Chapter 1: Welcome to Dragon Town
Clair woke up feeling strangely stiff; she could no longer feel her limbs.
She opened her eyes to see that her current location looked like a cross between a cave system and a city. She could see round windows and wooden doors embedded in the brown, rocky walls. Right in front of her was an ornate arch decorated with golden dragons and red flames, flanked by two golden dragon statues, reminding her of the Dragon Shrine. Her vision also seemed slightly different, but she couldn’t put a finger on how.
And then she realised that she didn’t have fingers any more.
The first thing she noticed about her body was the blur of tiny, white horn between her eyes. She turned around to see a pair of shiny, dark blue orbs at the end of her... tail? She twisted around her body like a flailing contortionist to discover that she now had a long, blue, serpentine body with a white underbelly.
So she was a Dragonair now. How in the world did that happen?
She didn’t have as hard of a time figuring out how to move as she thought she would. Weaving in an S-shape seemed to come instinctively. No, the problem was how rough the streets felt against her scales. This place was so dry; her body felt like it was screaming to be submerged in water, which she desperately searched for as she slithered through the streets. It was pathetic, really; a Dragon Master like her was reduced to gracelessly crawling on the ground.
The inhabitants of this cave-city weren’t human; instead, they were dragons in all sorts of colours, shapes, and sizes, but they were all bipedal, with two wings. Clair felt jealous; why couldn’t she have ended up as a Dragonite instead? Some of them were curious, but others were fearful; Clair saw a purple dragon hold onto her sons’ arms to stop them from running towards her.
As she watched a cyan dragon with an underbite shoo away a flock of Pidove, except for a shiny one that refused to leave, she wondered where the rest of her team was. Kingdra and Gyarados definitely weren't here, but what about Dragonair? On one non-existent hand, it would be great having her closest friend with her. On the other non-existent hand, she now knew that Dragonair wouldn't be able to stand being away from water for so long. She pictured them all swimming happily in a tropical lagoon somewhere, which just made her feel jealous.
Clair figured that she should try asking the locals for directions. If she was a Pokémon, then surely she could talk to Pokémon now, right? It was worth a try. She saw an orange dragon walking past whose thick, upwards-curving horns, comically undersized wings, and underbelly were all slate blue. She also had pink hair, for some reason. Clair shook her tail, creating a rattling sound, in an attempt to catch her attention. It seemed to have worked, because the orange dragon turned around to look at her.
“Hello, my name is Clair,” she said. “I’m ashamed to admit that I’m lost right now. I’ve never been here before, and I’m desperately looking for water. Could you please help me?” Unfortunately...
“Red rubies! Is that a sea serpent?” the orange dragon exclaimed in amazement, as she kneeled down and stared into Clair’s soul with her huge, blue eyes.
“Excuse me? That’s no way to talk to a lady!” If this body had more teeth, Clair would have gritted them in frustration. “I repeat: could you please tell me if there’s any water around here?” At this point, she would be willing to accept a “sorry, no” sort of answer. Instead...
“Yikes! Why are you mad at me all of a sudden?”
Clair gave up and slithered away in frustration.
Dragon Comics was Mina’s favourite place to hang out. Usually, she’d be gushing about the latest issue of Flashfire or Power Ponies to her friends, but today she was going to tell them about her encounter with a sea serpent. She didn’t even know they could survive on land! However...
“Yikes!” exclaimed Mina, her eyes widening as she looked at the shelves. They were crawling with giant, yellow caterpillar-thingies wrapped in leaves... who were eating the comics! Quickly, she and her friends rushed over to pull them off the shelves, but there were just too many, and it felt as if their feet were covered in glue.
She briefly considered breathing fire all over them, but that would destroy the comics, too! (Now that she thought about it, she could ask any unicorns if they knew a fireproofing spell later.) Besides, she couldn’t bring herself to hurt something so adorable!
Just then, a dragon Mina had never seen before stepped out of the shadows on the other side of the room, slowly and dramatically walking towards the shelves like some sort of determined hero confronting the villain for the final time. He had a fierce-looking face, a crest instead of horns, and a pale orange underbelly. He hadn’t grown his wings yet. What stood out the most, though, was his tail: it was on fire! Mina was terrified that he’d destroy the comics.
Instead, he leaped into action as his right claw glowed silver, and used it to slash the caterpillars, one at a time. Some of them fell onto the floor, while others practically smacked into the window-wall and then slid down harmlessly. It was a miracle that it didn’t shatter. Mina noticed that he was being careful to keep his tail away from anything flammable.
Once all of the caterpillars had been defeated, the red dragon headed for the door.
“Thank you thank you thank you!” exclaimed Mina. “What’s your name?” The red dragon gave her a quick glance, then walked out of the door. He seemed to be the strong and silent type, like a brooding anti-hero.
Mina worried that the red dragon had killed all the caterpillars, but she sighed in relief when she realised that they were all still twitching. She and her friends would have to carry them outside later, and find a tree for them to live in or something. There had to be a park somewhere in Fillydelphia, right?
The comics... were not so lucky. Mina rushed to check the shelves; a handful had survived unscathed, a few had their corners chewed but were still readable, but...
“Oh no!” Mina sobbed. “The entire Flashfire series has been ruined!”
Clair suddenly realised she was hungry. What did Dragonair eat, anyway? She briefly considered stealing food from somewhere, but apart from the fact that she didn’t want to incur the wrath of the locals, she realised that she hadn’t seen anywhere selling food here, just a lot of places selling gemstones.
“Hey!” a squeaky voice shouted from an alley to Clair’s side, catching her attention. “Put me down!”
Clair turned around and slithered down the alleyway, which lead to a dead end. At the end, a pair of dragons who seemed to be teenagers were tossing around a pink ball. Upon closer inspection, she realised that it was a Jigglypuff, and she looked absolutely terrified. Something about her seemed vaguely familiar...
“You two,” Clair snapped. “Stop it.” She hoped that these dragons wouldn’t ignore her, and it seemed to have worked; they turned to look at her in surprise, and one of them unceremoniously dropped the Jigglypuff, causing her to bounce repeatedly until she finally landed on her feet.
“What is that?” asked one of the dragons.
“I dunno. Looks like some sort of sea serpent,” the other replied, shrugging. Clair frowned. That was the second time she’d been called that today.
“It must be extremely lost.”
“A Dragonair, actually,” said Clair. Now that she was more used to moving, she proudly placed the tip of her tail against the equivalent of her chest.
“Aww, it’s whistling? How cute,” said the first dragon.
Clair felt frustration boiling up inside of her, so strong it felt like acid. Being ignored not once, but twice? Did anyone ever teach them any manners? These dragons had no honour. This was disgraceful.
Clair roared, and suddenly found herself breathing out a thin jet of blue flames. Both of the dragons leaped out of the way in shock; it ended up hitting the Jigglypuff in between them... but then harmlessly dissipated off her. The Jigglypuff shook herself in surprise.
“That thing is immune to dragon fire?” exclaimed the second dragon, turning to his partner. “RUN!”
And with that, the two teenage dragons left, and the Jigglypuff waddled towards Clair.
“Thanks!” she exclaimed. “Howcome those meanies wouldn’t listen to me?” she pouted. “I know I’m a Pokémon now, but surely they’d know that that’s no way to treat a gym leader!”
Clair finally put all the pieces together. “Whitney... is that you?”
“Yep! The one and only!” She suddenly looked confused. “Wait... how do you know my name?”
“I’m Clair, remember?” She and Whitney had only met a couple of times.
“Aren’t you that meanie who was so stuck-up that you made a trainer complete a quiz before you’d give them the Rising Badge once?” she asked, her voice sounding demanding.
“Yeah, but I heard that you once cried because a trainer beat you.” Clair wished she had arms to fold.
“Hey! Miltank is strong, okay? We hardly ever lose!” Whitney exclaimed, now sounding really, really, extremely whiny. “Anyway, do you know why we’re Pokémon now?”
“No idea.” Clair wished she could shrug. “But... I do have a theory about why these dragons can’t understand us.”
“What is it?” Whitney’s eyes widened in intrigue.
Clair turned around in thought. “They live like humans, and it’s clear that they’ve never seen Pokémon before. Not to mention that they look far more varied than any Pokémon species I’ve ever seen.” She turned back to face Whitney. “Therefore... I think they’re not Pokémon.”
“Huh?” Whitney placed a hand-arm-nub-thing close to her mouth in curiosity. “Howcome we can understand them, then?”
“Not sure. Must be a Pokémon thing.” And with that, Clair slithered away.
“Hey! Wait! Come back!” exclaimed Whitney.
That evening, it had started to rain. Clair noticed that the clouds were unusually low, and seemed to come out of nowhere. Peculiar.
Clair thought she would enjoy the rain... but she didn’t. It felt so cold and uneven; nothing like the warm, salty water her instincts wanted her to be wrapped in. Still, she still hadn’t eaten, so she raised her head and tried to drink some of the raindrops before desperately looking for shelter. She saw her reflection in a puddle, and realised that the white "wings" on the sides of her head looked unusual; they were longer and pointed downwards.
Eventually, she found a small overhang in front of a building that sold what looked like a cross between candy and jewellery. She was about to curl up and fall asleep under it, when a Charmeleon with a pale orange underbelly approached her, the flame on his tail evaporating the rain around him into steam. She’d always thought that a Charmeleon would die if the flame on its tail went out; maybe it was the other way around?
“Leave,” he demanded in a rough, deep voice, pointing a finger behind himself.
“No,” replied Clair stubbornly.
“I said leave. Now go before I force you to.”
“Fine...” Clair felt her muscles tense up, ready to strike. “Take THIS!” She rose up and breathed out a blue jet of flame again, but she didn’t know how to aim it, so it went right over the Charmeleon’s shoulder and dissipated in the rain. Charmeleon took this as an opportunity to breathe a wider, orange jet of flame at Clair. She tried to lunge out of the way, but it still grazed her side; while it didn’t hurt too much, the heat licking her side was still a sharp contrast to the cold air around them. The Charmeleon’s right claw then glowed silver, and he slashed it against Clair’s burned sighed, knocking her into the rain.
Clair’s face hit the ground, and she couldn’t get back up again. “Okay... you win...” she groaned.
Through her closed eyelids, she could see a bright, white light. She opened her eyes and gasped when she saw that Charmeleon was glowing; he grew taller, his single crest split into two, and a pair of rugged-looking wings emerged from his back. When the glow dissipated, she could see that he had evolved into Charizard. His underbelly was still the same shade of pale orange, but it was harder to notice against his now-orange scales. He had to duck in order to fit beneath the overhang, then sat down and fell asleep, leaning against the wall.
Freezing, Clair fell asleep where she was, dreaming about living happily with her team in a tropical lagoon.
Author's Note
If you’re wondering why Random Teenage Dragon #1 thinks Clair is whistling, it’s because the Newverse uses PokéSpeak, but Dragonair doesn’t say its name in the anime. It makes some sort of long, deep “mew” sound.
