Morning sunlight flooded in through open window at the Farfetch’d Inn as Summer slowly woke from her restless sleep. She was so used to sleeping in her pokeball that it felt strange to be sleeping in a bed made by wild Pokemon. Thankfully she had Tyler there to keep her company throughout the night. The poor little Furret had been forced to stay up with her well into the night, overwhelmed by question after question about life as a wild Pokemon, and about the local adventure guild.
Summer tore off the covers to look at the damage caused by her prior trainer, now completely converted to a new layer of chub on her cute belly and thick hips. She poked curiously at her chubby belly watching it wobble as a result. Summer turned over to look at the much smaller bed where Tyler was still sleeping. His nose twitched as a single sunbeam shone down on the little Furret curled up underneath his covers. Despite his grumpy attitude and predatory tendencies Summer had to admit he looked positively adorable sleeping like that.
Before she could continue her daydreaming there was a sudden knock at the door breaking her concentration.
“Housekeeping….” The voice behind the door was small and meek, sounding more like a tweet than a voice.
Summer looked back at Tyler still soundly asleep, unsure of what she should do. “Um.. come in, I guess...”
The door opened and a small bird Pokemon entered carrying a basket of cleaning supplies under its wing. A Starly. The Starly walked in to the center of the room and dropped his bag of supplies before turning to Summer. “I’ll just be a minute, ma'am”
“Oh good. Breakfast is here” Summer looked up from the little bird on the floor to see Tyler standing on his hind legs preparing to pounce on the little Starly.
The Starly didn’t have even a moment to react before the Furret jump out of bed, landing squarely on the birds back pinning it to the floor. The Starly flapped its wings helplessly under Tyler’s weight sending feathers all over the room. “No wait. Don't ea… mmph...” the Starly’s pleas were cut short as the Furret brought his jaws down over the bird’s beak silencing it. Tyler adjusted his position on top of the Starly, quickly gulping down the birds head not wasting any time with his meal. Starly continued to flap his wings frantically under the larger predators paws completely powerless to stop his attacker. Tyler lifted his head off the ground taking the Starly with him. A series of strong gulps aided by gravity helped to send the flailing bird down his throat and seal it away in his gut.
Tyler laid down on his back letting out a long satisfied sigh thoroughly enjoying the struggles and muffled protests from his swollen belly, reaching his paws down to rub his wobbling gut as it went to work digesting the bird inside.
“Are you allowed to do that…..?” Summer tilted her head to the side and looked down at her bloated friend lying on the floor.
“Oh, Summer. I didn’t know you were awake already. Anyway, it’s like I said. I help out the Pokemon guild and they let me do what I want” Tyler continued rubbing his belly blushing slightly. He hadn’t realized he had an audience to his little display.
A few moments later the Starly went quiet, having accepted his fate as Furret fat, much to Tyler’s disappointment. The gorged Furret rolled back onto his paws and brushed himself off. Tyler picked up the Starly’s basket of cleaning supplies looking through it briefly for anything useful before tossing it through the open door and into the hallway. “Well, I suppose we should get going now.” Tyler grabbed his red satchel swinging around throwing it over his shoulder in a swift almost dance like movement. “Are you ready?”
Summer looked around the small room briefly before remembering she had nothing to take with her.
The two of them entered the lobby and were just about to leave when...
“Tyler! Are you eating my employees again!?” The Farfetch’d behind the counter glared down at the obviously guilty Furret, eyes drawn to his now motionless bulging gut.
“Just that cute Starly I’ve had my eye on.” Tyler said blushing a bit as he tried to cover his large stomach with his tail.
“Damn it Tyler! If you keep eating my employees I'm not gonna be able to find anyone willing to work here” The Farfetch’d took out his leek from under his wing and whacked the annoying Furret on the nose.
“Well, maybe you should stop hiring delicious looking birdies” Tyler said as he rubbed his snout where the Farfetch’d had hit him. He didn’t like the Farfetch’d Inn keeper but unfortunately he was under the protection of the Guild and Tyler had been explicitly told NOT to eat him.
The Farfetch’d returned behind the counter hanging his head low looking utterly defeated. “But bird Pokemon is my gimmick….”
• • •
The two them walked together through the small town receiving quite a few strange looks from the other villagers due to both the strangeness of a huge Charizard in the mostly modestly sized Pokemon town as well the bulging belly of the Furret walking beside her. The Pokemon of Arcanum Valley were aware of the Tyler’s predatory lifestyle but it was still made some of them uneasy seeing him out in the open with his gut dragging the ground. They could never be sure if the Furret had eaten just another wild Pokemon or if it was someone they knew. Not that any of them would be brave enough to confront their voracious neighbor and not that it even mattered at this point. The Starly he had eaten back at the Inn was well beyond saving at this point.
“Well Summer, you’re new here so I suppose I should show you around town.” Tyler smiled up at the towering Charizard walking beside him.
“Um, alright then” Summer followed along beside her companion
“Ok, first you should go meet doctor Ember, I’m sure she’ll love to meet a Charizard” Tyler lead her towards a large white building on the outskirts of town.
The building wasn’t quite as big as the guild hall was but it was plenty big enough for Summer to fit. Although, she thought glancing down at her hips, not if she continues with her diet of troublesome humans.
Tyler ran ahead of Summer and opened the door to the clinic “Ember! You in here” Tyler stood aside holding the door open for Summer. “She’s kinda shy so be nice”
The inside of the clinic looked more like the home of a mad scientist. Colored liquid in bubbling beakers, countless stacks of paper scattered all around, small stones of varying size and color held in metal clamps under large magnifying glasses, as well as a long chalkboard at the far end of the room scrawled with something that could almost be poke-language but the pawwriting was so bad Summer couldn’t know for sure.
“Ember!? I brought someone for you to meet!!” The Furret shouted into the dim, cluttered room receiving a large crash from downstairs in response.
Without warning a door that Summer hadn’t noticed before suddenly slammed open accompanied by a puff of black smoke that hung in the air for a minute before dispersing.
“Yes!? Yes?! Did someone call for me?!” Standing there in the doorway was a small Cyndaquil pulling off a pair of fogged up black goggles.
“Ah there you are. Still trying to burn down your house I see.” Tyler said with a slight chuckle observing the thin wisps of black smoke escaping from the basement
“No!.... That smoke is your fault! You broke my concentration.” Ember stopped to think for a moment before continuing. “Come to think of it, it was your fault my last house burnt down”
“Hey, the instructions on that human contraption were very unclear!”
“It was a toaster, Tyler. A toaster!” Embers back let loose a short burst of flame putting her rage on full display.
“Whatever. Anyways, I called you up here so you could meet Summer here” The Furret gestured to the Charizard standing beside him that had seemingly gone unnoticed by Ember until now despite her size.
 
“Oh my…. I knew Tyler had brought a new… ehm… friend to town, but i had no idea you were a fire type…” the Cyndaquil beamed up at the Charizard blushing behind the black smoke marks on her face.
“Yep! I found her just off route 12. Had to save rescue her from one of those humans”
“Is that right? If memory serves, Charmander aren’t indigenous to this regions. You must have travels quite a ways.” Ember said trying to remember just where it was most Charmander came from.
“No actually. I was raised not too far from here, by a human scientist. Then I was given to my trainer as a birthday present. Not soon my trainer caught Tyler and....” at this point Ember quickly jumped in.
“Wait. Your trainer ‘caught’ Tyler?” Ember looked up at the Summer quizzically before turning back to Tyler. “ You must be losing your touch. Getting yourself captured by a child.”
“I’m not losing my touch, he just snuck up on me is all” Tyler glared back at the Cyndaquil
“Suuure.” Ember shook her head before turning around and heading back down stairs. “Come with me you two. I’ve got something i want to show you, Tyler.” The Cyndaquil led them down the stairs into her underground lab.
Similarly to the floor above this one was also scattered with stacks of papers and glass jars full of strange fluids connected by plastic tubing. A long wooden table acted as the centerpiece to the room, on top of which sat a large disk shaped black stone as well as an old microscope and a few papers beside it.
“Salem brought me this thing yesterday. She wanted to see if I could decipher the language and patterns written on it, but so far I haven't been able to get anywhere with it.” Ember lead them over to the table allowing them to look at the stone that sat upon it. The strange stone was about a foot in diameter and was etched with a series of interconnected circular patterns as well as a string of odd symbols around its edge. “I know she sends you into human towns sometimes to bring her stuff. Have you ever seen anything like this before? Maybe in a museum?”
Tyler stared down at the mysterious rock, the patterns and symbols completely alien to him. “No. I don’t have any idea what this could be. Where did Salem get it from?”
“She wouldn’t say. But she did say it was very important that she know what was written on it, and that I not tell anyone I have it.”
“What? Then why are you showing us?” Summer jumped back from the weird rock. She didn’t want to get in trouble on her very first day in this town.
“Well I was getting nowhere with it so I thought it couldn’t hurt to get a second opinion. Especially from Tyler.” Ember looked back to Tyler still staring down at the stone “she sends you on secret missions all the time, so she obviously trusts you to some extent.”
“Yeah. she’s always asking me to bring her back strange human things. But never anything like this.”
“Well then, that’s a dead end I guess…. Arrh this is driving me crazy!” Ember’s back busts into fire nearly incinerating Tyler’s tail. “I hate not being able to figure this out!”
“Whoa! Watch the fireworks, Ember!” Tyler yanked his tail away from the enraged Cyndaquil patting down the singed hairs.
Just then the front door above them slammed open accompanied by the sound of small paws.
“Tyler! Tyler, are you here!?”
Tyler ran up the basement stairs quickly followed by Summer and Ember. In the main room of the house there stood a Pikachu looking extremely worried.
“What is it?” Tyler skidded to a halt in front of the panting Pikachu standing in the middle of the room.
“It’s Salem. She’s requires your assistance. She told me to tell you its very urgent!” The Pikachu was completely out of breath obviously having been running around looking for Tyler for some time now.
“Alright let’s go!” Tyler tightened the strap on his satchel as if preparing himself for whatever might be awaiting him.
“Wait, before you go.” Ember walked over to her desk removing a purple stone from its respective magnifying glass clamp. “Take this with you. It’s a reviver stone that I’ve modified. Clearly we can’t expect you to stay out of trouble, what with getting yourself captured and all, so If you ever get into any trouble that proves fatal this stone will make sure it’s not permanently fatal and you’ll be sent back here.” Ember handed Tyler the small stone.
“Thanks Ember, but I think I can take care of myself” Tyler smiled smugly at her taking the stone and putting it in his satchel. Tyler nodded turning back to the Pikachu signifying his readiness to go. “Alright . lets go.”