The Dark Type

The rain pummels my shoulders as I dare to cross its chosen kingdom. Ecruteak in wet weather isn’t exactly the ideal place for anybody to be, unless they’re a Wooper or something. Mud slicks the roads, mixed with the black of ash from the Burned Tower carried downhill. I pass the building where the Kimono Girls are known to practice, and I am thankful for my hooded jacket—I shudder to think of what they should do if they knew that a Rocket wandered so close to home. I’m not stupid enough to dismiss the rumors of their strong Eevee evolutions, and the idea of a Vaporeon/ Jolteon pair in this weather is a daunting thing. I just wish the penalty of going out of Rocket uniform wasn’t so severe, but a guy has to be an Executive or something to be allowed that. As a grunt, I have no chance for such a privilege. Feeling sour in the weather, I trudge forward, imagining pursuing footsteps at every turn, extra splashes when there isn’t smooth water for miles.

Finally my feet brush the threshold of the ash’s source. I just hope my reason for coming is still intact.

The legend is that the Burned Tower held these great legendary dog-things or something, and then this big rainbow bird Ho-oh descended and revived them. It’s a great story, but I’m not dumb enough to believe it. Some idiot was probably training his Charizard or something, and it got out of his control. Happens enough to be a reasonable explanation, but I guess I’m the only one who believes that.

The soil beneath my feet alternates between wet and dry due to the uneven ground, soft as beach sand at one moment, gooey as fresh dung the next. I find the usual little hole in the ground leading to the basement, small enough to allow a wiry guy like me to slip through, nimble on the beams as a Mankey. The landing isn’t as great, since it would seem that the ground had warped downward a little, enough to play host to a sizeable puddle. I clamber out as quickly as I can, imaginary ice shards piercing my feet to the bone.

I wish for a moment that I had some sort of fire pokemon to help me warm up, but it passes quickly. Rockets love powerful pokemon, but most pokemon won’t stick around a Rocket for long. Koffing, Rattata, Ekans—those pokemon are usually the kind that were willing to help, and the discovery of the dark type had been like a dream for the Executives. They were often quite strong, and, as it turned out, were easily shown that they had a considerably sadistic side. So now the executives have pokemon like Murkrow and Houndoom to lord over the grunts, who still have the more common pokemon to bully and boss around. It’s sick.

Unlike the others, I have a Cubone, given to me back around the time we had control of Kanto’s Pokemon Tower. The pokemon was trapped by a bunch of grunts, and my father had given him to me. It’s ironic, actually, that the only gift from Giovanni to his son was a pokemon that the Rockets always considered useless ever after, due to its dislike of the violence they committed, but they didn’t dare take away the pokemon that their leader himself had bestowed. Even now, my Cubone is shivering in his ball, unfond as most ground types are of water.

After weaving through an unholy amount of wet rubble, I finally find the spot. To my surprise, my charge isn’t the only occupant. A Vulpix and Growlithe, united by mutual misery, are both curled up in one of the few decently-sized dry spots in the basement, cuddling a cream-colored egg with tiny green speckles. At my approach, the fire type pokemon raise their hackles at me, but I coo softly to them and edge around them. I reach for the egg, but the Vulpix tries to take half my fingers as toll. When I flinch, I realize my hand smarts, and I realize that it used its Will-O-Wisp as an underhanded defense. Apparently, the talk of Vulpix’s temperament wasn’t advice I should have turned up my nose at. But it wasn’t like I’d ever actually been around one, either.

The Growlithe stood, baring its teeth and flickers of Ember tickling its gums.

Slowly I drop to the ground, trying to somehow put my head beneath the little monster, hoping the rumors about this pokemon were as true as those about its companion. Hoping I’m not about to be toasted, I lie on my back, my eyes shutting tight. Warmth trickles into my face as the pokemon sniffs at me, and then my face is cool again. My eyes open, and the pair is ignoring me. The egg sits innocently between them.

It looks healthy enough, but I’m no expert. I want to put my ear to it, hear the pokemon inside stir and bump against the walls of its home like I did that day I got it. If it doesn’t move, then all this effort will be for nothing. At least between two fire pokemon, I know it’ll be warm.

A bunch of Rocket grunts stole the egg a long time ago, from some poor independent Pokemon breeder who somehow ticked them off (it never seemed too hard to ignite a Rocket’s temper), but a pokemon egg didn’t belong in the hands of any Rocket. I confiscated the egg, telling them it would be taken to my father, and they couldn’t really argue with me at that point. But I was a Rocket too, and if it weren’t for the fact that approaching anyone in my regretfully-required uniform isn’t exactly unsuspicious, I would have given it to someone else, but as it was, I at least knew that I would make the attempt to keep the pokemon inside happy. Though I can’t imagine being inside the Burned Tower was best for an incubating egg, but it was what I could do, and my situation hasn’t changed much.

Slowly I reach my hand out. The Vulpix raises its lips, and I hesitate, but they drop like shutters, and my hand is licked instead, with a gentle tongue. I interpret it as permission, and I rest my hand on the egg. Almost immediately something seems to bash against the inside of the shell, making the whole speckled structure visibly rock. I flinch backward, my hand burrowing accidentally in the ashy mud behind me. The pokemon inside audibly scrapes at the shell, but subsides. Then, before I’m about to rise and leave, a minute crack shows itself on the surface of the shell. I don’t know what to do, but when the Growlithe and Vulpix make like they want to run me off, I pick up their fiery bodies and move them over, ignoring my burned hands. Whatever’s in the egg isn’t having an easy time of getting out, and I’m suddenly worrying about whether it’s a pokemon that’ll hatch on its own, or if it will need help.

The cracks aren’t getting any bigger, so I gingerly removed a tiny shard of shell, leaving a hole about the size of my fingernail. Surprisingly quickly, a tiny, mammalian nose, similar to that of a cat, shoved into the space, sniffling. I didn’t see anything that would help the baby out of its shell, so carefully I started peeling pieces of shell. The nose withdrew. A couple more pieces were removed from the shell when the head crashed through the hole, freeing a pair of long ears and a very wet brown face. The eyes were closed, but it was definitely alive and awake, struggling forward and trying to free the rest of its body. Hastily, I pulled a few more, larger pieces from the shell, and the pokemon landed in the mud, free and panting, and I could see exactly what it was that I rescued.

The head is feline, and round, with the aforementioned long, narrow ears, limp with egg goo and wet fur. A bushy tail drips more fluid, and its dark, but I can see a tip of pale fur at the end, matching the ruff around the neck. An Eevee.

To say I’m surprised would be a hell of an understatement—it’s not like Eevees are as common as Pidgey. Team Rocket would love to have one of these, though I can’t imagine that it would be very useful to them, being so sensitive and needing such a careful trainer.

The Vulpix sniffs at my sleeve, thinking about protecting the newly hatched pokemon. The Growlithe looks like it’s having similar thoughts, so I gently scoop up the baby and move back, ignoring how egg slime is rubbing on my shirt like a runny nose. I can’t imagine what I’m going to do with the Eevee, but I promise to myself that I’ll think of something once I get away from the pair of fire-types.

I get to the beams and stare—I have a pretty easy time of climbing these usually, but not when I have a Pokemon curled to my chest, and I didn’t bring an extra ball. I curse to myself.

“You still down there?”

I jump and look up—there’s a woman above me, looking down through the beams. At least, judging by the voice it’s a female; it’s not like I have the best view from down in the dark. I guess I wasn’t imagining pursuers after all.

“Yeah,” I say apprehensively. If she knows I’m a Rocket and tailed me, then knowing I’m trapped down here would give her all the time in the world to go get Leader Monty or the Kimono Girls. Or one of the Sages, I recall—the Sages in this area are psycho shit, devoted to their nonexistent Ho-oh; if they thought a Rocket was poking around here, they’d do their best to send me to the hell where I belonged, in their opinion.

“How did you plan on getting back up from there?”

“I planned on climbing, but I’m finding it a little difficult at the moment,” I tell her, trying to remain civil in my growing panic.

There’s silence, and then, “Do you need some help?”