Pokemon: Childhood Dreams

There’s just two weeks left until I leave for my journey. Unlike the Blood Bond Ceremony, which is only on the summer solstice. I get to leave home on my 15th birthday when my full trainer license is issued. Obediah still has a couple of months until his 15th birthday, so I’ll be setting off alone. Which is what I planned, but the only problem is Drako hasn’t evolved yet.

He’s so close, I can feel it through our bond and see it in his appearance. Charmeleon in the valley usually evolve by fighting other charmeleon and proving themselves superior. But for Drako, he can easily mop up all the other charmeleon in the valley. The only other bonded charmeleon in the valley is Estoria, but she is a bit younger and not a match for Drako.

Through the bond I feel Drako’s irritation and desire for a real challenge. To this end, I came to Grandpa’s cabin.

“Grandpa!” I say in greeting as I find him lounging on the porch with Elise.

“What’s the problem now, squirt?” He says while eyeing me up.

“What do you mean?”

“You always come to me with the same tone when you have a problem, ‘Grandpa! Grandpa!’. So, what is it now?” He says with a mocking tone.

I sigh and begin explaining Drako’s situation to him.

“So, I thought that maybe he needs a fight with a charizard to really push him!” At my exclamation, Elise perks up. “Well, maybe a newly evolved charizard…” And Elise goes back to napping.

“Hmmmm…” Gramps mumbles while thinking. “Maybe him…no, her, oh wait this is perfect!” He says while sitting up. “Don’t worry, I have the perfect opponent for Drako. Meet me at the main battlefield tomorrow at sunrise.”

With that sentence and a creepy smile, Gramps shooed me away.

Waking up while it’s still dark, I got in a light workout with Drako before heading to the main battle arena. This was where any major battles between the charizard in the Charicific Valley took place, or where disputes between family members were settled.

As we neared the venue, I could actually see a small crowd of family members in the stands as well as a large amount of charizard and charmeleon on the surrounding rock faces and cliffs. I couldn’t help but wonder which charizard we were going to battle against.

“Orick, I will be refereeing this fight to make sure there are no major injuries. When you enter your trainer box, I will call the charizard down to fight you.” Grandpa said as he ushered me to a trainer box. “This charizard has been bullying the newly evolved charizard and I figured getting beaten by a charmeleon would put him in his place.” He quickly said as he left me at the foot of the trainer box.

Ugh, why does grandpa have to do this to me. I asked to battle a newly evolved charizard, not their bully! No matter. I shake my head. Drako can handle this.

“You’ve got this, Drako. Remember our training.” I say to Drako before taking my spot in the box. Drako stood at attention in front of me in his designated spot, raring to battle.

A series of sharp whistles sound out from Grandpa, prompting one of the charizard in the surroundings to jump up and land on the opposite side of the arena. After landing it shot out three flamethrowers in separate directions.

Okay, so Gramps didn’t totally screw me over, it looks like this charizard has only been evolved for around six months. The flamethrower display it did shows that it’s cocky, wasting energy before the battle.

Drako snorted, producing a little smoke and stared at the charizard with a determined look in his eyes. Through our bond I could sense his anticipation for a challenge.

Gramps raised his hands and eyed both pokemon, making sure they were ready.

“Begin!” He shouted as he thrust his hands down.

At his signal, the charizard took to the skies and started circling Drako while sending out air slashes. Drako kept his eyes locked on charizard as he weaved and danced around the attacks. I’d previously told Drako not to bother with the smokescreen as charizard could just blow it away from a distance. The key to this fight was patience and timing. Drako’s tempered patience versus the charizard's lack of patience.

Minutes passed as Drako continued to dodge the air slashes. Though he was able to evade most of the attacks, he was getting clipped here and there. The damage was slowly piling on, though the charizard seemed to be wasting a lot of energy in its attacks while Drako was conserving his by dodging only as much as needed.

The lack of major damage to Drako seemed to agitate the charizard and it swooped in closer while preparing a dragon breath. Drako tensed up, waiting for the charizard to attack and right as the charizard started releasing his dragon breath Drako jumped straight into the attack.

This was a strategy I devised on how to have Drako beat charizard or other flyers that he couldn’t target easily with ranged attacks. Most flying pokemon tend to slow almost to a stop when they release large attacks. This would especially be apparent in charizard, who only recently gained the ability to fly. Using this knowledge, Drako would have to tank one of their attacks while jumping towards them to latch on and cause some damage to hopefully ground the pokemon.

Drako soared through the air like a cannonball as he shot from the ground. He was partially obscured as the dragon breath enveloped him but a second later the dragon breath was abruptly cut off as Drako smashed into charizards neck with a dragon claw.

Drako wasn’t done as he grabbed onto a wing and continued using dragon claw with his other hand. The charizard was startled at first, but quickly chose to divebomb the stage. Drako was smashed into the stage by charizard, suffering major damage. This caused a bunch of dust to go into the air.

Through our bond, I rallied on Drako’s spirit to push through his pain and finish the fight. Charizard had disengaged from Drako after its dive, and was slowly regaining its senses. The recoil from its dive and the dragon claws from Drako left it looking hurt.

Meanwhile, Drako was at the bottom of a mild crater partially obscured from view due to the dust.

The charizard finally snapped back into the fight, and resorted to its quickest flamethrower. But as the flames reached the dust cloud, a huge blue dragon breath erupted from the centre pushing back the flames and quickly reaching charizard. This was the largest dragon breath Drako had ever formed. As the light from the attack died and the dust cleared, Drako was visible on four limbs breathing heavily. Opposite him was the knocked out Charizard.

Slowly, Drako got to his feet and let out a primal roar that echoed through the valley. Partway through the roar, the light of evolution engulfed him and he began to grow.

I watched with a pleased smile as my best friend became a charizard.

A childhood dream realized.