Earthquake - Flygon Kiriban

It was a day of business as usual for the Global Trade Station in Jubilife City. The building was almost entirely transparent. If the sun shone on it at just the right angle, however, it would gleam silver.


The inside of the building was like a giant computer lab: Fluorescent lights shone onto the first floor's sky blue linoleum; trainers sat at some of the many  computers looking for deals on some of the rarest Pokémon on the planet; simple elevator music filled the area. People came and went up and down floors via red and green warp paths, but a line longer than a Gyarados from snout to tail had formed at the trade stations. There were only so many trading computers for an infinite amount of trainers.


One such trainer was Jay, a young man with disheveled, short blond hair in his late teens. He had just flown in on his first Pokémon, a Charizard. Like every other trainer there, he was seeking to improve his team and collection. There were some Pokémon that he just could not get in Sinnoh or Kanto.

After a ten-minute wait, he sat down at one of the Trade Station machines. These machines were different from the regular computers in several ways, but the most noticeable additions were the long, translucent tubes attached to them. The tubes were, of course, used for sending and receiving captured Pokémon to and from around the world. Jay was about to transport quite a rare one.

His own trade was not, however, the first thing he came across. As usual, the GTS station in Sinnoh was crammed with trade offers for a certain rodent Pokémon: Bidoof. The buck-toothed creatures were everywhere in the region and more useless than Rattata. Even evolution could not give them a meaning in life; Bibarel, its final form, was a beaver with no purpose in life except chewing berry trees. Its eyes were plain white ovals with black dots in the middle, and the buckteeth from its Bidoof stage were, if not just as large, bigger. No matter how well-raised or intelligent a Bibarel was, it looked stupid.

It did not help that many of these offers were insane. People wanted a Dialga for a Bidoof. A Mew for a Bidoof. Other such insanity. The offers themselves multiplied like rodents.



Jay quickly typed "Flygon" into the search bar. A handful of results came up; he clicked on one labeled "H/SPECIAL LV100 EARTHQUAKE FLYGON, W/BLUE DIGLETT!" The trainer put a Poke Ball on the transportation pad beneath one of the sea-green tubes, and then clicked "trade." He had to confirm the deal. It did not take long for the computer to acknowledge Jay's order.



Bzzt!



The Poké Ball beneath the vacuum tube sparked and began to glow. Soon, it had been converted entirely into energy, and was on its way to its new trainer via the internet. A simple image of two computer stations connected by a caricature of the trading tube popped up on the monitor.



Jay watched his Poké Ball containing a blue-nosed Diglett slowly move across the screen. The odd mole had taken him hours to catch, but would be worth the effort. In exchange, he was going to receive a Level 100 Flygon - supposedly part of a breeder's special "Earthquake" project. As the title implied, each Flygon from this project had been born with the most powerful move in the Pokémon world, and supposedly had amazing stats as well.



Ping!



The Poké Ball containing said Flygon showed up on the monitor. An animated image of the capsule being sent along the tube let Jay know that his bug-like dragon was on its way. He couldn't wait to get it; the anticipation made it feel like the Flygon's journey across the screen was taking forever.



All was going smoothly until the computer announced, "System error! System error!" in a mechanical voice. The transfer froze; no matter what buttons Jay pressed, all the computer did was beep at him. The screen zigzagged into black and white before it went dark.



"Aw, man! No! NO!" the trainer yelled at the machine. He was trying to avoid cursing. Even without invoking the holy name of Arceus or that of the shadowy Giratina, more and more heads turned in Jay's direction. Perhaps they had a good reason to stare; drops of yellow light flew from the machine as Jay impatiently tried to get it working again. They had no idea how hard he had worked for that Diglett, and, indirectly, for that Flygon. He would not give up on them, and if he could fix the problem himself, so much the better.



Bzzzt!



"AH!" Jay yelped, recoiling from the stray energy. The GTS machine he was using had started to spark. The yellow flecks of electricity were increasing by the second, becoming more and more like miniature lightning bolts until -



POW!



"Yaaaah!" Jay screamed, suddenly flying out of his seat. He thanked his lucky stars that the blast hadn't thrown him through the glass walls of the building. His eyes darted rapidly from wall to wall. People were wondering what had happened to his trade station. A few approached him as well, asking things like "are you OK? Did you break anything? Someone call a nurse!"



"No...no...I'll be fine," he assured. He didn't feel 100%, but it did not seem like anything serious. His head hurt, and his ears were ringing as though an Exploud had yelled in his face, but the trainer was sure it would pass. "It's just a headache. Honest."



What he was really concerned about was that the trade console had been totally destroyed by...well, whatever had happened. It was still smoking when he saw the wreck: A ring of brown soot encircled the blackened, bubbling center of the device; several keys clattered onto the floor; the screen had a foot-long crack in it.

Jay winced. He did not want to pay for that. Slowly, he rose; after taking a few gentle steps, he headed for the exit.

"Are you sure you're all right, dear?" a classy, stout old lady asked. Jay was already headed out the automatic doors.

"Yeah," Jay answered.

"Really, dear? You've got a nasty bump on your head," she stressed. The Snubbull in her purse yawned.

"Yeah, I'm fine," he said for the umpteenth time. These people worried too much.

Hey...what happened to that Flygon? Jay wondered as he walked to the Pokémon Center. Usually, when GTS trades went awry due to, say, a bad connection, the Pokémon went back to their original owners. He had not gotten his shining Diglett back, and the machine had gotten too damaged to deliver his Flygon. Perhaps he would get it once a new machine had been brought in. They had to have some kind of procedure for situations like this, after all.

"Gah..." he muttered, holding a hand to his head. He was aching as if a Tauros had kicked him in the face. Maybe that blast had done more damage than he thought. When he pulled his hand back, his eyes widened.

Instead of pink flesh, his hand was slowly becoming plated with lime-green, pentagonal scales. His nails curled into fierce claws as the design spread across his body like lichen gone mad. Most of them were of the same shade, but some were a deeper hue.

"Wh-what in the name of Rayquaza?!" Jay asked the air. He had stopped on the sunny streets of Jubilife. Passersby occasionally gave him a look; as the scales coated his skin, those glances became more and more frequent. In a city as large as Jubilife, some gawkers were inevitable. A few people tossed him money, believing him to be some sort of ailing bum, but they went ignored. Jay was far more concerned with the changes that were increasing in speed like a snowball rolling down Mt. Coronet.

Shrrriiippp! A tail striped with bands of that same green and evergreen ripped its way out of the trainer's jeans. Tipping the scaly appendage was a green and red fan of three leathery diamonds. Jay opened and closed them, astonished. He could not believe what he was seeing.

"Woah..." Jay gasped. There was only one creature with a tail like that. With scales like that. As his shoes blistered, green, three-toed hind paws peeked out of the cracks, and he became even more certain of his fate.

"I'm turning into a Flygon!" he exclaimed. Several bystanders gawked. More and more followed suit. Soon, Jay had a whole mob of people surrounding him.

"Mommy, why does that guy have a tail?" a little kid with a Pikachu ice cream cone asked. His mother could not properly answer him as Jay's clothes burst, no longer able to contain his shifting form. His belt, along with the Poke Balls attached to it, snapped; the balls clicked on the pavement before a hand picked them up. More whispers fluttered about him, but Jay paid them no mind.

The former trainer gritted his teeth as veined wings, a compromise between insectoid and draconic, pushed their way out of his scaly back. The limbs started out white and wrinkled, like the wings of a Ninjask that had just emerged from its shell. They quickly grew into sturdy, rhombic appendages with heavy veins. The diamond-like limbs developed patches of lime green surrounded by a border of burnt orange after exposure.

"This is so cool!" Jay announced. The crowd had become solid enough to block traffic. So what if he had lost his Pokémon? Bar his Charizard, he had not brought many precious Pokémon to Sinnoh. He hoped, on some level, that their new owner would take care of them, but he was far more focused on his current metamorphosis

Jay knew what was coming next. He could already feel his neck elongating. Red, translucent scales like the ones that covered a snake's eyes formed over his own. His face pushed outward into a short, rounded muzzle; it felt like a loose brick being nudged out of a wall. A few of his teeth fell upon the pavement as sharper ones took their places in his new jaw. His blond, somewhat-messy hair drifted to the ground as scales and a pair of dark green, triangular 'horns' topped his new skull.

The new Flygon flexed his wings in front of a wide-eyed crowd before taking flight. Several people had their hands shielding their eyes from the sun's rays as they watched the insectoid dragon take flight. He was certainly enjoying himself; a smile traced Jay's scaly lips as he looked down at Jubilife City from above. The Flygon in him did not like the relative cold or humidity, but the view was amazing.

There was, however, one thing that he simply had to test.

Like any good aerial hunter, the new Flygon soared around the area. The grasses around Jubilife were not the cleanest, nor the most interesting. The area was filled with pink worms, blue lion cubs, and small, brown birds. The most annoying residents, however, were buck-toothed balls of brown fur called Bidoof. True to their name, they were not the brightest crayons in the box.

Suddenly, Jay folded his wings flat against his body. His targets were clearly visible amidst the grasses just north of the GTS. They were brown, fuzzy, and made excellent guinea pigs for his new move.

"Bi?" One of the big-toothed rodents turned his head to the sky. It saw the silhouette of the diving Flygon, but could not run fast enough to avoid the impending attack. Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyries" would not have seemed out of place as the insectoid dragon stooped nearer and nearer to the rodent.

BLAM!

Jay the Flygon slammed his heavy tail onto the earth, causing a shockwave that sent the Bidoof flying. When its furry body hit the tall grasses again, it was out cold. Several Pokémon and trainers scattered in case Jay planned on performing a second attack.

"Hah! Eat that, you annoying rodent!" Jay taunted. Sure, it probably sounded like "Fly! Fly flygon fly!" to the humans, but those Bidoof had annoyed him for the last time. Several beginning trainers, with their fiery monkeys, botanical turtles, and blue penguins, gawked at the strange creature. A few whipped out their PokeDeces a second too late. The Flygon had flown too high in the sky, and silently disappeared behind a cloud.

With a powerful flap of his diamond-shaped wings, he was off to someplace that would fit his new form better. He did not know exactly where he was headed, but his new instincts would guide him. Wherever he was going, it would have to be warm, sandy, and dry.

Reports of a mysterious humming around the desert-covered part of the Survival Area circulated shortly after that event. Rumor had it that, whenever someone brought in a Bidoof or Bibarel, the sandstorms in the survival area would blow more violently than usual. Some trainers said that they could see a shadow within the dusty clouds, but Jay the Flygon remained a local legend for generations.