Pokemon TCG TF- Charizard

12/18/08: I tried to do a story in one night, nonstop. This is the result.

Also, there should totally be more female dragon TFs.

~

Amber was doing what, some would say, a girl did best: Shop. She had everything a girl could want: Money, nice clothes, a toned, slender body, and she was in her last semester of high school with good grades to boot. The mall was her playground on Saturday afternoons, and this weekend was no exception. Being the day after Christmas, however, it was exceptionally crowded. No matter what, she was a bargain hunter, and there were always bargains to be had at the mall, especially right after Christmas.  

The young woman didn't know exactly what she was looking for, but she knew it wasn't a kiosk selling Pokémon cards.

Just looking at the stand in the center of the mall made Amber feel nostalgic. They must have every card ever printed here! she thought as she looked over the stand's offerings. They had everything from a first edition Base Set Charizard to some sort of golems with Braille where their faces should have been, and she wasn't even sure WHAT to call that weird sauropod with a metal fan over its tail.

The one card that caught her eye, however, was a sleeved Japanese Charizard promo that she had never seen the likes of until now. Unlike most holofoil cards, the picture itself didn't shimmer- the rest of the card did. In the artificial lighting of the small stand, the background of the card shimmered, almost hypnotically, with stars, moons, and galaxies in a metallic red hue. A sticker interrupting the gleaming foil read "$10.00," which immediately snapped Amber out of her daze.

Amber sighed and shook her head of dishwater-blond, straight hair a little. She had loved those games as a kid, but now that she was- what, 18? - she felt that she was getting a bit too old for such things.

"Excuse me, miss," a voice from behind Amber asked, making her jump a little. Amber turned to see a bent, cloaked old man with a long beard and spectacles standing behind her. He seemed, to Amber, to have come out of nowhere.

"Oh, hi, ummm..." Amber paused, a bit embarrassed that she had jolted so suddenly. The man continued on as though nothing at all peculiar had happened.

"Is there anything here that has chosen you?" he inquired, looking up at Amber's hazel eyes curiously. It would have felt intrusive if his words hadn't baffled the young lady before that.

"'Chosen me?'" Amber repeated. The little man - how much he looked like a wizard, Amber thought!- gave a small nod.

"Yes. All of these cards are magic, you see. They all have souls!" he explained with a sage grin. Before Amber could even ask, he answered what would have been her question. "Don't worry, you'll know when one chooses you. Won't be able to take your eyes off of it for a whole minute, I tell ya! Ohohoho!"

He's out of his mind, Amber told herself as he watched her peruse the cards like a cat inquisitively eying a ball of yarn. He was right, however, that one card would catch her eye like no other; she couldn't stop staring at the Charizard promo that shone like a star amidst the other holos. Were it not a bit pricey for a Japanese trading card (although, Amber noted, others were certainly higher!), she would have bought it right then and there.

"So?" the wizard asked. "Has one chosen you yet?"

Amber wasn't completely sure until she saw a neon pink sign reading "50% off EVERYTHING!" perched atop a binder of common cards. Then, at last, she believed in such a thing as destiny.

"That one," Amber declared, pointing to the Charizard card behind the glass. The little man had to get up on a stool to reach it on the vertical panel, but once there, the glass seemed to liquefy at his fingertips. He took out the sleeved card and, within the kiosk, concealed it inside a wax-sealed, parchment envelope. Amber handed over her Lincoln-stamped bill with a smile in exchange, and, without giving it a second thought, began to once again prowl the mall for deals.

About an hour later, she finally returned to her car - a silver Nissan Altima- with several shopping bags and the envelope. She was sorely tempted to open it, right then and there, but something seemed counterintuitive about doing so. She couldn't really place why she had thought that as she drove along; at a red light, she giggled at the notion that the wizard had been right about his cards having souls.

Charizard made her not open the envelope. Riiight.

For reasons unknown to her, whenever she passed a forest, she wanted to stop. Something did seem to be telling her to stop in a place like that. An area with a lot of room would be ideal; Amber had no idea why, but it would.

Finally, she gave in to the desires of whatever it was telling her to pull over someplace spacious. Her tires slid on the ice as she pulled over to a forest preserve, merchandise and all.

Is this good enough? she asked the envelope. She had to give herself a mental slap; the envelope, or rather the card inside it, definitely wasn't magic and probably couldn't hear her even if it was.

Or was it? Amber had to wonder. What if it was magic? What if it was lucky? What if it was cursed? What if, like in that story about the monkey's paw, it would grant wishes with some horrible side effect?

What if...?  

Before she could finish that last "what if?", she ripped open the seal on the envelope. A bright light filled the area for but a second, leaving Amber scrubbing floating, multicolor spots from her eyes.

Even with some flashes of magenta and green still clouding her vision, the card looked superb. It didn't matter, she realized, if the card had been magic or not; the words "what if?" had brought her a sense of ease and a playful feeling.

She also began feeling rather...hot...standing out there in the cold. It wasn't a feverish sort of hot, just a sort of warmth as though she had an internal fire blazing.

And why was her skin feeling so dry? Even for winter, it was getting a bit itchy, like it could peel off at any minute.

"Maybe the note will explain this..." Amber hastily told herself as she unfolded the piece of paper.
She read it to herself, but could not stop shifting her gaze to the peeling skin on the hand that held the sheet:

“Dear purchaser,
by now you’ve probably realized that this is no ordinary pokemon card. I’ve collected every card ever made, and I’ve been wondering what to do with them. I’ve decided to use them to put pokemon, real pokemon, on this planet. You’re just a step in my plan. I’m sorry but this isn’t going to wear off. But who knows...maybe you’ll enjoy it! Pretty soon all different kinds will be popping up, so you’ll have plenty of company. This will make the world a richer place, I’m sure of it. So go out there and live your life the best you can. Don't worry, nobody will miss you.
                                                                                                        Yours truly,
  The Wizard

P.S. There should be a Dragonite popping up sometime in Spring. I'm sure you'll get along well!"

"AH, sonuva-" Amber dropped the note hastily as her thumb was lost in her new set of three orange-scaled, curved claws. It was happening to her other hand, too, and the points of her new hind claws were already poking through her leathery winter boots. Her voice quickly became a roar of pain when two extra limbs, vestigial and white at first, erupted from her back into a pair of leathery, teal-skinned wings, each tipped with a single claw at the wrist joint.

Another roar echoed throughout the forest as Amber's winter clothes gave up the fight to contain the Charizard-to-be. With a loud SNAP!, her spine extended into a thick, reptilian tail, the tip of which quickly ignited with a brilliant, crackling flame. The lengthening quickly progressed to her neck and, finally, began to form her new, saurian jaws. With the addition of two orange, blunted horns, her metamorphosis was finally complete.

Amber, as she still thought of herself, was caught in a maelstrom of emotions. A combination of fear, shock, and, somewhere, a little bit of joy led to a "What the crap?" reaction. What had just happened?! No way it could be real...even though she was standing in a mixed pile of her old clothes, skin, and hair, transformations were against all the laws of science she had ever heard of, this had to be the result of some kind of drug on the card...

But what if...? she asked herself again. She flexed her new wings to get the blood flowing a little; what if she could actually fly, even though there was almost no way in the laws of physics for that to be possible.

With a deep breath and a mighty flap of her new wings, Amber soon found herself airborne, flying and smiling as best a Charizard could in the night sky.