A Dragon at Last

"A Magikarp. Really?"

A disappointed grunt lingers in the damp cave air, as the Dratini on the cave shore stares at you in the water with an unimpressed frown. He lets his eyes linger on you for a moment, before turning his head up towards a human child with a shock of red hair—of a shade just a little duller in color than your body's scales.

"Lance, I realize that the human elders here don't help pair more than one dragon partner up with a human at a time, but surely there's better Pokémon to have as teammates than this..."

You splash your fins and shrink back in the water from the two. You know you challenged the red-haired child and he got you inside one of those ball things already. From here, all that's left for you to do is just to agree to go with him, and he'll treat you as a partner like humans are supposed to…

But it hadn't sunk in until just now just how big humans were compared to you, even while they were still small and young. Or how easily they could carry you off if they felt like it.

Why does he even want you as a partner so badly? Most humans who come to the Dragon's Den come seeking out strong Pokémon, and as a Magikarp… you're nothing of the sort. The odds are heavily against that state of affairs ever changing for a Magikarp, a fact of life which all the others of your kind here are all too aware of. The partner Pokémon this human child already has doesn't seem to particularly like you either, so why haven't you already turned and swam away?

Your mind briefly thinks back to a couple hours earlier in the Dragon's Den. Your fins had grown tired and you swam off in search for a place along its lakebed to rest after others of your kind had already taken the best places to rest against. You found one a little ways off from the rest of your school in the shallows by a ruined chunk of bridge and were about to settle in, when a Horsea swooped in and took it right in front of your eyes.

"H-Huh?! But that's-!"

"My den now," he snaped. "Leave before I make you, Magikarp."

You tried to brush past the Horsea and push him aside with your bulk, as squabbles among your kind are typically settled, but he wasn't having any of it. You'd barely moved him a fin's distance away when he spewed up a bluish vortex that knocked you back and spread burning pain against your scales in spite of being underwater. You hurriedly darted back in the water and caught him sharply glaring at you. You were a mere Magikarp, one who already regularly lost shoving matches with your peers. He, on the other hand, was a dragon. One who could do a lot more to hurt you than just push and splash…

"Okay! Okay! I'm going!"

As such, there was no point in continuing on with that battle, not when all it would accomplish would be to leave you listing unconscious in the water if you didn't eventually yield and flee. You hurriedly swam off, even more haggard and worn down, and began your search anew.

You made your way off towards the shrine in the center of the cave. Much to your relief, there were plenty of places there in the nearby water to rest, and most of them looked unclaimed. You made your way up to one of them near the water's surface, under the shadow of the wooden walkway which surrounds the shrine there. You made your way towards a stony cleft and started to settle in with your weary fins, when a flash of blue and white cut in. You swam back in a panic, when you saw a Dragonair's head dart out a cleft next to yours. She coiled her body in the water and loomed over you, before nosing off at a pair of Dratini deeper inside the cleft that she emerged from.

"Hrmph, you know how things work, Magikarp. These dens are already taken."

"B-But there's nobody in this one and I-!"

"Would be my lunch if this weren't a sacred place where it's forbidden to take prey," the Dragonair snarled back. "This is the Dragon's Den and you're not one, now move along."

You yelped and hurriedly swam off as fast as your fins could carry you, just in case the Dragonair decided to ignore local custom and make good on her threat. You lived in a place that was special for dragons, and as such, they had first say with regard to its workings.

You were desperate at that point for any place to rest and decided to try your luck with the inner ring of rocks further out. The resting places there weren't as sought-after among the local dragons and you figured that it was your best chance to find an unclaimed spot and finally get some rest. As luck had it, you found a seemingly unoccupied place after a couple minutes, and swam up to rest your fins and weary body.

Except it was less unoccupied than you thought. Just moments after you had settled against the rocks, something smacked you hard in the face and sent you pinwheeling in the water. You briefly caught a glimpse of a Dragonite pulling his tail back to his side, before you keeled over and laid in the water in a groaning daze.

Right, that's why you decided to try your luck with a human. You weren't brave enough to leave Dragon's Den entirely as a wild Pokémon since the world outside is full of terrors, and death that comes suddenly from all imaginable directions. The humans that come to Dragon's Den are supposed to make the Pokémon they partner with stronger, but…

You just can't help but feel that you're making a mistake.

You start to turn away, when the human child stoops and pats the top of your head with his hand. He looks down at you as his mouth curls up and he speaks something in that peculiar language that humans have. You can't understand any of it, but something about the tone of his voice is soothing to hear.

You briefly notice the Dratini hesitating, which makes you curious. Since the Dragon-type clearly understood things that the human said which you didn't.

"... What did he say?"

"He says that he knows that you will be big and strong one day," the Dratini answers, before turning away with a harrumph.

"Just don't get your hopes up. I'd sooner expect Lance to teach me to use Barrier before working that sort of miracle on you."

Things changed an awful lot after that fateful day, and much of the time following it went by in a whirlwind. You quickly learned a thing or two about how differently humans treated the process of giving names to themselves and their companions. Your human was 'Lance', your Dratini teammate was 'Ryu', and you were 'Kouhaku'. You're not fully sure what they mean, beyond that some other humans apparently thought that your and Ryu's names were a bit on-the-snout.

With a bit of time and some help from Ryu, you learned to discern human cries, to tell when Lance wanted you two to swim one way or the other, or when he wanted Ryu to spew his dragonfire or use some other attack… much as you are doing now about a year afterwards, locked in a battle with a pair of Poliwag in a river not far from Lance's home.

Lance ordered Ryu to get up close with the pair, striking them with Pounds and Dragon Rages. You, however, he kept swimming at a distance. Much like always, he instructed you to swim circles about your enemies, Splash them when he called for it, and then hurry away to safety.

"Ack!"

Which proved easier said than done when fighting foes who could attack from a distance like those Poliwag. You flinch briefly after one of them hurls a glob of mud in your face that makes it hard for you to orient yourself. After recomposing yourself, you break away as the Poliwag begin to chase after you, faster than you remembered them being able to.

Lance calls out from the riverbank and a flash of dragonfire sails in. A yelp rings out from behind you and you briefly glimpse one of the Poliwag listing in the water as Ryu comes over for you to hide behind. He repeats his blow on the other Poliwag and similarly dispatches him. The splashing and battlecries die down as after a brief moment's stunning, the Poliwag both hastily swim off and flee.

You warily poke your head out from behind Ryu, who raises his own over the water to call out after your foes with a sharp huff.

"And don't come back! We dragons aren't the kind to let go of a slight!"

Water comes in and out of your gills as you try to regain your nerves as the river returns back to peace and quiet. No further Pokémon come to challenge you after that, leaving you and Ryu alone to swim back to your trainer waiting at the riverbank.

Along the way, you let your fins sag glumly. You're supposed to be training to grow stronger, but you didn't win that battle, it was Ryu who did all of the hard work. You were bigger than him, and yet all you could do was swim around, splash a bit of water, and then hide behind him after the Poliwag trained their attention on you.

It sure felt like most of your battles had been going that way. You looked at Ryu on your way over to shore, and as you neared it, you raised your voice in wavering protest.

"Ryu, wh-why do I have to be here? I can't even do anything in battle other than just distract the other Pokémon!"

In the earlier days when you started training with Lance, Ryu might have said something snippy or mean-spirited in reply. Thankfully, he'd stopped doing that for a while now. You don't know whether it was from the way Lance scolded him after he noticed how Ryu made you feel bad those first few times, or if the Dratini had just grown to tolerate your presence over the past year.

"Lance insisted that the best thing for you to do for now was simply to just hang tight in battle," the Dragon-type sighed. "He says that it'll help you build your nerves and get you more familiar with taking orders."

You sink in the water at your teammate's reply. So you literally can't do anything to help other than just be there? Ryu notices the turn in your mood as he swims along, and slows his pace to turn his head back to you.

"Look, I don't understand it either, Kouhaku," he says. "But Lance insists that it's making you tougher and that it'll help both of us as we grow up."

You wait by the riverbank with your fins and bob listlessly with the water as you start to feel small and powerless, like you tend to after times when you got chastened back at the Dragon's Den. There's a pat at your scales from above and you glimpse up. It's Lance, smiling down at you with a twinge of worry on his face. He speaks in his tongue, and from what you've learned of it, you gather that he's worried that he pushed you too hard in your latest fight. He's holding a few leaves of lettuce in his hand, still bunched together. A treat for a job well done which he sometimes gives you to eat and tug apart in the water.

It lifts your mood a bit. Especially since pulling apart lettuce heads like those is one of the few times when you feel genuinely strong and can see yourself getting better and better at it.

He sets it out in front of you in the water as you swim up and start to nibble and tug at your treat. All the while, Ryu slithers onto shore for his turn to get affection from Lance and trades a look with you as you turn your attention up from your treat.

"Just hang in there a bit longer," the Dratini insists. "I know it doesn't seem like things are going anywhere, but it has to pay off eventually, right?"

"A bit longer" indeed.

Two years after that skirmish with the Poliwag, you and Ryu still were training in much the same fashion with Lance, and in spite of things being a familiar routine, quite a bit had changed:

You were now training in a land beyond the mountains east of the Dragon's Den. Lance had grown visibly taller and started wearing a worn cape taken from some tatty old costume—a marker of the sort of human that he wanted to be when he grew up. Ryu had evolved into a Dragonair, every bit as big and imposing as the one that bullied you on the day you first joined Lance in the Dragon's Den. Though unlike that Dragonair, Ryu fought alongside you, and used his newfound size and length to shield you from blows more times than you could count. He stopped putting you down a long time ago, and when you were feeling down, sometimes he would come and try to cheer you up all on his own…

"Gah!"

And then there was you: still a Magikarp after everything that had happened during those three years. You suppose you were a little bigger and swifter now and could tear apart lettuce better, but even now, battles are still bitterly disappointing. You're still only able to Splash and shove and swim around your foes while battling alongside Ryu—with your current battle with a pair of Goldeen being no exception.

Once again, you can't do anything to them. Which the Goldeen nearest to you is all too eager to remind you about.

"Hah! Don't you ever get tired of doing something other than swimming around, Magikarp?"

You feel a pulse of anger under your scales. Those had been coming more and more frequently since for years now, your battles have consisted of swimming around and trying not to get hit by your foes. All while they mock you and you can't do anything meaningful about it. You knife along in the water to try to ignore your foe and stay focused, since the times when you get distracted are the ones when you're most likely to lose from not listening to Lance's calls or overlooking a foe's move that you didn't see coming. Besides, from the visibly tired way the Goldeen are moving around, it shouldn't be much longer before Ryu puts an end to this fight.

This time, something abruptly changes in your foes' mood. The Goldeen spot something from higher up and there's a brief flash of panic in their eyes before they dive underwater. Even the one that was in the middle of taunting you just turns and flees without further comment.

"Huh? What's-?"

Before you can finish your question, sharp points slice into your side. You cry out in pain as they tear into your body and hoist it out of the water, dripping seawater below. Your vision is starting to grow hazy, but above you, you can see brown and cream wings, along with talons digging into the scales on your side.

"K-Kouhaku!"

Ryu's voice cries out in alarm and dragonfire zips in from below. There's a squawk as the sharp talons let you go and you fall back to the sea with a splash. You go under the water and limply bob about as your body floats back up to the surface. You list in place with the undulating waves, watching as the world spins around your eyes. Your scales feel warm and there's a tang of blood on your tongue. There's a voice coming from the shoreline which shrills and repeats again and again—Lance's, calling out your name right now in a tone that sounds genuinely frightened. You hear Ryu's as well as he splashes up beside you, and it sounds much the same. You weakly tilt your head and catch a fuzzy glimpse of him stopping in the water next to you and craning his head down at you with widened eyes.

"Oh no no no, Kouhaku! I'm sorry! I d-didn't mean to let you-!"

"Back off, you stupid snake! That's my prey!"

A flash of brown dives in at Ryu and makes him cry out in pain. There's a cut on his scales now as your attacker—a Pidgeotto—comes back and tries to grab at you to carry you off again. Ryu desperately throws his body between you and the bird, trying to get you out of the way so you're safely out of reach of the Flying-type's talons.

And through it all, you're unable to do anything. Again. All you can do is just lie here in the water, even while for all you know you're dying. It burns you up inside, like the Horsea's Twister did. Or the feelings inside of you thinking of how the Dragonair drove you off. Or like the sting of the Dragonite's tail slap. Or any number of blows and mocking jeers you've had to endure all these years since you were a Magikarp. Since you couldn't do anything back other than Splash and shove and swim around.

Something inside you snaps. You will do something this time, even if it kills you.

"Y-YOU!"

Your body feels warm and suddenly, you rise up in the air. You briefly hear the Pidgeotto cry out with a startled squawk and even hear Ryu and Lance's voices yelp. Water churns about you as your eyes leave the water entirely, much like when you were snatched, and the sea's surface grows farther and farther away. When your ascent stops, you can't feel your front fins anymore and you can see that your barbels are now noticeably longer and blue.

You are a Gyarados now and your breaths come out hot and angry as you hear faint wingbeats. You whirl your head off in their direction and see the Pidgeotto again, now flying away now for dear life.

As he tears through the air, one thought alone fills your mind:

Everyone who hurt you for all these years must pay. Starting with this accursed bird.

"DIE!"

You hug the surface of the sea and knife through the water after the Pidgeotto, much like Ryu does to close the distance with foes. Much to your surprise, your undulating movements come almost instinctively to you and you're able to gain on the Pidgeotto. His underbelly comes into sight when you lunge up, and open your jaws wide. The Pidgeotto looks down and sees your approaching maw. He screams as desperately banks to try and dodge your grasp. He almost makes it, but your jaws find purchase on his tail and your teeth sink into it. The bird shrieks in pain as you snarl and drag him down towards the sea. The Pidgeotto squawks out frantic cries for help all the while, until about halfway down, he realizes that help isn't going to come. His cries start devolving into incoherent pleas for mercy as your once-hunter begins to pathetically beg for his life.

You're not interested in them. He dug his talons into you to carry you off and try to eat you not even a minute ago. He hurt Ryu with them. You'll give him the fate he deserves and chew him to pieces. Slowly.

You throw the Pidgeotto up into the air and open your mouth to crush him between your jaws when a voice calls your name from the shore. You hesitate and the Pidgeotto slips between your teeth and hits the water. Frantic wingbeats intermixed with low whimpers reach your ears and you briefly see the Pidgeotto pull himself out the water and clumsily flees back for the forest with his tail held stiff and injured. You briefly consider giving chase, only for those thoughts to die once you look back towards shore.

Lance and Ryu are there, staring up at you. Ryu looks visibly terrified and is shaking like a leaf from behind Lance. Lance looks a bit scared himself, he's stiff and obviously unnerved and yet in spite of it all, he's still calling out for you. His voice is shakier than normal, but it still has that soothing tone of his when he tries to cheer you up.

He pleads for you to calm down and tells you that things are alright. That things are okay now.

You look down at your body and when it dawns on you that Lance and Ryu look so much smaller now. So does the rest of the world. As your breaths slow down and grow calmer, your thoughts turn back to when you were a Magikarp and how on the day you first met Lance, he seemed so big and scary. You suppose it would only be natural the opposite would also be true now that the scale is on the other fin.

As your breathing returns to normal, you remember Lance telling you that he knew you'd become big and strong one day, and you are big and strong now. Because of his unwavering faith in you, that even after years where it seemed like nothing changed, he kept training you. Because he was convinced that one day you two would share this moment.

There is only one thing left for you to do now.

You lower your head and bring it down, stopping just in front of Lance. He visibly grows stiff at your approach and Ryu flinches and screws his eyes shut.

"Thank you for being there for me."

There's a moment of disbelief on Lance's face as he brings his hand up and pats your snout, first warily, and then more and more enthusiastically as a smile spreads over it. You let out a content rumble as he paws at your snout, when you notice Ryu cracking his eyes open and nervously slinking back. You open your mouth to ask what on earth has gotten into him, when your memory turns back to a comment he made in passing a couple years back.

"We dragons aren't the kinds to let go of a slight!"

… Right. When you first started training together, Ryu was downright awful to you, and he expects you to still remember that. You suppose you rightfully ought to be angry with that Ryu back then… but that Ryu doesn't exist anymore. The one who's your teammate now and standing before you today is stronger than the one from back then, older and wiser too. He was there for you when you were not doing well, and put himself on the line to protect you when you were still small and weak.

Including when your life hung in the balance just earlier.

"Both of you," you say. "Just don't expect me to take every hit for you for three years, Ryu. After all, I know you can do more than Splash and swim around during a fight."

Ryu's breaths begin to return to normal as he starts to calm down. He's still on edge a bit around you and lets out a nervous titter, but at least he's smiling now.

And… he seems genuinely happy that you're here.

"H-Heh, never thought you'd be looking down on me like this, Kouhaku."

"Yeah," you chuckle back. "Me neither."

It's been years now since that day when you evolved, Lance now wears a far nicer cape, and apparently has become a human who's seen as strong and commands respect from his peers. So are you for that matter. As a Pokémon, you're now far stronger than you ever dreamed of becoming when you first set off with Lance. Ryu similarly is a far cry from the little Dratini who first met you. He's now a Dragonite, and even if you two have more companions now, he still is often alongside you. In this case, he's here to keep an eye on you when Lance is preoccupied during your swims.

Today's is in familiar territory: the waters of the Dragon's Den.

"Remember, Kouhaku. Just… try not to take anything the locals say personally, alright?"

You slither into the water and let out a quiet huff in response. Sometimes you feel a bit insulted by constantly being watched like this, but honestly… with the way your temper can be sometimes since evolving, maybe it's for the best. You don't think it'll be an issue during your swim today, though. The Horsea and the Dratini and their kin don't dare treat you the way they did when you were younger, and every once in a while, you'll see a face you recognize from those days hurriedly shrink away at your approach.

That alone already makes these visits back to the Dragon's Den satisfying for you. But the part about these visits that really lifts your mood is hearing the awestruck words from your fellow Magikarp that live here.

"Wow! So big!"

"Did you beat your last challenger? It was easy, right?"

"When I'm all grown up, I want to be just like you!"

One of the things that you've learned in the years since you left to train with Lance and grew better traveled is that you're far from the only Gyarados to have roots from the Dragon's Den. A number of Dragon Tamers who start out in the surrounding land like Lance apparently choose Magikarp of their own to be their second partners.

For all of the local dragons' insistence about how they don't take prey here because it's a sacred place, maybe that also has something to do with why they don't dare hunt the Magikarp that live here.

You dive and let the water close in over your scales, as you snake around rocks and under wooden pylons as you please. All the while, your mind drifts towards Lance and the experiences you two have had together. Past victories and defeats, the many waters you two have seen together, and the new horizons you and your teammates chase alongside your trainer.

Lance apparently tells other humans sometimes that 'Not all dragons are Dragon-type Pokémon'. You're sure that many of the dragons here in the Dragon's Den wouldn't agree with those words, but in the end it doesn't really matter.

After all, whenever you're here, whatever they really think of you and Gyarados deep down and whether you're really a dragon or not, they give you their respect. They understand that in the end, your might is just like theirs and like them, you can make the world quake and tremble.

If nothing else, you suppose that you've convinced them that you're like a dragon.