Charizard

The laboratory beneath Cinnabar Island did not smell of ozone and burnt copper. Tonight, it smelled of stale Doritos, cheap body spray, and the existential dread of thirty-two lonely years. Dr. Charles Edward Zard—a man whose scaled, leathery skin, towering two-ton frame, and perpetually smoking tail suggested he was either the product of a classified military mutation or a very dedicated furry—slammed a clipboard onto his stainless-steel console.