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Zekrom, the Legendary Pokémon of Ideals. An incredibly powerful entity, with physical prowess with next to no match. He looks fairly fit, but underneath those decent looks come muscles that no Pokémon can best, let alone match, without power-ups.

And he's also a Pokémon that suffers from his emotions biting him back.

Occasionally, despite his incredible might, he likes to travel through towns, looking at how the more 'mundane' Pokémon live their lives of simple pleasures: having family and friends, playing games... and having jobs, depending on who you ask.

Zekrom's predicament comes from one such job. He finds a tent that says: "Chimecho's Future Sight. FREE!"

As stated before, Zekrom is the Pokémon of Ideals. He doesn't want 'maybes', 'perhaps'... he wants actual things done right now. If it isn't working, it needs to be fixed; or else Zekrom will show up himself to fix it. In this particular case, Zekrom felt it is wrong to see a Pokémon trying to make services of future seeing because that will make others think they don't need to do anything, that the future is set in stone, that there is no chance for improvement, no way to change a bad situation.

That offends Zekrom, so he enters the tent to see... well, Chimecho, a Pokémon that resembles a wind bell, in front of a crystal ball.

"Hello, traveller," Chimecho says, with a soft voice that does not let Zekrom know their gender. "What part of your future do you wish to view?"

"I am here to stop your machinations." Zekrom spares no expenses.

"Pardon me?"

"Future seeing prevents idealism! It tells people not to try hard enough, that fatalism is the only true way, that no matter what you do, everything will turn out the same as if you did nothing!" Zekrom charges forward towards the Crystal Ball, ready to smash it into a thousand pieces if he has to.

"You seem to not appreciate the value of my trade. The future I see is a future that can be changed by individuals willing to work for it."

Zekrom grits his teeth and smashes his fist through the glass dome over the ball, shattering it completely. "You are nothing more than a phoney. A liar."

Chimecho's calm demeanour turns into an angry frown. "You have destroyed the meaning of my life. I hope you are happy with what you've done because you might end up regretting it..."

"And what are you going to do, eh? Tell me you see a bad future now?" Zekrom snarls angrily at then. "A future that can only be fixed if I get you a new crystal ball?"

"No." Chimecho floats and fires a small, dark flame that lands on Zekrom. "This is my retribution."

"I didn't feel any pain," says Zekrom. "You fatalists are all the same."

Zekrom then leaves the tent.

Chimecho looks at him as he leaves. "What you don't know," they say when Zekrom is too far away to listen, "is that I've placed a curse on you. A curse that will cause you uncountable amounts of pain. A curse that will be extremely difficult to remove." And with that said, Chimecho floats back to pick up all the shattered bits of their crystal ball.

Not even paying the slightest of attention, Zekrom continues walking through town.

He sees a bunch of human children playing at a nearby elevation, but the ball they are playing with suddenly gets out of their reach, rolling and bouncing precisely to where our dragon protagonist was standing.

Willing to help them, Zekrom prepares his hands to grab the ball... but it bounces under them and hits Zekrom in the stomach. It's a tiny rubber ball. Even if it's going fast, it shouldn't hurt too much, right? Right?

For some reason, though, Zekrom feels the tiny ball as if he had been hit by a heavyweight champion boxer who trained for months for this one shot! Actually, not even that. Zekrom's body had been so tough that nothing, not even himself, ever landed a hit on his midsection that made him feel such pain before. Yet somehow, there was that feeling. Zekrom drops to one knee, moaning and clutching at his gut. The pain isn't enough to make him go unconscious; however, the pain is very severe for someone like him.

One of the children arrives. "Sorry, sir." They say, grabbing the ball and leaving the Legendary Pokémon to continue his suffering after being lightly hit by a mere child's toy.

It takes around a minute, but once it passes, outside of the sheer surprise of the feeling, Zekrom brushes it off. Perhaps it happened to land square on some nerve ending or something? He simply continues walking.

Zekrom's stroll takes him to a forest. There, he finds a Leppa Berry tree. He takes a berry and begins to eat.

It feels good, so Zekrom decides to lean down on the tree and enjoy eating another berry while resting his head against its trunk.

That's when he notices that, in front of him, there's a Machop, a small, blue humanoid reptilian Pokémon that loves training his body, using an old, cut trunk as his own personal training dummy, throwing punches at it and leaving holes on the ancient trunk.

Zekrom finds it interesting to watch this Pokémon, which is not even a third of his own height, train while he eats the berry.

When Machop takes a brief rest, he sees that he has been noticed by Zekrom. He does not seem to recognize that Zekrom is a Legendary Pokémon, but he does see his body and assumes he must be pretty strong.

Machop approaches Zekrom. "You look strong."

"Thanks for the compliment," Zekrom takes another bite off the berry. He does not boast all over that he's a Legendary Pokémon, for he likes it when 'normal' Pokémon treat him as just an equal. "You don't do a bad job yourself. Do you aim for anything specific?"

Machop shakes his head. "I just want to be strong. By the way, can I..." He blushes a bit. "... check your body? Is it alright if I touch it?"

Zekrom lets out a light chuckle. "Sure... go ahead." Zekrom doesn't mind because of how casually the question was asked.

Machop uses single fingers to poke at different regions of Zekrom's muscled physique and form some kind of opinion about them.

Zekrom does not mind at all... though he finds it incredibly odd how some very light pokes at his abdomen feel unusually intense to him; as if, rather than light pokes, he had been stabbed. Perhaps that fluke hit by the rubber ball has temporarily left his abdomen very sensitive? Or maybe Machop just happened to touch that same nerve ending he supposes the ball hit that made him feel such pain earlier in the day.

Machop looks up from the examination of Zekrom's stomach. "Can I hit it?"

"... why?"

"It looks tough, much tougher than that old bark. I want to see what my own fist will look like after landing a blow on it." The Machop curls his right hand into a fist.

Zekrom straightens up while remaining sitting down on the grassy ground. "Feel free to try. I cannot guarantee that you will not end up with some broken bones. Are you sure you are ready for this?"

Machop nods. "Of course!" He takes one last deep breath and then punches Zekrom square on the midsection.

Zekrom feels that same sensation as before. Intense pain for someone as powerful as he is. His unbreakable stomach feels how some comparatively very weak fist buries itself there like all the muscles inside were not there.

Zekrom spits some saliva from the strike, his torso bending down slightly while his mouth gapes open. With a wheeze of pain escaping his mouth, he gasps when Machop pulls the fist away, and drops to a side, holding his stomach where it aches most intensely. "H-how can...?" Zekrom's breathing is heavy.

"Wow." Machop looks at him, disappointed. "You are much weaker than you look."

Machop walks away.

"W...wait..." Zekrom tries to reach him, but the hit left him temporarily incapacitated. He stays still on the ground, his face on the grassy floor, displaying all the pain. "What... is... going on...?" He wonders aloud, albeit weakly. "Never... had my gut hurt so badly before."

Zekrom gets up slowly, groaning a bit from his stomach, which still hurts greatly from that one blow. The physically mighty Legendary Pokémon has been reduced to a writhing, whimpering mess of agony from a hit from a ball and a punch by a Pokémon who isn't even a third of his size.

Perhaps his belly happened to be unusually sensitive this day.

This is not his lucky day, so Zekrom decides to look for some small, empty cave to stay in for the rest of the day or until the pain subsides enough for him to walk around again.

It takes Zekrom around 10 minutes to find one such cave.

No other Pokémon, no potentially damaging-looking objects... everything is fine.

Zekrom lays down, face-first, on the ground inside the cave. "Phew..." He sighs heavily with relief as the pain from that hit fades away. "That was bad." He closes his eyes.

And he's suddenly woken up by a Diglett, a mole-like Pokémon whose legs have never been seen, that happened to dig out in this very same cave. And, to make matters worse, the Diglett rises its head to collide with Zekrom's stomach. It wasn't a hard or fast hit or anything. It was more like a moderate poke by Diglett's head on Zekrom's stomach. But it did cause him immense pain.

"AAAGH!" Zekrom cries out in pain, rolling away and feeling his midsection while panting a bit. "What was that!?"

"Sorry." The Diglett says meekly. "I accidentally hit you while digging out."

"Mngh..." Zekrom winces and grits his teeth, finding the fact a very light hit put him through this much agony strange. He is a Legendary pokemon after all; one of the toughest.

The little creature wonders. "You must have some sort of wound there if my mere touch can hurt your body this badly."

The Diglett raises a good point, but Zekrom puts his hands away from his belly to show the small mole-like Pokémon that there are no wounds, not even any bruises on his scaly belly. It looks perfectly fine, but he felt the touch as if it were horribly bad.

"Do you need any-"

"NO! I don't need any help!" Zekrom slams a fist on one of the sides of the cave.

This causes a small rock to fall from the roof and bounce on Zekrom's stomach.

"ARGH!" Zekrom once again moans in pain, clutching his belly while wincing and lying face-first on the rocky cavern floor.

Diglett wisely digs again and leaves Zekrom alone.

"What is happening...?" Zekrom does not understand. And with good reason. It was a ball, a small Pokémon, an even smaller Pokémon, and a pebble. And yet, those four things, to him, felt like they were punches, heavy hits by unimaginably strong creatures that would leave him severely wounded for days at least. "That cannot be right..."

But he tries to rest again, this time covering his belly with his hands. Maybe, the next day, all this extreme vulnerability in front of seemingly harmless objects will stop.

Zekrom manages to sleep through the night and wakes up early.

He turns on his generator tail and flies away from the forest.

As he flies near a big human city, however, a Pidgey, a small bird Pokémon, happened to get distracted and ends up colliding with Zekrom's stomach.

Contrary to his hopes, this hit hurts and stuns Zekrom enough that he falls straight down toward the ground below.

"Aahh!? Why!?" Zekrom shouts out in anger while glaring at the little thing that kept on flying like nothing. He then feels his belly, wishing to find an explanation for how all these strange things could cause such pain in it. He doesn't feel any bruises or cuts... but it still hurt a lot. The Pidgey didn't even have any claws. He didn't even feel the beak. It was just the forehead crashing on him that made him feel like he had been punched so hard his ribs cracked. With no actual rib cracking, of course, it's just that it feels that way.

He needs answers, and he needs them now.

And he may have happened to land on the place that might hold an answer for him.

In front of him, there's a gym. Not a Pokémon gym, where trainers take their Pokémon to battle each other to earn badges, but a human men's gym, where humans go to gain physical condition. Maybe they can know why his core feels so... vulnerable sometimes.

Zekrom enters the gym, though he has to crouch down as he's almost three meters tall. Imagine the faces of the humans when a Pokémon enters one of their gyms. It's unusual alone by itself, but even more when it's a Legendary Pokémon who does so. Fortunately, being a Legendary Pokémon, Zekrom happens to know the human language, so he can communicate with them.

After a few seconds of confusion, one of the humans, who has an "Instructor" tag on his sleeveless shirt, approaches him. The male human attempts to treat Zekrom like he were one of them. "Hello, good sir. What can we do for you?"

Zekrom kneels down to be at around the same height as this man. "I... need assistance. For some reason, since yesterday..." He puts a hand on his belly and slightly pokes it. For some reason, it does not feel the way it felt when Machop poked him. "... my abdominal region has been feeling extremely weak."

The man eyes his belly curiously. "Just from looking at it, I don't see anything wrong. If anything, it looks very strong," he points out, running his hands over Zekrom's stomach.

A very light groan escapes Zekrom. His own hand on his stomach felt perfectly okay, but this man's hands feel oddly painful in ways that shouldn't make sense to anyone else but himself. "It's... as if all their resilience had vanished. A kid's ball, a pebble or a little bird have made me feel pain as severe as if a much larger Pokémon hit me with their fist."

The human finds the situation appropriately odd. "Let me see..." He pats Zekrom's stomach. It's a very light pat, but it's enough to make Zekrom let out another loud groan of pain. "It's indeed very strange. But, what do you want?"

"I... think I need to train my abdomen harder. Strengthen my core so those hits won't hurt so badly anymore," Zekrom says while gritting his teeth.

The human thinks about his words for a moment. "If the issue happened overnight as you say, working out may not be enough to fix it. You are welcome to try, though."

Zekrom smirks and nods.

For the following weeks, Zekrom follows the lead of the human instructor, who puts him onto several different exercises to work his core, such as sit-ups, push-ups and crunches. These were followed by weight training, as well as other basic physical movements like walking and jogging on treadmills, etcetera. All these were done until they felt more or less comfortable for Zekrom.

Of course, during these exercises, Zekrom wasn't free from some freak moments, like the time one of the lightbulbs fell right on his stomach right in the middle of an exercise and leaving him writhing in pain... or when he doing weightlifting while lying on the floor, only for one of the weights to also land on top of his belly...

Some of the hits were deliberate, though. The instructor asked one of the other humans, an amateur boxer, to repeatedly punch him in the gut. The plan was to do it every week to see if there was some progress. Despite how visibly stronger Zekrom became, each punch still made him groan out in pain just as much as before. And no matter how many times he tried that, he couldn't stop himself from feeling this pain with even a little hit to his body.

He had got his midsection to show an enviable six-pack. But it was that, just show. When the amateur boxer was pitted against him, one hit dropped him to one knee, the second sent him landing flat on his back, and the third knocked him out completely, barely remaining conscious.

After another month of significant visual improvement but no actual resilience gain, including more and more cases of objects coincidentally striking Zekrom's belly, which made him scream and clutch at his stomach in pain (sometimes hitting things twice or three times because of their initial impact being missed), he decided something.

"This is not helping me," Zekrom says.

"I told you at first," the instructor says. "You are free to go, but I tell you, you should check a Pokémon doctor, having such a sensitive vulnerable core is bad."

Zekrom sighs deeply. "I will consider that. Thanks for your concern, anyways."

And he leaves the human gym for good.

As he walks out of the gym, he hears a yell.

"Stop! Thief!" It's a human dressed in baker's clothes, yelling at a Pokémon. It's a Ledian, a four-armed ladybug Pokémon, and it's carrying some loaves of bread with its four arms and flying past Zekrom.

It takes a few seconds or so for Zekrom to decide it's time to do some heroics.

He turns on his generator tail and flies very quickly, eventually landing in front of the surprised Ledian just as he was escaping into a forest.

"Hand those pieces of bread back," Zekrom orders, using his way larger, way more powerful, way more muscled, way more scaly body to cower the 1-metre-tall ladybug Pokémon into obedience by showing off his intimidating strength. "Or else... my wrath shall rain upon you."

The Ledian doesn't respond as fast as he wishes it would have. "Hey, who do you think you are?" The Ledian has a surprisingly deep voice for a bug.

"Give them," Zekrom says, and reaches down to grab the bread.

But Ledian reacts violently and punches Zekrom in the gut.

Now, Ledian, while being well-known for being a Pokémon that uses its fists a lot, is also noted for being very weak at that. And yet, that small, weak, mitten-shaped fist digs straight into Zekrom's stomach like there was no tomorrow.

Zekrom cries out from pain. He clutches at his stomach again. All that workout? All that six-pack he has? It's as if he had not trained himself at all when he felt this pain. He writhes around in pain until he drops to his knees.

The Ledian, sensing an advantage, uses his other three fists to also strike him.

Each punch lands on Zekrom's abdomen and it feels just as painful as the first one. His pained groan becomes louder and more desperate with each hit. Zekrom holds on to the ground to try and balance himself, but it does nothing except make things worse. Eventually, back-first, he simply falls onto the grassy ground, heavily moaning in agony.

The ladybug Pokémon is quite shocked by how easily defeated Zekrom was. "Three metres of muscle to unceremoniously be knocked over by just four hits."

"You... will pay for this..." Zekrom, heaving, unable to stand up, growls angrily at him.

"I don't think so," the Ledian says, and, rather than use his fists, kicks Zekrom a few times on the sides of his stomach. He laughs at Zekrom's shuffling and whimpering.

Zekrom is reduced to a helpless and pitiful state now, back down on the ground, barely able to move because of how much pain it brings.

He would have never thought that such a tiny Pokémon would have hurt him that badly before. His face is completely red from both shame and pain. He's been driven to the point of tears.

The Ledian chuckles while he flies upwards and crashes his tiny, weak body on top of Zekrom's toned abs. This body slam would have been ineffective on anyone else, but with Zekrom's state, it makes him cry out agonizingly.

The Ledian might look cute, but personality-wise he's quite the opposite.

With Zekrom still screaming out in agony, the Ledian is surprised by a net that completely wraps around him and captures him.

It's the forces of law! They quickly subdue the evil ladybug Pokémon, while another, doing his best, tries to lift the writhing 350-kilogram-heavy dragon to put him back on his feet. It took a few other people, but they could.

Zekrom is taken to a very high-tech Pokémon Hospital.

Given his cries of agony, he's quickly taken to a ward where they check his body for any injuries or serious pains by using machines and tools.

Zekrom is at the point where merely placing an object on his belly, even if it's just for examination, makes him feel pain like it was the end of the world. But, he knows this time there's nothing but good intent, so he has to endure, no matter how a few bands and scanning devices hurt him more than ever before.

"This is strange," the doctor says, looking at the results of the examinations.

Zekrom is panting badly. "What... do you mean...?"

"Your stomach... is fine."

"... fine?"

"As in that, despite your reactions as if you had taken incredible hits all over your body, you're completely fine inside."

Zekrom doesn't understand what that means. His entire being felt intense pain that seems to have no relief.

"It's as if something in you is making you feel drastically more pain than it should be."

Zekrom feels his first assumption was right all along. His belly has become extremely vulnerable and sensitive now.

"That's why our instruments barely touching your belly hurts you so much." The doctor removes the instruments over that section of Zekrom's body. "Tell me, are you now feeling the same amount of pain without the instruments around?"

Zekrom shakes his head.

"You have some localized phenomenon that makes your belly, and only your belly, react with such extreme pain."

Zekrom is silent for a long moment. That is, until a plastic cup of all things falls onto his belly. He screams out loudly.

"How odd. That cup was in a perfectly stable position, and then it suddenly fell on your stomach."

"Please, doctor..." Zekrom clutches his gut.

"Wait a second." The doctor gets an idea. "You just touched your abdomen. Are you feeling any more pain?"

Zekrom shakes his head.

"Interesting, so you touching your stomach does not incur that reaction. And tell me, what happened with the plastic cup... has it happened before?"

"... a good bunch of things have fallen on my abs ever since I started feeling all this extreme pain," he says bitterly.

"... it's as if you were under a curse or something," the doctor says, putting away all their instruments.

"... a curse?"

"You said it happened overnight, right? So maybe someone did something to you that makes the sensations in your stomach greatly amplified. Do you recall what you were doing the day you felt this for the first time?"

"I... remember I felt it for the first time when a rubber ball bounced under my hands and hit me in the gut."

"... and before that?"

"I had an argument... with a Chimecho because I didn't like their future seeing."

"Chimecho..." The doctor sits at a computer and begins to type. "Chimecho... Chimecho... aha! Chimecho can use Curses!"

Zekrom gasps. He knows what to do! But... he will have to rest because his stomach is as if it were burning.

Starting the next day, Zekrom begins his trek back to the tent of the Chimecho that might have cursed him.

It's not an easy trek. Many accidental and intentional attacks on his abs, from more birds crashing into him to bandits that just wanted to beat him down for their own pleasure. Zekrom had never felt so vulnerable, so defenceless before... it's as if the world wanted his midsection to be damaged beyond repair.

But he still managed to reach the tent where the Chimecho is located.

"You..." Zekrom, panting a bit, growls at the Psychic-type wind bell-like Pokémon.

Chimecho nonchalantly curls a sheet of paper into a ball and throws it right into Zekrom's abdomen.

"MMMMMMMMMMPH!" Zekrom almost immediately drops to the floor, clutching his belly again with much greater intensity than ever before. "Why would you do that?!" That Chimecho would do such a thing so quickly almost confirms to Zekrom that it's indeed their doing.

"Have you come to apologize?"

"APOLOGIZE!? You were the one who cursed me! Do you have any idea how these months have been for me?" Zekrom stands up and shouts out in rage and frustration.

"You brought it upon yourself. I meant no harm to you until you shattered my crystal ball. You destroy my living, I make your life miserable." Chimecho sighs.

Zekrom looks at the table in the tent. "But you now have a crystal ball!"

"That doesn't mean I forgot or forgive what happened," Chimecho says coldly as they place the blue orb of light atop the wooden stand beside them.

"What... do I have to do to break this curse...?" Zekrom asks, feeling pathetic as he kneels before the wind bell.

Chimecho simply smirks. "Nothing."

"... what do you mean 'nothing'?"

"If, for the grand total of one year, you do nothing to stop the curse or protect your stomach from being harmed by an attack, then it will just vanish like it never existed."

"What kind of silly rule is that?!" Zekrom roars while rising up to his feet again. "You expect me to just stand and allow my belly to be attacked at will!? No way!"

"Then you better get used to living with a belly that makes you feel a lot of pain when it just gets touched," Chimecho smirks again. "No searching how to break the curse, no blocking attacks, and no isolating yourself so nothing and no one can even try to hurt you. Do none of those things for a whole year, and suddenly you'll no longer be so sore, but instead become stronger than ever before!"

Zekrom winds up a fist. "Do you want me to make YOU feel what pain is like?"

"If you want the curse to be permanent, then be my guest," the wind bell-like Pokémon says casually, stopping Zekrom's threat cold.

The Legendary Pokémon is on the ropes by some mundane Chimecho. He lowers his fist. "... you win. But I tell you, if I manage to follow that for a whole year, and the curse is not lifted, I'll make sure you're all broken in tiny little pieces."

"So long as you don't forget who broke what first." The Psychic-type shrugs at him innocently.

Zekrom huffs and storms out, hoping that he can indeed endure a year of potentially continuous gut abuse while doing absolutely nothing to break it.

Spoilers: he doesn't. Eventually, even if just by a little reflex, he ends up clutching or covering his belly whenever he's in pain. He ends up noticing that, whenever that happens, some mysterious tattoo he never had, with a shape reminiscent of a crosshair, glows. The Chimecho had given him an indicator of when he failed and has to try a whole year again.

And of course, eventually, he ends up committing the same mistake again, and ends up, even by just instinct, doing something that might prevent harm from reaching his stomach.

Zekrom will have to get used to a new type of suffering for a whole year if he wants to even have a chance at breaking this curse. Perhaps, even deliberately seek out pain to learn how to withstand it without doing anything that can prolong the curse any further.