King. That’s what they call me—the king of Team Plasma. N Harmonia. Having finally left the flower of my childhood, on the day I came of age I was crowned before the seven sages and my father. Already, we are pouring our intellects together, hoping to jointly come up with a way to shatter the yokes which humans have placed upon pokemon and bring justice to the Unova region.

Pokemon are beautiful, incredible creatures. I spent my childhood with them, rolling and exploring and playing and seeing just how many scars human cruelty could bestow upon their fragile forms. I am one of the precious few who can know their hearts and speak their tongue, and there is no greater honor than for a human to dedicate his or her life in service to the wellbeing of the world’s other creatures.

Today, I wonder if there are other ways to save pokemon beyond just freeing them from trainers.

The pokemon who begs for my help is a tall, proud Bug-type, a Scolipede. This is a species which is already large and formidable, but this pokemon is a matriarch, bigger than the rest of her kin, and I can tell just from a glance that she is gravid, swollen and enormous with eggs, so pregnant that she struggles to raise her great bulk from the floor and take even a few toddling steps towards me.

“Are you the one my sisters speak of?” she says, her voice ragged with strain. “The one who hears our words? The king?”

“I am,” I tell her.

She tries to take another step, fails, sinks to the floor with a hiss. “I need your help.” I step closer to her, sinking down on one knee so that our faces are level, and wait for her to speak. When she does so, it is between panting breaths. “I’m pregnant… I cannot find anyplace to lay my eggs. My kind is required to lay our eggs in the womb of another creature. But the pokemon here all serve you, and so I cannot simply force myself on them.” She breaks off, grunting, for half a minute before speaking again. “Please, king of Team Plasma. I beg you. Order your pokemon to open their wombs to me. If I lay them exposed in the air, my brood will die—and if I continue to hold them within me, it will cost me my life.”

Her plea is not unreasonable. Many Bug-type pokemon rely on oviposition as a natural part of their life cycle. It is not her fault that her brood needs the womb of another to mature. But I cannot imagine taking any of the pokemon who come to me for solace and refuge and ordering them to accept this intrusion. It would be too much.

Is this the trial of a king? To order my pokemon to open themselves to her would be injustice to their own desires—yet nor is it just for this Scolipede or her young to perish. No right choices. No proper path.

Or, I realize, the answer coming to me like a breath of pollen on the spring breeze, isn’t there?

“Must the new host of your brood,” I ask, punctuating each word carefully to ensure she won’t miss it, “be a pokemon?”

She shakes her head, even that tiny action laborious. “No. So long as they are the right size, it will be enough.”

The right size? Surely an adult human would suffice.

The Bug-type raises her head. “My king?” she posits. “Have you a womb in mind?”

I almost laugh. Have I? I have one in mind indeed.

I considered myself male ever since my youth, but my body frustrated me. Ghetsis and the rest of Team Plasma didn’t mind. So long as I communed with pokemon and saw their souls, their wants, their wishes, it didn’t matter whether I called myself king or queen, boy or girl.

It has been a long time since I was bothered by my body’s “plumbing,” as it were, and in fact, I realize that perhaps I alone among kings am uniquely suited to attending to particular needs of those who beg my favor.

“I do,” I reply, turning my attention to her. “Mine.”

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It takes place later that same night. The Scolipede needs release as soon as possible, and I am not one to put things off if they can be done right away.