Since the beginning of time, humanity has been fascinated by fire: the paradoxical giver and taker of life. This fascination has extended to the class of Pokemon with the power to manipulate fire, the majestic and enigmatic Fire-Types. It's a relatively recent development that humans have actually had the power to catch and train Fire-Types, as prior to the invention of the Poke Ball, their temperamental natures made them too much of a liability to have around. For this reason, specialization in Fire-Types has grown from being completely unviable a mere century ago to the fastest-growing field in modern times.

  If you're reading this guide, chances are you've either found yourself in possession of a Fire-Type Pokemon or plan to get one in the future. While every species and individual are unique, this guide will give you a brief overview of both the Type's greatest strengths and its most pressing vulnerabilities.

  But first, let's talk about one of the most basic aspects of being a Trainer, but one many beginners have trouble wrapping their head around: the cosmological pyramid.

  As you can see in the diagram above, the complexity of life-forms follows a certain hierarchy. The base elements, the sources of a Pokemon's power and typing, are in the three bottom tiers, while the 'cosmatics', the most complex of life-forms, are at the top. You don't have to worry about the latter; unless you're a dimensional physicist, the chances of you ever encountering a creature with a soul more powerful than a human's is slim to none.

  THE TRIAD OF PROXIES

  This is the only configuration of cosmological levels likely to be relevant to you as a Trainer. When a Trainer instructs their Pokemon to use a move, a certain amount of power is siphoned from them into their Pokemon. (This is why Pokemon and humans formed their symbiotic relationship in the first place: no wild Pokemon will ever have the means to reach their full potential without a human's energy.) This may seem detrimental to the Trainer, but it is actually far more dangerous for the Pokemon: as this power is one level higher up on the pyramid, the Pokemon has trouble containing it by itself. This is not usually a problem during shorter battles with weaker Pokemon, but as the level of skill increases, so too does the amount of requisite power.

  The most advanced Trainers are often described to be able to control their Pokemon's moves without a second thought - the Pokemon becomes akin to a third arm; an extension of their Trainer. However, in the triad of proxies, the Pokemon also gains an extension of itself.

  This brings us to the third corner of our triangle: the proxy.

  Proxies are the vessels the surplus energy is stored in. In order for the Pokemon to be able to use them, they must come from the level lower than Pokemon on the pyramid, which is why, historically, proxies have been made of organic material - usually smaller insects or plants. In modern times, scientists have developed artificial proxies, which can store much more energy and last for much longer than a proxy coming from the natural world. However, a Trainer can never go wrong with a simple blade of grass.

  If the Pokemon is unable to store the extra energy in a proxy, this energy can overwhelm its body and damage its cells. Over time, this can cause serious health issues like organ damage and an increased risk of cancer. For this reason, the World Pokemon League mandates a proxy be used in every official League battle, and repeated proxyless battling is classified as felony Pokemon abuse in the United Western Federation.

  How does any of this relate to the Fire typing?

  Well, good news: in the pyramid of energy levels, Fire-Types are classified as a BASIC type. This means its element, fire, is at the simplest of the three elemental power levels. This does not mean it is weaker than other types - only that it requires a lower level of energy usage, which is why basic types are often recommended to Trainers who are just taking their first steps on their Pokemon journey.

  In other words, Trainers who primarily use Fire-Type Pokemon go through fewer proxies during battle (Stills et al., 2003).

  What about dual-typed Pokemon?

  In this case, the power cost depends on the Pokemon's secondary typing. If it's another Basic type, it'll be similar to a mono-Fire-Type's. If its other type is a Complex or Advanced Type, it'll require the same energy cost as those levels. For a list of which types belong to each pyramid level, please see Appendix One. Please note that as mentioned before, every Pokemon is different, unlike how

  people are

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  For the most delicate of moments, the feeling was immaculate: swaddled up in endless oblivion, drifting supine and naked. The boy was liquid; his eyes, which had glazed over in his reading, ached from overuse. An image flashed before him, although only the most basal parts of him would retain it.

  The darkness set in with teeth and claws - it was as if a hand had curled around his windpipe, and he gasped for air. He seized as a series of spasms flowed through him, as if his body was resetting itself. Everything came into being at once: light, sound, color, feeling. He did not need to open his eyes to know where he was. Although he had never stepped foot into this un-sacred place, he could visualize every inch of it, every crevice, to perfection.

  Above him, dusky light filtered through a stained-glass window composed of a thousand variegated tiles; the stony floor, coated with a thin film of blood, soaked up its prismatic rays. Two rows of old cathode-ray-tube televisions lined the room, one against each wall. There were around thirty or forty in total, and the same voice blared from each speaker, married to the sharp hiss of static:

  "-all the same. Men are all the same, you know. Far too many of them don't think with their brains but with their-"

  "-under the autumn sky and let us dance. Together, let us leave behind the ugliness of this-"

  "-another time, perhaps. As they say, the road to hell is paved with-"

  The voice burned with paradox: soft and desperate and gentle and manic all at once. It sounded feminine. Nonsensical sequences of abstract shapes and neon colors swirled on each screen, accompanied by subtitles in an unknown language. The more his eyes lingered, the less he understood.

  Yes, he knew where he was: this was a cathedral. A strange, perplexing cathedral, lacking any sort of pews or altar, cluttered with dull noise - but a cathedral nonetheless. A clangorous bell chimed from on high, its vibrations palpable in the chamber; the drone gave the boy a constant to focus on above the televisions' clamor.

  An unfamiliar voice spoke: a child's voice, tender and innocent and so deliciously real. "Welcome to my temple, Sun. Is it to your liking?"

  Sun looked around for its source, but no other soul occupied the chamber. The woman from the television was still on her many eclectic tirades.

  "I'm somewhat hesitant to take physical form. My self-image has come to mimic my vessel, but you seem to dislike it when I speak through her." A hint of mockery tainted its final sentence: "It's all for your own comfort."

  "Oh." Sun let out an exasperated sigh. "It's you."

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  "Now, now, my dear. Do not speak ill of me in my own holy place. You are the only other soul to have ever entered this hallowed hall. Are you not honored?"

  Sun knew exactly what Nebby was doing - using a child's voice to force his guard down so he’d be more open to its manipulation. He tightened his fists, the overlapping voices in the background only heightening his frustration.

  "Oh no, Sun. I would never do such a thing. It's disheartening to hear what you think of me. I only wanted to thank you for saving us from that awful monster. I know precisely why today was the day it attacked us: in this weakened state, I was unable to retaliate."

  At that moment, all of the television sets spoke in unison: "You're so pathetic. You're nothing."

  "See? Ooh, you don't understand, my boy - there is no love in this world for us weaklings. We exist to be playthings for the mighty. From the very moment of my conception, I was destined to be belittled; spit on; neglected; beaten; abused. As you can see, not even within the hallowed halls of my very own mind does the torment end."

  "Right," Sun said, "and now you want to make it everyone else's problem."

  "That tells me exactly what kind of person you really are, Sun. Is the injustice of those less fortunate not, from its very inception, already 'everyone else's problem'? Is it not the duty of the strong to be custodians of the weak?"

  Sun shrugged. "I... I guess..."

  "This is why," Nebby began, "for a long time, I loathed your species. I loathed my former master and what she did to me. Just as I had given up all hope, I was shown kindness: not from someone strong, but from a fellow weakling who possessed that ever-inscrutable power to empathize with my plight. The girl. I do not hate her; well, not anymore, at least. But she is an outlier and we both know it.

  "When you mentioned that myth last night, Sun, you steered my attention onto the topic. The reason humanity predicts their own destruction is because you know you deserve it. You know the consequences of your sins will come back to destroy you in the end, but you are selfish enough to commit them regardless. Despicable."

  "There are good people out there," Sun said. "I - I don't know whether I would include myself in that category, but there are. I mean, doctors, nurses, firefighters, teachers... those are people who dedicate their whole lives to helping the weak and hurting."

  "Did you even listen to a single word I said? I am aware there are human beings who help others of their kind - but do you truly believe every last one of them is motivated purely by selflessness? Even for so-called 'random acts of kindness': have you ever held the door open for another person, Sun?"

  "Of course."

  "And when you held that door: was it truly because you wanted to be kind, or was it because your society has labeled shutting the door in another's face a taboo, and you didn’t want to be viewed as a deviant?"

  The television speakers quieted to emphasize Sun’s silence.

  "That's precisely what I thought. Truly good people become vanishingly rare in a society where 'good' and 'nice' are seen as synonyms."

  In lieu of a rebuttal, Sun narrowed his eyes. "Is this what you summoned me here for? To talk my ear off?"

  "You're deflecting, Sun, and it's quite sad to see. This is another problem with your kind: you despise change. You would rather uphold the hierarchy of an unjust society than go through the necessary pains to fix it, because you're paralyzed by your own fears. You'd rather stay ignorant than listen to me, because that would force you to admit your own imperfections."

  Before he could respond, Sun flinched: every television screen made a hard cut to static. The garble resolved to the familiar noise of idle chatter, and what looked like an old home movie began to play. The memory of him and Lillie cornered by Tapu Koko. Although the film's resolution was blurry and marred with artifacts, it was much more intimate and closer to the action than the video posted online.

  Nebby must have intuited his question, because it answered: "It's a reconstruction. From you and my vessel's collective memories."

  It was as if he were looking at himself for the very first time: so tiny and feeble in comparison to Lillie and the Tapu, not helped by his poor posture. He was wringing his hands, eyes darting to the crowd, as if expecting one of them to step in and save him. After all, there had to be at least one good person among them, right?

  Yet he hadn't had to think about saving her at all. There had been no considerations of the sort of praise or accolades he'd get. There was no time to carefully manicure his image, to put on a show; this was Sun at his most basic. This was his heart.

  "Don't you see? You do have the potential for good. It's one of life's many tragedies that such painful situations seem to be the only way to draw it out. That is why I've allowed you to defile my temple tonight, and that is why I'll do it again."

  A sad smile tugged at Sun's lips as the screens returned to their prior state of constant flux. How wonderful that was - a remnant, perhaps, of the simpler him, who hadn't the guilt of making a pact with a demon on his hands. What had it said last night? They were a triad now - all three of them were to bring about the world's destruction.

  In the moments before Nebby spoke again, he allowed himself to imagine the stars in a frenzy, slicing the planet into ribbons; catching each slice in their gravities and swallowing them in their marvelous infernos. The cathedral’s ceiling was so high it seemed there was a thousand miles of distance between him and the very top, and it triggered a desire not thought but felt: in the end, this place will be the only safe shelter. I'll bring the professors and Lillie and Hau and Mizuki here, and we'll all clap and cheer as everything turns to ash.

  This, too, was Sun's heart. Isolation has never been very good for a child’s spiritual development, and over the years Sun had experienced plenty - from back in preschool, before he had learned to carve himself his mask of sociability; to as recently as a year prior, when the responsibility of caring for his ailing mother had left him no time to maintain relationships with anyone but his two closest friends. Loneliness, he had come to learn, was simply the natural order of things. Most people became the other - nothing more than mere abstractions, fragments of a passing dream.

  The vibrations of the church bell thrummed once more through the chamber. Nebby started again: "Now, before I permit you to leave, I have one more task for you. I'm sure you will be pleased to hear it is a simple one."

  "Go ahead," Sun murmured, cautious.

  "You are of Kantonese descent, aren't you, Sun?"

  "Um... yeah. Well, my mom is - was." A wave of sorrow surged through him; he quelled his trembling, forcing his eyes shut. "Why do you ask?"

  "Then I am sure you are familiar with a certain Kantonese confection known as konpeitō. Now, I am quite fond of this 'konpeitō', and I would like you to bring some to me."

  "...You think just because I'm Kantonese, I know where to get konpeitō?"

  "Well? Do you?"

  He shrugged. "I could probably find it around here, but specialty imported stuff like that is crazy expensive. I mean, it's not so easy to ship to an island chain in the middle of the ocean. I'd really rather not-"

  "THIS IS NOT A REQUEST, SUN."

  Sun released a sigh, racking his brain. Somewhere he could get konpeitō cheap - or, preferably, for nothing at all.

  "Mizuki's family likes treats like that," he said at last. "I'll ask her tomorrow if they have any."

  "Thank you, my dear. If there's one thing you remember from our conversation, let it be this: if you'd truly like to be moral, take a second look at everything you encounter. You must always, always, read between the lines."

  With that, Nebby faded into the crackling confusion, and the multitude of one voice swelled to replace it.

  "-I don't want to die alone, but I don't care about being happy anymore. I've chased happiness for so long it's-"

  "-meaningless to me. They stuffed me full of empty platitudes and cliches until I was made up of nothing more than others' useless thoughts and words and actions. I became-"

  "-sustained through nothing but my own self-assurance. And now I've done it. I've justified my own existence. Every second of a hundred thousand lifetimes, leading up to this - the most wonderful thing I've ever seen. She's beautiful."

  It's midnight when Sun awakens, and Lillie is beside him. He doesn't know when she climbed onto the edge of his cot, but somehow, he doubts it was her choice. Annoyance is distant to him, and anger more so, so he accepts her as is.

  There's something different about her. Something imperceptible. Maybe it's the way each breath sounds as they escape her throat - like when he and his mother would get lemonade together and blow across the tops of the empty glass bottles. So curiously ethereal.

  Across from them, atop a pile of dirty laundry hastily cobbled into a cat bed, Frostfire lazily opens one amber eye; closes it. Sun doesn't notice. He's too lost in the gentle mist of nostalgia; too in love with the myth of his own past.

  The sweetness of lemonade and konpeitō, the exquisite glow of a white cat's fur, the impossible softness of an angel's skin. The melancholic crackle of an old television set, the crimson sticking too thick in dark hair, the eternal struggle between the weak and the strong. For too long it had seemed to Sun he had lived in one world, had followed a single unbranching path; now, he finds himself at a crossroads. He can advance onwards as intended, turn back the way he's come, or take a chance on the road less traveled.

  He'd like to hold her hand, but he's afraid he’ll disturb her peace. Instead he lays splayed out, his palms parallel to the ceiling as he stares upwards, consumed by his own thoughts. As his eyes adjust to the dark, he notices one of the roof’s trusses is shaped like a shepherd's crook. He's never noticed that before. Never cared to look.

  The night is perfect. The stars are perfect. For one brief stretch of hours, the world is whole.