw that you had saved my life again. I realized then that maybe I had alienated the other Pokemon by acting the way I did. Tracey, Brock, and Misty were scared of me because of how much of a loose cannon I was. Everything had come full circle, but this time I was used to it and didn't care. The only difference...was...well, YOU.

"You stayed up all night to help me get stronger. To get better. You cared about me like I thought no one did, even after I had become bitter and selfish. I realized that you didn't care about my destructiveness. You didn't care about the burning of my fire. You cared about the life in that fire. I had thought that it was my purpose in life to destroy and decimate everything in my path, like the roaming forest-fire the other Pokemon thought I was in my youth. You helped me realize that my purpose isn't death, it's life! Fire can destroy, but it has a duel nature. Fire also is life incarnate! It's living energy! Without fire, there would be no energy and without energy, there would be no life!" Charizard began to cheer up. He stood up proudly and raised his wings. "My purpose in life is to be the kind of fire that preserves existence! My purpose is to be the personification of life itself! That's why I stayed at the Charicific Valley! I wanted to get stronger to show both myself and the world that life is something you can make! That fire is not destruction but passion! And it is BEAUTIFUL!" Charizard tilted his head and roared as loud as he could, launching another jet of flame into the air. It lit the entire field in a blinding brilliance of light, even on a sunny day of cloudless sky. Charizard stopped the flame and watched it dissipate into the air, weeping at the glory he had made.

He walked back over to Ash. "Ash....I have you to thank for giving me a new purpose in life. You showed me that the world is a place where fire can easily evaporate the rain that occasionally falls." He snatched Ash off his feet and gave him a bone-crushing hug.

"You're...hrrk...welcome...Char...i...zard." He patted his happily crying Pokemon on the back.

"You're my best friend." Charizard said. "You're all my best friends." He squeezed even harder.

"You're my best friend too, Charizard!" Ash spat. "But I won't be for long if you strangle me to death!"

"I don't care." Charizard said, still hugging. "I...don't care."

After what felt like hours, he dropped Ash. Ash fell to his feet, staggered backwards, and collapsed on the ground, gasping for air.

"By the way," Charizard said, "I know how much you like to ride on my back when I fly, so I'm gonna give you that option any time. Just make sure there aren't that many other Pokemon around. Especially Squirtle. He'd never let me live that down."

"Okay...Charizard...." Ash croaked. "I'll take you.....up on that....when I'm …..not coughing up a lung....."