Painted Paradise

The houndooms dragged Silver down a set of stairs that led down like a basement. It was dark and damp, curving in several directions before revealing a heavy-weight door. The door required a key and clearly took effort to push open, displaying a room showing many similarities with the fire room. This time the right side didn’t have scarred thick glass, but was instead a thick wall that smelt of toxic paint. On the right displayed almost an identical view as the fire room with thick glass and rows of workers and technology sets. However instead of displaying a zoo of encaged fire types, this one displayed a large battle field. The walls of the field where polished smooth and reached several stories upward. Below lay several fields appealing to different Pokémon types. A thick patch of high-reaching grass hugged the soil in the center with a neatly painted pokeball only slightly smeared in the middle of the grass. To the side of the sheets of grass lay a smooth rocky surface with clumps of rock spiking out of the ground. Neighboring this terrain was a deep pool of ice chill water that seemed to plummet for miles. Following this was a sheet of ice with manmade fans blowing chilled air at it, constantly refrigerating the thick layer of ice and frost.
Several caves with the same hard scarred bars dug into the ground, seemingly eternally undisturbed. Before Silver could get any more of an observation he was dragged down a new flight of stairs where they entered a small cave. Silver recognized the steel bars even through the dreary darkness. “I’ll be watching your performance with our leader Max at the top, so I hope you don’t make me look bad” Nala laughed smugly. Silver had almost forgotten she was there, and instantly wanted to snarl a protest at her smug expression. The man, who Silver had presumed was Max, left the cave with Nala close behind. The door clamped shut, leaving Silver to sit wearily in the cave alone not even with the houndooms treading his tail anymore.
Silence passed awkwardly on, making Silver jump when the ropes that tied his front and back feet together suddenly snapped loose. Silver immediately jumped back to his paws, waiting for his mouthpiece to stop stinging the back of his throat, but nothing else came. Some more silence passed before the solid gates started to declaw themselves from the Earth, shaking as if they hadn’t been touched in decades. Dust and sand rattled off the solid bars and showered down onto the ground, spewing up dust particles that washed into the cave. Silver stepped forward, entering the battlefield that seemed to stretch for miles. The gate slammed down before Silver could change his mind and run back in, and he was soon forced to remain in the battlefield.
He couldn’t help to flick his gaze up to the walls, where just as promised Max and Nala stood rigid staring down at him with wide all-seeing eyes. Another stab of the awaking of another gate coming up ripped the air, the sound of dust spilling over reaching Silver’s ears.
A screech of defiance made Silver hold back a whimper of horror, knowing this beast was what he had to fight no matter what he wanted. An angry rip of orange splintered through the air with a blast of fire scorching through the air. Silver immediately felt a horrible impact collide directly into him, his feet uprooting from the ground in an instant. He was flying across the arena, his head dizzy before he realized who had even slammed into him. Another flash of angry orange zipped through the air, flapping its wings like a bird and landing on top of a jutting rock high above the ground. His attacker was a Charizard, one of the strongest fire types that weren’t legendary.
Silver felt a rush of horror as the Charizard plummeted down from the jutting rock, pulling up just in time before making a bone-crushing collide into the sand below, charging towards Silver like a dart ready to stick into the wall. Before he could make a dodge, another bash like a baseball bat to the skull collided into his body and flung him across the ground again, making him skid close to the polished rocky wall. He staggered to his paws again, shaking and backing against the wall. He caught the disapproving look from Nala up in the observation area, with an equally disappointed expression on Max. The leader turned to say something unheard but full of annoyance to a frowning spectator beside him, making Nala look thoroughly shocked.
Another dip of the Charizard brought Silver back to his senses, this time instead of a direct collision the beast swooped up with all the pride of a king and then dipping down to Silver again, obviously planning an actual attack this time. The muzzle of the dragon Pokémon glowed hot with flame, telling Silver it could be one of several attacks from flamethrower to inferno. Silver suddenly felt adrenaline pulse through his legs, and suddenly he was dashing across the field for his life. The fire dragon dipped down with its teeth enveloped in flame, ready to pounce.
The swoop would make for being faster than him, but Silver knew this came with the cost of only going one direction. Pushing his paws with as much energy as he could muster, he threw himself almost in a direct 90% angle to skid out of the way just in the nick of time. Blazing fangs singed his fur, catching the mouthpiece that prevented him from biting. Silver felt a sudden whip squeezing his throat closed before the mouth piece was severed and carried away, flying a few feet up before being spat out onto the ground.
Choking and gasping for breath, Silver suddenly realized he had nothing to hold him back now. He would do anything to survive and satisfy the hungry spectators behind the observation class watching intently like the battle was some sort of circus act. The great dragon made another swoop, its mouth blazing again. Silver realized this must be Fire Fang. Forcing energy into his paws, Silver launched himself into the air and landed on the Charizard before it climbed into the air again. It thrashed angrily before launching down, twisting its body and then climbing rapidly. The only reason Silver wasn’t thrown off was because his claws where planted into the Charizards back. Inching forward meekly like a recently severed worm, Silver crawled forward careful not to be jerked off by the rapid incline and decline of the fire dragon and latched his teeth around the long neck of the dragon. It croaked and faltered its flight pattern, gasping for breath and choking out nothing but sparks instead of a flamethrower as Silver crushed his jaws around the neck as hard as he could. He could feel the top of his jaw with his bottom jaw through the skin, bones and slippery things struggling to continue circulating inside the neck.
The dragon soon almost entirely stopped flapping its wings, plummeting to the ground only to barely avoid crushing him and Silver and climbing up to the skies again. The Charizard spun and landed awkwardly on the ground, rolling on its back and then in pure desperation bashing its neck into the rocks. Only then did Silver loosen his grip, enough for the Charizard to yank Silver off its neck and gasp half suffocated on the ground. Silver lay momentarily on the ground trying to stop his head from spinning, but he knew he had to gain his composure before the Charizard did. He got to his paws shakily and approached the Charizard hissing and baring his fangs. The Charizard got to its feet and launched an angry flamethrower directly at Silver.
This time he was able to dodge, the Charizard had only managed a slight flame with its throat red and burning with teeth marks. The Charizard was furious now, watching forward half-dazed with its teeth blazed in a Fire Fang attack. Fear blazed into Silver and he felt his paws launching him away from the hissing fire dragon. He felt the hot skin of the Charizard on his heels and gaining ground on him. Silver decided to use his agility and speed to his advantage, swerving a jutting rock a moment before colliding head-first into it. The Charizard wasn’t as nimble, instead making a failed attempt to turn direction and crashing its wing directly into the hard surface of the rock. A sickening crack followed by an ear-splitting scream of pain flooded the arena, making it clear that the Charizard could no longer use its wings in this battle.
Before Silver could move, pain rose like ice from his leg through his limbs. A Fire Fang attack coursed through him, the Charizard on the other end of the attack looking too sick with rage and anger to be anywhere near satisfied with his success. Silver croaked in horror, lashing his hind leg out of the ancient dragons grasp and feeling a dim numb sensation trickle through him. The Charizard was charging for the crippled body that lay before it, nothing but revenge lighting the dark depths of its eyes. Silver struggled to limp pathetically away, but it was not one tenth of the speed of the Charizard. Suddenly a shaky bash told Silver that the Charizard had reached it’s pray. Closing his eyes, Silver waited for the final crushing blow that would end it but instead received a feeling of icy hands gripping him and something compressing oxygen out of his lungs. Silver opened his eyes, starring in horror as he realized he had been thrown into the water used for water Pokémon. The water was surprisingly icy-chill, quickly zapping away the warmth that the adrenaline provided. Silver climbed weakly towards the surface, hardly able to move at all with the battle finally dimming his senses. Then a cold shape caught his eye.
Silver watched in guilt and agony as he saw the Charizard, its tail no longer blazing with the light of the battle, sink unmoving and unconscious to the black depths of the bottom of the pool.