Disclaimer: I do not own the Pokemon series, or any of its content.


A week.

That's how long I've been here and I'm still not a master of walking.

A week.

But I'm mobile now. As soon as I could walk at least a little I began to try to find a way out of this forest. There was no point in me staying here and besides, I didn't like it. The sky is hardly visible through the trees.

Unfortunately, my walking is still but a bit more than a waddle and I cannot yet run effectively. It's difficult and every time I take a step I feel a wail creeping up my throat to cry. But this would be undignified, so I swallow the wail and keep on trudging with the thing in my chest heavy enough to sink into the ground. I cling to the fact that I can still learn to fly. Other Pokemon can fly, after all, or float in the air without wings. Why not me?

As for "food" in the forest, the only thing seems to be fruit. I've searched far and wide for something edible, but I can never catch a good meal; they hear me crunching through the undergrowth trying to sneak up on them long before I can pounce. The creatures I have targeted several times already don't even run away anymore until I'm a foot away because they seem to think they have no need to worry. Ha. They'll see. They have plenty to worry about and I swear that every one of them will pay for such insolence.

After trying to steal a few eggs and such—and being chased away by the parents—my growling, baby tummy forced me to gather some berries at least until I can master hunger. I hope to master it soon because my mouth and teeth have begun to ache for something hard to chew. I believe it is because the fruit is so mushy.


"Rarw!" I crashed into a tree and bark flew.

I was boiling. Why, I wasn't quite sure, but I was seething. I remember only finding a clearing with fewer trees and looking up at the sky for the first time in a week, and seeing it high above the treetops. The trees themselves were many times the size of me and that had made me realize how pathetic it was for me to believe that I could still fly to such heights. But now determination raged like a fire within me. I had never doubted my ability before and I wouldn't start now.

I would fly.

Shaking my head, I geared myself for another try. I climbed atop the towering boulder I had found and stood at the precipice, about five feet above the ground.

I narrowed my eyes in concentration and tried to summon the power of flight. But my mind remained blank. I couldn't remember all exactly what I had thought while I was flying before. I didn't recollect if I had thought anything because it had seemed so natural.

I tensed my muscles for the jump, coiling my hind legs and placing my forelegs on the rock for balance. I almost slipped when my stubby arms slid on the rock; I still couldn't get used to not having claws. Then I jumped.

For a moment I felt like I was airborne. A shiver rolled down my spine as the feeling of flight washed over me. I was soaring, defying gravity and this Bagon curse.

And then I began to fall. Frantically, I began to swing my forelegs as if I could ferry enough air underneath me to push me back up. Needless to say, I landed on the ground.

"Rrrggghh!" I growled in frustration, nailing the tree. The place on the tree where I had tackled it over and over again had lost so much bark that the white layers were showing through. The white under-part of the tree didn't have the satisfying crunchthat the bark did when I hit it, so I targeted a different portion and hit that. I butted my head against it until even my rock-hard Bagon head was spinning and then, grumbling, I climbed back onto the rock. Another jump, another failed attempt, and another round of attacking the tree.

"So you are the Bagon of the Yellow Ring. My, you are an oddity," a Swellow observed. It looked down a tree at me from its perch among the lower branches.

I took no notice of the newcomer and returned to my rock.

"Word has spread about a Bagon in the woods, you know," it chirped happily. "My, my, my, but I didn't believe it, no I didn't. Bagon don't come to these parts, you know. No, no, no, they don't. But here you are. Yes, yes, here you are."

I leaped off of the rock again, but with the same result that I'd had for the last hundred or so attempts. Scowling and boiling over inside with frustration, I rammed into the tree with all my force. It shook slightly but the Swellow didn't seem concerned. I had to grate my head against the trunk before most of my anger had dissipated, and then I repeated the process. No luck.

"My, my, you walk very funnily!" The Swellow's chirping was incessant. "That is very strange, yes indeed. Most Pokemon can walk straight out of the egg." It cocked its head at me as if awaiting an answer, but it wouldn't get one. I wasn't paying attention to it as it was. It was a Swellow, after all. I am Rayquaza. I have no need to talk to such an insignificant creature. In fact, under normal circumstances I would have simply blasted it out of the tree without a second thought for daring to even look at me. But, without having any blasting power, I must admit it was annoying.

I landed on the ground and sprang up to tackle the tree yet again, but I was growing tired. That's another thing that annoys me: hunger and fatigue are both greedy, energy-drinking forces when they hit, and they come all too quickly in this new body. Why, I used to only eat a good meal once every few weeks. I don't even know when I used to sleep. Curse this weakling body!

"Are you, perchance, trying to fly?" the Swellow inquired while I went through another failed attempt. Still, I didn't answer. Now it didn't even seem to care for one, which was more annoying than it expecting one. It almost made me feel like it wasn't aware of whether I was there or not. Like it didn't notice me. Or fear me.

"Well, the first trick is to have wings," it said as if this was the answer to all that I had been searching for—like, Why by all the stars in the sky am I a Bagon! Gritting my teeth because I reminded myself that I should not bother with a creature of this stature, I—again—boarded the rock.

"The second trick," the Swellow continued, "is to have a weight within the flight range of the size of your wings." It squinted at me. "Well by my feathers, you've the biggest head I've ever seen. Try losing some weight from that and then try again."

After I jumped from the rock I hit my head against the tree about ten times harder to transfer my anger from my body to the bark, but the affect was beginning to wear off. As the chatter refused to stop I found myself wishing dearly that I could shoot something, anything out of my mouth that would make it fly from my sight. Baring my tiny teeth, I fell to all fours—as awkward as that was, I was too full of fury to notice—and paced around the tree. I wanted this bird to leave, and I wanted it to leave now.

"Bird," I growled, trying my best to make a baby Bagon's squeaky voice sound fearsome, "this is my clearing. You are not welcome here."

The Swellow tilted its head and stared down at me as if amused. It made no move to leave the tree.

"Are you listening to me!" I barked. I jumped up and down, waving my forelegs frantically as if I could shoo it away. It simply settled itself more comfortably on the branch. I hurled insults at it and my voice grew steadily more and more high-pitched and frantic as I saw that I could do nothing to move it.

I screeched and leapt to the boulder and then, fueled by my rage, I used the extra momentum to jump up to the Swellow. I opened my mouth to take a whopping bite out of it—the thought of the horrified look sent shivers of anticipation down my spine—but a second before I reached it I was knocked backwards by a powerful gust of wind.

I hit the ground hard and the wind was knocked out of me. In shock, I stared up at the Swellow as it refolded its wings casually. Its feathers weren't ruffled in the slightest.

"I don't like to use my attacks if I don't have to," the Swellow said matter-of-factly, "so I hope you will stop."

"You wish!" I snarled, leaping again. Again, I found myself blasted a Gust, and I landed with my head buried so deep in moist ground that I couldn't get myself out for a few moments. My legs flailed in the air, trying to get my head out. I roared and screamed into the ground and my head was full of violent thoughts and colors, all overlapping each other in a mass of confusion: fury. Then suddenly, that whirring and buzzing in my mind melded into one solid force. Everything gained a reddish tint, as if my eyes were nearly glowing. When my legs pushed against the ground and popped my head free of it, it was like a supernatural force was controlling them rather than myself.

I turned to face the Swellow, my upper lip curling. And I leapt again.

A blast hit me but I cut straight through it.

I hit the bird so hard that it flew (not with wings, though) straight into a tree trunk that stood fifteen feet away. Its body peeled from the trunk and began falling, but it caught itself on one of the lower branches before it could hit the ground. Shakily, it regained its balance and stared at me with eyes so large the whites were showing.

I was pleased to note that all of its feathers were now ruffled, sticking out in all directions. I was about to nail it again, but the feeling of determined invincibility left me. I collapsed, breathing hard, hardly keeping from falling to the ground.

"Incredible," the Swellow croaked. "Yes, yes, indeed. Incredible."

I was too out of breath to say anything. The tightening of my chest hurt, making it difficult to breathe. I wished it would stop.

The bird smoothed some of its feathers down, but it quivered from the shock. "Where did you learn such a powerful form of Rage?"

"Rage?" I gasped. I, too, was trembling, and glared even harder at the bird for that.

"Rage is a move," the bird explained. "Yes, yes, it is a move, yes. B-but no Pokemon has been able to defeat me for many battles. Those who came close wore me down through hours of fighting. You nearly knocked everything out of me with a single move, indeed yes!" It studied me further. I would have moved to attack it, but I was too weak. "And also you are worn out from that single move, which shouldn't happen, no, not at all. Even if Rage is a continuous and dangerous move, it should have taken several, several minutes of fighting for you to grow tired, yes indeed. Pray tell, what are you?"

As it said these last words it was staring at the ring on my chest, like it had figured out that I wasn't a normal Bagon. About time. "I am Rayquaza," I growled. "And I am not tired. Nothing weakens me."

With that, I turned and stumbled away. It was horrible. Never before has my strength been depleted so quickly—not even by the Human Death Machine. What had happened? I just couldn't seem to figure it out.

Night had fallen but I didn't stop. Red eyes stared out at me from the trees, just as they had every other night. It sent chills down my spine. My feet tripped over each other and stumbled and sent waves of pain through my body with each step, but I refused to rest. I refused to spend another night here. Maybe once I was out of the forest, I could finally find my solitude that I so longed for.

In the end, when I finally emerged from the forest I didn't find solitude. But what I found was something just as satisfying.

I was on a grassy hill overlooking a collection of human establishments. It wasn't as large as many of the other metropolises I have seen and destroyed. But I knew.

Somewhere below me, in that mess of human waste, were the people of the Human Death Machine.

My mouth broke into a toothy grin. I'd make them pay.