Through the Eyes of a Flareon [PG] (Chapter 31 FINALLY up)

[Suicune's Fire]

Chapter Twenty Seven: Attracting the Wrong Crowd

The rhyhorn hooted and roared, pounding the ground with each hefty step. The sound of rock meeting rock was the only thing the party of four could hear as they watched with a sick feeling as they were ambushed, more geodude erupting from the wall as diglett began to spring up underneath them and began aiming for each of them but Tarla. She watched on with horror as she realised that she was weak to any rock type; all of her flying type moves would simply rebound and leave them unscathed, and she wasn’t sure that her dragon moves would be much better. She knew there was no running, however, and tried to cast the doubt aside for the moment. First she wanted to see how things turned out.

Some of the rhyhorn, still shouting and howling with rage, had startled Derino, who had been just far enough away from the wall to turn at the last moment and avoid them as they charged through. The last through to emerge from the smashed wall spotted the granbull and skidded and pivoted, rounding in a small semi-circle to tear through the ground towards him. The granbull looked to have no problem holding his confidence, as he still stood taller than them, and braced himself, a defiant look of aggression twisting between his features.

Tarla watched in angst as she saw the others in similar situations; Rentana was fending off two geodude while twirling and bounding to avoid being sprung by a diglett who insisted on popping up beneath her toes. Her attempt to keep herself safe looked as a delicate dance would; the tiniest loss of concentration would result horribly, so she needed to keep her focus.

Etire, however, was fighting tactlessly as three rhyhorn powered toward him, their rage not looking to subside anytime soon as they charged forward, one of them advancing faster. The krinar powered up a mach punch and leapt to the side as he passed, unleashing the thrust of his arm on the rhyhorn’s side with timing that looked so unlikely that Tarla concluded that it must have been a fluke. Whether or not it was, he was still able to defend himself.

It didn’t take long before he was also set on by the other geodude, who began to disperse and divide between him and Derino. A few pokémon had noticed Tarla, and a duo of geodude were grunting and pointing up at her, anger filling their faces as they realised that they had no means of reaching the cliff.

The rhyhorn didn’t seem to care, however; they wanted to punish whoever was in range, and as the altaria peered upon the scene, she wondered why they were doing it at all. She could only come to the conclusion that it was Etire’s recklessness and destructive ways with the wall, but even then he wasn’t doing much damage. It was possible that these pokémon were fiercely protective of their home, and any destruction was considered taboo. She could understand that; however, she couldn’t understand why her foolish colony mates hadn’t listened to her in the first place. She knew she was right, and there was no way that the direction in which they went could have been the correct one, and yet everybody insisted on going in the opposite direction. She found it not only insulting, but also quite—

The altaria was knocked from her post as a diglett erupted from beneath her with such force that she lost her stability and toppled down from the cliff. She was momentarily baffled, but regained her balance as she began to furiously flap her wings, her body twisting around so she was no longer with her back to the ground. As she did so, she had caught a brief glimpse of the pokémon who had attacked her.

Sudden pain met her from underneath as she felt a rock split on her belly, the fragments scraping her skin in but a moment before spraying in assorted directions, bouncing off walls and littering the ground. She stared with fearful surprise as she lost her ability to breathe, her focus on flying vanishing as she plummeted. It came to her partway down that she needed to continue to beat her wings, even if she was out of breath. The attempt was hardly effective, however, as they failed to budge at all.

Panic’s mighty hand gripped her abdomen, sliding to her neck while she was still unable to breathe. She was drawing dangerously close to the ground, realising that the geodude were staring up with expectancy and hunger for fulfilling duty. Another held a tiny platform of rock, and she knew that the one with empty hands had thrust the rock up at her as she had been falling.

To her expectation, the other geodude failed to hesitate before catapulting the rock her way, and it separated under force and with speed once it smashed into her underside; she barely had time to angle her head away and bind her eyelids together before the force sent her veering to the side to land without cushioning on the solid ground.

Rentana, right nearby and staring in shock, averted her eyes to the crumpled mess of her comrade, watching in relative anguish as she realised that her friend was resistant to any ground type, but weaker than anything else to the splitting force of rock. The distraction caught her off guard, and she was too late to weave to the side as a hefty stone was launched at her face. It struck her cheek and sent her backwards, causing her to stumble while waving her arms until she crashed into the wall behind her in a groaning daze.

The krinar witnessed the scene and fired up with rage, charging a useful brick break to smash the rhyhorn with, unfortunately only hitting one as the other avoided it with but a quarter-second to spare. The pokémon sustained heavy damage and was flung back, and once it was out of his path, he looked up to quickly survey his mate’s predicament.

While his back was turned, the first rhyhorn he had seen skidded out the way, swiped a foot along the ground and raced toward his target, ramming the krinar’s back and causing him to spiral forward and into the ground, a rough landing scuffing his skin. He cried out in discomfort and tried to get to his feet, but a well-timed diglett punctured the earth’s surface as she slammed into Etire from below, throwing him upwards before he landed on his side again and into the compact earth. Pain shot through his side as he watched a geodude approach with an unsuspected bounce and drew a powerful arm back, watching it recoil and bounce back to spring forward his way. The krinar rolled out the way with a shove of the ground, the rock type’s fist jamming into the earth and creating a notable split.

A second geodude who he previously hadn’t noticed was curled into a boulder, and began to speed his way with arms tucked and intent clearly set. He groaned and charged up, remembering his bulk up attack and applying concentration to strengthen his arms before backing up against a wall and thrusting his elongated, pointed elbows that continued on like spikes into the rocky mass behind him. The surprise made him cringe, as generally he wouldn’t have used his elbow to penetrate anything, notably rock, and took an even greater risk as he hoisted himself off the ground, leaning back while relying on the strength of his lodged elbows, and ignored the pain as he bent his legs into his chest.

He noticed the rhyhorn whirling around to aim for him again, but his primary focus was the rolling geodude, who, when was quickly within reach, Etire launched his feet at. He hoped it was timed right and chanted in silent success to himself as the force of the launch and crash sent the geodude spinning through the air, the pokémon uncurling halfway, and smashing through a wall, leaving a decent crater as debris flung onto the nearby foes.

Etire flicked his head to his mate, observing her condition for a fragment of a second before yanking his elbows out of the wall and proceeding toward her with solid ambition. He heard a trampling sound and realised all too late that a rhyhorn was on his tail and rammed into him, his back exploding with a burst of pain as he was swept up onto the rhyhorn and was carried forward in the pokémon’s consistent attack, advancing toward Rentana and her surrounding geodude attackers. She had one of them in her grip, his writhing body telling the krinar that she was manipulating his brain in a mental onslaught.

She was forced to cut off her attack as the other geodude launched himself at her, preparing to buckle her knees with a ruthless punch. She was completely aware of his attack, however, and disappeared. Etire, whilst riding toward her, cringed in disbelief before she appeared behind her attacker and attacked him instead, seemingly oblivious to the oncoming rhyhorn.

Her teleportation had taken her closer to the charging enemy, and the krinar realised that if they didn’t change course or she didn’t move, it would end badly. “Stop!” he called to the rhyhorn, his voice raspy before he cleared his throat. The pokémon looked either not interested or apparently deaf as they continued toward Rentana without a change in pace. However, the psychic and fighting pokémon persisted and shouted at the rock type again, his body too weak from the shock of the attack to do much else. In desperation he tried to focus his voice ahead, shouting the kirlia’s name instead.

However, her mind was completely focused on the confusion attack she was inflicting upon the geodude, her other senses muted as she focused. With a knowing groan of urgent annoyance, the krinar watched painfully as they finally collided with her, the delicate pokémon’s body flinging up beside the krinar. She emitted a screech at the shock and the presumable pain and glanced quickly to Etire, who was panicked as he looked on ahead. The charging ended when they smashed into the wall, the krinar’s body crushing against the rock with a shocking pain he had never before known.

A ripping cry erupted from his mouth as the lower part of the wall began to crumble, the force of the charge having destroyed some of its composition. Absolute pain filled his thoughts as his body seemed to scream instantly in every place, the rugged rocky texture digging into his skin as he was continuously pushed, causing small red droplets to dot the rock. The rhyhorn ceased applying pressure and retreated backwards and out of the impressive alcove now in the wall, the krinar’s body flopping against the ground like as if it was a bundle of skin containing not a single bone.

The kirlia, who was on the ground after she rolled over herself off the rhyhorn’s head armour, witnessed nothing up until the cry, which she had promptly averted her attention to, cutting all connections with her other surroundings. As she witnessed the fall of her mate, she shrieked in dismay, scrambling to her feet and noticing a duo of geodude coming her way. She teleported over to the collapsed krinar, the fire in her chest heating progressively as she redefined how serious the situation was. He was completely crushed, just about, and her first thought was a desperate question regarding his life. She was reluctant to accept that he would perish from something like this, but couldn’t know for sure as she cradled his head in her lap, trying to bar off the danger around her.

The stomping of two rhyhorn rumbled nearby, and she watched in familiar horror as Tarla, who had been pinned against the wall by three geodude, struggled to defend herself at all. She had noticed her friend’s predicament shortly before she was attacked, but with Etire in such a critically vulnerable state, she was unsure if she could attend to both. She suddenly wished that she and her comrades had been better prepared and brought more pokémon with them, especially one that could counter their weaknesses. Any extra help would have been cherished, for they were outnumbered three to one.

Focusing with whatever remaining concentration she could muster, the pokémon shifted a collection of mentally-transported leaves from an unseen tree within the radius of her abilities and fired them with a burst of mental application, her eyes lighting up with ferocity she was entirely unfamiliar to. The leaves soared toward Tarla’s attackers and sliced around one of the geodude, hearing a cry of pain as he collapsed, and the altaria snapped in the direction of her saviour, one of her wings instantly free as another two held the rest of her in place. A rhyhorn was ready to charge as one of the geodude rammed his fist into the wall, causing rock slides and specifically aimed stone to tumble down and crash onto her from above. Upon the distraction, the geodude lost their focus and turned, spotting the crippled krinar in the desperate clutches of the female, and the rhyhorn departed to focus his attention to her instead.

The geodude attempted to continue their assault, but the altaria screeched, holding her neck straight as she faced the sky before angling her head back to the first geodude, releasing a dragonbreath that crackled around him, then switching to the other as the first one let go.

She worked the change of freedom to take wing, despite the horrifying pain that burst from within her muscles, and she cringed, the realisation dawning on her that she was unable to keep up any sort of hovering or proper flight. She turned, making for the cliff edge again as another rock was fired at her. She heard the effort produced by the geodude and tried to bat her wings at it in an effort to force it off course with wind, but it was ineffective; she was lucky that she managed to avoid it without the help of her useless wind currents.

The pokémon leapt through the air, giving herself a few powerful, painful strokes as she plunged onto the cliff edge, perching at just the right angle to wobble and then steady herself, hopping properly onto the top of the wide-stretching wall. She took a momentary breath before turning around and surveying the scene, the two geodude still focusing their attention on her and rocketing boulders her way.

As she avoided the bombardment, she noticed Derino off to her right and Rentana to her left, as she fended off what she could, all while projecting a protective shield around her and her mate that she had erected about a metre before them as she tried to keep as much distance as she could. By the looks of her weak attacks, she was unable to do little more than cut into one of their minds at a time, probably dealing pain only equal to that of a small headache, which hindered them little if at all.

The granbull’s efforts were quite effective; Tarla noticed that he didn’t dodge once, but instead blocked attacks, holding large boulders which had detached from the wall, and countered when he could with a punch to the wall and a rock slide of his own, which often pushed the one geodude back, but merely pattered the pair of rhyhorn he faced. Instead, they were often victim to an ice punch, something that she knew he had learned from Aemara, whose powers did not lie with physical damage, but her knowledge of iciness was passed onto him and interpreted to suit his style. Similarly, she often shared her ghostly knowledge with others, and Tarla only wished that she was capable of learning anything from her, whether it was shadow ball or confuse ray, or maybe even an ice type move.

Figuring it was more effective to take action than merely think, she took a breath and remembered a small tune she knew, and felt her lungs inflate before she opened her beak and released the first few notes of a lullaby. The song was somewhat quiet to begin with, but quickly grew in audacity and filled the area enclosed in rock down below, each pokémon ceasing their attacks and looking about to find the source of the noise. Roars of protest rippled through the air, but the altaria focused, determined not to allow room for failure.

The notes of the song wavered across the battlefield, the rock and ground types displaying their obvious confusion as they looked about, their eyelids beginning to fall over their eyeballs. The only pokémon she could see that took the initiative to block their ears was Derino, who looked to be focusing on something entirely different as he didn’t even bother watching the scene.

The geodude grunted with slurred sounds as their arms began to lower, unable to command their heavy bodies to move anywhere as drowsiness overcame them. The rhyhorn began to waver, some flicking their heads defiantly and taking a number of steps forward. Those that did collapsed when they applied pressure to their legs with each step, and some tilted forward, stopping when their heads met the packed earth, their back halves poking into the air. The others leaned to the left or right and collided with the ground, the sound of rock meeting rock clashing to Tarla’s ears.

She continued the song, watching awkwardly from her angle as, from under a jutting ledge, the kirlia attempted to blink herself awake, highly reluctant to enter any kind of slumber.

Another few seconds passed and the remainder of the wild pokémon slipped from consciousness, they collapsed onto the ground while their pupils disappeared behind eyelids. Geodude let their arms fall and crash into the ground and rhyhorn grazed ground with their armour. Only the diglett escaped, but Tarla wasn’t deterred. They would likely not return after the rest of their teammates were seen snoozing; if they did return, they would be severely outmatched and overpowered by her and the others.

Finally closing her beak, she glanced around to admire her handiwork, glad that she could accomplish something worthwhile. After confirming again that she was safe, she drifted down from the ledge, planting her feet onto the rocky ground and remaining still for a moment, still unsure about the danger. She didn’t want a geodude to suddenly sprout from the side of a wall and launch a bounder at her, so she surveyed her surroundings carefully.

Consistent movement continued from the corner of her eye as she scanned the rest of the area, spotting Derino during her scan, and watched as he was relatively unaffected. He stalked her way, also suspicious and casting wary glances left and right as he approached. She verified that he was awake and would remain so, and turned back to the movement, approaching a struggling Rentana, who had let down her barrier. She gripped her mate, head dropping frequently, only to shoot back up again. She gritted her teeth and tried lightly to shake the krinar awake, but with little effect.

Tarla moved silently toward her, and the psychic type looked to her with perplexity in her eyes, which she fought to keep open. Tarla’s face was suddenly transformed into one of sympathy and she continued to watch, her beak forming the faintest of smiles. She considered the futile efforts of her fellow colony member; her beak showed admiration for how she fought to cling to the bit of consciousness she refused to relinquish, but her eyes displayed sadness. She could picture the scene as some kind of end to a fatal battle, had the opposing two been against them. However, she snapped out of that and moved closer, peering down at Etire across from Rentana.

“How is he?” she asked a little lighter than she would like have liked.

The psychic pokémon blinked furiously, applying pressure to each blink in some kind of effort to wake herself up and banish the tiredness. “Yes,” she muttered. However, she took a moment to realise she hadn’t answered properly and fixed her words. “He’s tired.”

Tarla knew she was talking about herself, but the statement could be applied to him as well, given the effort he exerted and the damage he sustained. “How injured is he? Will he...?” She restrained from using any word that would relate to death for her friend’s sake, but even in her sleepy state, she picked up on the hidden word an gave a somewhat bewildered expression of shock and disgust.

“He’s going to live,” she exclaimed, more of a demand than the result of an analysis.

“We need to treat some of those wounds,” Tarla explained carefully, her voice steady as she looked the kirlia in the eyes. She could clearly see that she was not herself. She acknowledged Derino’s presence behind her, watching his looming shadow cast itself partway onto Etire.

“I can’t...heal him,” the kirlia forced out, her jaw lazy but quite stiff.

“Nobody asked you to heal him,” she responded gently, taking a breath. “Rentana, you need to sleep. You can’t keep yourself awake; you’ll drop as soon as we start moving.” The opposing pokémon just stared at something past the altaria, her expression pained and reluctant, as if she were angry and about to burst into tears. She rocked, her body tilting forward and her head following in little jerks as she tried to control it, correcting her balance if she leaned too much. As a result she was constantly moving, and Tarla knew that she was not going to be able to keep it up for any longer.

“No,” she firmly responded through gritted teeth, her lips parting in a sneer. “I can’t fall...asleep.”

The altaria closed her eyes momentarily to take a breath, but opened them again once realising that the kirlia may have thought it an act to encourage the same action. “It’s okay if you sleep. Just look at you. You can’t keep your eyes open for more than three seconds at a time. Your head’s drooping like a wilted flower.” She glanced up to the granbull beside her, a serious expression still etched into his brow. “If you do sleep, Derino will have no problem carrying you over his shoulder and Etire over the other. He’s strong; he can handle it.”

She could see that the kirlia was reluctant and nearly tried arguing again, but was clearly unable to devise an appropriate response that would help her position at all. Tarla knew that she was sensible and would likely adhere to what was practical, as she usually did.

After helping the psychic type up, she remained on the tips of her toes, as all kirlia did, and tried to maintain her balance. Tarla placed her head under Etire’s and raised it, angling him up as she supported his upper back. The granbull took a pace and lifted the pokémon onto his left shoulder with relative ease, appearing unburdened as he turned around and began to make his way back down the path they had taken to arrive.

The flying type turned to Rentana, who looked to be somewhat more alert, and double-checked that she was alright before watching her pace with specific concentration. Tarla took to the skies in a single aimed stroke of her two wings and launching herself skyward and began to glance about. She could clearly see their battlefield from above, which looked like quite a small space, and realised that it wasn’t actually all that large, as she had already concluded while still on the ground anyway.

She ascended, the wind aiding her rise, and soon she became high enough to see the majority of land for leagues to come, although not at all in detail. The path that her fellow colony members were going to take was certainly the right one. She felt herself shiver with relief at the thought of her friends, if they too deemed her such, finally being on the correct path. The fact that they had ignored her before was not only frustrating, but frightening, and she genuinely hoped they would trust her enough to listen in the future.

From above she watched as Derino, clearly taking the lead, came to a halt. She had no cause to question his actions as she saw a figure in front of him, one that had appeared from nowhere. She felt her heart begin to beat a little faster again. She neared the scene, noticing that it was a diglett. All fear subsided, and she smiled with newfound relief, questioning herself with amusement as to how she could have found that something to be worried about. She noticed a few more pop up, but knew they would be no match for her, Derino and Rentana. She didn’t bet on the kirlia being able to fight, but even so, two stronger pokémon could easily outmatch those puny diglett.

Nearing the ground, the flying type aimed for the top of one of the cliff walls to the side of her colony mates. She perched on the right one, surveying the scene only a few metres before her from above. The diglett disappeared and she gave a satisfied smile, but was suddenly shocked when Rentana tripped up and fell, remaining on the ground. She fluttered down behind her, her back to the area in which her drowsiness had started, and nudged her a few times, concluding that she had finally given in to sleep. She assumed that it was because she could relax once she knew Etire was safe, as her protection of him had been her reason to keep herself awake in the first place.

“Derino,” she began with a small amount of amusement in her tone, “Rentana’s collapsed with sleepiness.”

The granbull whirled around, at first a fairly reasonable expression upon his hardened face. In a moment of confusion, Tarla frowned as the normal type’s expression morphed into one of complete alarm, his brow making way for large eyes. The altaria had never seen him so expressive, and was about to question him when she heard something behind her. She froze, then whirled around, only to see something dangerously close before it slammed into her body. A small horn drove itself into her somewhere as the rest of her was carried backwards, thankfully missing the unconscious Rentana. Tarla was unable to do a thing, her body having completely locked up with the impossibility of movement as she was driven through the pass.

Derino was quick to brace himself as he dipped his shoulder and rested the krinar against one of the rock walls, and suddenly was unsure what to do. He could easily have stopped the charging rhyhorn had the altaria not been glued to his front, but because she was there was nowhere he could grab. He was forced to step aside as the pokémon raced blindly through, and trusted the bird pokémon to save herself as he spotted, with increasing urgency, the kirlia’s unconscious body under the curious stare of a geodude.

He unleashed a bark-like roar, the viciousness from his maw rippling to those around him before he charged forward and tensed his arm muscles in preparation for an ice punch, the crystals already forming on his paw as he felt the sting of significantly unfamiliar coldness spread through his veins.

The geodude was startled and hopped out the way, another two sending boulders Derino’s way. He made an effort to duck, and although one soared over his head, one tripped him up and sent him tumbling across the ground, only to get up again in a roll and strike the ground beside the kirlia. The floor frosted over, the ice hardening immediately as the backsplash of pointed stalagmite-like icicles sprung up in a few directions, creating a miniature wall, or at least a warning for those who neared. The increasing group of waking pokémon began to pile up at the entrance to the path marked by the two surrounding walls that closed them in, dismissing themselves from the battlefield to form a building army.

Derino’s anxiety helped sculpt the thought that they were completely and totally outmatched. He had no idea how they were going to overcome these pokémon’s forces, and on top of that, he didn’t know how he was going to be able to protect the two unconscious psychic types. His mind ticked, the time to think up possibilities fleeting as more ground and rock types began to bleed onto the path.

Thinking up something quickly, the granbull braced himself and focused for a mere moment, feeling his muscles harden once again as he angled himself behind the kirlia, so she and the small ice wall were between him and the wild pokémon, and struck the wall with uncontrolled force from his angle, launching boulders and smaller rocks their way as they broke from the wall upon contact.

He knew that they wouldn’t cause any damage, but took the distraction as a chance for him to gather more iciness in his arm, quickly grasping the kirlia’s arms and dragging her as far away from them as he could in a short space of time, before racing back and aiming to plunge his fist at the rock types in a direct attack. He understood that creating a wall of ice that would stop them, or even slow them down for a significant period, would take an ice type’s experience, but that clearly wasn’t an option for him, and he figured that, ice type or not, he was able to manipulate an element that his enemies were weak to. He wasn’t going to waste that opportunity.

The rhyhorn continued to charge, the pain repeating itself as Tarla was still being carried along, and she realise just how far it was from the next wall, the one that marked the end of the path as it stretched further and then bent to the left, in the direction she had originally intended to go, and the beast was stupid enough not to turn and pin her against one of the side walls.

Using this to her advantage, she began to screech, and then gathered herself to sing a shaky and wrongly-pitched lullaby once again. The rhyhorn grunted in protest and, clearly choosing the release of his prisoner over falling asleep again, shook her free, slowing to a stop before whirling around. By that time, the altaria had already taken wing, and she hovered in the air before a rock narrowly missed her, whizzing past. She frowned and descended, avoiding the pokémon’s continuous stream of rocks. The dual type felt a little distressed as she launched a dragonbreath attack in the rock type’s face, and she could see that she was not fond of it whatsoever.

Before she could give her time to react, she took wing again and quickly made her way to Derino, who was heavily outmatched as he struggled to drive them back at all. They were level with the ice wall, and a geodude began to smash the icicles. The dragon and flying type soared through the air, levelling her neck and sneering with disgust before she dove down. Some of the rock types notified others of her presence as they began firing things at her, and she beat the air, jolting to one side as a rock missed her by only a feather. The rest were relatively aimless, giving her the time and space she needed to unleash a dragonbreath upon the entire crowd as she passed from the front. She ensured that she hit the pokémon closest to Derino and Rentana with the brunt of the attack before powering over the rest of them, showering them with crackling energy mixed with the spores that, as she had hoped, began to paralyse some of them. She wheeled around and fired another weaker stream from the back of the group, noticing that there were still three or so unconscious with sleep in their previous battlefield, hoping they were not going to stir anytime soon.

As she rained the crowd with her dragon type attack, she felt the tiniest bit of isolated apprehension before she cried out in pain and descended quicker than she could work to save herself, tumbling mercilessly against a rocky surface. She tumbled for a number of metres before coming to a halt, picking herself heavily from the ground as she noticed the rhyhorn from before, the only one that had gotten past Derino and now came from the other side, booming as she thundered toward her.

The granbull felt entirely defenceless as more pokémon pushed, firing dirty boulders and hefty stones his way. His blocking mechanism was wearing off, his forearms beginning to ache and bleed with the scrapes and indents that the hardened earth had created when he braced them in front of him in a cross, and his ice attacks were only getting weaker. His urgency was flaring to a nearly unbearable level; his only comfort, if it was that at all, was knowing that some of the opposing pokémon had become paralysed, even if it was only two at the front and a few more scattered loosely throughout the rest of the mob. The thought was not at all calming, and he only found himself gritting his teeth with fear as he had no idea what to do.

A shout from behind alerted him to the rhyhorn who reached down with his head and bucked the altaria up, tossing her to the wall on Derino’s left as he faced them, somewhere near where Etire was resting, and continued to advance with weighty steps that hit the ground and caused it to throb lightly in her wake. The granbull knew he had let his guard down from behind, but needed not concern himself as he avoided the rock and ground pokémon’s assault. Derino panted hard in light of his exertions and hurried to collect Rentana, watching as his enemy neared the crowd. The rhyhorn whirled around, coming in contact with them as she released a battle cry before, without stopping, leading her pokémon’s assault. They all cheered and roared in return, and Derino shook his head, feeling every muscle in his body ache from what he had sustained and what he had dealt. His lungs were groaning with a need for more air, his throat drying faster than he could wet it with the futile efforts of swallowing saliva.

He rushed to Tarla, who was against the ground, and delivered a short kick to jumpstart her. Although she frowned and cringed in pain, she quickly hopped up and, realising they only had a collection of seconds to formulate some sort of plan, Derino shouted, “Carry them out of here!”

She agreed and, not mentioning she could only carry one at once in her talons, grabbed Etire, who was against the wall nearby, and spread her wings. She felt momentary doubt for a reason she could not fathom before she dragged her wings down with deliberate force, and it was then that she realised what the doubt was.

A crippling pain roared through her wing, and, shocked, she immediately screamed, her distress vocally projected as sharp jagged spikes which soared through the air into all ears of those who were in range. Derino spun around with horror at the mere sound of her cry and witnessed her uselessness as she leaned on one side, all her weight on one outstretched wing before she could adjust herself and remain upright, and allowed the other wing to hang as she bellowed with pain.

“Fly!” demanded the normal type and Tarla threw him a look of exaggerated disdain, eyes wide with disgust and emanating waves of discomfort and hurt.

“I can’t!” she shouted and he growled with increasing frustration. Without Tarla’s wings, there was no way they could get the others or himself to safety. She couldn’t even save herself.

With a grunt he began to break into a run, looking over his shoulder to see the flying type, dangerously close to the mob of nearing pokémon, clamp her small beak around the psychic and fighting type’s arm where it was thinnest, and began to hop after him. She flapped one wing frantically to propel herself forward, still taken by the pain of the other as she was forced to tuck in so it didn’t slow her. She blundered after him, the pokémon being dragged by her side scuffing over stones as they went, until their path was suddenly obstructed by clustered brown bodies.

The altaria cursed aloud as the diglett and dugtrio, clearly enraged, blocked their path and popped from the side walls. Tarla had heard of territorial, but these pokémon were just overdoing it. “Stop!” she called, dropping what part of Etire she had been able to keep off the ground. “Why are you doing this?”

The rock and ground types spilled around them, some charging through and clashing with Derino’s arms as they went past. He held Rentana firmly over his shoulder, unwilling to allow harm to come to her in an unconscious state.

“Does territory not speak as well to you as it does to us?” boomed a rhyhorn, the one who had been at the fore of the crowd and who had attacked Tarla.

“What do you mean?” she responded, her wings puffing up as she ruffled the feathers downing her body.

“Is it not clear?” yelled another, his voice gravelly and clearly unimpressed.

“You desecrate our land and try to tear it down. Your means of tunnelling are not accepted by the diglett!” the rhyhorn responded, and by the sounds of things, she was the leader.

“We weren’t tunnelling,” grumbled Derino, the arm that didn’t hold Rentana over his shoulder tensing with a balled fist.

“That is your other problem,” hissed the rhyhorn, taking steady, clunky steps around them. They watched her cautiously, still trying to keep watch of the other pokémon. “You destroy our habitat for no innocent reason.” She narrowed her eyes as she came to a halt, then walked a few paces toward Tarla. “We know who you are.”

“We were trying to make a path!” Derino exclaimed, and the altaria shook her head.

“No, that krinar was trying to make a path. I had no part in it. I told them to go the other way and they didn’t listen.”

“You are all guilty!” thundered the rhyhorn. “And I, Thunderquake, will see to it that justice serves you well.” She released a shriek of combat and the crowd began to charge forward, the diglett and dugtrio on the other side doing the same.

Tarla and Derino, back to back as they stood guard in their own defence, stiffened as the attack neared. “Derino, I don’t know what to do. My dragonbreath attack is the only ranged attack I have, and that won’t stop them. It won’t even make them flinch.”

The granbull said nothing as his great jaws pressed together, his lips jerking to make way for bared teeth. The rhyhorn and geodude powered closer, the former crunching their paws against the earth in a flurry of stamps and thuds, the diglett and dugtrio from the other direction tunnelling through the ground and spattering dirt in flecks.

The pressure of the situation began to well inside the altaria and she pressed her beak together, deciding against it and separating it, then closing it again, and repeated the process. She felt shivers burst at the top of her neck and shudder throughout the rest of her body, her talons curling, trying to dig into the ground. Her heartbeat was faster than it had been when she was attacked by that skarmory, her chattering body not eligible to stop anytime soon as she continued to shake. They were so close that she could almost cry from the pain of their sharp horns, bulky bodies and powerful determination. She was trapped.

Without warning, Thunderquake, leading the attack, suddenly lit up with alarm, the rocky ground around her instantly caving with less than a few steps to provoke its degradation. Tarla gasped, the realisation coming to her as the ground collapsed further back, where more of them were, and each shrieked as they tumbled down below, the process happening in the blink of an eye and yet somehow slow.

Several of the rhyhorn panicked, jerking their heads in such a motion to propel the geodude in front of them forward, possibly to fling them to safety, flying surprisingly far as they soared over Tarla and Derino and smashed into the ground on the other side. The tunnelling dugtrio and diglett didn’t seem to falter as there was a loud crack and the ground beneath them simply fell, the impact obviously enough to shatter the earth. Tarla and Derino widened their eyes but had no time to move as several tunnelling ground types popped up around them before they all sunk with the rest of the surrounding land. The ground separated like a bough heavy with plump aipom climbing branches, and simply broke away, falling to pieces.

The altaria cried out in dismay, trying to launch into the sky but felt only the drop under her feet as she fell helplessly down, the krinar flopping with her as he tumbled through the air, still unconscious. Rocks grazed her and forced themselves to clamp around her wings when they cracked before they separated in the freefall, the pain jolting from her wings to the rest of her body. She grimaced and tried to regain her bearings, but had no such luck as she slammed into the ground, several large boulders falling on and around her. Thankfully they were small ones that landed on her body, being lighter and falling slower, but she still groaned as they rained on her head and scraped her neck.

Derino had experienced much the same thing, his grip unfalteringly around Rentana as he shielded her body from any stray debris, trying his hardest to land on his feet, but in the confusion, ending on his back. He dropped the kirlia onto his front so she slumped uselessly, nearly obstructing his vision as he held out his arms in a crossed fashion, preventing most rocks from landing on them while he suffered the effects of being winded. Some still pattered down after the larger ones had passed, but most were tiny and harmless.

After the crumbling rocks had subsided, the altaria moaned, feeling aches in many places as her breath caught in her throat. It took her a moment to breathe again, and once she did, she shot to her feet, glancing frantically around at first to identify where she had landed. She quickly realised that most of the crowd had fallen with them and were also on the ground, a little dazed from the fall and the impact. However, being partly rock types, she knew they wouldn’t be hindered for long.

As Etire began to stir, Derino glared over to him, as if momentarily disappointed that he had been overcome and defeated during battle. It didn’t last long as he too noticed the quickly recovering enemy pokémon. Not a moment later, Rentana awoke, her heavy eyelids giving way to tired pupils that surveyed the area with a quick analysis. It took her a second to remember her mate, and once she did, she leapt a few paces away, where he lay near Tarla.

The altaria narrowed her eyes, jerking her head in a gesture to suggest that the granbull fall in beside them. “Rentana, shield!”

The kirlia stroked the krinar’s face with a back-turned hand before getting to her toes and placing herself in the middle of the group, quickly erecting a surrounding shield generated by her ability to protect usually just herself. She had to remain standing, her arms apart while she held the shield up, the strain hitting her with more force than she had expected.

Etire hobbled to her side, his concern topping his thoughts as he struggled to stay standing. He gave her a confident nod and then looked at the other two. When he raised his voice and spoke, he was surprised by its frailty. “What’s going on?”

“We’re under attack,” Tarla responded, half paying him attention and half focusing on the disjointed mob around them.

The krinar looked around, cringing as he realised that many wounds on his body were pulsing with ache, and some were bleeding. He could clearly see that they were outmatched, and as he jumped once they began to hammer and ram into the protective force-field, he felt a shudder run through the length of his body. He knew Rentana couldn’t physically hold the barrier for long. He swallowed, realising even that hurt a little. “...Uh oh.”

***

We had been travelling for quite some time. The others had been relatively silent and it bugged me. I wished that I had someone to keep me company, because it seemed as if the two quadrupeds were either too caught up in their private affairs and unwilling to share with me; they had some kind of unspoken argument bouncing between their eyes which I was, of course, also excluded from. Splash wasn’t one for conversation, I had discovered, and although the prospect didn’t surprise me, it didn’t stop me from wishing he was a little more talkative.

We passed through another narrow passage that would allow two to walk side-by-side down. However, none of us were interested in pairing up, so we just walked single file. I was at the rear of the line, too concerned about their secrets and my boredom to be worried about what might, would or could be following. I only checked upon remembering to; otherwise, I didn’t pay attention to it.

“So, uh...” I began, projecting my voice to the pokémon in front of me. “This path leads to the outside world in time for us to intercept the party?”

The houndoom, his head hanging as he trudged on, briefly gave me a glance, with a somewhat identifiable expression. “It does,” he answered, and turned back, clearly not intent on engaging in a lengthy conversation.

“Well, do you...have a map?” I asked with a cringe, understanding how ridiculous that sounded.

He gave a chuckle in the form of a puff through his nostrils, somewhat condescending. He turned his head again and looked at me lightly. “No.”

I had expected him to come up with something better than that, but clearly his mood prevented him from saying anything remotely cheeky or witty. For some reason I wanted it to happen though; he was acting weird. “Okay, spill the beans.” He threw a face with a knotted brow toward me, the look on his face suddenly more wary. I didn’t heed his intended warning and continued, “What is with you and the ice type? Would you stop hiding everything already? I think I deserve to know.” He looked to want to protest but before he could, I added, “Or, if you don’t want to tell me for whatever stupid reason, why don’t you at least have a normal conversation with me about something else? Don’t you think it’s a little selfish to keep everything to yourself and leave me outta the loop without even bothering to compensate?”

“You’re talkin’ a whole lotta gibberish, Flair,” he responded somewhat defensively, and although I didn’t know what he meant, I simply assumed he believed that he didn’t owe me conversation of any kind. I moved up beside him, probably making him a little uncomfortable in the narrow walkway but not exactly caring myself.

“That’s another thing. Why the nickname? You know my name and you’ve used it, so tell me, why do you still call me ‘Flair’?”

He threw his marginally agitated expression in front of him first, as if to test if the glaceon could hear, and then back to me. He gave a short sigh. He seemed to lean in close, and I frowned, wondering what he planned to say. I angled my head in interest so his muzzle was right by my ear. He waited a moment and then uttered, “Because I feel like it.”

At his remark I rolled my head around with open jaws, hoping to catch some of his flesh in my teeth. I rumbled with a growl and he flicked his tail, having pulled away at the right time. I narrowed my eyes and murmured, “Useless,” and we kept walking.

It hadn’t been long when the path widened and we came to a much more open passage, similar to how it was when Azure and Splash had caught up to us a short while ago, and suddenly, something strange pulsed through the tunnel from another direction. My ears pricked as I came to a halt behind Azure and Splash, who had stopped as well. The glaceon was alert as her ears stood atop her head, and the quagsire merely stood casually. I doubted he had done anything but follow Azure’s movements.

As far as I could make out, it sounded like a series of smashes, yelps from other pokémon and shattering of rock. I nearly expected a tremble beneath my toes, but felt nothing but an odd fire start within me. There had definitely been something unusual nearby. It almost sounded like something had burst through a wall or the floor of the tunnel, but I was completely unsure. I had never heard anything like it, and I wasn’t about to make assumptions. I had to see what it was.

“Come on,” I commanded brusquely, taking off down the tunnel. The noises and other similar commotion continued, so it was easy to simply follow my ears. I came to an abrupt stop after running partway down the passage, turning back a few paces and darting down a side path, curving with the tunnel as I raced on.

“Wait!” I heard Zaion call, and I grinned smugly on the inside, happy to have disobeyed him. “Flair, that’s the wrong way!”

I didn’t bother to give him the satisfaction of an answer and kept going, extending my limbs in front and behind me in an effort to outrun him and possibly lose him, although I knew I had no idea what I would be encountering, so any bait – uh, I mean, company – would be appreciated, especially if it was a fight I was entering. The fact that it could be a battle only occurred to me when the sounds I heard before had grown relatively loud, indicating that whatever I was hearing was at the end of the tunnel I was following. Paired with that realisation was the thought that whatever it was had to have been strong enough to break through a wall, meaning that it had to have been powerful. That’s how it had sounded, anyway.

I suddenly regretted leaving the others behind. It was always a forte of mine to be rash, and combined with stubbornness and any form of revenge, even if it was merely expressed in the form of inconveniencing my victim, it was common that I found myself in dangerous predicaments.

One time I distinctively remembered an incident where Izante’s master had woken to a chilly breeze in the middle of winter on a day when we were camping outside, and Izante had been in her poké ball the entire night. I was out, however, not as prone to feeling the cold, and he blamed me for a burnt hole in the side of the tent. I had been rather offended when he blamed me, as I had not committed the act and therefore denied responsibility for the crime, and Master had been persuaded to side with him. It had hurt me greatly, and out of anger for them both, once they went back to sleep, I slipped out the same hole and eventually found myself in a fight with three humans who thought I was wild.

I had worked my butt off trying to fend them off, and they had clearly been without strong morals, as they wore me down to a tired lump of fur, and had discussed the possibility of taking me to a “release specialist,” which I knew was only a euphemism for a human that severed the connection a pokémon had with a poké ball and simultaneously a trainer, and unbound the pokémon, voluntary or not. I had come dangerously close to being abducted before my master and Izante’s had found me, bordering on unconsciousness as the humans prepared to transport me. Luckily the fight had been fairly short and my master’s other pokémon had wiped out their opponents without trouble, but the fact still remained: I had fled in an emotional rage and gotten myself into a pickle, all to presumably “punish” my trainer for not believing me.

I presently forgot the past and spilled into a room that was quite large and populated with pokémon, which surprised me considering we hadn’t seen many yet, as well as an abnormally enormous amount of light. I shielded my eyes from the gushing brightness which poured in from above through a gaping gap in the ceiling. My brow rippled with perplexity and I recoiled in surprise; that was certainly not a regular occurrence, and neither was it natural.

I didn’t know what else to absorb next; there was a considerable amount of rock and ground type pokémon, each looking fiercer than the last, but none directly swayed me with a breeze of fear. The group as a whole was visibly daunting, but I was glad that each pokémon had their back turned, figuratively speaking, apparently entirely focused on pokémon that didn’t match the rest.

In the centre of the wide spotlight was a group of four huddled pokémon, and with alarm and confusion I identified them as the party members we were searching for. I certainly knew Tarla’s face, as well as her species, but the others were unknown to me. I remembered the granbull from my first day at the colony, as he was one of the pokémon who opened the door to Habib’s home, but the kirlia and her lookalike counterpart were unknown to me. I only assumed they were pokémon belonging to the names that Cubbs or Mynk shared with me while I was being shown through the colony grounds—names which I had forgotten. None of them seemed to notice me as I stood, mostly concealed, watching from a distance.

A barrier placed around them looked to be held up by the kirlia, her arms raised and her face tight with concentration and knowledge of the possibility that she could let the protective covering down at any given moment if she was to falter. A question ran in my head and I wondered why there was a shield at all. It seemed to have little effect, and was only draining the kirlia’s strength. ‘They’re not preparing for escape,’ I determined, ‘and they’re not charging up attacks. So what’s the tactic?’

Taking me by surprise, the ground types began ramming themselves into the transparent green shield, and I gave a frown, realising that the purpose of the shield was probably just general protection; they looked to be out of ideas and low on defence mechanisms, probably as they recovered from what could have been a fall from above, judging by the plentiful debris and the unnatural look of the opening above them. The shield was also one of their only chances to think of something – or more like anything – that could help them. I looked upon the scene with mixed feelings. I knew for a fact that I would have jumped immediately in to help, but a long time ago, I had discovered fire couldn’t burn rock.

Just as I hoped someone would arrive, the pattering of paws reached my ears, followed by the appearance of my houndoom travelling companion, and then of Azure and Splash, who had trailed closely behind in pursuit. “Woah, what happened here?” the fire and dark type questioned with genuine surprise, his eyes absorbing the scene before him.

“I don’t know, but those guys are trapped. We have to get them outta there,” I informed him, although I sort of hoped he would already have been able to pick that up; only someone with brain damage couldn’t have guessed that much.

Azure, standing behind us with a face of concern shaped by angled eyebrows, whispered something to Splash before she looked to hesitate, and then burst into the room from between us, screeching with what I thought was unnecessary volume, her shrill cry flooding the entire room as she unleashed beams of ice that struck the ground types and fanned out on their behinds. The quagsire was similarly quick to react, firing columns of gushing water into more of the wild pokémon.

Azure leapt over a rhyhorn after springing upwards, turning while airborne and firing shards of ice one after the other and watching as they split on her target’s armour. The rhyhorn grunted in a half-roar, trying to shake off the cold as he backed up and attempted to free himself of the ice that crusted his rocky skin. His thick brow came down over his eyes, the rage on his face flaring and revealing itself as a motive to hunt the glaceon down as she darted off, weaving between other pokémon and spurting short spears of ice to assorted targets from her jaws.

Splash spewed out rows of water at a rapid rate, soaking a pair of geodude who had rounded on him and tried to attack. Another one followed, but to Splash’s contentment, slipped on a puddle which had been transformed by the water he produced. It had also influenced other parts of the tunnel’s floor, turning several patches into muddy puddles. Due to this, the rock pokémon slid over time and again, landing with wet, sloshing thuds.

A number of the diglett began to surround him, some of them ramming into him from underneath. He aimed and fired, missing as a diglett ducked and the projectile continued on toward the barrier, pounding its shell as it ricocheted a little and then met the earth after losing momentum. A dugtrio emerged from the ground to the quagsire’s side, and while busy with the others, he didn’t notice as the pokémon began pumping in and out of the ground, the three conjoined bodies creating a quake while working off each other and took turns hammering the earth with precise movements. The entire room was victim to a wobble, but the ground near the quagsire in particular gained a crack, one of his feet slipping into a tiny crevice. I could clearly see it scrape along the sides of the rock and cringed; that was how Zhol had ruined her foot, and the end result had not been pretty.

“We have to do something,” I decided, and the houndoom didn’t protest as I waited for a reply, so I went ahead with my plan and sped into the room, coming upon a dugtrio while blowing a hot jet of flames. I could tell the attack injured the pokémon to an acceptable extent before he disappeared and more diglett swarmed me. One of them vanished with a deliberation that I certainly recognised, and waited for about the time it would take to get from its hole to me, and bounced at what I had calculated was the right time, landing on the ground a few paces away and blowing more fire at the ground types. I moved back, close to the shield, and nearly turned around to slip behind the shield, which was close to the back wall, as I fended them off.

Taking the chance and beginning to run behind the shield after turning around, my ears pricked up in response to the sound of constant thumping before I saw, from the other end of the shield, that Azure was nearing at a quick pace. As I identified the thundering as a rhyhorn stampeding after her, not yet in view, I widened my eyes. She was darting rather quickly, and I wasn’t sure exactly where to go in order to avoid her, or worse, the charging rhyhorn which would surely appear from around the corner of the barrier any second.

“Move!” she shouted, and I registered just before she came through, squashing against the barrier as she passed between me and the wall with just enough space. Preparing to propel myself around to follow her, hardly interested in coming in contact with the rhyhorn, I quickly rotated around. I barely had a chance to move as the diglett from before erupted from the ground, throwing me to my left and directly into the barrier with a thump. I landed on my side and groaned as the rhyhorn swerved around and into the space between the barrier and the wall, beginning to charge my way in pursuit of the glaceon. For one foolish moment I imagined that the rock and ground type would ignore me and power straight past, but after realising how ridiculous that would have been, I cursed logic and returned my glance from over my shoulder.

The pokémon thudded my way, and as quickly as I could I got to my feet, only to be rammed against the barrier a second time as the diglett head-butted me while I had been busy focusing on more pressing matters, and in that moment, I knew that I was going to be swept away by the charging dual type behind me.

The pokémon’s rocky body slammed into my side, carrying me in its charge as it failed to turn and headed straight toward the wall—the same one we had emerged from that was connected to our tunnel. “Wait, wait!” I called, my voice failing at first as I found myself a little winded. “Stop! You don’t wanna do that. You’re heading straight for a wall!”

Apparently that fact didn’t concern the pokémon as he continued to charge, and with a sickening feeling, I tried to scramble off his head, finding it difficult to move at all. However, I managed to slip away once I wedged myself off, crumpling once I hit the ground and tumbling for a short while. I got to my paws and shook off, feeling a new pulse in my side. The rhyhorn wheeled around and with ongoing annoyance, I realised that there were more diglett powering through the ground in my direction.

“We need he-elp,” I sung agitatedly, throwing a glare to the houndoom who looked on without much of an expression. He stood at the entrance still, and I found myself growing more serious as the seconds passed.

I threw my head to Splash and Azure, noticing that they were doing fairly well, yet to our horror, the opening above invited more pokémon to drop down onto the barrier upon hearing their friends in danger, and I was completely unsure if the influx of enemy pokémon was able to be held off. However, I had my own problems to deal with, and turned back to the houndoom, demanding his presence as I felt my respect – or all I could muster in the days I had known him – for him steeply plummet.

The pokémon were approaching with increasing speed, and I knew that I was unable to face them alone. As I looked back to them and tried firing a ball of flame, which simply dissipated as the diglett ducked and it instead came in contact with the ground, I realised that if I didn’t come up with a new strategy then, I was in for some serious damage.

“Zaion!” I shouted, and although the houndoom acknowledged my call, he still did nothing. Instead of jumping to my rescue and looking to act as some kind of saviour, he just looked on.

[Suicune's Fire]

Chapter Twenty-eight: Aim and Fire

Each pokémon hammering against the top of the shield was weakening Rentana and presenting her with excess strain. Her muscles were going to give out at any moment; she knew she couldn’t protect her friends for much longer.

“Ren, it’s fine...” Tarla explained calmly. “Release the shield. You need to save your strength for offence.”

The kirlia was unsure, but Etire faced her, catching her gaze. “She’s right. We have help now! You can let it go.”

After a moment longer of consideration, the psychic type gave a nod and, with the release of a bottled breath, she dropped her arms. She crumpled with relief, beginning to pant with the effort as the lessened aching continued. Etire placed a hand on her back and she looked to him with a tiny appreciative smile.

The group of four dispersed as another rhyhorn dropped from above, a loud crunching crash probably splitting the earth from behind. Rentana jumped with surprise and the others focused themselves, Derino pressing a curled paw into his open one in preparation for a brick break. As he did that, Tarla tried her wing, as if by some miracle it had healed in an unrealistically short period of time. She knew that she could have flown if she tried, but the pain would have rendered her unable to focus or direct herself properly, and decided it was best to leave it alone until she could return to Aemara.

The krinar was barely of any use, his injuries too recent to do anything, and the kirlia’s energy was, as she had realised, low and of an inefficient to be able to apply it to any sort of focus on battling. The thought scared her, especially as she knew that it meant she was unable to protect her mate, who, as she glanced to him and looked him over worriedly, appeared weak and barely even able to stand.

“Watch out!” called Tarla, and the kirlia snatched Etire out the way of a rock fired their way. The altaria hopped forward two steps and fired a dragonbreath, the odd indigo and yellow flames crackling as they worked with one another and swept over the rhyhorn. His cringe indicated that his body felt some kind of response to the attack, which was better than nothing, but obviously he was far from finished. “Go on,” persuaded the dragon and flying type, her neck twisting to help her see her comrades. “Escape through one of the side passages. Don’t worry about me.”

Etire and Rentana looked to one another, the latter supporting the former as he limped on a single leg. “We can’t leave you,” the krinar scoffed with obviousness in his tone.

“You have to,” hissed the opposing pokémon, but he shook his head.

“You protected us when we couldn’t protect ourselves, and we need to—”

Unleashing a screech and propelling herself to the side with her good wing, Tarla narrowly avoided the rhyhorn, who charged their way. His anger replaced any rationality as he flashed an angry glare to the three, rounding without stopping and charging again toward Tarla. “There’s no—point!” she yelled as she once again tried to move from range. She chanced a futile stroke of her wing, but the produced air did nothing to influence the ground and rock type to do anything but blink a moment later. He roared, the ground beneath his feet trembling at his very presence. “You can’t do anything!” she continued to protest. “And I saved you because that’s what—”

A violent slam jerked the altaria forward, her neck whipping back as she felt something painful occur in the bones. The force sent her forward, the pokémon who had charged her bucking her off its head plate as the first rhyhorn looked on, a little shocked by the appearance of a second of his species to attack his prey. However, they didn’t argue or even exchange mutual or one-sided acknowledgement for one another as they split up and targeted the ralts evolutions.

“Rentana,” Etire began urgently, trying to stand on his own, “we have trouble!”

The kirlia’s shaking limbs did not provide suitable mental support, the doubt she had for herself threatening to override any sort of hope she had for overcoming the prominent injuries and aches. She contemplated dropping Etire to focus on her attack, but decided against it, even though she could feel him resisting. Immediately she thought he was growing weaker and was not choosing to release her, and she frowned defiantly.

“No, let me go... You need to focus! You can’t while I’m...” The krinar stopped as he felt his arm tingle with an unfamiliar sensation. He could feel it rippling through his skin as he contemplated what his mate was dong.

The kirlia focused a moment longer, mustering the strength she needed, and a second before the two rhyhorn came upon them, she vanished, reappearing on the side of the room and before one of the openings that veered away. She collapsed on the ground, the krinar doing the same as he lost his physical support. She whispered apologies and looked up, spotting the rhyhorn halfway across the other side of the room.

“Well, you lost ‘em,” he commented, and she nodded, regaining her breath and getting back to her toes. Normally she would not have felt such strain when she teleported, but taking another as well as herself while she was weak was what did it.

From a distance, on the opposite side of the cave, Rentana spotted a small battle happening between two geodude and a rhyhorn and the flareon and houndoom she had seen enter. She thought for a moment, trying to recall when she’d seen either of them. As her eyes fell upon the newly arriving glaceon and quagsire, she felt a tiny pang of relief, but her faith was not restored as she noticed something: they were losing.

Scanning the rest of the room, she noticed, in the immense light pouring in from a ways above, the rock and ground types had the upper hand. Their rock projectiles shattered against anyone they touched, dealing damage while the spray barely affected their teammates. Their physical attacks overcoming the pokémon with a type advantage with sheer numbers and encumbering strength. Splash was the hardiest of them all and proved to be the most difficult to overcome, she realised, as she watched him wrap his massive paws around a geodude’s arms and run a jet of water over his face, spraying the others while he was at it, and hauled the pokémon to the side. Occasionally another would notice the airborne pokémon and a few times, they would work together, such as when the glaceon would project a sheet of snow which often solidified moments after emerging from her body, only for another rock type to shatter it to free their comrade. There were only three geodude and two rhyhorn out of their entire group that had lost their consciousness, and the rest were still perfectly able to battle.

“Rentana!” Etire called a little desperately, shuffling to his feet. She looked in the direction he was facing, noticing a charging dual type, and a few diglett also appeared around them. She gritted her teeth, swallowing as she tried to pinpoint an attack that didn’t sap too much of her energy but was effectively damaging. The only thing that came to mind was shadow ball, and, summoning the negative energy required, she fired a small one at a diglett, who simple withdrew into the earth and avoided the attack completely. It didn’t give the kirlia much hope, and as she glanced around at her other opponents, she came to the conclusion that she would have to think of something else. Either that, or she and her mate were in major trouble.

***

It had been right that the pesky houndoom jumped to my rescue at the last moment. Typical it took him so long though; it was as if he was testing my patience, or even my worth, to begin with. It was rather disgusting, but I threw the thought away as we were attacked again. It was getting ridiculous. I hadn’t had much of an opportunity to focus on any other group, but I could tell that the enemy was winning. They didn’t seem discouraged if one of us bowled over five at once, as they simply got back up, as if the undead who were incapable of hitting the rocky floor for good.

Rocks had shattered on my skin and I had been horn attacked twice or three times. The bruises were going to develop soon after, I knew, and hoped that I wasn’t bleeding anywhere I didn’t notice. My bullet wounds were beginning to hurt again, even if they had long closed up, and the thought made my annoyance rather plentiful.

“Zaion, we have to do something,” I told him with some urgency, a geodude aiming for my legs as he drew an arm back. “Oh, no you don’t!” I hissed, launching a shadow ball at his face. He was blown back and momentarily dazed before realising that he was fine, and threatened to continue without a hitch. The sight made me blow smoke through my nose. “We’re losing. We have to pull out!”

“Good of you to understand the predicament,” he answered, and called something to Azure, who was busy flipping and leaping to the side while accompanying the altaria. She then flicked her head to the two ralts evolutions on the other side of the cavern and fled, and I wondered for a brief moment if Tarla would be okay on her own, but was soon accompanied by the granbull, which quelled my concern.

Suddenly my mind retreated to Zhol, and I wished greatly that she was with me. As much as I didn’t want her injured any further, it would have been handy to have that moral support and a good fighter on our side.

A cry drew me to the quagsire, who was rammed into by a rhyhorn and trapped against a wall. I had briefly seen his handiwork in battle and concluded that he was a battler certainly worthy of a rescue. He had put countless bundles of effort into protecting others and slowly causing a decline in the enemy’s numbers. I looked quickly to Zaion and quickly told him that I planned to help. The houndoom gave me a wary glance and continued to fend off another pokémon while I swallowed and spotted a rhyhorn close by who decided it was a smart idea to charge. I encouraged myself to smile with confidence as he approached, and drew a breath, feeling my legs tingle with expectation as I leaped onto his face above his horn. In response he bucked his head, throwing me over his body. Conveniently that was what I wanted, but I understood that a rhyhorn with a pokémon on his face was not very comforting. However, it was not as if I cared what was comfortable for my opponents. It was my aim to make them uncomfortable.

I landed with a thump and regained myself quickly, bounding toward the rhyhorn who held the quagsire against the wall. I was so focused on devising an offensive move to rid the ground and water type of the rhyhorn pressing against his body with unwanted pressure to heed the houndoom’s barks of urgency. In fact, I dismissed them in an effort to concentrate. I should have listened.

A disturbingly familiar pain exploded in my left side and scaled the surrounding flesh before everything blurred and I slammed into the wall to my right. More pain cut across my entire right side as it collided, the rock wall’s jagged edges jabbing my skin as I felt my body compress and the muscles tighten responsively. I shrieked, the feeling stripping me of any other thought or means to concentrate as the horn punctured my flesh, the force of the rhyhorn’s body increasingly unbearable. The feeling was absolutely horrendous; my brain thunderously pulsed with the immensity of the pain, my body unable to move, to writhe or to repel the force. My bones began to feel as if they were crunching, my body shuddering with a frightening consistency as the horn dug into my flesh, feeling as if it ripped through the layer of meat and began to scrape my organs. My screams punctured the air with repetitive consistency, the shrillness startling even me as they continued, the pain bursting through me.

My thoughts went to death as I struggled against the horrific measure of pain searing through every inch of my body, my breath erupting from my mouth as screams of pure agony, the feeling failing to cease even a shred. My screams of utter anguish ripped through the air, combined blubbering and gushes of tears in accompaniment.

“HELP!” I managed to gurgle, the increasing pressure causing me to falter shortly after as I felt a horrid sensation in the pit of my throat. With a jerk from my stomach, a bomb of blood exploded from my mouth and splattered the ground before I coughed and spluttered, continuing to wail as I realised just what I had done. The sheer horror of the prospect was enough to contort my face even further, and in response, a stream of flames billowed from my maw and poured onto whatever it could find, which happened to be Splash and the rhyhorn still pressing into him. The flames were hotter than I intended and my lips wrenched back as I realised the heat was nearly burning my throat.

I felt the removal of the rhyhorn’s horn from my side all at once, my body shaking as I slipped down the wall and slopped onto the ground, moaning in agony. I felt horrifyingly sick, battered and bruised, tears flowing from my eyes as I struggled to breathe, each intake haggard and hesitant, my wound beating with renewed pain each time. My limbs were flat and floppy, my head lazily against the ground, and my mane poked me in several places.

I spluttered again and what remained of the blood residue in my mouth rolled out and dribbled down my face, my eyes half open as I tried to comprehend what was happening. I could feel the warm liquid pooling under my cheek, colouring my facial fur maroon.

Slowly the world span and I resisted, attempting to blink out the problem but failing to abolish it. The feeling overcame me, smothering my consciousness as I drifted away from the cave, away from the pokémon around me, and away from even myself.

***

Derino felt his shoulder pulse as he and the houndoom ravaged the rhyhorn on the cavern floor, avoiding any charging, stomping or thrown rocks aimed in their direction. The houndoom roared with great ferocity and fought with similar energy, his strong lungs projecting a stream of fire to engulf the pokémon and, if nothing else, distort its surroundings with smoke and coloured, wavering filters. He snarled and snapped, building negative thoughts and unleashing a wave of dark power and combined, the purple normal type and the dual type hound pokémon managed to defeat their foe.

“And stay down!” Zaion shouted with a triumphant snort.

The two looked to each other and then to the fallen pokémon. Looking at its horn, the granbull growled before wiping blood off his forearm. The flareon’s blood.

Zaion bolted away from the fallen rock and ground type, appearing beside the flareon in a heartbeat. He quickly sunk and was quick to inspect the wound, which looked to be between her ribs and her hip on her left side. It wept blood at a steady rate, and he recoiled, sure that the wound would only get worse if he didn’t find a way to stop the bleeding. The sight of the blood spatter near her face, which she had thrown up, was also confronting, and he suddenly contemplated how bad the wound really was. The fact that she had been rendered unconscious came to him as no surprise; the shock was enough to do that, as well as the accompanying exhaustion. He only hoped that the attack didn’t puncture any vital organs.

The thought of a horn in one’s side was a horrendous one, and he could only imagine what it was like to experience. In a rage, he whirled around and called, “Is this what you wanted?” A few pokémon turned their attention to him for a moment, but that didn’t stop them from fighting. “Listen to me!” he roared, launching a crackling fireball at the ceiling. The earth bordering the hole in the ceiling began to crumble and some bits fell down below, striking a geodude and avoiding Azure by a mere hair. She glared at him, but he only glared back with twice the intensity. “Look what you foolish pokémon have DONE to this flareon! Someone who entered this fight to try and help pokémon she doesn’t even know.”

Some of the wild pokémon focused on his words, but some scoffed in response, remorse clearly not crossing their minds. “Anyone who fights alongside the ones that desecrated our lands is an enemy! You disrespect the land and you disrespect its inhabitants!”

The houndoom sneered. “Don’t you think this is taking it a bit far?”

“Never!” grumbled a gravelly geodude. “If we hadn’t stopped that fool,” he began, thrusting an accusing hand at the krinar on the opposite side of the cave to the houndoom, “he would have destroyed our wall. OUR home. Who knows what else he could have destroyed?”

“If you just asked, I would have stopped!” protested the krinar, who was only looked upon with disdain.

“You see?” the houndoom barked, capturing all attention again. He briefly observed his teammates backing away from the group of rock types, holding their ground a few paces back. “The matter could have been resolved through simple words. Then they could have moved on and everyone would have peace.”

“We don’t make peace with traitors!” spat a furious rhyhorn, who, when given a moment to step out and show herself, was clearly identified as Thunderquake, the leader. She commanded her teammates’ attention and respect as she stood proudly.

“Traitor?” Etire questioned, surprise taking his entire expression. “I don’t bear association with your herd.”

The rock and ground type kept her gaze upon Zaion. “No traitor is welcome. We kill traitors so they don’t return to betray and cause further harm.”

Zaion’s face was as muddled with confusion and shock as Etire’s, and he blinked with a frown. “Traitors? What do you mean by that?”

“Any foolish youngling knows what a traitor is!” boomed the rhyhorn. “Tell me, boy. What is your name so that I may shout chants of satirical nature about the fool who didn’t even know what he was?”

“How are these pokémon traitors?” he demanded. “Or me for that matter?”

She looked to him with a hardened expression of contempt. She then tossed her gaze about and rested her eyes upon a few colony pokémon, snorting with ridicule. “No pokémon of this assortment is part of a single clan.” Zaion watched carefully, somewhat knowing of what she was going to direct the accusation to. “And any clan knows not to destroy lands that belong to other pokémon, for they themselves own land they wish to protect!”

“It was a simple mistake,” Etire intervened, speaking up so his voice reached her hidden ears.

“Mistake or not, we cannot overlook the suspicion we have no choice but to employ. And therefore, you are our enemies!” The rock and ground types roared in reply, the rhyhorn scraping their solid legs along the ground with snorts and rumbles. The geodude flexed their muscles and a few punched the ground.

“No, no, stop!” the houndoom called again, and although reluctant, the rhyhorn lay enraged eyes upon him.

“Do not try to stop us, fool!”

“Maybe you are the fool,” a voice accused, and the rhyhorn, nearly livid at the suggestion, tossed her head to her right to spot an altaria who looked relatively worn. The other rock and ground types drilled their outraged glares into the flying type but she stood her ground, a wing hanging somewhat limply at her side. “You brand us traitors, attack us needlessly and then disregard our pleas for innocence.”

“You made no—”

“And worst of all,” the altaria continued, her eyes narrow and her tone conveying implications of something close to hurt, “you disrespect our colony.” Further explanation of the statement was clearly desired as everyone remained silent. “The Usster Colony was founded by Retsu, a most honourable a flygon who had at heart the interests of stray pokémon with nowhere to go. The very purpose of our colony is its multiculturalism—the unique acceptance of any pokémon, regardless of species, gender, type or past conflictions who have no place in the world, or who may have been rejected from their previous homes and families.” She scanned the room, noticing as Azure shifted a little uncomfortably.

Nobody spoke for a few seconds and all seemed dead silent. Zaion glanced with minor desperation to the flareon beside him and Tarla noticed, eager to resolve the issue and get her medical aid.

For around five seconds, the lead rhyhorn merely looked on, a judgemental mind making its decision. “While I cannot understand your acceptance of any pokémon who simply asks your favour, I accept it.” For a moment Tarla was surprised but relieved, but the rock type was not finished. “But I cannot stand idly by while a hypocrite tries to tell us how disrespectful we are when your disrespect started this entire battle! Traitors!”

“I think you have the wrong idea of what a traitor is,” Zaion proposed with etched scepticism, watching as the pokémon a few metres from him flared up with anger. “How are we traitors for destroying your territory? Disrespectful, yes,” he started, throwing a small glare to Etire, “but not traitors.”

“You are not just traitors to us. But the whole of your kind,” the rhyhorn hissed.

“To...houndoom?” Zaion questioned in confusion, turning his head on an exaggerated angle.

“No,” she grunted, “to every pokémon who ever lived.”

With a face of shock and then confusion, followed by the addition of near-amusement, the houndoom looked to Tarla, who relayed his expression. The drama of the situation was blown far out of proportion. “Look. I think we better just negotiate some kind of—”

“I already told you,” boomed the rhyhorn, rearing for exaggerated effect, “we do not make peace with traitors. That includes you Rokont scum!”

“Rokont?!” blurted Derino with his gruff edge, silencing the entire room. His bark was so abrupt and direct that nobody’s eyes rested anywhere but to him. Some of the smaller geodude and a few diglett, who had emerged from the ground to listen in, cowered uncomfortably under his infuriated scowl. He puffed his chest out and, too far from a wall to be able to hit one, dropped to the ground and thrust a fist directly beneath where he stood, the floor giving a small shudder. He rose slowly with broad shoulders raised around his neck, and he glowered at the rhyhorn with such wrathful pupils that even she looked on with a tiny instigation of shock. “Those weak, cowardly, frail-minded desecrators are in no way associated with my brothers and sisters,” he snarled with a whisper of disgust, his lips curling back, framing long, sharp teeth. “How DARE you correlate the likes of those screwed up, insidious bastards with my pack mates.” He plodded steadily and purposefully toward the rhyhorn, who narrowed her eyes and coloured her lips with corresponding scorn as he approached, stopping inches before her face. “I would sooner skin my own body and hang myself by my jaw than willingly cooperate with the Rokont Organisation.” His breath was foul; the rhyhorn merely glared back at him.

Silence flooded the room. Not a single strand of hair swayed; not the smallest pebble shifted. The breeze didn’t dare enter the cavern, no muscle chancing a twitch. Breaths entered and exited bodies with unfamiliar gradualness; no eyelid fell over any pupil.

Ears ticked to the sound of spluttering, and a single body moved, seizing on the ground in small shivers.

“She’s in danger,” Tarla snapped, breaking the silence almost nobody would have dared to shatter otherwise. The lead rhyhorn, who she remembered was called Thunderquake, turned to her with reluctance, quickly eying the granbull before her while doing so. “She was attacked by one of your rhyhorn. Now look what’s happened.” Everybody turned back, and the flareon began to stir as she groaned with pain, failing to regain consciousness. “She needs desperate help or she’ll bleed out.”

“What do I do?” the houndoom questioned a little anxiously, capturing the lead rhyhorn’s attention.

“We do not inflict wounds with intention to heal them afterwards. I do not know how to tend to your friend’s wound.”

The granbull took another step, causing her eyes to flick back to him. “Your subordinates better have some way to deal with this,” he growled, glare firmly set. “You made the mistake. You will help us fix it.”

“The only mistake made was by your paw. It was your appearance in our territory that began this feud, and then your reckless destruction which cost us damage to our lands and you...” She moved her head to the limp flareon soaking in her own blood and narrowed her eyes. “I think you can guess.”

The granbull roared, and Zaion was sure he was going to strike the rock type in front of him, but the blow never came, and the normal type loomed over her, working his intimidation. “You must atone for what that creature caused.” He threw an arm in a fallen rhyhorn’s direction, gesturing specifically to his bloodied horn.

“We must atone nothing!” she boomed, rearing on her back legs and coming down again with an enormous thud. “Your claims of indignation towards the Rokont Organisation were convincing; however, we still cannot be sure of your intentions. What could the... Usster Colony possibly want with our land?”

“Azure,” Tarla whispered hurriedly, and the glaceon turned. “Tend to the wound. Maybe your ice can help.”

The ice type gave a brief nod and warily glanced about, making her way slowly between the enemy pokémon as they sneered at the prospect of their target slipping from their grasp. On her way past Splash, she uttered, “Come.” The two stopped by Dusty and the flareon groaned another time, her eyes still closed. Azure guessed she wasn’t yet conscious but was probably trying to wake, and commanded Splash to wash the wound out.

Ever so carefully, he sprayed water into the wound, and the surrounding skin tensed, her leg twitching with discomfort. The water twisted and turned, becoming tinted with a scarlet hue. Azure moved her head to the other side, against the wall, and propped the flareon’s back half up, allowing the water to trickle down her fur and out of the opening. She set her back down and came around next to Splash.

“We were on our way to the Rokont base,” Etire interjected, and the surrounding pokémon renewed the strength of their scornful glares. He gritted his teeth and rolled his eyes. He felt like slapping himself in the face after realising that he had only made things worse.

“You see?!” Thunderquake exclaimed, and Tarla hopped up beside Derino, taking a chance and nearing the opposition. The geodude and rhyhorn nearby closed in, ensuring that they didn’t let anybody take advantage of their leader.

“Who, in their right mind, would admit to returning to their own base if they wished to keep their identity hidden?” she questioned and, except for the soft murmuring of Zaion and Azure, who discussed Dusty’s treatment, everyone was silent again. “We’re on our way there for an investigation.” When nobody spoke again, their accusations replaced with narrowed eyes, she continued. “There was an attack on our village without explanation and we decided that taking a party to the base would be a good way to figure it out. We have one of their teammates hostage, which is clear leverage for us.”

With a snort, the rhyhorn produced a belittling smile. The other pokémon followed her, and she broke into a rumbling, condescending chortle. Tarla frowned in surprise, completely unsure why their reaction had been as it had. She looked to Derino, who was just as confused. The rhyhorn continued, her laughter breaking off after a good few seconds. “You really aren’t from the Rokont Organisation,” she confirmed, and those around her nodded, clearly amused.

“Well what’s that supposed to mean?” Tarla queried, a frown taking her face.

The rhyhorn only looked at her with a face of cruel mockery. “Walking into their base with one insignificant minor will get you slaughtered; nothing more.”

“Not nothing more, leader,” one began, and she turned to him. “Perhaps they’ll have the privilege of being put on display outside of their base.” The room rumbled with more distasteful chuckles, and Tarla swallowed. It was obvious he hadn’t meant alive.

The granbull growled, clearly unhappy with her response. “We’re going there and that’s final.”

Thunderquake shot him a condescending glower. “Don’t expect us to erect gravestones in your wake.”

“Well, go on,” shouted a random rhyhorn, “get out of our territory. It’s death’s territory you want.”

“Okay, would you stop with the death thing?” Tarla screeched, but the rock types continued to chuckle between one another. “We’re going, regardless of what you think. We don’t care if you have a problem with it. We’ll go and just...figure out what to do once we get there.”

“Send me a messenger bird from the Underworld; I’ve always wanted to know what it’s like,” laughed a geodude, and the others slammed fists and shoulders into him in hearty amusement

Tarla shot a glare to the geodude, who didn’t even bother to look. “Look,” Tarla began, sure that Thunderquake was just as keen to see the “intruders” leave, “all we want is to pass through here.” She surveyed the area, sure that this wasn’t their most desirable path.

However, it seemed none of them were able to escape back through the hole. Had her wing been fine, she could shoot straight up like a sapling in good weather, and Rentana could teleport herself. However, there were complications with teleportation that Tarla didn’t understand; besides, the kirlia had specifically made it clear that she would not take advantage of her ability to teleport while her mate, who was unable to use the same ability, would be left behind. Tarla figured it was fair, although it unfairly limited her abilities, which was the part that annoyed her.

From the corner of her eye, Tarla saw several of the enemy pokémon beginning to wake, their grogginess slowly blinked or shaken out. She was glad that they were not currently in the middle of battle, as they would have to try to defeat the same enemies a second time. That thought was not at all comforting.

“Yes. I too want you gone.” Thunderquake tossed a head to the opposite side of the cave, where the two ralts evolutions were. “There’s two paths that way and more over there.” She threw her gaze to the left wall.

“I was going to make a proposition,” admitted the altaria, trying to stand tall. The quadruped rock and ground type raised an eyebrow in curiosity. “We don’t know the way out of here. You want us out, so it would only seem logical that you helped us through. Do you not agree?”

“An escort party?” Thunderquake questioned with obvious amusement. Tarla blinked and swallowed, keeping herself composed. “Are you all the age of two years?”

Once again the flareon spluttered and jerked, the wound caused by a horn sealed with ice. The houndoom looked up. “Your vicious beasts did this. Your efforts to make up for it would be...appreciated,” he said, almost controlling himself as he dipped his head to stare at her from an angle. The words seemed almost like a threat. The rhyhorn narrowed her eyes and snorted.

“Although I don’t appreciate your implication, you dog, I do believe that guidance on our part would benefit us both,” she answered, “as we do not live beneath the surface. We travel this way occasionally but our homes are on ground level. We would be making our way out anyway.”

“Exactly,” Tarla agreed with a civil tone, showing as much submission as she dared. If the rhyhorn needed to feel as if she was in control of the newcomers as well as her own, then the flying type was content, even reluctantly, to abide. It was only the colony pokémon’s pride that would have prevented that, and Tarla thought herself lucky being able to shelve it without a problem. Especially when she and others needed aid.

“Very well,” the rhyhorn began, looking to the fallen eeveelution upon the ground. Her expression was unreadable as she looked, eyes at half-mast, before she turned her attention elsewhere. “We will comply.” Before the altaria could light up with relief, she added, “But you must agree to follow our counsel at every turn. If we tell you to walk a narrow bridge, you walk a narrow bridge. If you must leap across a ravine...” She turned to Tarla, switching from a somewhat condescending voice to one hardened with seriousness. “You jump.”

“Ravines and bridges?” questioned the dragon and flying type, and the rhyhorn nodded. “Underground?”

“Yes... I was right,” the pokémon mused to herself, staring at the altaria through disapproving eyes. “Your inexperience rules out any possibility that you are Rokonts. Unless, of course, you are staging it.”

Tarla decided to keep her beak shut, somehow not interested or willing to acknowledge just how powerful and experienced each member of this mysterious syndicate was and simply nodded. “I’m relieved to see that we finally agree.” She readdressed the most recent statement, adding, “None of what you have seen is staged.” She moved her head tentatively toward the flareon and watched as the rhyhorn also laid eyes on her. The truth was relatively clear.

“Thunderquake!” boomed one of the woken rhyhorn, startling several pokémon in the room. The rhyhorn looked to him and addressed him with a questioning face, a little unfazed by his rage. “What are you doing? These pokémon blemished our land!” The room fell silent as the other rock and ground types began to listen. “Even if they are not Rokonts,” he continued, spitting the last word with contemptuous disgust, “they still pose a physical threat to us.”

“Wait a minute,” Etire began from a little ways behind the rhyhorn, who looked to him with a sneer. “We’ve just been sorting this out. We’ve had the clear and we’re good to go. You’re not entitled to spoil the agreement now.”

“They are fine, Jaskore,” Thunderquake told him simply. “Any trace of suspicion has been denied existence.” She moved her glare to the altaria and granbull. “Or, rather, mollified.”

“Leader, you are making a grave mistake. These pokémon are strangers. Outsiders.” He looked to her with such seriousness that Tarla wondered if he had dreamed something ridiculous about them in his period of unconsciousness that confirmed some sort of evil intentions. He took a step forward, his voice filled with wariness. “They cannot be—”

“Do not question my authority again,” Thunderquake boomed, her composure completely intact and her voice powerful.

She looked to him with a face nearly blank but tinged with unquestionable authority. The reciprocating rhyhorn watched with a face that clearly suppressed his anger, his features twitching with his effort to remain in control. The two shared silent exchanges of master and servant until the lesser rock type pulled his gaze away with a grunt of displeasure. He threw his glare to a fellow rhyhorn who looked to agree with him.

“My decision is solidified,” she announced, each pokémon in the cavern turning their attention her. “Does anybody else wish to oppose me?” She angled her head down with minor manipulation, showing off her large horn. As Tarla scanned the crowd, she concluded that it was the longest and densest of the entire crowd. She wondered if that alone had gained her position, or if it was a combination, or merely a recognised boost for her status as leader.

There was not a stir in the crowd as Thunderquake’s eyes brushed over each of her followers, the diglett – who Tarla was unsure was part of her clan or not – also remaining silent. The female rhyhorn gave a short exhalation of satisfaction, turning herself to Tarla with the intentions of discussing small details before they were presumably to head off.

“I do,” one voice echoed. There was no movement after the majority of the room turned their heads. The speaker waited as Thunderquake stared at Tarla’s fluff, exemplifying her disbelief, before she inched around and lay her sights on a geodude near the rhyhorn, Jaskore, who had previous spoken up. The rock and ground type stood his ground and Thunderquake noticed the corner of Jaskore’s mouth curl into a smile.

“What is the meaning of this?” she demanded. The geodude swallowed.

“I believe that Jaskore has a valid argument,” he answered. To this Thunderquake turned her whole body, looking to the herd member with a challenging expression.

“So do I,” another female rhyhorn admitted and, with a snort, the leader increased the intensity of her glare. However, before she could speak, more raised their voices, beginning to lumber to the initial rebel. The numbers began to rise, to the others’ horror, and soon half the herd had sided with Jaskore. Etire and Rentana, behind the wall of back-turned rock and ground types, shook nervously as they realised that they had become cut off from the others. However, they were quick to realise that a rhyhorn and two geodude to their sides had not pledged their allegiance to the rebels, and stood their ground defiantly. They backed up, creating a small shield around the two psychic types, but luckily the traitors didn’t seem to yet notice their existence.

“What is the meaning of this?!” Thunderquake roared, her demand for an explanation firm and clear. Her temper rose and quickly peaked. “I am your leader! Anyone who dares to clash their armour with mine will be banished!”

Jaskore showed no visible response to the threat, simply smirking. “My horn may be second to yours in greatness, but the length of one’s horn is not all that defines a leader. My followers have recognised such.”

The rhyhorn nearly choked in response, booming, “Your followers?!” She scoffed, clearly detesting such a statement. “Your delusions far exceed your horn’s greatness; that is certain.”

“Silence!” the male boomed, his opposition only sneering without a shadow of respect for his orders. “You have reigned as leader for too long, Thunderquake. It is time...you stepped down.”

With an explosion of, “Traitors!” Thunderquake charged forwards, her rumbling steps alerting her supporters to her cause as they followed her into battle. They changed blindly toward Jaskore and his followers, the leader of which smirking with only accompanying disdain.

“Knock them down,” he commanded, and the majority of his followers obeyed without a second thought.

More hoots and howls rode the air as both sides clashed, the deafening sound of rock colliding with rock coming to the Usster pokémon’s ears. Rentana, Etire and the three on Thunderquake’s side were trapped behind the wall of Jaskore’s followers, although there were two passages off to their left, where the wall they were up against came closer to meeting one of the side walls. The psychic types realised that the rock types were completely uninclined to run, and looked closer to be readying themselves for battle. The rhyhorn swept a foot along the ground, snorting, while the two geodude slammed curled fists into open palms repeatedly, as if building strength and contemplating where to aim.

Rentana glanced around frantically, wondering if she could teleport to the opening only a little ways down. The only problem was that it was blocked by a few Jaskore followers. “Etire, do you see that passage?”

“No way,” he rejected immediately and Rentana looked to him curiously, nearly startled by his abrupt response before he continued. “I’m not abandoning these pokémon. They’re staying to fight for what they believe in and I feel that I need to respect that and back them up. Especially when they were willing to protect us.” He stared ahead, then to the pokémon, and then back to his mate.

She looked reasonably astounded. “Etire, you can show respect without staying to put yourself in danger.”

“No, it...” He began to search his mind and averted his eyes, bringing them back with a pondering expression. “It doesn’t feel right to take advantage of their alliance right now, while we’re obviously not under attack and just leave.” He flicked his head up, like a nod that pointed up instead of down. “Look. It’s three against...fifteen? That’s not right,” he added, shaking his head as if in sympathy. “Five is better odds.”

Rentana only stared at him, unsure what to say. She wanted to tell him that he was far too injured to attack, but she greatly admired his spirit and his newfound loyalty to those that needed it, and remained simply silent. She was decided that she would follow him no matter what he decided, and if he had already made up his mind, then that was what she was going to do as well. She wouldn’t have split off from him anyway; it was too dangerous to be amongst all these opponents by herself, and even if she did reach the tunnel’s mouth, she would be spotted and probably overrun, or at least chased and severed from everyone else. Reluctance to go through that kept her remaining, as well as her fondness for her mate. It was not an easy task, to defy reason and stick to honour and generosity, and she would much rather have paid her tribute to logic.

While the two sides of the clan crashed, Tarla took it upon herself to visit Dusty, who was slowly being helped up by the houndoom and guarded by Azure. She cursed to herself when she saw the flareon’s state, dismayed that she had to be in such a condition at the current time, as obviously that hindered them to a great extent. She frowned on their misfortune as she reached the flareon’s side and began questioning the houndoom. “Is she alright? Will she live?”

The houndoom, despite his worried expression, softened for a moment and snorted. “Of course she’ll live. It may be a puncture, but her heart’s not in her side.”

Tarla gave him a murky sneer as she looked the injured fire type over. “What are we gonna do with her?”

“The only thing we can do,” the houndoom responded. “Carry her until we can get her treated. Unless you or the psychic types over there – who, by the way, seem to be trapped – can magically heal her.”

“We’ll leave it up to natural pokémon ability,” Tarla responded, trying to put emotion aside. This seemed like a pokémon she wouldn’t get along with, so she tried to ignore him altogether. “How bad is the wound itself?”

“Not as bad as I initially thought,” he responded casually. “It’ll bleed like there’s no tomorrow, but it’s not deep enough to do serious damage without immediate help.” He swept his eyes quickly over her face. “She probably passed out from the shock more than anything. I would assume her body shut her mind down so she wouldn’t make it worse.”

Tarla was unsure if that was possible, but gave a nod and decided not to question it. “Good news...I think.”

“At least the ice slowed the bleeding...or kept it cold or something,” the houndoom muttered, eying the puncture wound, which bled with a mixture of clear and crimson fluid.

“I’m...not sure that was the best thing to do.” Tarla gave a quick cringe as she imagined how that would feel and then wondered how much good it did.

Both pokémon noticed as the flareon began to stir, and with a groan and a grunt, Dusty opened her eyes. “Ngh... It hurts like a *****,” she hissed grudgingly as she lifted her head, and Tarla was marginally surprised; even if she had woken, she had almost expected her not to talk.

“Are you...alright?” she questioned after ensuring that there was no immediate danger directly beside them. The clashing, roaring and shouting was daunting, and she kept expecting someone to break away from the crowd and inexplicably decide to attack them. It was unlikely and impractical, given how busy they were with Thunderquake’s half of the herd, but her mind obscured reasonability and paved a path for panic.

“I’m in a crap-load of pain...” the flareon rasped, trying to see past the tears her eyes leaked. Following the statement, she looked about, confused at the sight of the battle. “What the...? What’s with the civil war?”

“A rebel is to blame,” answered Zaion, and upon noticing his presence, Dusty gave a particular look. If he had been helping her then she was grateful, but she found it hard to determine what exactly she thought of the whole situation. Whatever she thought, it was dulled by the pain that pulsed through her mind and caused her to cringe. It was hard to think of anything in such a state.

***

Zaion explained the entire situation to me – Jaskore’s failure to listen to anybody but himself and Thunderquake’s belief in our party – and I shook my head, unsure what to think. Quickly I asked the name of the granbull, who I had forgotten, and he explained that I was “lucky” to hear it from him, considering he only knew through picking it up from one of the others who had mentioned it.

Attempting to blink out the pain, I tried to stand on my own, uttering to the houndoom to release me. However, my side rippled with pain, shrieking in response to the pressure I put on my back leg. The pain was excruciating, like some sort of freezing wave of jagged ice was slicing me in a single spot, cutting through my flesh without reserve. I knew there was ice in my side, but that was only part of the pain. It made it extremely uncomfortable, and in all honesty I wanted it out. The ice was beginning to burn my skin and the icicle itself was pressing against my flesh as I applied pressure. I braced myself and angled my body so the wound compressed a little, clenching my jaws as the ice slid out and dropped to the floor. The pain was odd and still uncomfortable, but I was much better off having it out.

Two rhyhorn broke away from the pack, both charging into each other as they ran to the wall I was next to, but further down. They had been braced against one another and proved that neither was stronger, so when they crashed into the wall, both were still forcing their weight against the other, the wall splitting a little as they collided with it. In response to the scene, I blinked a few times, noticing as a couple of geodude hopped back, only to rip small boulders growing from the ground and thrust them forward, as if they were being fired out of a cannon. They landed on the opposition, who shook it off after momentarily buffeted, and returned the favour by mirroring the action or by charging. I wondered what the fight could be about as I watched on, momentarily reminded of the ship.

The geodude reminded me of Roarake, who could have, for all I knew, belonged to this clan or another somewhere around these mountains once. It made me consider something: did Team Rocket sweep the wilderness in search of pokémon strong enough to take up residence amongst their rankings? It would have been tedious, but in order to form some basis for a strong army, I wouldn’t be surprised. Trainers already did it, although they generally veered from the most dangerous and heavily populated areas. These Rockets, on the other hand, had no limits and didn’t restrict themselves for the reason of power and overconfidence. I understood that Roarake himself had a trainer, but I had certainly seen other rock types on the ship who could easily have been wild before their imprisonment.

“We have to get out of here,” I heard Azure say, and weakly I nodded in full agreement. Watching the battle before me, it was easy to determine my wish for a course of action—flee!

“I’m all for Frosty’s decision,” I responded quickly, and the glaceon stared at me, bemused. I gave a shrug and a particular expression, to which she only frowned, trying to figure out why I’d called her Frosty. Really it was just to give her a nickname based on her ice type qualities. “Is there a way out?” Shortly after asking I glanced about, noticing a few exit tunnels to the sides of the walls up ahead.

“I can see three from here and I know there’s at least another two,” Tarla added, and I gave a short nod, cringing from the constant throb of my open wound. I tried not to focus on the many other parts of my body that were in more dulled agony, but agony nonetheless.

“Can’t we just go out the way we came?” I questioned, puzzled as to why we would have to take one of the suggested tunnels.

Tarla seemed to soften with realisation after finding a reason in her mind why we wouldn’t do so. I imagine she simply couldn’t find a reason after assuming there was one, and made a small noise of acknowledgement. “Yeah...we could.” She glanced behind us; a few metres away rested the entrance. “There were other tunnels to turn off into, weren’t there?” she asked, and I nodded, remembering that she hadn’t been with us underground.

“Wait,” Derino began, having listened to the entire conversation without interjecting at all. The others, including me, turned to him. “We are missing the psychic types.” He move his stern and inquisitive glare to the battle occurring down the other end of the room. There was absolutely no trace of either of them, and while I didn’t know them or their position at all, I imagined that they would probably have been a little frightened...and possibly trapped.

“We have to get them out,” Tarla stated, as if it was a fact that we had already planned it. I didn’t disagree, however, but obviously I wasn’t in a state to walk by myself, let alone battle. The idea would have been utterly ridiculous, but I suddenly cringed as I imagined that I might have to if the battle grew worse before we could retrieve the ralts evolutions.

All at once I lit up with an idea, wondering why I hadn’t thought of it beforehand. “Wait a minute,” I began, and Tarla, who had been rather intent on crossing the room and attacking her way through to her friends, stopped after a few paces and turned to me, looking a little isolated as she had broken away from our group. It made me a little nervous as I glanced to the brawling rock types, but tried not to focus on them. “Why can’t they just teleport?”

Tarla wasted no time in revealing to me the answer. “Etire can’t use it and Rentana’s not going to use it if it means only she can escape.”

“But...couldn’t she teleport with him?”

“Psychic types have...some sort of unspoken, unofficial rule,” Tarla began to answer, at first looking to be in a rush but soon changing to something somewhat calmer, yet still alert. “Teleporting yourself is like any other act. It can be used at the expense of little energy, but teleporting yourself plus another is far more costly.” She glanced to the clashing pokémon. “I doubt she has nearly enough energy to teleport both her and her mate out of there. Even a little while is a lot, especially when crossing a path of live creatures.”

I tried not to question it further, figuring that it made sense in a way that would probably never allow my brain to click in understanding, and, before she ran off, questioned her one last time. “Why can’t Etire use teleport too? He’s a ralts evolution, isn’t he?”

The altaria sighed through the nostrils of her closed beak, averting her eyes in frustration before returning to me, her impatience louder than her words. “It’s not as simple as just using it.” She glanced to Derino before she laid eyes on Azure. The eeveelution seemed to understand her silent meaning and began to pursue her; the two raced off toward the line of rock and ground pokémon while I stood there, a little perplexed. Before he ran off as well Derino faced me and continued the explanation.

“Etire specialises in physical attack and has been too long without mental attacks, or attacks that do not involve contact with his body to another’s, and thus his ability has diminished. He no longer has the ability to use many of his psychic abilities, teleportation included.” With that, the granbull tore from me and Zaion and thudded toward the battling pokémon. He came upon the battle, squeezing through the row closest to us, as they were our allies, and began attacking. Tarla and Azure both stuck to more tactical means and the former sprayed the foes with her dragonbreath as she stood to the side of the crowd while Azure rained them with shards of ice.

I watched with a neutral expression, trying to ignore the incessant pain. “Uhh...so what do we do?”

“Well you can’t do much. I’ll just have to wait here and protect you.”

I snorted in amusement with an accompanying chuckle, finding the prospect perhaps mockingly amusing. “Yeah. Right. So you’re just gonna stand here and guard me then?” The houndoom looked at me with a particular face and raised his brow. I released my smirk and felt my jolliness dwindle. “...You’re kidding.”

“Look at that wound,” he instructed, gesturing with his paw to the opening in my side. I glanced down to it, shrugging as I pretended its consistent weeping meant nothing. “You can’t go running around with something like that.”

I cringed, trying not to move as I considered his statement. “Yeah...heh, I guess not.” I groaned again and progressed into a lying position, completely unsure how to place myself to cause the least amount of pain. The constant throbbing was always there, of course, but it was made worse when I strained myself.

I watched with particular longing as my teammates fought the opposing pokémon, catching specific sight of Thunderquake, who, in particular, was ploughing through the pokémon around her, trying to get to Jaskore, or who I assumed was Jaskore (as most of those rhyhorn looked the same to me). She was specifically identifiable by the rearing fire in her I so highly approved of, and I assumed that Jaskore would be easy to spot based on his repulsion to sense and reason. This told me that he was probably going to be the rhyhorn using ground attacks on a flying type.

“Get the Rokonts!” boomed a rhyhorn from within the crowd to a teammate of theirs who was separate to the rest. “Look, the injured one. She lives! Finish her off!”

“Do you really think a Rokont would care enough about her fluff to have it so full?” I exclaimed, a little astounded by their ignorance. I moved my tail, remembering again that it was not full. I lowered my eyes halfway down my eyeballs in annoyance and returned my cringing gaze to the rock type, my stomach constricting as a ripple of pain began to pulse from the wound. I was confused why it had started to arc up again and lay down, horrified, as the pain began to intensify and spread. I quickly wondered if it was because the ice had been taken out and it was growing warm again.

I had no time to mention anything to Zaion as the stomping, roaring, rude pokémon powered our way with an aim to injure. The houndoom raced forward, surprisingly straight toward the charging pokémon. I couldn’t understand his actions, but was too focused on my pain to yell anything to him, and watched as he timed a leap to land on the rhyhorn’s front. Instantly he pushed off, the force of his jump making the rhyhorn’s head bounce down, before he flew over him. He landed behind the creature, turning quickly to deliver a sinister wave of dark energy which swept the ground until it washed over him, the radius large enough to swallow a diglett in its path and flow partway onto another rhyhorn in the crowd.

The one between us released a shriek of pain and I watched as, instead of the pokémon flying toward me with a lowered horn, he turned around, capturing the houndoom in his deathly glare and began to sweep the ground. I was marginally surprised he seemed to forget me, but figured that, when blinded by rage, there was nothing to stop a rhyhorn.

“Come on,” the fire and dark type teased, his tail whipping the air as he showed a toothy grin. His bared teeth was clearly some kind of hostile challenge. I knew that card; I enjoyed mockery mingled with animosity in battles.

“You will pay for your actions!” the rhyhorn roared, rearing back before charging toward him. Zaion only gave a look that ridiculed sympathy and worked like a charm as a tease.

Up ahead, Derino was flung from the crowd and smacked into the wall to the left of the room—the one I had been trapped between when the shield was on my other side and there was a charging predator stomping my way. He sunk quickly and caught himself on the ground, his head jerking up to glare at what I was partially sure was Jaskore. I had no idea where Thunderquake had gone, and with a sudden twinge in the pit of my stomach, I suddenly hoped she hadn’t been defeated by the rebels.

However, my relief was resumed when she charged from the crowd, flinging others aside, and tackled her rival from behind. He jerked away, slamming into the ground after a short ride through the air after she had flicked him off her front. “We were not finished!”

Removing my attention from the two brawling nearby, I looked ahead but couldn’t exactly make out what was happening with Tarla and the others, but within the instant, my attention had shifted to something of a much larger scale.

At first I wondered if one of the rhyhorn had used earthquake, but thought again, figuring that they would have to be really stupid to use it in a place such as this one, where the walls and roof could collapse. For a moment I thought it would make sense of the user was Jaskore. I thought that it must have been the case—until I witnessed the entire room express the similar confusion to what I was experiencing, and figured that the culprit must have been nobody in the room. Still, my scepticism and suspicion continued to rise as my body jittered in an undefined manner, watching as some of the geodude were carried across the floor a few steps before collecting themselves and trying to bounce off in a direction of their choice. It didn’t work, however, and it was soon clear that they were the ones affected most. It quickly worsened, the rumble beginning to vibrate at a rate that nearly threw the rhyhorn off balance. I felt my wound buzz with an uncomfortable sensation and cringed.

I continued to have no idea what was going on as the ceiling, piece by piece, began to shatter. Bits and pieces fell from above, the result sometimes small pebbles, and other times large boulders. It didn’t take long for the crowd to erupt with screams and calls, and they all began to separate into different tunnels on the other side of the room.

My heart was racing in my chest as I glanced frantically around, only able to see a shaky haze of stony grey and ochre. I tried to force myself to my paws, a rock wedging itself into the ground right beside me as I jumped, feeling the effects of the wound take hold as I blurted a reaction to the pain and began to limp across the room. A number of other pokémon were rumbling around, some of them charging past me to get through the entrance from which we came, disregarding me in the meantime and slamming my side, flinging me away. I ended on my back, and bellowed with pain as I rolled over and leapt back onto my paws, the thought of survival and care for my injury the only one on my mind.

Upon trying to search for a familiar face, namely Zaion, who had disappeared, a small rock struck my back leg. I ignored it, however, after catching sight of a lilac fuzz. It was racing toward me on four legs, and I realised that it was the granbull, his face determined as he came near enough for me to detect an expression. Once beside me, he hauled me over his shoulder and began to run toward a tunnel, his two legs horribly inefficient compared to how quickly he progressed on all-fours. I was rather surprised that the granbull had suddenly hauled me over his shoulder, but didn’t complain; I had no other way to escape so I was going to take what I was given.

The thought of us being crushed by plates from the ceiling, which were tumbling down faster than before, was absolutely petrifying, and I hardly noticed as debris clung to the rim of my wound, some slipping inside. Despite how hard the normal type was working, we didn’t make it before the ground nearby suddenly exploded with rocks, some striking the remaining rhyhorn nearby who were still struggling to escape. A gigantic figure emerged from the ground, but in the vibrations and storm of rocks, all I could see were giant blobs of silver. I could only determine that it was a steelix once it stopped as we tried to continue. A tail swiped over us and slammed into a wall, rock splitting and spraying overhead. I released a noise of panic and felt myself instinctively struggle against Derino’s grip, the fear in my mind building.

I realised we were headed directly toward the exit that Tarla and Azure had taken, who had I seen disappear while Derino had been on his way over to me, and wondered if they had just…disregarded me. Not only was it a matter of saving the injured, but it was also that they had neglected me as a companion, and more importantly...as part of their colony. I under stood I was new, and perhaps that made me somewhat disposable, but there wasn’t even an acknowledging nod in my direction.

No matter how prevalent the thought attempted to be, it dissipated to nothing as the steelix threw a boulder in our way, completely obscuring the exit. I screamed in shock, scrambling down from the normal type while scratching his thick hide and slamming into the floor, not thinking as I tried to collect myself and immediately raced toward the nearest tunnel, which was also blocked off by a boulder.

“No!” I droned, feeling tears of fear and angst gathering faster than I could have registered. The wound in my side burned furiously, and if I had no accompanying reason in that moment, I would have stopped to tend to it. The pain of the agitated wound was excruciating and I knew I couldn’t stand it much longer. The sudden thought of failing to retain my consciousness and slipping back into a comatose-like state was newly overpowering, the shock of the thought driving me to push myself harder to ensure I was at least somewhat safer if it did happen.

The granbull, out of impulse, slammed into the side of the steelix, distracting the creature and his great bulk as I scampered across the floor, tearing at the ground to propel myself forward, my limbs aching with the sheer effort it took me to reach one or two of the tunnels not blocked by boulders this end of the room. Another rock tumbled down from above, bouncing off the wall and separating a pace away from me, fragments of the rock striking my face as I fled from it, escaping into a tunnel at the pressing demands of Derino, as he continued his attempt to hold off the attacker.

Immediately after my half tail disappeared through the entrance, another boulder slammed behind me. After thinking that was the end of it, my brain registered that the boulder was too small to jam the exit, and with the shock of horror and fear, I watched as it began to roll toward me. I screamed, dashing as best I could in my condition down the tunnel as the noise from the room slowly began to fade to nothing but silence. My legs kept racing and I was positive I was going to trip over my paws at the rate I was running when the boulder slammed to a stop once it hit a dip in the tunnel’s roof which enclosed the space too drastically for it to be able to fit through any longer.

Once I noticed it had stopped, I came to an instant halt and threw myself on the ground, my heart pounding, head drowning in thoughts and feelings, and wound hammering my side. I couldn’t understand how such a pain existed; it became my entire string of thoughts as I remained on my belly, groaning and tensing different muscles at once, as if that would somehow help to alleviate the pain. I came to realise that nothing would and felt myself constantly spit up blubbering cries, accompanying tears streaming down my fur and dropping off the end of stands and onto the floor.

I lay there, utterly exhausted, and wondered how on earth I was meant to continue. I wasn’t even sure how to continue or where to go, and what to do when there. The festering wound was the only thing my mind would turn to, and distracting it proved absolutely useless. It was times like this when I wished I was still with Master… She would know what to do.

The fact that I couldn’t reach her, that she was another impossible fantasy I could only dream of being by the side of, fighting for again, was haunting. She was my trainer, the one who raised me to be as strong as I was and who taught me morals and values…and we had been torn from one another. I had never imagined anything could have ripped us apart – not even the strength of a thousand-day storm – but this time, the winds had simply been too strong. The thought of her made me realised that it was unlikely I would even encounter her again…ever. I had been taken.

My face pressed against the ground as I stared into darkness. My body didn’t move as I felt the continual pulsing of the wound, which felt as if it was climbing my body and flaring in unrelated places as well, and began to feel the other injuries I had acquired both during the travels as in the recent battle, even if they were lesser. The tears wetting my face began to cool, and I felt it puddle around my cheek. The blood from my wound was causing a warm trail down the side of my belly which met with the floor to pool, and tried to remain with my eyes closed. I didn’t know what I hoped to achieve, but the moment’s depression was too overwhelming. I needed rest. I needed calm.

[Suicune's Fire]

Chapter Twenty-nine: All Shapes and Sizes

Stirring from a sleep he was due to wake from, a houndoom groaned, rising to his paws and inhaling. When he exhaled, his eyes squinted and he cringed, clearly uncomfortable on an unfamiliar bed of pebbles. Pushing himself up, he stared around, seeing mostly darkness, with a few discernible features here and there. When he looked over his left shoulder, he suddenly jolted, for a large powder blue figure obscured his vision. The quagsire looked on with a placid smile, his large paws out in front, resting against the front of his body. He did nothing but stand as the houndoom raised a curious brow.

“Well…this is a surprise.” He looked away, remembering there was nothing he could accurately see, before he blinked and suddenly paid heed a recurring thought. ‘Dusty…’

The fire and dark type shot up, racing back the way he came. He heard the quagsire pounding after him shortly behind. It didn’t take him more than a few steps to come to an overflowing spillage of rocks, dense dirt and similar assorted debris. He came to a quick halt and stared, completely unsure how to react. It didn’t take long for surprise to set in as he found that that they way they had come was blocked off. He and the quagsire were trapped on the other side of the rock slide. The realisation was not a pleasant one, as he was less than happy to have been separated from the flareon in her rather delicate state.

He remained defiant, eyes firmly set on the pile as he compressed his jaws, starting to scrape the earth with his claws. His mind was reluctant to admit defeat as he continued to stare. His thoughts whirred as he tried to imagine what kind of state the flareon in which the flareon, mentally, must have been. Surely she would have been mulling over reasons why she was abandoned – not just by him, but by anybody else who failed to come to her aid – and, as he was reluctant to admit, may not be able to carry on. Her condition was far from enabling her to properly travel, and he worried with a heavy heart what she would probably have to make it through the caves by herself.

‘Damn,’ he thought to himself with a bitter edge. His lip twitched in a snarl, his tail flicking in agitation. ‘She’s in serious danger if she’s on her own.’ He glared to the sides, barely able to see in the minimal light. ‘Who knows what kind of pokémon could be lurking in the dark?’

He growled at the thought of being ushered through the cave involuntarily; he remembered clearly that when he had made a dash to the nearest tunnel, his paws had stopped him and he turned on his paw-pads, trying his hardest to see over the crowd as he spotted the flareon on the opposite side of the room. He had tried to call, but the massive influx of stampeding rhyhorn had completely swept him from his sturdy stance and carried him through the tunnel with mingled shouts and surprising speed. He had struggled against the force of their shoves and runs, but when he slipped down, he was only battered and thrown between the pokémon either side of him until he was again picked up by a charging rhyhorn. One of them accidentally knocked the side of the passage before it opened up into another room and caused some of the earth to collapse from above, along with thick boulders and other locks lodged in the composition. He was sure that some had gotten trapped on the other side of the mass, but wasn’t able to deduce before he was tossed aside and lost consciousness.

He hadn’t seen the quagsire follow him into the cave, and assumed that he must have been caught with the charging pokémon amidst the confusion. Zaion was glad he woke to find him there, however, for he would not have wanted to find himself alone in a habitat for ground and rock types. If more rhyhorn, or any other rock or ground type, tried to attack them, he was confident that the pokémon beside him could deal serious damage and ultimately frighten away everybody who aimed them. The last thing Zaion needed was another brawl; he was positively exhausted after the exertion he had warranted and knew that the quagsire was likely feeling the same. Deciding that making conversation would be the best way to establish any kind of bond they would require for travelling with one another, the houndoom turned around and asked for his name.

The pokémon only looked back, his face unchanging. Zaion waited a moment, confused by the water and ground type’s silence, until he opened his wide mouth and responded with, “Quaaaagsiiiirre.”

Zaion’s brow rose, his eyes widening a little as he stared with great perplexity. “O…kay,” he uttered, clearing his throat. “You’re either with an inability to produce actual words, or…your sense of humour is terrible.” He chuckled at the start part of his sentence, holding his breath in his throat as he waited for a response. His expression was a request for the latter, no matter how horrible the humour was, but released his breath as a sigh of disappointment, closing his eyes to think. “What are you…a slow learner? Mentally challenged, maybe?”

He was only met with a continual dopey smile. When Zaion tore away from him, deeming him rather useless to try and communicate with, he heard a, “Quaaag.”

Groaning with annoyance, the houndoom lowered his head, allowing it to hang from between his shoulders. “Great.”

-

***

-

Leaning against the side of the cave wall, a figure groaned, clutching at several wounds either bleeding or pulsing with the future effects of a bruise. The pain trickled into places he hadn’t realised were injured beforehand, and with an inward whine, he wondered why he had managed to escape down the passage which nobody else followed. On the other side of the small cavern sat a rhyhorn, breathing shallowly as its consciousness remained not with its body. With a soft bite of his lip, the krinar hoped that the rhyhorn was, in case, on his side and not Jaskore’s. “The nerve of that guy…” he grumbled, wondering what had to have been so bad about Thunderquake. As for as he could tell, the rhyhorn was a suitable leader who was more than capable of leading a herd. He wondered why the rebels had formed in opposition of her leadership.

Tunnels leading from the room veered off into several different directions, but the way he came certainly wasn’t an option. Stampeding rock types were not healthy for the caves, as he had witnessed constant falling stalactites as he had been admitted into the passage. It was only half-voluntary, too, as he had thought Rentana was following. For some reason she didn’t follow, which weighed heavily on him. With nobody to support him when he walked, he knew he was going to have a hard time making it anywhere. As well as that, he knew that she would be absolutely horrified to learn of their separation.

He sighed. ‘Sometimes I wish she could just…do more on her own,’ he told himself. He gazed up at the ceiling, understanding her actions, but misunderstanding why she couldn’t change every once in a while. She didn’t need him to survive. ‘...At least, I hope not. If something were to happen to me, then...’ His thoughts dissipated before he could finish them.

On the other side of the cavern floor, down a slope that curled around the circular room, the rhyhorn began to stir. Etire watched and braced himself, hoping that, if the rhyhorn was a rebel, that he or she would simply ignore him and move on. After all, there was no point in attacking the enemy if the commander wasn’t around. At least...Etire didn’t think so. His eyes went wide with the thought.

Lifting himself to his feet, the rhyhorn shook off and began to glance around, spotting Etire on the top of the rise, which panned out flat for a few metres before the drop to the floor threatened anybody who came too close. The krinar watched as the rhyhorn’s eyes were firmly fixed, and finally the pokémon lowered his head, beginning to stalk up the slope.

“No,” Etire groaned, more inconvenienced than frightened. “What...what are you doing? Come on; this is nonsense. I’m a cripple for Raikou’s sake!”

“Should that matter?” the rhyhorn grumbled, hardly a hint of maliciousness in his tone.

“Well...yes!” He raised his arm, wincing as he felt it pulse. “Your leader isn’t here, so there’s no need to attack me. Please? I can’t even fight back in this condition. That’s not a fair win.”

“It’s a fair extermination,” answered the rhyhorn, closing in on him.

“But...why would you want to exterminate me?”

“I don’t care for chitchat, krinar,” he hissed, stopping at the top of the slope.

“Neither do I, usually,” he responded, although the moment it came out of his mouth, he questioned it with a tilted head. He watched as the pokémon came closer and swallowed. “Hey, you better watch it. I am part fighting type, don’t forget.”

“Means nothing if you can’t fight.”

“Claws off,” a third voice grumbled, a growl echoing through the small room. Etire, who was rather startled, glanced down to find another rhyhorn situated in the entrance to one of the passages they had a choice of going through. The rhyhorn, clearly female, was not Thunderquake, but looked about as determined.

“A saviour?” questioned the psychic and fighting type, peering down at the pokémon.

“Come on. Try your horn on a real target, you wuss,” the female baited, turning around to wag her tiny tail at the pokémon of the same species. In response, the rhyhorn flared with fury, his body rearing around as he lost all trace of interest in the cripple against the wall, and began to charge down the slant and directly at the opposing rhyhorn.

Etire watched with interest as the pokémon clashed, their faces twisted with anger and determination; the female’s included teasing mockery, which clearly enraged her opponent. It wasn’t long before the rebel tossed the female aside, and she slid a small distance before aiming at him and propelling her way through the room. Instead of avoiding the attack he merely set his head down and sped forward, and the two collided again. Etire suddenly wished that he had more access to his mental ability to attack in order to help his defender and cursed as the two fought to finish on top.

A small quake shook the room with unexpected timing, the two fighting suddenly breaking off their attacks and surveying the ceiling. Etire was doing the same, panic beginning to install itself into his system. He attempted to keep it suppressed and tried mentally mapping his way out of the cave without gravely injuring himself. There had been foot holes in the side of the raised rock that he was atop, and knew he could simply descend that to the floor if he had the strength. Presently the idea was insane, however, and instead of successfully coming up with a new plan, his thoughts were absorbed by the thirst which had been nagging him for a considerable time. His tongue was drier than it should have been, his cheeks unable to emit the appropriate measure of saliva to keep his mouth moist. His throat was in a similar position, and each time he swallowed, he felt both sides of his oesophagus peel away from each other, rather than slide apart. The feeling was less than comfortable, but the ability to do anything in response was severely cut off.

“Krinar!” shouted the female rhyhorn from below, and he looked to her, surprised to find that she had broken away from the other one. He had fled down a tunnel, the same one the female had emerged from, and Etire guessed that she again wished to travel the same path, but with an extra this time. “Get down from there!”

“I can’t!” he called back, and to that the rhyhorn made a face of confusion. “I’m a cripple! Half my limbs were damaged earlier.” He glanced warily up to the ceiling, watching as bits of stone crumbled.

The armoured pokémon looked rather conflicted and made a move to head for the slope only a few paces from where she stood before she decided properly and rumbled up it, arriving by his side in no time. She nudged one of his arms over her head, ensuring she didn’t injure him with her horn, and encouraged him to stand. Although he whined with the effort, he was able to stand and lean against her. She checked that he was fastened and they began the descent.

At one point, the rhyhorn nearly slipped as one of her front feet rolled on a few small rocks, but, with a jerk that the krinar was force forward during, she righted herself and grudgingly apologised. She and the krinar made it out of the room with little injury; a few smallish rocks had landed on Etire’s pelt, and whatever struck the rock type simply bounced off with failure to cause any sort of harm. For a moment, Etire felt a pang of jealousy for a pokémon so unaffected by most attacks. He had never exactly thought the idea that his fighting moves could cause them severe damage was peculiar, when a normal hit or punch wouldn’t have done a thing, until that moment. Thinking on it for a while, he came to the conclusion that fighting types had a special ability to control the force of the attack to strike what’s vulnerable in a rock type, as opposed to mindlessly battering their impenetrable armour. He had no idea how accurate the assumption was, but desired not to trouble himself over such things.

His thoughts turned to other matters once they passed into another room that harboured a few different levels with edges that looked artificially crumbled – a result of the small group of rhyhorn’s clambering experiments after each pokémon piled through the tunnel, Etire figured – and they blundered down. The psychic type felt rather useless as he continued, unable to properly keep himself upright and slipping down. He was caught by his helper’s shoulder and he looked to her gratefully but said nothing.

They progressed, the krinar keeping himself quiet when he stood on sharp stones, until they reached a point in the elongated passage where the shaking was hardly present. Behind them, the last of the larger rocks dropped and collapsed into a stony heap, and they both sighed with relief. Etire was set down and leant up against the wall while seated, tilting his head back with his eyes closed. He panted repeatedly, feeling the dryness of his throat even more now. He sighed, discontent with the fact that there didn’t appear to be a speck of water about. He only hoped they would come across some sort of underground pool.

The rhyhorn was standing a few paces away, watching the minor destruction that the passage had caused itself. She turned to the sound of the male’s voice. “Where did you come from?”

Her mind didn’t quite comprehend his meaning. “What?”

“You’re the only one here. What happened to all the others?” he inquired, a little dumbfounded at the absence of other rhyhorn and geodude.

“The confusion drove most away, I’m guessing,” she responded calmly. “I know that every pokémon went for the passage they were closest to, or followed everyone else through what they probably presumed was the safest route. I saw your kirlia friend escape through a tunnel after being ushered by a number of my kind, while you were left behind.” She eyed him cautiously. “Did she abandon you?”

“No,” he chuckled lightly, “she could never do that. She told me she would quickly assess the passages to deduce which was the safest before she was going to choose one for us, but once she stepped out before the entry, the others pushed her through. I tried to follow her, but the same thing happened to me, although through a different tunnel. I wouldn’t have been able to walk all this way, anyway...” He glanced to his right, in the direction of the room he had previously been. “I dragged myself up the slope to avoid thugs like that guy.” He nodded his head toward the passage to the next room, assuming the other rhyhorn slipped through there.

“A futile effort, clearly,” she responded, bobbing her head in understanding. The krinar waited a moment before nodding.

“Do you have a clue of where we’re headed?”

“Nope,” the rhyhorn answered factually, glancing toward the exit. “But I have travelled these paths before. Not these exact ones, but once we get to a certain point, I might be able to lead us to the surface.”

“Good to have you.” Etire figured that, if he wasn’t torn to pieces by that first rhyhorn, without her, he wouldn’t have been able to make his way through to the next room while he ceiling collapsed around him.

She gave a neutral smile.

-

***

-

The hairs on the pokémon’s back remained erect as she and her fluffy friend travelled through the caves, extremely alert and eyes flicking about in preparation for any sudden attacks that could be directed their way. Rhyhorn and geodude lined the walls, some up and ready to fight, others exhausted and wishing to rest. The ones that were on their bellies watched grudgingly as the two Ussters passed, and a few up ahead showed no interest, while a duo rearing to go broke from the wall and began charging. The large bird pokémon shouted warnings as the quadruped braced herself and felt a momentary rush before she built the required ice and fired it, watching as it dowsed the two rhyhorn and ended with shrieks. One of them blinked repeatedly and lost complete focus as he realised that his horn had been frozen solid, and charged blindly right past them as he eyed the ice. The other came to a halt and backed away, sticking to the wall of the narrow passage while the two passed, their backs awkwardly trying to face one another.

Walking sideways was a new concept to Azure, and as she tried to do so, her many paws continuously forgot their place and made her stumble. Eventually she resorted to walking normally while the altaria by her side waked backwards. Their combined efforts got them through to the next room, which looked to have few inhabitants, to their relief. There hadn’t been a large amount in the previous room, but, were it not for their split allegiances, their combined numbers could have formed a small force—one that two pokémon, one with a number of disadvantages, were not equipped to handle.

Up ahead, as Tarla turned around to face the same direction her legs took her, Azure caught sight of a rhyhorn she recognised: Thunderquake. As she began to approach, the leader looked their way and seemed to be in the middle of indecision. The two glanced to each other, trying to decide if they should speak with her or not. “...She might know a way out,” Tarla reasoned, and Azure, although hesitant, agreed. “Excuse me, can you tell us the way out?”

The rock and ground pokémon steadied her gaze warily. She broke away from the company she had been conversing with and trudged towards them. She straightened her shoulders and looked to relax a little, her plates of armour fitting nicely together. Her small judgemental eyes studied those before her. “Is your purpose true?”

Azure wanted to roll her eyes, but Tarla kept herself composed. “Yes. We have come this way because our colony was attacked by three pokémon believed to be members of the Rokont Organisation. A small party including myself left to find where these felons resided after one of the captives told us that their hideout was in these upcoming mountains.” She looked up, almost as if she was about to gesture to them, only to realise they were not within her view. “We only wish to pass through and find our way through those mountains, to that hideout.”

The rhyhorn considered her words, but even if she was sceptical, Tarla knew that she was not inclined to attack them after she believed their words back in the cavern. She watched her draw a breath. “It is said that they have a settlement in the mountains, yes, but I have not heard from them in a number of weeks. Months, even.”

Tarla’s brow dropped. “What do you mean, heard from them?”

“I use the term lightly and perhaps inaccurately,” she sneered. She then averted her gaze before continuing. “I cannot begin to explain what they have put my herd through. My father, Tynor, was a great pokémon capable of many things. He was...killed during the largest battle our herd has ever been a part of. The likes of a ruthless torterra was simply too much for his bulk to handle.” She trailed off, her face rather stripped of emotion as she stared at rock lining the walls. “Before then, there were regular attacks on Rumblerock, our home and the name of these parts. Members were killed without reason.” She glared at the dragon and flying type, and she shivered, suddenly understanding the full blow these pokémon had taken under the cruel fist of the Rokonts. “My father wanted to put a stop to the unwarranted violence. He made an attack on their base, leaving me behind in order to keep me from harm. Consequently I do not know the location of this hideout. He and a number of the herd returned, but not without permanent scars, both physically and emotionally. Over half the soldiers he took were either killed or knocked unconscious, probably later to be taken prisoner.

“They returned for revenge, or, as my father had uttered to me as the onslaught began outside our den, they had come to seal our fates.” The words washed down Tarla’s back, erecting many small bumps in response. “...He was killed that day, along with countless friends and foes alike. The day was...an epic tragedy. The opposition withdrew merely to spite us and demonstrate their power...without the need to wipe us all out. Perhaps we were no longer a thorn in their paws, but merely a petal to be crushed at any chosen time.” The rhyhorn’s face remained as if she had betrayed no information, but the words spoken clearly opposed that.

Tarla was shocked and continued to look at her, a face of sympathy reflecting her thoughts. She flashed to Azure, who seemed relatively expressionless, and wasn’t sure what she was thinking.

“Do you understand our reaction to your presence? Was it not understandable that we suspected malicious intent after experiencing similar things with a sinister group you could have easily been a part of?” she scoffed, allowing her brows to shape a sort of disgust. “Rokont parties are composed of assorted pokémon to cover all weaknesses and strengths. How do you think we would have reacted, given the assumption, which, as you can see, was entirely legitimised?”

The two shared a quick glance before returning their eyes. “It is entirely understandable,” Tarla reassured. “...Deepest apologies.”

Thunderquake only shook her head and snorted, averting her gaze. “Save them for someone who needs them.”

Azure threw a look which could be accompanied by a scoff, indicating the ungratefulness of the rock and ground type, but Tarla only let her sympathy drain away. “You said...that these areas are called Rumblerock.”

“Yes,” she began immediately, “we are in Rumblerock Pass.”

“Does that mean...this land is your territory?”

“No. My herd does not own the entire province of Rumblerock, but occupy a mere section of it. The extent was larger before...before my father was murdered.” She heaved a sigh and turned around again. “You ask if I know the way out. Yes and no. My herd and I have a rough idea of a general direction, but not a specific path.”

“These rhyhorn are your herd? Not...the traitors?” wondered Azure, glancing at the few in the room but remembering the larger number in the passage they had crossed through. Thunderquake nodded. “Why are half of them giving us those looks? They’re on your side, aren’t they?”

“Is a free mind a foreign concept to you?” she queried, her eyes accusatory as she eyed the glaceon over.

“N...no,” she began, a little taken aback. “I just...thought...”

“Many of them understand you are not Rokonts. Many of them still blame you for what you have caused. I am one of those many, but I will not refuse to aid you.”

“Thank you,” Tarla said, giving a small nod. “It is appreciated.”

“It is not from the goodness of my heart,” the rhyhorn added, dipping her head and turning it on its side a little, her expression stern, as if to warn them that they had no warrant to believe they had been spared out of understanding. “If we do not help you, you will wander around this pass for a time much longer than we wish for you to stay. The closer you are the us, the more harm you can do.” She narrowed her eyes a small amount. “Understand this.”

“We understand,” Tarla responded, nodding compliantly, as if expecting no more and no less. “Even so, any help you provide us with is still greatly appreciated. Whatever the reason you choose to help.”

“Yes, well,” began the pokémon, turning herself around again, “just ensure you don’t attract more danger before we can be rid of you.”

Azure looked at Tarla, a little exhausted, and both shrugged to one another. They could see that the leader of the herd was quite justified, but at the same time, neither of them was looking forward to their treatment on the road out of Rumblerock Pass.

-

***

-

My grogginess revealed the world to me as how it had been before I fell unconscious. Immediately the beat of my wound pulsed in my ears and my brain pounded in protest against the injury. I groaned at the pain, extremely uncomfortable as I tried to shift. I realised with minor horror that I was pressing against the wound, and made an effort to roll over. I knew that it had probably acquired dirt and probably a number of other nasty things that weren’t going to help in the time that I had gained it to where I was now, but that quickly escaped part of my notice as hurried chatter sounded nearby. I could hear the quiet murmuring of a pokémon, and whoever they were, they were nearby.

My head shooting up, I surveyed the area, only to spot a shadow in another passage a little ways down, where a tunnel veered off. The figure was causing her – by the sounds of it – shadow to appear and then disappear, and I came to the conclusion that she was pacing. It certainly wasn’t the figure of a rhyhorn, or any of the other ground types, so I forced out a breath of air and took another, hoping it was one of the colony members.

“H-hey,” I called, surprised at the weakness in my voice. I coughed unsteadily and felt my breath catch a few times, trying to gain a steadier flow before I tried again. “Hey!”

The shadow stopped and I could only see the head. Obviously the pokémon was surprised by my calling, and had immediately come to a halt at the sound of my voice. I wasn’t sure if that was a good or a bad thing.

“Hello?” I coughed again. “I...I need help...!”

Slowly the shadow grew until a figure rounded the corner with it, her footsteps light and slow as she came into view. I was a little surprised how defensive she looked, but all wonder vanished as I noticed how battered she was. Her white skirt, which fanned out in separate sections to create an image that reminded me a little of an ivory flower, was dirtied and a little torn, while her legs were scattered with a few cuts. Her eyes looked positively worn, but what surprised me the most as the fact that she...was frightened. When I thought about it, the prospect wasn’t peculiar at all, but the look in her eyes nearly frightened me. She looked...almost mad with fear and loss.

“Are you...okay?”

“You’re the flareon,” she stated, her voice shaky and small. “You got that injury.”

I looked at her and cringed, trying not to show any pain as my body began aching from the odd position I had formed on the cavern floor. “And you are...?”

She continued to look at me, her head jolting in tiny, tiny movements in different directions, almost as if she were showing odd signs of coldness. “Rentana.”

The kirlia twitched continuously, and for a moment I was sure she was about to burst into tears. Her blinking made me wonder if she had something in her eyes, but I figured that it could have been anything. “Are you...alright?”

“No,” she told me immediately, the wavering in her voice a sure sign that she had diagnosed herself accurately. She tilted her head upwards but kept her eyes on me, as if she was restraining tears, and continued to watch me. “My mate was lost.”

I gave a small frown, turning myself in a way that corrected my posture. “What...do you mean?” I asked slowly, sure that she couldn’t have meant that he had died.

“We were separated,” she said shakily. “I...was...separated from him. He is... I don’t know...where he is.”

I was a little shocked by her response, unable to fathom how such a thing could possibly put her in such a state. “But you...know we’ll meet up with him later, right? Along with all the others, once we get to the surface?”

“If I pray,” she began, swallowing her saliva as she focused somewhere else in the room, “maybe...maybe we’ll return to one another.”

My face twisted with some form of misunderstanding and confusion, and I stared at her with clouded eyes. I was rather confused how she was such a wreck, for the simple reason that she had been separated from someone. I nearly snorted in amusement; not even I had broken down so heavily when I had been separated from those I treasured, and I considered myself quite emotional.

I cringed, feeling another thump of pain from my wound. It made me tense and I remembered that it probably had dirt slip into it in the confusion of the steelix attack. With a small jolt, I realised that the granbull, whatever his name had been, was still fighting it...or, at least, that’s what I assumed. The gigantic creature was frighteningly huge, and the fact that he was trapped in the same room as it was positively petrifying. With a sudden sickening feeling, I realised...he may not come out of that cavern. That may have been his last battle. His last breath. The odd thing was, he saved me at his expense, a pokémon he didn’t even know. For all he knew, I could have been the one to doom Luck.

Turning to the kirlia in a small burst of anger, I shouted, “Pull yourself together!” Silence followed my order, and Rentana kept her eyes planted on mine, wavering with some sort of accompanying fear. All her fear was beginning to frustrate me; if she was capable of lasting on her own, then I would understand, but she seemed highly distracted and emotionally lost without this krinar. For a moment I wondered if she was under an attract spell or something. It wasn’t uncommon for pokémon to know how to execute. “You can’t base your entire emotional wellbeing on this guy. He’s not your lifeblood.”

Her eyes, firstly full of apprehension and soon transforming into muted rage, were beginning to eat at me. I was uncomfortable under her glare. “He is everything to me!” she hissed, her posture suddenly not slumping.

At first I was a little shocked, but when I realised what I had done, I cleared my throat and tried again. “He’s just a male. You don’t need a male to survive, you know.”

“I need him to survive!” She seemed to writhe with frustration, as if I was missing something crucial.

“No—you need your heart and your head to survive. This guy needs his as well, not yours.”

“We are different,” she growled, referring to me and her.

“Yes. You’re not the same pokémon, the same being, so why would you physically need him to live?” I questioned, still confused by the notion. As far as I knew, there would be no reason why a mated pokémon couldn’t simultaneously be their own individual. I certainly had no intention of ‘melding’ myself with whoever I ended up mated with. Paired with that thought was the known possibility that I didn’t even need a mate to survive. So unless my trainer wanted it, and in which case I would need to be pretty close to the male, I would have no reason to bear pups. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to; I just had no particular interest in it for now. I would have preferred to continue travelling with my trainer than anything. I forgot my momentary tangent and focused again on the kirlia. “Come on. Stop thinking about him for a while.”

We stared at one another for a short while longer, contemplation mingled with pain layering her face as she slumped and downcast her crestfallen expression. “I...” she breathed, unable to finish what she had intended to tell me as she continued to rest her eyes upon the cavern floor.

Once I hobbled a few paces past her, I stopped, the wound in my side searing. I pretended to stop only out of concern, which was half the reason anyway, and turned my glance toward her bent body. “Come on,” I repeated, softer this time. “We need to get moving.” When that did nothing, I added, “...The sooner we escape here, the sooner you find your mate again.” She responded to that, of course, rising and righting herself on her tip-toes. She still faced the other way, however. “What was his name again...?”

“Etire,” she responded immediately, finally turning to meet me. When I saw her face, I was a little surprised. It was as if she had put on some kind of mask. She had concealed the emotion she previously showed, only to display a face of focused neutrality. I was a small amount concerned when I realised that I couldn’t, in fact, make out any sort of emotion at all. She had completely sealed it off.

Making a small noise of acknowledgement, I turned back, pausing before I completely faced the direction leading out of the cave. Taking another step was surprisingly difficult, and I nearly buckled over at the shock of the sudden pain the wound caused. With an inward groan, I concluded that it was probably going to start bleeding again—if it even stopped, that was. I could feel dried, crusty blood on my belly and understood that there would probably be more by the time we stopped to rest again.

Exiting the cavern, the next room opened up into a small expanse of seemingly nothing, which quickly led us into the next one, which was similar but far larger. The room stretched on for an impressive time until another section joined up at the end. There was no small passage this time; the end of the room opened immediately up to another, the likes of which I couldn’t properly see from so far away. Based on the fact that I couldn’t make much out, I figured that it must have sloped upwards and past the opening, which wasn’t as large as the room’s width and which hung down a bit, blocking my view of the next room.

Figuring there was no way to find out but to continue, I took a hesitant step into the wide-open room. I was a little confused by the cavern’s appearance, however, as the ceiling was lowered to create some kind of enclosed space. It was long and wide, but the confines of the room regarding height were not at all generous. I could comfortable stand and lift my ears without problem, but I knew that any pokémon twice my height would have had trouble standing upright.

Curiously I continued, head lowered in as my leg jerked in its awkward limp each step, and surveyed the surrounding area. I was almost expecting predators to leap out from nowhere, and as I continued, the almost inaudible sound of the kirlia’s feet on rock following, I heard an unfamiliar groan. Wildly I whipped my head about, turning around, until I spotted a stray rhyhorn in the corner of the room which I hadn’t noticed while passing through the entrance. The pokémon was waking, so I saw no sense in lowering my voice.

“RENTANA!” I shouted in shock, feeling my leg muscles tense, which involuntarily agitated my wound. “There’s—look! It’s a rhyhorn. What do we do?” I hissed, understanding that my condition was hardly one fit for battle, and hers, although weakened in a different way, was not a large amount better. As well as mentally, I knew she was physically worn as well. The shield she had erected and held earlier must have cost her a lot of her energy.

She looked to me casually, her eyes calm but a light frown of disapproval on her face. “Pull yourself together,” she smirked sourly, and I recoiled a little, somewhat amused by the words which ricocheted back to strike me in the face, but also surprised. I hadn’t expected her to be any kind of cheeky, and on top of that, I was left to assume that she had used them against me because the rhyhorn wasn’t a threat. However, I was yet unsure.

“But he’s—”

“Not the enemy,” she assured, turning to him and approaching on light feet. “Up,” she commanded, and he looked at her, a little wary before leaping to his hefty feet. His rocky armour clunked together as he did so, and with eyes of fear and alarm, he watched me unsteadily. “We won’t attack you,” she confirmed, and he continued to stare, completely sceptical of her claim.

“But...but you’re—”

“No longer fighting the opposition,” she interjected, and I raised an eyebrow in response. She was seemingly keen to interrupt those who were talking.

“Wait,” I began, realising what she meant, “is he not part of Jaskore – or whatever his name is – ...his followers?”

The rhyhorn threw me a stern glare. “I am not,” he growled. “I was just...wary. And...” He raised his gaze to Rentana, his eyes displaying sure signs of minor guilt and a little embarrassment. However, it was all shone through a stony face.

“Oh...” I began, nearly snorting in minor amusement. “You, uh...had a fall-in.”

“I freaked out,” the rhyhorn stated firmly, his voice hardened by embarrassment and the need to defend himself.

“Hey, hey, I get it,” I began, a grin on my face as I closed my eyes and turned away, half-tail swaying. I could only imagine his face. “We all make mistakes.”

He only snorted in response. I understood. He didn’t want to be disturbed. He was a lone mightyena, and I was fine with that. As well as that, I was mocking him, but I dismissed the thought and looked to the other end of the room. I was still deciding what I thought about its massive extent...it wasn’t that large, but it would take at least a few minutes to reach the other side. I was unsure if it meant more room for freedom and more area for space around us in case we were ambushed, or whether the space was a bad thing. If we were ambushed, they could surround us with ease. It was a rather uncomfortable thought and I tried not to think of it. There were no tunnels along the walls...or very few, anyway, and although I imagined they could probably work as perfect routes for a sneak attack, I also knew that I was aware, and if it had to come to that...I could always use my flamethrower. I tried to ignore the fact that fire was weak to rock types and spending energy of any kind may have led me to even more pain.

I turned to the kirlia. “We going?” I questioned.

“Yes,” she answered immediately, gracefully stroking past the rhyhorn. She proceeded without me as I stilled myself and eyed the rock and ground pokémon. He was evidently uncomfortable with it.

“What’ve you got to do?”

“Uhh...nothing?” he answered, and I gave a few nods.

“Well...do you wanna come with us?” In all honesty, I had my and the kirlia’s best interests at heart, since a rhyhorn would be far more likely to be able to repel any enemies, and he looked to be in a fitter state than both me and the psychic type fused.

The question caught him off guard and he remained still for a moment, the kirlia pausing to turn to him, probably interested in his answer. “No.”

My face turned sour. “What? Why not?” Giving him a judgemental sneer, I added, “What, you got something better to do?” I nodded in an upwards motion to the wall behind him. “Like talkin’ to that wall?”

“Don’t mock me,” he threatened, and at the words, I just sighed.

“Well, come on. You don’t have a reason.”

He narrowed his eyes. “You just want me for protection.”

“You know what?” I began, exhaling again and giving my head a light shake. “I don’t have the time or patience for this.” I whirled around and began walking up the cave again. I did not have any interest in more talk. Sure, I was a talkative flareon, but when that was all I’d heard – bicker and chatter – for the past while, beginning when I woke that day because of that stupid houndoom, I was positively sick of it. I wanted action and progress, not another argument. Zaion had explained to me that while I was asleep, the rhyhorn’s herd had split in two – a party following the original leader and a party following a rebel who disagreed with the leader – just when things were looking like they could lead to peace. I didn’t witness it, of course, but the thought that we were nearly free of the tedious battle, only to wind up with a larger problem in our paws, was frustrating beyond compare. I just wanted to be rid of these caves and back on the surface so we could hurry up and find that base.

I was halfway up the room when I turned around to view the position of the other two. The kirlia had dropped behind and began conversing quietly with the rhyhorn while my thoughts were busy having a discussion with me. I turned back, head casually low as I walked, and very subtly edged my head to the right so one of my eyes was spying the rhyhorn, who, watching me carefully, began to trudge a little faster. I flicked back, wondering if he was, in fact, following us, or if he was simply progressing in the same direction we happened to be going because there was no other path. I watched as he passed by the few tunnels lining the walls, glancing warily left and right, and my mind told me he was less than interested in veering off and disappearing down them. I understood: fear of the unknown. I too preferred to carry on in the direction of a room I could actually see.

I slowed my pace so the kirlia would have a chance to catch up much faster – or that would have been my excuse if she asked how my wound was doing – and soon enough she was but a few metres behind me, the rhyhorn a little closer in distance to her. However, I arrived at the entrance to the next room before she met up with me, and, slowing to a stop, I realised that I had been right—it did slope up, although at a rounded angle, rather than a straight slant.

I surveyed the room from where I was, noting the many rising pillars around me. The entire room was riddled with giant ledges and carved cliffs rising from the ground at great angles, although there were only a few of them. Mostly the rock formations rose far above where I could reach, either a square shape at the top, and therefore easy to stand on, or looked to be lumpy and difficult to grasp. I clenched my jaws, feeling the effects of my wound after the walk as I stood still and could unintentionally spare focus for it.

“Well that...looks like a climb,” I commented, wondering where on earth I was meant to begin. With a wary face, the kirlia cast a solemn glance across the room, displaying subtle signs of caution and, I could see, some kind of hopelessness. I wondered why she was acting that way, especially considering she was able to teleport herself, but when I noticed the rhyhorn lumber up beside us, I understood. She was worried the rock type wouldn’t be capable of scaling the oversized ledges and pillars. When I thought about it, I had similar trouble envisioning how he would climb, and wondered what he would be made to do. I turned to him, trying to find some solution in my mind. It was in our best interest that the protector made it through as well as the protected. “Maybe...there’s another way through?” I asked sheepishly, hoping that he would suddenly reflect my hope with strength I couldn’t find.

He remained silent as he absorbed the scene. He didn’t seem nearly as dismayed as Rentana. “I hope you didn’t underestimate my ability to climb rock,” he grunted, and with a flicker of minor surprise, the psychic type and I glanced to each other with cocked heads. He didn’t say anything for a small amount of time, as if expecting us to consider his statement, and then become suddenly knowledgeable about what he was talking about. I watched as he emitted a sigh. “This is what I’m used to. I live in a rocky place. There are high-sailing structures like these all over the place that I have to find my way up.” He eyed one of them. “It’s not uncommon for rhyhorn to know how to climb.”

“Ooh,” I began as I looked to the same formation his gaze was set upon, clicking, “I get it now.”

Rentana hesitantly took the first few steps into the room and craned her neck slowly, as if the rectangular pillar before her was some monstrosity she was required to conquer...and then I realised that it was. “There are large gaps between those formations. You cannot leap across,” she affirmed. We both looked to her questioningly, and I noted she was right.

I doubted that even I could leap across some of the spaces, and it was obvious that we needed to ascend most of the rocks to reach the entrance to the next room, which sat far above in the wall, a ledge before it. I suddenly wondered to myself how the surface hadn’t yet begun, and wondered if we were perhaps...underneath the mountains already.

“I will find my way through,” the rhyhorn told her, and although she showed no sign of protest she, like me, was probably sceptical of his comment.

The kirlia lowered her head and faced him. “Even so,” she began, “the path won’t be an easy one.”

-

***

-

After trying to find a way to get back into the room they had been previously in, Zaion had given up with a growling huff and figured that the rest of his company was probably separated as he was, and probably just as lost, and would all be making their ways through the tunnels with the hope of reaching the end. He knew that they should have been close to the mountains, so emerging from them would be ideal, for once they were out, they could use their closeness to their advantage and arrive as quickly as they could.

He glanced to the quagsire beside him, eying him with particular interest as he wondered what exactly inhibited the pokémon’s ability to accurately communicate. It seemed, for the most part, his brain worked cognitively, but his emotional side was not well adjusted. He had considered that perhaps the quagsire was simply not an emotional pokémon, but readjusted his thinking and concluded that it wasn’t that he simply lacked enough emotion...it was that he seemed physically unable to properly express it. The thought of his emotions being suppressed in such a manner frightened him, although it would be all the quagsire knew. He probably never had much emotion in the first place to be taken away. He also wondered how many summers or winters old he was. It was peculiar that he couldn’t tell, but shrugged it off, making an attempt to stop focusing on his travelling companion and start focusing on the travelling itself.

“I’m fairly certain you can understand me, quagsire... Do you have any idea where we are?” he wondered curiously, throwing his head left and right as he examined rough walls with no sign of veering off. He could see another room up ahead, but still, he was extremely curious.

The water and ground type said nothing – he didn’t even look at the houndoom – until they reached the room, where he turned his head to shine his big, dopey smile at the fire and dark type. “Quagsire,” he mentioned, beginning to wag his tail. Zaion blinked peculiarly, unintentionally analysing his tail and suddenly finding that it must have been useful for many things—from a swimming aide to a handy tool in battle. He compared it with his tail, and although he had always liked the fact that it was slim and easy to keep track of, he wished it did more things.

They emerged into a room that, to both of their surprises, dropped immediately downwards several metres, the part they came out onto evidently some kind of strong ledge. The houndoom was quite happy to have been saved an immediate drop, and they would have had to remain at the mouth of the hallway as simple onlookers. He surveyed the area, noting that there was a giant lake in the centre of the room. The cavern itself wasn’t overly large, and estimated that he could probably run along the length of the ledge – which they had emerged onto the middle of – in five seconds per way, totalling a ten second stretch from wall to wall. However, this was only the width of the room, and he guessed that the distance from his side to the other side was at least twice that, if not a little more.

He cringed at the thought of water; he didn’t mind it that much, but he preferred to steer clear of it. It wasn’t something he enjoyed bathing in, but would if it was necessary. The feel of it simply reminded him of the attacks that water types used on him when they thought they had a hope of winning. Nevertheless, the thought of the feeling remained, but he was sure that he would have no trouble crossing it if they could get down from the ledge.

His first task was to see if there was a way to descend the ledge and end on the bottom floor, as there was no other way to continue, and gave a sigh. He figured that his counterpart would probably not be able to provide them with anything substantial, and began his quest to find a way down.

It didn’t take him long, however, and soon he and the quagsire were before the lake. With another inward groan, the houndoom watched as the quagsire simply fell into the water and slipped beneath the surface. If it weren’t for the subtle change in the pokémon’s disposition as soon as he hit the water, he thought he might have fallen in unintentionally, or with the inconvenience of being paralysed as he entered. He was relieved when the pokémon broke the surface and began to swim around happily; the thought of having to rescue a pokémon his size when the houndoom’s swimming skills weren’t exactly top notch was a little worrying.

He tested the water with two toes, cringing as he slipped the rest of himself in, a little surprised as the floor suddenly dropped and his front paws shot down into nothing but water. He began to drift as he paddled, his back legs dislodging from the floor unintentionally as he swayed and bent his legs in turn, nearly faltering a few times as he quickly sneered and began to swim to the other side. It was an effort, but he was able to make it to the other side without much fuss.

The quagsire swam about, diving in and out of water and splashing about as if water was his favourite thing in the world—which Zaion wouldn’t have doubted anyway. Upon reaching land, the fire and dark type shook off and searched for somewhere he could blow his fire and keep it burning so he could dry himself. Instead he attempted to heat his body’s temperature.

In the middle of doing so, he looked around, spotting his companion still dipping through the lake. For a moment he was fearful that something would pop out and swallow the quagsire up, but he realised that the lake was far too small to carry something that big. He cleared his throat. “Uh, Splash,” he called, “are you done?”

There was barely a response as the pokémon only paid him a small amount of notice between his dips and turns in the water, and for a while he didn’t rise again. It was then that Zaion feared something may have gone wrong, but when his head appeared again, thankfully still attached to his body, he could reassure himself. Perhaps the quagsire knew the depth of the smallish lake and was sure nothing lay at its bottom. If he were to ask, however, he knew he would get an incoherent response if a response at all.

“Come on,” the houndoom commanded, motioning with his head for the pokémon to follow. “We need to find the others.” He began walking away, pretending he didn’t care at all for the dual type pokémon, and continued through an opening in the wall that led to the next cavern.

Upon popping out, the houndoom was semi-surprised to find himself in a wide open space that had a floor riddled with stalagmites everywhere he looked. The most peculiar thing was that some towered over him at more than twice his height, but most of them were either a little taller than him or somewhat smaller. What confused him a little was their frequency; each were only a few paces from each other, forming a sort of maze. The thought itself was hindering, as he knew he would have to navigate with his mind instead of his eyes. However, he did have the advantage of smell on his side, which he decided he would prominently use.

Voices made him instantly freeze. At first he was lost for direction and identification of the voices, but as he stood, surrounded by the protruding rock formations at the entrance to the cavern, he could hear them nearing. He deduced that they were echoing from his left, and figured there must have been another opening in that general direction. He didn’t dare approach, however, as he continued to hear the nearing voices. He glanced around to the quagsire, who had pulled himself out of the water moments ago and shook off, and glared at him with wide eyes. Warily he crept away from the entrance and hissed a warning.

The quagsire approached the opening with the houndoom and stopped to listen. Zaion was well aware that the quagsire was taller than him and would likely outmatch a good number of the stalagmites in height, and clenched his jaws in anxiousness as he wondered if he would soon be sighted. Yet, when the voices continued and the quagsire emerged into the room in a leisurely pursuit of the sounds, he knew that it wasn’t involuntary sightings that he had to be worried about.

“Hey!” he hissed, lowering his head. His shoulders came up beside his jaws. “Quagsire, stop! What are you doing?”

Despite the calls from the houndoom, the ground and water type pokémon didn’t stop at all. He didn’t even turn around as he began to effortlessly and loosely navigate his way through the crowd of stalagmites. Angrily Zaion thought to turn away and shoot back the way they came, or fling off to the right, but he knew that both options were not exactly ideal. Besides, even if he was the one instigating the trouble, he didn’t want to leave Splash alone. If he met with those pokémon, they would surely find a reason to attack him, especially if they were on the traitor rhyhorn’s side. On top of that was the fact that his fire type moves would do nothing to a rock type’s armoured hide, whereas Splash’s water was a more than suitable means of attack.

He gritted his teeth and clenched his eyes closed while his body very slowly leaned in a few directions before he gave in with an inward sigh and began sneaking after him, his leg motions fluid and somewhat awkward in order to keep him low. At the same time, he gauged how far away the pokémon speaking were and used it to judge how much he should project his voice to the quagsire. “Come on, buddy. You have to stop,” he insisted. When the quagsire still didn’t listen, he thought of something else. “If they’re rock and ground types then...” He trailed off, understanding that the quagsire had a type advantage in two areas, but feared that a type advantage alone wasn’t going to save their hide.

Deciding it was still best to convince him to retreat, he hurriedly captured a few more paces and calculated the action before latching onto the creature’s tail. Even though he ensured that his bite wasn’t hard, the quagsire suddenly yelped and swung around, taking the houndoom with him for a short period before the tail passed a stalagmite and the houndoom’s side slammed into it. He dropped like a bundle of slaughtered prey, and it was in that moment that he thought not about pain, but about accidentally attracting the unwelcome visitors.

Instantly the pokémon froze in their tracks and questioned the noises. They, just as he had expected, raced along the ground, the harsh thud of rock on rock as they powered their way, certain to appear from within a few stalagmites and begin to tear the place apart in rage. He groaned and lifted himself to his feet just as a silver rocky creature came into view, revealing itself to be a rhyhorn, just as he had expected. The creature turned her enormous head upon the sturdy shoulders towards them and stood still, surveying them over a few times. Zaion was convinced she was about to charge, but was surprised when the quagsire suddenly began to wag his tail.

Zaion watched as Splash weaved through the stalagmites loosely and came upon the rhyhorn, stopping before her and remaining still as his tail still swished. It wasn’t long till, to his surprise, a familiar face hobbled into view, rather aghast at what he saw. He looked first to Splash and then to Zaion, and they frowned at one another before the houndoom started nodding his head slowly and began to approach.

“Although I don’t know you well,” the fire type started, eyes on the white and green pokémon, “it’s good to see you here.”

“You too,” the krinar responded, more shocked than anything. He let his surprise fade as he introduced the rhyhorn, whose name was Maka, to his fellow colony member and the houndoom, who he had only seen around on occasion. Maka nodded to each, briefly explaining her course of action: to lead Etire out and find her way back to her clan. “Always good to come across someone who’s on your side,” the psychic and fighting type chuckled, and Zaion nodded slowly.

Expressing his response, the quagsire took a few steps before enveloping the injured Usster pokémon in a strong embrace. The krinar made small sounds of protest as Splash hugged him, but it soon wore off, and the pokémon was once again freed.

“I suggest we keep moving,” the rhyhorn announced, swinging her head toward the other end of the room. It passed the wide opening in the wall that Zaion and Splash had come from and looked to rise with a few complicated ledges they would need to scale, but overall Zaion figured it made sense. If they been travelling to the left from the entrance, he would have been confused and objected, but considering that, emerging from where he had been, the trail continued on his right, all made sense in his mind.

While they passed the opening from which Zaion and Etire had come, the houndoom was quick to mention the lake, in case either of them needed a drink, so they took a small break to drink before Etire dipped himself in, keen to wash off any blood and cool any burning wound he may have still been suffering. When Maka questioned the lake’s random appearance, Zaion remarked, “I think it travels from some small hole in the wall hidden under the surface or something. One that would be big enough for it to flow through.”

“Well...what if the hole is big enough to fit through?” Etire asked, wading calmly into the water. Splash dipped in and out around him, constantly popping up. “Maybe it’ll take us to where we need to go. I mean, it would have to come from the surface, right?”

Maka and Zaion looked to each other with hardened hesitation. Both glanced distastefully to the water and resisted, each taking a step back or leaning away from it. “I’m...happy to follow in its general direction on land,” the rhyhorn confirmed. “Besides, I’ll sink in water. Many of my kind...have died by falling into lakes and deep rivers.” The others stared at her with relative horror, except Splash, who continued to obliviously dip in and out. “Well...oceans not so much for two reasons; the first being that salt makes us much lighter, not that it prevents us from dropping straight to the floor anyway, and the second that no rhyhorn would want to live near one. That’s not where these formations generally are.” She angled her head and surveyed the room.

“And I thought I had it bad,” the houndoom remarked, giving a light chuckle that was more nervous than anything else.

“Ah...yes,” the krinar simply responded, then, in the middle of keeping himself afloat, turned around to the pokémon whose attention seemed to be focused completely elsewhere. “I guess he would have told us if there was an underwater path we could follow.” He looked up, catching Zaion’s raised brow and eyes with eyelids halfway down. Etire was unsure what he was making the face for before he shook his head quickly, as if remembering something, and corrected himself. “Well, you know; not told us ‘told us,’ just...told us. With arms. And...grunts.”

“Grunts,” the houndoom repeated with a strong tinge of amusement that was close to mockery.

Etire scoffed and rolled his eyes. “You know what I mean!”

“Uh...I’m not getting any of this,” the rhyhorn interjected, unintentionally excluded.

“He doesn’t talk,” Etire clarified, deciding it was time he emerged. As he began to wave himself towards the edge of the lake, Splash rose from behind him, his large, goofy smile plastered to his wet face.

“Quaaaaag!” he gurgled, flecks of water jumping about at the back of his big mouth.

The rhyhorn cringed with amusement and gave a small chuckle. “I think he’s adorable.”

Etire made a noise of clear disagreement mingled with distaste as he placed his arms carefully on the rocky ground. “Yes, that’s the term the females use.”

“What’s wrong with it?” she asked.

“Nothing,” Etire snorted in amusement, not looking at her as he hauled himself up into a seated position. “It’s just what the females use.”

Zaion chuckled with agreeing amusement as they both looked to one another while Maka stood, a little confused by the whole thing. The rhyhorn only released a sigh.

***

“So far she hasn’t commanded us to do anything,” Azure uttered, prowling beside Tarla as she directed one eye to the rhyhorn behind her. She kept her head low and only angled it just so, and knew it wasn’t enough to be seen by her target.

Tarla too turned her head with her elongated neck, proceeding to bend over and ‘preen’ a cloudy feather or two before returning to normal, under the impression that keeping a watchful eye was a wise choice in such a circumstance.

“Is that not fair?” they heard from Thunderquake, who was discussing matters with a few of her fellow rock and ground types. A few from the passage the two had passed through before meeting with the rhyhorn herd’s leader had emerged and pledged their allegiance to the rightful leader, as they referred to her as, while many of them remained behind. Tarla assumed they were either gathering their strength and waiting for a suitable time to attack, or they were simply reluctant to move on when the one they betrayed was so near...as well as some of her followers and, more importantly, an ice type.

Azure had offered to seal the tunnel with ice, but Thunderquake declined her offer for two reasons: one being that she was reluctant to anger the issue even further and demonstrate that she harboured no true dignity, and second that a block or sheet of ice would be useless against their heavy bulks. They would be able to shatter through it with a number of tries, depending on how thick the ice was. Azure was a little sour at the notion that her ice was hardly effective; Tarla understood her frustration as she continually glanced at her crippled wing and sighed, wondering how long it would take to heal. She hoped it was only bruising and a sprain, rather than a snapped bone. Aemara could tell her when they returned, but she resenting having to wait so long.

It wasn’t long before they came upon another wider cavern. It was painfully dark, and the duo, entering first, were required to wait as they stared into the inky depths of the room until details they hadn’t previously been able to detect smudged into existence. It was fairly large and although the ground up ahead was exceptionally dark and there was some eerie chill about the place, the altaria swallowed her apprehension and strode forward, the glaceon tentatively following.

It was only because there was rush of air that shot from the ground and blew back her feathers did the altaria stop, angling her head away as she grimaced in distaste. Azure, barely paying attention, bumped into her from behind and jumped instantly away before she realised it was only Tarla. However, before the glaceon could question her friend’s actions, she paused and blinked several times. In the minimal light, she could make out only ground...which then disappeared.

Curiously she wandered up to the edge, where the ground seemingly disappeared, and rolled her paw pad on the edge. She slipped her paw slowly downwards as she leaned, bending her back legs and applying the most amount of body weight she could on them to ensure that she wouldn’t topple over forward and fall down into what appeared to be some kind of...nothing. The ground had been removed. With a rush of alarm, she realised that it was an absolute drop down to someplace far, far below.

“Tarla...” she began, her voice a little weaker than she hoped for it to be. “Don’t...move...”

A zap of shivers suddenly scaled her back as she ceased all movement but the frantic beating of her heart and her curious eyes, which rolled toward the glaceon, chancing movement with her head to face her. “Wh...why?”

“Put your foot out. But don’t put weight on it,” the smaller of the two commanded, hearing voices from the cavern they had just been.

Extending her leg, the altaria began to stretch out, running her foot along the rough ground before there was something that felt like an edge. She quickly confirmed her assumption that the ground suddenly vanished. “A chasm?”

“One that extends across both sides of the cavern,” the glaceon confirmed, referring to the walls on the left and right. She stared down below, shooting tiny bullets of ice without particular force. They plunged into the darkness and vanished. Not a single sound of shattering managed to reach their ears as they waited in silence before flashing looks of alarm, which were hardly visible in the blackness, to one another. Azure bounded off to her right, travelling alongside the chasm but ensuring she was at least a few paces from it before stopping once the wall came into her face. She turned toward the abyss and, unable to see to the other side of the empty space, squashed her cheek against the cold, stony wall before she fired more ice shards. She watched them travel with the wall for a time before they lost momentum and sunk, also disappearing without a sound to follow.

In her amazement, the altaria hardly realised she was so close as she moved to the edge and peered down, unable to make anything out. Her foot edged closer to the cliff, and she reached down, wondering if there was a ledge just below ground level, but realised she was wrong. In the midst of her awkward position, she suddenly jerked, the pain from her wing pulsing to life as she angled it awkwardly while distracted. The abrupt movement stole her balance and the altaria shrieked as she instantly filled with dread.

Before she panicked, the pokémon broadened her wings and beat the air, sure she could easily overcome any kind of drop before her bad wing cried out with a splitting pain and she roared in agony, realising with horror that it left her to fall. In the split second that she began to fall, her foot about to lose any connection it had with the floor, impossibility flashed through her mind. She was a flying type, and she was condemned to fall to her death. It was both inglorious and frightening, as she knew not how far she would be falling at all. The sense of fear was far greater than anything she had ever felt, terrified she had been denied the precious wings that had always given her security. For a flying type to fall to their death was the most shameful death of all.

Suddenly her foot felt as if it had caught aflame as it halted in place, when her bad wing simultaneously fired up with a painful sensation as it was pulled and tugged, the altaria ready to struggle against whatever caused it. Despite the strength of the pain and the extreme discomfort it caused her, she realised that it had stopped her from falling. She couldn’t move her foot either, and as the searing iciness began to shoot up her leg, she realised that it was, in fact, ice.

“FLAP!” screeched the glaceon, her mouth full with feathers as she applied all her weight to her back legs, leaning back and resisting against Tarla’s mass. In spite of her desperate attempts, she quickly began to slip toward her. It wasn’t enough.

A flock of thoughts soared through the dual type’s mind before she realised her comrade was referring to her good wing, which was under her, and furiously and frantically she began to force the air under it to retreat and return, elevating her as a result. With a burst of a realisation that it was working, she ignored the pain in her wing as best she could, cringing as she worked her wing even harder. Finally she was upright again, but with a feeling of fright, discovered that she couldn’t actually move out of the way of the cliff given that her foot was trapped in ice. Azure still gripping her bad wing, the altaria, although in a blubber of pain and discomfort, bent over and drilled her beak repeatedly, shattering enough ice to slip her foot out from her ankle.

The two flew backwards, tumbling on the floor and halting in a tangled heap. Tarla was more in shock and fear than anything as she and her friend heaved with the effort, and remained there until Azure helped herself up, her breathing steadying again. “I told you...not to put your weight—”

“That’s not how it happened,” Tarla snapped, and Azure guessed she was more intent on nursing her pride than her wing. She was not to know, however, as the altaria rose and allowed the wing to drape over one side and meet with the floor. After a moment more of silence, she looked to the glaceon. “...Thank you for...saving me.”

Azure looked back, studying the altaria’s face as she detected streams of draining fear. “It’s...fine,” she responded, looking away. Both pokémon laid their eyes on the horror that the absence of light had made all the more dangerous and inhaled deeply. Tarla strongly regretted her foolishness while Azure tried to convince herself that she was not to blame for encouraging the pokémon to do such a thing, but the two did not speak of either matter.

“We’ll have to warn the rhyhorn about this,” Tarla concluded, and the glaceon shook her head, even if in agreement.

“Yeah, but...even if we tell them to steer clear from it...how do we cross it?”

The question repeatedly rang in both pokémon’s minds. There was obvious there was no bridge from their side to the other, and without Tarla’s ability to fly, not even she was capable of crossing. As far as they could tell, the question had no answer.

[Suicune's Fire]

Chapter Thirty: Between Stone and Soil

Telling someone that climbing those pillars and ledges was difficult would be a massive understatement and for it, I deserved to be flattened by a rollout. There was not a single slope or block that I didn’t find extremely awkward to scramble onto using only my own strength. I had considered the fact that the rhyhorn could always use his massive head armour to throw me up, but that would have been a stupid idea given the fact that I could easily have hurt myself landing, or part of my legs could have slammed against the edge if the toss was miscalculated—or worse. I myself could have slammed into the side of a tall block if the throw wasn’t powerful enough.

Nevertheless, I needed not to worry of such a thing as the kirlia offered to use her psychic powers to lift both me and the rhyhorn. However, the amount of energy she spent on each mental lift was nearly equal to half the amount of energy it would have taken to lift us using her arms, or at least, that’s what she told us. I was glad it was only half; I couldn’t imagine that she would have been able to lift us at all if the full weight was converted to the psychic effort. Apparently it helped if we thought “light thoughts” since it was a mental operation, and so I resolved to thinking of a hoppip each time. I didn’t know why that would have helped, given I could have thought of a grain of sand instead, but for some reason my mind always wound back to a hoppip. Nevertheless, eventually – but slowly – I made it to the other end of the room. The ledge I was on, from which several others protruded down below, was against the cavern wall and had the entrance to the next room directly behind me. I couldn’t see a thing while looking through, however, and figured that when the others caught up, I could use my fire to illuminate the path.

“You coming?” I asked, watching as the rhyhorn carefully trekked along a narrow slant. He wasn’t far away, but the kirlia, trailing shortly behind him at a very leisurely rate, looked less than capable of lifting him another time. It was a little worrying, however, considering he would need to be lifted at least another two times until he reached my ledge. Unless, somehow, she could magically lift him with her mind and send him across far further than she had previously been in one go. I doubted she could do that.

“It’s not...as easy...for me...as it was for you,” growled the rock and ground pokémon, and I gave a shrug, figuring that his previous claim that he could scale rock easily was somewhat inaccurate.

“Shall I take a nap then?” I stretched, beginning to get comfortable.

“Can you stop being such a brat?” the rhyhorn grumbled, his patience clearing wearing thin.

“But look how much it’s affecting you. It’s kinda fun. And hey, if anything, it takes your mind of the hard work you’re doing.” I gave a shrug, tucking my paws under my mane.

The rhyhorn uttered a few words of resentment and came to a stop, glancing about. He turned back to the kirlia. “Are you okay to...send me over again?”

She trudged up behind him, arriving within a pawful of seconds. “Just...give...me a second,” she rasped, dropping to her hands and knees in order to breathe. I watched with a small frown of concern and hoped to myself that she wasn’t going to have to stop there. I was eager to get going.

“Rentana,” I began, pausing to make sure that was her name, “you can rest once both of you are this side of the ledge.” I questioned myself after I had spoken, wondering if I really had the right to instruct and persuade her like that. “Well, just saying...that would be more convenient.”

The kirlia probably thought my idea was a good one, and one she had obviously considered prior to the voiced suggestion, and I hoped she was going to make it a reality. “I will...try.”

Eventually she got him across one more chasm, but the strain it looked to put on her was far more than I previously thought. She could teleport herself over with little problem, as she either couldn’t lift herself with her psychic powers or chose to teleport because it may have been easier, and to that I was relieved. However, she still had one last chasm-like space to cross with the rhyhorn.

Realising it may be bad if she tried to push herself, I interjected, “Wait...wait, don’t you think it would be a good idea to rest first? You’re exhausted, clearly, and I don’t think overworking yourself is going to help.”

She threw a determined glare at me. “We...need to get across...as soon as possible.”

“Yeah, but if you drop him halfway through, you’ll never forgive yourself. It’s far too much effort to bring someone up than across, right?” I retorted, and she gritted her teeth, probably recognising that I was right.

She heaved a sigh and sunk into a sit, her knees meeting as her legs lay on the rock in opposite directions. Without looking at the rhyhorn she told him, “I will just...wait for a moment, then...before continuing.”

The rhyhorn, obviously a little agitated by her idea but understanding it, made the decision to remain standing. “How long will that take?” he questioned, and she looked up at him.

“Until...I am rested enough to levitate you across.” The kirlia grew a minor look of concern as she realised that the rock type was less than content with the decision.

“But we’re stranded here,” he protested, and at that I rolled my eyes.

“If she tries to carry you across now and you drop, who are you going to blame? She wants to rest and you want to keep going. It won’t be her fault, and it’ll be a whole lot longer before she’ll be able to lift you all those times again over the rocks, as opposed to waiting a little longer this time.” My face was etched with a frown while I looked at him, and he heaved a sigh and snorted.

“Okay, I get you.”

He stood while we both sat, and it was a fair few minutes before Rentana got back up again and was ready to transport him across. “Okay...ya ready?” I called without much volume, and the psychic type hesitated before nodding. She raised her arms and began her rhythmic breathing before she exhaled again, and the rhyhorn began to float. With a considerable amount of strain and effort, as if she had forgotten how heavy he was, the rhyhorn slowly made his way across, glancing down at the room’s floor, which was a fair few metres down. I saw a flash of nervousness cross his face before he was finally let down on my side, and the kirlia fell to her knees with a series of pants.

The rhyhorn looked happy to have solid ground under his rocky legs, which suddenly made me thankful as well. I got the feeling that he was a little too proud to thank her, but on the inside, he was certainly grateful. It would have been relatively impossible for him to make it so far on his own – despite what he had earlier claimed – and therefore it was extremely useful that the kirlia could help on such a large scale.

I rested my eyes on her, watching as the effort seemed to weigh her heavily down. For the first moment since she had started doing this, I felt a legitimately concerned for her. “Hey...Rentana? Are you alright?”

She winced, trying to control her breathing, and bound her eyes. She gritted her teeth and exposed them as her lips stretched, clearly suffering somewhat from the effort she had just applied to such a difficult task.

“Y...yes, I am...just...a little...” She drew a lengthy breath, stilling herself for a moment as she stared at a particular mark on the ground near her arm, which supported her as she leant on her knees. Her other arm was situated on her head, and slowly the other one came up as well when she leaned back, supported by her kneel. She pressed her hands against the side of her head, as if trying to dull the swelling inside. I guessed that was a very possible scenario. “I’m alright,” she responded, getting to her feet and closing her eyes. Instantly she vanished and reappeared right before me, and I jumped back in surprise. “Sorry,” she uttered.

I cleared my throat. “Anyway...we should keep going,” I suggested, and the other two nodded in turn. “Uhh...good job, Rentana,” I complimented, but before I waited for a response, I walked through the tiny tunnel leading to the next room.

Bizarrely, the following room had a slope leading down to the floor, which was completely covered in holes and bunches of dug-out burrows. For a moment I was confused, but it became clear that they were nests, and most were inhabited by pokémon. I froze at the top of the slant, unable to identify the pokémon for a minute before my eyes adjusted probably. Given the fact that flareon were occasionally nocturnal, our eyes were able to adjust well to the darkness, and even if I could have used my fire to better see my surroundings, I knew that disturbing sleeping pokémon in their territory was less than wise.

As the other two came up beside me and the rhyhorn began speaking loudly, whom I proceeded to shush, I realised I could make out the figures closest to us. They were scattered across the floor with barely any space between them, and the nest construction was completely tactless. My mind wound immediately back to the colony, and how astounded I had been when I first saw their huts and houses, and in comparison, these pokémon’s method seemed excruciatingly primitive.

As I slowly padded forward, reaching the very edge of the rock before it angled to the floor the crude nests were spread across, I could see that the pokémon were an odd shape of a faded yellow colour. No limbs were attached to their bodies, but two tiny white wings rested on their backs, and their round heads had rings of blue around closed eyes. The tail was peculiar, as it was shaped like a drill similar to that of what a beedrill has on the end of its arms. Only, these pokémon’s tails looked useless and composed of regular flesh, as opposed to anything that could actually bore through something solid. Overall, they were a strangely designed elongated blob with miniature wings and odd tails. It was immediately apparent to me that I had never seen one of these creatures before, and frankly, I couldn’t figure out what type they could possibly be.

Slowly edging my face away from the creatures, although still keeping an eye on them for as long as I could before I met the kirlia’s gaze, I asked, “What are those things?”

“Dunsparce,” the rhyhorn responded, a little amusement to his tone. I wasn’t sure if it was directed at the creatures themselves or at me, who lacked the knowledge to identify them. However, it was clear when he added, “They’re harmless.”

My brow tugged, a small amount of confusion shaping it. “Wait...actually? Like, their attacks are about as effective as a magikarp?”

The rhyhorn took a breath and responded, “If that strong.”

The answer took me by surprise, and I shared his amusement as I scanned the room. The renewal of any lost confidence to cross without trouble was instantaneous, and with a grin, I figured that the task ahead would be easy. “Alright, well, let’s go!”

I stepped down the slope quietly, unwilling to wake the pokémon in case they did have hidden tricks none of us were aware of, and simply because I had no desire to intentionally wake them. I knew how annoying it was to be woken when you really didn’t want to be, so I avoided doing the same to them—even if I didn’t know them or have much reason to concern myself with them. Once at the bottom, I turned my head and raised my brow, daring the others to follow. The rhyhorn only smirked and followed, sure not to slip down the slant, before the kirlia took a series of breaths and also warily followed. It occurred to me that she was the most hesitant of us all, and I made a quick suggestion that she should ride atop the rhyhorn, but his rejection was clear, and I only huffed at him in response.

We stepped carefully between the many nests, which consisted of shallow dips in the ground filled with dried grass for comfort, and the pokémon were generally flat against them. A few of them were coiled, and I assumed that was either for protection of comfort. Whatever it was, it amused me, as their tiny wings stuck up and remained there, as if they were fruit on display to be picked. I didn’t touch them though, and instead we kept walking.

“This is easy!” I exclaimed in a whisper, my head over my shoulders. The rhyhorn barely looked where he was going and the kirlia was much more careful with her movements, ensuring she didn’t step in any of the potholes that the dunsparce lay in. I nearly asked her how she was doing, but decided against it and focused on the path ahead.

In the midst of walking through, I felt myself stand on something. Quickly I retracted my paw, leaning back on my hind legs for support, and deduced that it was, in fact, a wing of one of the pokémon. I hadn’t meant to step on it, obviously, and for a moment I was confused; how could I have stood on a wing? The answer was clear as I realised that the pokémon had been one of the ones coiled, but it rested on its side, so its wings lay out of the nest’s borders, one against the ground.

I gritted my teeth as it began to screech, waking instantly, and turned my head as if it would protect my ears from the sound. A sudden eruption of similar cries from around me sounded as well, and the pokémon began to uncoil. The ones already straightened opened their odd mouths and continued their screeching, and quickly the piercing noise became nearly unbearable.

Not a moment too soon, I wrenched myself away from the pokémon and raced through the room as it slammed its tail down, making a reasonably sized indent in the solid ground. I watched it as I ran, wondering quickly what the rhyhorn and Rentana were going to do, and suddenly I found myself throwing my gaze in assorted directions against my will, the world tossing and tussling as pain suddenly struck me.

I tumbled along the ground, skidding and shrieking with the intense pain that awoke once more in my side, and already felt my fur moisten with fresh blood. I tried to gather myself, groaning with the effort, before something slammed into my spine, forcing me back down and agitating the wound even further. Again I bellowed, unable to grasp the situation before I forced my eyes to the right, where one of those creatures was. I could only see its rear and the mound of its back as its drill-like tail reared, and with a sweeping feeling of alarm, I tried to scramble out of its range, only to be hit on my shoulders by the same thing, but to my left.

I was nearly winded as I struggled to get back up, in extreme discomfort as my side wound pulsed with the previous intensity it threatened me with, and tried with all my might to scramble away.

With the relief of a hundred stranded finneon suddenly returned to the ocean, I heard the crash of the tails behind me, keeping my eyes on the road ahead in case more of them threatened to squash my body parts. To my dismay there were, and I noticed with a feeling of imminent dread that just about all the opposing pokémon had banded together, and were pounding the floor with their strangely solid tails.

“I’m sorry!” I shouted, attempting to calm them as I blurted out the apology, but the screeching, still high-pitched and extremely disturbing, was far too loud; I could barely even hear myself.

Suddenly I remembered the others and wound my head around, spotting the rhyhorn looking to attempt to protect Rentana, who had obviously been given permission to jump on his back. The tails barely affected him, it seemed, and upon witnessing the good news, I focused on my own path and powered on. The wound leaked with painful consistency, and with continuous groans and whines, I felt tears dripping from my eyes. I felt utterly horrible as I continued, regretting the stupidity of my right paw as I remembered that it was to blame for standing on one of the pokémon’s wings.

To my surprise, some of the dunsparce, while others continued to bash needlessly with their tails, reared up on their back-ends and began directing their screeches straight at me. I continued to watch them, frantically throwing my gaze left and right to avoid missing anything, and came to spot one such pokémon with its eyes open. The shock nearly threw me off balance, and as the tiny pupils pointed themselves at me, I felt a wave of shock hit me like something tangible. Instantly my legs froze and I literally felt myself falling with no way to brace myself, meeting the rock with unwelcome force and bouncing along the ground with stiff limps and a flapping half-tail, unable to do anything to prevent further injury to my wound or any other part of my body. I couldn’t even call out.

When I rolled to a stop, I found myself able to use my voice again and cried out at the top of my lungs, as my body had landed on top of my wound and it was pressing into the ground. It felt as if it was as bad as it had been when the flesh was first torn, and I wished I could do something to aid it as my vision began to fuzz. A rush of air blew onto my face as a tail slammed down right before my nose, and I cringed, squeezing out tears and whining with the pain.

When my eyes opened again, I saw with shock that a dunsparce flew across the room and into my line of sight. At first I thought it was his or her own doing, but they were tumbling through the air, as if someone had just thrown them, before crashing into a group of other dunsparce. Alarm knotted my brow as I wondered what on earth had happened before another one soared into view and slammed into the ground not a few metres from me. The surrounding pokémon were distracted by the sudden landings and all turned their bodies, and I was extremely thankful for the momentary distraction. I still couldn’t move, however, and struggled to wiggle my toes or even move my head. Some of the screeching ceased, and I realised that the rhyhorn was grunting and growling. It soon struck me that he was bowling them into the air after crashing into them, and although I couldn’t see, I could tell he was getting closer.

By the time he neared, the ground was rumbling, and suddenly I was picked up. I had no idea what was happening as I soared behind the rhyhorn in my stiff state, until I noticed an odd glow surrounding my contour.

At that moment, I realised I was being dragged behind them, courtesy of Rentana, who was using her psychic powers to lift me. Although I was still paralysed, the psychic energy surrounding my body made me feel as if I could actually move, and after another ten or so seconds, I felt that I could finally wriggle my toes. Tyring my hardest to move my head, I craned it around, cringing at the wound that would bother me for a long while to come. We were only halfway through the cavern. “Oh, great...” I uttered through tears and a blubbery voice, which I tried to clear several times.

Not long into the odd voyage, the dunsparce suddenly stopped their attacks. The rhyhorn continued to power through, however, a little concerned as he wondered – as well as I, and probably the kirlia – why the pokémon had stopped their assault. My first guess was that they realised that their feeble attacks were useless against a rhyhorn, a creature with armour and one that was barely affected by normal type moves as it was, and decided to stop. It seemed as if they didn’t choose another action to replace it with, however, until suddenly a tail on one of them began spinning rapidly. Once the tail was pointed toward the ground, the earth around it began to break and a hole was quickly bored. It was then that I realised the ground wasn’t as hard as I thought it was, and was actually compact dirt, which was a perfect habitat for these creatures whose tails...clearly did allow them to burrow.

The creature disappeared, snaking and then vanishing quickly. Suddenly all those around us began to do the same thing, and soon, I was sure the entire room-full of dunsparce were digging, and one-by-one they disappeared. The whole room looked like it was shaking – and probably was – although it was hard to tell while suspended with psychic energy. Frantically I searched the room, trying to ignore my wound, for anything that could indicate actual danger. All these pokémon were fleeing...so it seemed they had given up hope. ‘Well that’s kinda typ—’

Suddenly the rhyhorn’s front leg, while he was running, became lodged in a tunnel created by one of the pokémon who had fled before we reached them, and the kirlia jolted and flew off, causing me to do the same thing. She accidentally released her mental hold on me, and I dropped like a dead fly, landing roughly on the ground beside her and grunting in pain. I was only glad I landed on the opposite side to the one the wound was on, although it still hurt like hell. Flicking my head back around to the sound of the rhyhorn’s cursing, I noticed in shock that the holes, given that the pokémon were longer than the rhyhorn, were big enough to capture his foot, as well as part of his head, and it was clearly difficult for him to remove himself.

Rentana got up from beside me and padded weakly over, always on the tips of her toes, I had noticed, and stood beside the rhyhorn’s head. “Do you need any help?” she asked, but the rock and ground type only growled and attempted to lift his heavy face from the hole again. It was rather useless, however, and he was clearly having a lot of trouble. Rentana repeated her question, and as she stood confidently, I was glad that she didn’t endure any serious injuries upon meeting with the ground.

“N...no!” he grumbled, but I shouted in angry objection, and it was clear that the kirlia sided with me on the matter.

“I’m going to help you,” she told him, and took a deep breath. I couldn’t see from behind, but she probably closed her eyes as well and formed an expressionless face. Despite the rhyhorn’s protests, the psychic type continued, and used her mental power to lift his head from the ground, aiding him as he pushed, and eventually he popped out and he was nearly sent bowling over backwards. He steadied himself appropriately though and instead stood noble again.

“...I didn’t need your help,” he grunted, angrily stomping past the psychic type and heading my way. He didn’t meet with my eyes as he approached, and nor did he as he walked by.

“Manners,” I blurted, a little incredulous at his rudeness. I shook my head with a notable frown and passed the expression to Rentana, who moved her mouth a little, but other than that, she didn’t show signs of more expression.

She began to walk my way, and it was then that I realised I would have to get to my feet and walk as well. Even the idea was painful, but even so, I knew I had to do it. I wrenched myself off the ground once she passed and trailed slowly behind, a heavy limb impairing my back left leg as I avoided putting proper pressure around the wounded area. The pain ate at me like a ravenous totodile whose jaws released only to gain a better hold. I continuously released pent-up breath in sections and intervals, cringing the entire way through the cavern. It was eerily quiet after all the tails had stopped slamming and the screeches faded to nothing whilst they drilled away, and the sheer number of holes in the hardened earth was nearly as astounding as the fact that the rhyhorn barely slipped another time. I assumed he was taking care not to endanger himself or inconvenience Rentana – as she had spent more than his share of energy on him and would likely continue to aid him whether he wanted it or not – and therefore, he managed to avoid them for the most part.

Once we had crossed the cavern, despite the small hardships I encountered along the way (such as nearly entering a hole myself), I felt relieved. I was still in severe pain, of course, but luckily I was able to block some of that out with the help of sharp rocks that prodded my paw pads and my bullet wound, which also pulsed. Even if it was annoying to have more than one active wound, it was good to be able to take my mind off it even just a little through means of distraction.

“So...” I cringed, trying to wait for a burst of pain to clear as I rested before carrying on. “...What about those creatures again? Not dangerous, I heard you say,” A fleck of anger swelled in my mind before I threw my glare to him. “Are you freaking deluded?”

“Don’t blame this on me!” shouted the rock and ground type, immediately arching up at the accusatorial comment.

“Yeah? If I can’t blame you then who am I supposed to blame?” I questioned, wincing as I accidentally jerked my body and felt my wound pulse. “When there’s no risk of danger, I don’t usually take care to avoid it.”

“Don’t be ignorant! It was that foolish attitude that made you set off the entire swarm!” he rumbled, lowering his head. The kirlia sat against the wall, resting as she was involuntarily subjected to our bickering.

“It’s called a mistake,” I hissed, unsure quite how to defend myself in that instance.

The rhyhorn eyed me with condescending confusion and cruel amusement. “If you tripped by mistake, then how does the information that they are or are not dangerous going to affect that? You would have screwed up regardless.”

Realising he was right, I merely glared at him before tearing myself away, storming toward the entrance to the next room as best I could in my condition. Moving too much caused my wounds to once again screech with discomfort, and I felt my breath catch in my throat, forcing me to stop walking. With extreme reluctance, I stayed on the spot just before the entrance, taking note of the next area: it was a simple tunnel. It was darker than the dunsparce cavern so I knew I would have to light the path with flame, and just the thought of having to do so was enough to make me groan. I was already injured, and using fire would only accelerate the pain I felt and drain the energy I needed to recover.

I tossed my angry but guarded look to Rentana, wondering feebly if somehow her psychic powers could heal me in any way, and pondered how that would possibly affect her ability to heal. It didn’t hurt to wonder, however, as I certainly was in need of healing. Without someone who could do that, I felt lost for what to do. I stood on the spot, contemplating the very few options laid before me. I couldn’t go back, and even if I could cross the room with slopes and blocks of enormous height to get past the barricade of fallen rocks blocking the entrance back to the room where the rebel rhyhorn turned on the rest of its herd, I would either run into more predators such as the massive steelix that originally drove us all out, or get completely lost in the underground maze-like tunnels. My choices were totally limited to the path ahead, but before I could think more on that, I focused again on my thoughts of the steelix.

After not a moment longer to mull over the thought, I snapped around, regretting injuring my wound yet again, and glared at Rentana with accidental over-enthusiasm. At my odd expression, she seemed a little startled. “The granbull...the steelix!” I blurted, unable to remember the granbull’s name and unsure how to word the rest. “They were in the cavern when it collapsed. The granbull...he made sure everyone else was out alive and he stayed behind the fend the creature off. But what...happened to him?” As I continued staring at her, she only blinked a few times, her shocked expression still showing. “Aren’t you worried for him?”

Rentana gave a light frown. “Not at all,” she responded, and to her remark I was utterly confused. I protested about the type differences and how the granbull had a huge disadvantage, but she stopped me before I could finish. “The steelix, Undol, is the colony’s friend.”

I stared with whirring thoughts. I blinked a few times and my expression dulled to one of pure perplexity. The kirlia’s look was soft and hesitant. “...What?”

“Ya deaf or something?” murmured the rhyhorn, and I snarled quickly at him.

“But-but...wh... Uhh...okay,” I started, still trying to get a handle on this strangeness. “Then why was he attacking everyone?”

The kirlia blinked confusedly. “He...wasn’t attacking anyone.”

“That’s certainly inaccurate,” I retorted, remembering his sweeping tail over my head. “He tossed his gigantic flippin’ tail at me and...” I tried different subtle movements with my mouth before I gave up on trying to remember his name. “...The granbull! And why’d he try to block off all of the entrances?”

My curiosity must have been either annoying or intimidating, but she showed no sign of reacting to either as she thought about my answer for mere moments. “I assume he showed up in the first place because the fight between the halves of the rhyhorn herd was out of control, and, well, he lives there so he probably didn’t want his home to be destroyed at all, and similarly, he does not want an outbreak of violence. The tail could very well have been a mistake as he was turning around, and perhaps he blocked off the tunnel entrances so that the separate parties of enemies couldn’t return to the room and resume fighting, or pursue the enemy through another tunnel.”

“Yeah, I...guess that makes sense...but when me and the granbull were the only ones left in the cavern, he still blocked my path! And then I was told to run, so what’s up with that?”

“Does she look like an alakazam?” the rock and ground type shot from the other wall, and I sneered at him, not bothering to credit his speech with a response.

The kirlia looked as if she waited until she was sure nobody was going to speak before she addressed my concern. “Perhaps he wanted you to remain in the cavern so he could help with your wound, if he had any means of doing so,” she said, and to that I froze.

“...What?” I went through my mind, detailing my experience since then and how my wound had worsened due to the actions I took. “But...the boulder he threw could have crushed me. And...”

“Maybe Derino told you to run because he thought you should catch up with one of us, so you could leave the tunnels quicker, not knowing why Undol was blocking your path. It’s possible he even attacked him to gain his attention, as sometimes the steelix has trouble hearing, especially in such a loud environment. Similarly, he would have first tried his tactics to gain your attention before speaking, which would be why he did not stop to address you and explain himself. That is his way.”

I stilled myself, processing her words and shaking my head slowly. I couldn’t believe this... The pokémon who I figured was my enemy was actually trying...to help me? I found the prospect unbelievable. I didn’t know what had happened or why he attacked us...and I dearly hoped that he didn’t want to help me for fear of feeling like an idiot for not realising, but also hoping that he was, in fact, friendly as the kirlia explained. If he was, then Derino, as she mentioned his name was, who would, would be okay.

Biting my lip, I turned away and strolled towards the entrance to the tunnel. I peered through and spotted nothing but a passage, silence overcoming me as the wound burned with consistency and my spine reminded me that it was also injured. I assumed I had countless other wounds as well, but I wasn’t ready to address them, and nor were they imperative enough to gain my attention. Discovering how much suffering my body was enduring would probably only make matters worse in the current situation, as I had no way to help them.

I stared into the growing darkness of the passageway, hoping that it was cooler than the room we had just traversed. Perhaps the cold would help to soothe my pain.

***

After a long discussion with the small group of rhyhorn, Azure and Tarla had come to the conclusion that the best and most appropriate way was not to collapse the ceiling, as some of the more ambitious – and, as Azure thought, unintelligent – rhyhorn suggested, but for the glaceon to project a rather flat bridge of ice across the enormous opening to the other side of the room, where the land started up again. When discussing where the void could possibly lead, Thunderquake had suggested that it probably ended somewhere in a large room deeper underground, possibly where one would unfortunately have immense trouble getting out of.

Although the bridge had been wide, it was more than difficult for Azure to produce. She didn’t permit herself to use a simple move such as ice beam to craft something that needed to firstly be level on top, but also wide enough. Instead she had to launch ice shards into the other side of the wall which was used to support what she planned to lay on top. Icy wind helped to chill the air, and it was only then that she used ice beam to create a solid bridge, first lining the far cliff and then extending on it until it finally met with the rock face she was standing by. It was not entirely flat, but she believed that the imperfections would serve as foot holes and small barriers. She was asked to make walls for it, but her energy was rapidly depleting, and was hardly able to make a short “fence” in either side.

It was a popular request that she test it, and although Tarla had been extremely wary and worried for her, she made it across without slipping. Tarla assumed that her paw pads were specifically designed for icy terrains, as she had perfect traction the entire way across. When the bird pokémon herself had gone, she found that her toes and claws were extremely slippery and she had to use her right, uninjured wing several times to steady herself, understanding that she could only begin falling to the right, as her injured left wing could not save her if she toppled the other way.

Eventually all that were coming with their party were able to cross, although awkwardly and not without losing one of the geodude. The rhyhorn often went too slowly to fall, and although the glaceon had been excessively afraid that one of them would prove to be too heavy for her makeshift bridge and splinter a weak point, the ice had been solid and stiff, and if only one rock type passed at a time, there were no weight problems. The geodude, however, had been unable to grip the edge and merely slipped straight off. The thought continuously haunted the ice type as she trudged solemnly alongside her fellow colony member, traversing a tunnel that supposedly led somewhere useful.

The tunnel had come a room filled with low-set stalactites, and they were each forced to weave between the points and avoid being pricked. Azure’s shoulder suffered one such injury, and a few times, a rhyhorn had to smash one of the hanging stone pikes in order to fit past. Tarla was always nervous when it happened, as she was irrationally afraid that every spike in the room would come crashing down. Some of them were short and easy to pass under, and it was those ones she grew wary of. Luckily no such thing had happened, and they instead curved with the room to the right before popping into a tunnel that they knew was directing them somewhat east.

It wasn’t long before the passages exampled that they had a mind of their own and began to split into several side tunnels which chose assorted directions, and the group of around twelve pokémon weaved their ways through the maze-like arrangement of tunnels before, finally, they had come into a rocky pass that bore a small pool and boulders. The walls were rippled and the floor was scattered with imperfections in both forms of lumps and indents which varied in sizes. There was an odd glow from somewhere which illuminated the passage in an odd florescent green glow, and although Azure and Tarla had no idea where it was coming from or how it was green, they assumed that perhaps a light source from somewhere had moss covering its entrance, or maybe that was the colour light became underground.

Finding it a pointless waste of thought, Azure shook her mind from it and tried again to focus on something that didn’t remind her of the geodude incident. The imagery was clear in her mind: the rock type casually sliding himself across the ice, using his arms to propel him when he put his hand down to push himself, but the rock merely slipped, and he jerked to one side. His body simply bumped over the small side fence Azure had tried to create, and frantically he grasped at the bridge’s edge. His hands slipped anyway...and he dropped straight down.

Nothing could impede his fall as he vanished through the void in a mess of desperate requests for help. Nobody in the cavern was able to do a thing, however, and although Tarla was blamed for not flying after him, Azure knew that even if she could have flown, the weight of the geodude’s body possibly exceeded her limit. She knew that she herself was heavier than a geodude as well, and if she was the one who slipped, then the altaria might have been unable to save her too. Then again, she did not know the extent of the pokémon’s abilities. Nevertheless, the rock and ground type was not seen again, and she could only imagine that the pokémon could have split when he came in contact with the ground, however far away it was. She felt it natural to blame herself, although she heavily resented such feelings, and tried to convince herself that there was no way to cross and the geodude was the one at fault. As the hours passed and she failed to be rid of the guilt, she wondered if it would ever leave at all.

Simultaneously, she dared the thought that perhaps she didn’t deserve relief. However absurd the thought may have been, she questioned it seriously. Thankfully she stopped paying the issue attention when the cave took her, and she examined the walls with notable interest. Tarla was showing a similar level of curiosity as they both scanned the walls and approached the pole, eagerly lapping up the cool water once they deduced that it was safe. Halfway through, the group began to swarm to where they were, obviously interested in drinking some for themselves. After Azure and her fellow colony member were finished, they began to travel on, wondering what lay beyond. Azure quietly wondered to herself if they were close to the exit, but had no interest in exchanging conversation with the rock types. Luckily she didn’t have to.

“Um,” Tarla began, trying feebly to get the rhyhorn’s attention. “Does a room like this mean that we’re close to exiting the tunnels?”

Thunderquake was the one to look up. “It does not take one sign to determine that,” she grunted, and then returned to her water.

Tarla raised her brow and moulded it into a frown before facing Azure again. “Apparently they don’t know.”
The glaceon turned away, less than interested in what the rock types had to say. She observed the walls surrounding the pond, which dipped in and thus was a small half-cylinder before the walls levelled out again, and observed the rippling mint reflecting off the surface. It was almost enchanting, and as if the walls themselves were made of water. It didn’t take long before she tore away, however, and looked to the end of the room. She tried scenting the air for any hint as to how close they were to the mountains, if that was even possible, but, as she expected, nothing came to her nose and she was left to clench her teeth in angst.

She was tired of being cooped up underground, even if it had been less than a day, and dearly hoped that she wouldn’t have to spend the night inside it. She could only imagine that odd creatures would emerge from their sleeping spots and attack. As she glanced to the shaft of light peeking through a hole up above, the length of which was quite long, she questioned whether or not they would be able to see once the light was completely blocked out. That alone was reason enough for her to want to escape the underground maze-like prison, and she was already beginning to miss the smell of grass and the fragrance of flowers. On top of that, she was growing hungrier, and she craved meat, the likes of which she hadn’t tasted in days.

She felt herself begin to shake with the thought of spending the night in the tunnels or caverns; she found it suspicious that they hadn’t run into any predator pokémon already, and wondered if they had been lying in wait the entire time, ready to strike but waiting for the right moment. All the while, their beady eyes were fixed on their group, laying a large target on their backs in their ignorance. Because of such feelings, she constantly turned around and checked behind, hoping there was nothing there but realistically being unsure.

She flicked her head up beside her, where Tarla stood. She was tall and proud, and somehow, being significantly taller than her gave Azure reassurance for some type of safety. Relaxing, she breathed a sigh. “Tarla, I...don’t know how much longer I can take this.”

The altaria glanced to her, an expression of bored contentment splashed across her face. “What do you mean?”
For a moment Azure was hesitant to admit to fear, or even anything that she was unsure about, and was about to blow it off when she responsively blurted, “The caves make me anxious.” The way her mind had chosen to word it for her, she figured, wasn’t too bad, so she left it how it was.

She waved a suspicious glance about. “I’m not too fond of them either. I can’t understand how anyone can live down here.” She didn’t meet the glaceon’s eyes as she surveyed the room in dissatisfaction. “No fresh grass, not enough light...no trees...” She gave her head a brusque shake. “Well, at least we know where to come if we ever have to dispose of any bodies.”

The glaceon turned to her, a little shocked, as the altaria casually reassigned her line of sight to the glaceon. The quadruped’s eyes were questioning enough and Tarla needed no longer to chortle and respond that she was only joking. The glaceon, normally aware of when words and phrases were serious or not, was confused at herself for taking the bird pokémon so literally. Embarrassed, she tore away from her fellow colony member and approached the entrance to the next tunnel, which, in comparison to the lit room, looked as shadowy as a gengar.

A little agitated, the ice type whirled around and addressed the rhyhorn from across the room. “Are you planning to break any longer?” Before allowing them to respond, she quickly added, “I think we should get moving as soon as possible.”

“What’s the rush?” a rhyhorn questioned, his face moulded by the patient befuddlement that riddled his tone.

“We are in no way interested in delaying your dismissal, glaceon, but taking the time to rest could ultimately save you the trouble of wounds you would have acquired if you were too weary to otherwise avoid.” Thunderquake only looked at her while speaking and then decided to return to the pond. “Resting is a tactic.”

Azure snorted, gritting her teeth. She couldn’t help but wonder how quickly the sun would be sinking soon, as the rays of light shining though the hole were of a faint orange hue, and soon strengthened in colour, bouncing off the walls and mingling with the green to create a strange brownish colour in some places. She seethed at the thought of remaining in such a dank and despicable place any longer. She was growing more and more nervous, imagining actually getting wounds and being unable to find treatment for them. Immediately she thought of Dusty, and feared a wound like hers. It looked horrendous, and the glaceon found herself willing to do nearly almost anything to avoid such a fate.

She felt an odd sense of calm suddenly flow into her as the altaria followed past her and sat her fluffy mass beside a wall, right near where the entrance to the next section was. Azure searched for her anxiousness where she thought she would find it and only dug up a little, hesitant to reach deeper in case she uncovered more than she could handle, and stood, watching the sitting pokémon. Around her, the odd emerald light untouched by orange cast a blanket of colour on her which did not match her pelt at all, and the walls, looking almost moist, were probably going to make her feathers glue themselves together.

In the midst of the unconscious observation, Azure realised that, amongst all the unfamiliarity, the altaria was someone she had known for years. They never particularly spoke to one another, but their respect for the other was mutual, and for that the glaceon was thankful. They shared a general colony bond, but even that was enough in a place so frightening and questionable, and she was suddenly grateful to have the altaria by her side.

Breathing calmly through her nose, the glaceon padded leisurely to the flying type and lay beside her. Tarla flashed her a stiff smile and the glaceon summoned one in response, understanding that the gesture was probably made to encourage comfort. She had never known that side of the altaria, but she was just glad it existed at all.

When the rhyhorn deemed it suitable to start moving, Tarla and Azure were more than happy to move off at the same time. Azure had grown impatient and resolved to taking a nap, although she knew that Tarla kept herself awake, and had been woken when Thunderquake made the decision to press on. She wouldn’t have waited for her if she didn’t claim to know the way out, or understand a vague direction in the least, but considering she did, she knew she would have to suffer the wait until they were able to move off all at once. She had complained a little to Tarla, but knew the altaria was hardly interested in discussing it, and for good reason, she assumed.

The tunnels they travelled through and the caverns they spilled into didn’t differ much from one another, and, in fact, Azure thought they looked the same. Tarla briefly agreed, although she was able to differentiate a little better. Thankfully they came across another pool of water that dipped out from under one of the cave walls and they managed to drink from that, and although Azure wasn’t sure where it had come from, she assumed it was probably a part of another lake.

It was obvious that it had become nighttime when they finally emerged from the caves. Azure beamed with joy and scuttled about the place, having emerged into a tiny clearing which was surrounded by rock of great height about her. It was surprising to see that there were more caves around her, and as she observed them on her left and right, she realised something. They weren’t completely out of them yet. The only paths to take were ones back through tunnels, and with a heavy heart and newfound disappointment, she groaned, flopping down on the ground and resting her chin upon the thin grass. When Tarla emerged from behind her, she didn’t bother looking back.

“Come on, Azure. It’s not that bad. Take it in and then we’ll keep going.”

The glaceon only huffed and remained still, clearly uninclined to move at all. “I don’t wanna.”

Tarla pressed her break together as she heard the rhyhorn from behind draw nearer. “The sooner you get up, the sooner we’re out outta here. I don’t like these rotten caves either!” She craned her neck, feeling a little strain from the wing. “Bird pokémon aren’t meant to live underground.” She kept her head still, watching the clouds pass by before they were blocked out by the walls of rock. As much as she hated to admit it, the underground caves and tunnels only reminded her further of the fact that she was incapable of flight. A flying type would never once consider life underground, unless their other type warranted them to, but the thought of making a home beneath the surface disgusted her. She wasn’t sure how ground types did it, let alone her kind, who were not at all designed for such a thing.

Azure, seeming not to notice a shred of her colony mate’s pondering, gave a sigh and slowly pulled herself up. The rhyhorn shortly caught up to them and passed them, and at that, the glaceon felt herself growl. She knew she had caused that, and told herself that she planned from then on to focus. As the altaria had stated, the sooner she got going, the faster she would get to the mountains. “We’re already in the mountains,” Azure added, for some reason only just registering the information for the first time.

Tarla slid out of her thoughts and gave a brief nod. “That’s what I meant. If we keep going, we’ll escape the caves quicker and pop out somewhere else. Judging by the fact that we wound up here, in the middle of this small clearing out of the caves on this cliff, I’m going to say that the tunnels from here on out will be much shorter than the ones we just crossed through.”

The eevee evolution considered her statement and agreed before setting off, the altaria behind her. The latter lingered a little longer to absorb the sight of the sky and yanked a few strands of grass from the ground to swallow before she moved off.

***

“Do you think we’re getting any closer?” questioned Etire, who walked between the group of four pokémon. When nobody responded, he narrowed his eyes a little. “...Anyone?”

“I don’t know,” Maka sighed, clearly failing to rely on memory. Instinct was another thing, but it seemed just as unreliable. “If we just keep walking this way...”

“Well this better end soon,” the houndoom grumbled, fitting behind the rhyhorn and krinar as he attempted to keep his balance. They were crossing a narrow bridge with water on either side, and judging by the rank smell, it did not have anywhere to flow. It had properties that frightened off even Splash, who didn’t dare enter, which was also concerning. He had screwed up his face – the first sign of proper emotion Maka and Zaion had seen on him before – and refused to enter it at all. The rhyhorn and houndoom had no initial interest to enter anyway, so they ruled out the possibility even before they knew how wretched it smelled.

“Does anybody know what’s actually wrong with it?” Etire questioned, clearly out of ideas himself. Zaion lifted his head with a particular expression.

“Really? You can’t guess?” he chuckled, a little baffled by the pokémon’s inability to understand. When Etire shrugged, a little offended, and tried to back himself up by stating that he wasn’t a genius and was better with his body than his mind, Zaion gave a small snort of amusement. “It’s infested with faeces. You know...crap.”

“What?” the krinar questioned, stopping to turn around and express his bewildered expression. He felt his cheeks redden, clearly embarrassed by his failure to pick up on it. “Uh, well...umm...whose faeces?”

“Whoever lives here,” the houndoom responded, and although he hadn’t meant to be ridiculing, he noticed that it was exactly how his words turned out. “Look up there,” he advised, indicating the endless opening up above them. “It’s some giant space from the floor above, however far away that is, where pokémon clearly live. This water has nowhere to go and nowhere to come from, so it sits here, infecting itself with whatever gets dumped in there.” He cringed at the thought of his mental image, and tried not to illustrate his words.

“That’s disgusting...” Etire groaned after some thought, and Zaion raised his brow with a few nods.

“No kidding.”

Suddenly a whooshing sound met their ears. With alarm, Maka froze, causing those behind her to halt as well. Splash stopped last, being at the back of the line, and stood placidly while the others looked frantically about. None of them spoke as the sound grew louder, and it soon became apparent that something was falling from above.

With a flick of shock, Etire spotted some sort of tiny dot which expanded until it was nearly upon them. As he stared up, watching it approach, he realised that it was about to fall to their right, narrowing missing them, and land in the pool. Gritting his teeth and calling out in surprise, he watched as the boulder did just that, plunging into the water and creating an enormous wave to rise from its depths and loom over them.

All four let loose a cry of surprise and discomfort – except for Splash, whose call was a happy “Quaaag!” – as the dirty water splashed over them all with a powerful force. Splash, Etire and Zaion tumbled off the ledge and into the water, the latter two gasping for breath as they fought to remain above the waterline. Splash disappeared below the surface and rapidly tunnelled his way to the other end of the pool, leaping out of the water and shaking off on land. Etire struggled, his style of swimming inadequate and unable to keep him properly afloat, and was evidently weighed down by the consistency of the water. The houndoom managed to make his way to the shore and haul himself up, shaking violently as he fought to rid himself of the disgusting substance caking his coat.

“A little...help!” Etire gurgled, keeping his mouth shut afterwards. Zaion glanced at him, highly uninterested in going after him.

Maka’s attention was placed elsewhere, however, as she stared into the pool on her right, where the presumed boulder had fallen. Her heartbeat was rapid as she searched the waters from above with her eyes, unable to see past the floating muck which had separated in places. “Help, guys,” she began, somewhat desperate. She whirled around to Zaion and Splash, the former of whom a little surprised at her reaction.

“He can get out himself,” the houndoom responded coolly, glancing quickly to Etire, who was slowly floating to the edge with a knotted brow.

Maka’s eyes widened in some form of outrage. “Not him,” she began harshly, gesturing to the pool she was turned towards. “The geodude who fell! He’s probably drowning in there!”

“What?” Zaion questioned quietly, his disbelief prominently showing. “A geodude? ...Wasn’t it a—”

“It wasn’t a boulder, and doesn’t matter why he fell,” the rhyhorn shouted. “What matters is his survival, and I can’t go in there after him or I’ll suffer the same fate.”

“So will I,” he answered roughly, completely unsure how to resolve the problem. Tentatively he turned to Splash, who was watching the situation with subdued contentment. He had no idea if Splash would listen to him if he told him to swim in after the geodude, or even if he would make it back up to the surface, and made the decision to try anyway. “Splash, you need to do what I say.” He glared at the quagsire, who didn’t even face him. His hopes of conveying a message, and before the geodude drowned, were beginning to dwindle. “You need to go in after that geodude. He’ll drown if you don’t; you’re the only one out of us who can swim properly, and if you don’t think you can do it...you can at least try.”

He held his breath and stared at the quagsire, who still only just stood in place. When Etire shouted out to him, finally at the shore, the quagsire didn’t meet his eyes. Maka was beginning to feel desperate as she dug her claws firmly into the ground, her large jaws compressing and her eyes fogged by the unease and fear she felt for her fellow rock type. She had explained the nature of a situation entailing a rock type in water to her travelling companions earlier, and shook her head firmly at the idea that someone before her might have to live it. It was a reality she had never seen, only heard about, and instantly she knew that it was a reality that was closer to being real than she had ever expected. Before now, it had simply been a tale – a horrifying one she didn’t doubt the credibility of – and had not imagined it would happen to anybody she knew.

Time was running out, and the rhyhorn could do nothing but stand and stare. “Splash...” She flicked her head to him, and to her surprise, managed to catch his eye. “He’ll die.”

For an unspoken reason, the quagsire’s mouth closed and for the first time, Maka saw a flash of emotion. He frowned. Following his frown was his quick blunder to the waterhole and then his disappearing form, hardly splashing water as he entered. The krinar, who pulled himself ashore from the other side of the pool and yanked his feet from the water, glanced to Zaion, who was staring, shocked, at the pool to his left and the rhyhorn’s right. He couldn’t quite fathom why the water and ground type had listened to her at all.

Maka hardly appeared surprised, but was instead focused on what lay before her. She waited in anticipation, the same as the others, for the result of Splash’s endeavour. She hoped desperately that he would reappear with the boulder-like pokémon in his hands, and suddenly wondered how deep the pool was. If it was too far down, Splash might not have been able to lift the geodude to shore. She remembered, however, that everything was apparently lighter in water, and hoped that the aid it could give would make it notably easier.

A few seconds later, the quagsire emerged, the geodude in his strong paws’ grip. The boulder-like pokémon was immobile and his limbs dangled from his body. The only sign of hope she had was his closed eyes, figuring that if he hadn’t made it, there was a chance his eyes would have been open. As she watched, the pokémon was laid upon the shore and Splash hauled himself out, shaking off and sprinkling the nearby ground with dirty droplets. The houndoom stayed back for that very reason, and presumably when he deemed it safe, he raced to the rock type’s side.

“What’s the status?” questioned Maka as she neared the geodude, speaking specifically to Zaion but allowing room for anybody listening to respond. That was only the krinar, who hobbled over shortly after.

“I don’t know,” the houndoom blurted, unsure how or what to diagnose. He tried examining the body from the outside, but a physical state was yet undetermined.

“Does anybody know what to do?” Maka asked a little desperately, hoping there would be a sudden suggestion or knowledge for what to do. She had no idea what specifically she and the others would do for him, but figured that, in time, they would either learn or...accept whatever fate may befall the stranger. She nudged him with her nose, acknowledging but trying to ignore the stench that wafted from his solid form, and rolled him over. His arms flopped lazily as his mouth separated, and she cringed, noticing some of the disgusting waste water trickle in through the sides of his mouth.

Wasting no time, the houndoom drew his head back and summon crackling flame before expelling it from his jaws, dousing the geodude instantly. The response was not immediate, but Maka’s shock was, and before she could tell him to call it off, the rock pokémon began to stir and slipped from his unconscious state with coughs, splutters and an absent set of waves from his arms.

“What!” was all he managed, his eyes looking about in confusion. The fire cleared from his sight and he began to absorb his surroundings. His reaction was to straighten out his arms, his mouth ajar with surprise before he hopped a few paces away, in the direction the mob was heading. He quickly realised that there were rises in the earth further on, and understood that he was unlikely to escape in the event that he would need to.

Maka, noticing his response, captured his glance and spoke to him slowly. “We won’t harm you, friend.”

The geodude watched her intently, scanning her up and down before stopping on her eyes again. “If you do, then you’re stupid.” He waited a moment before switching to the houndoom.

“I would say ‘let’s try this again’ and have you thank me for waking you up, but I think your mind has been made,” he shrugged, either uninterested in trying to convince the rock type, or simply didn’t care about gratitude.

There was no reply from the geodude before the krinar spoke up. “Hey, you really should thank him. And him.” He nodded to Splash, who stood contentedly, not looking at anything specific. The geodude followed Etire’s eyes and stopped upon the quagsire, clearly noticing something amiss.

When he didn’t respond, Zaion heaved a patient sigh and turned toward the other end of the cavern. He said nothing as he strolled away, and tentatively, Maka headed on after him once she thought she had stood on the spot long enough. She eyed the rock type as she passed him, as did Etire, who followed. The stranger was left to sit, appearing to be mulling things over in his mind.

“He was grateful,” Maka muttered grudgingly once she caught up with Zaion. Splash and Etire dawdled behind, although the latter had a reason to do so. “And after all that concern I wasted on him.”

“It’ll probably pay off,” the houndoom predicted, shrugging a little. “What’s the bet he’ll come running back – well, hopping back – in, what...ten seconds?” He added that her concern would have given him something to consider, but the rhyhorn was a little sceptical.

“Really?” she uttered bluntly, and the houndoom shrugged, nodding his head coolly.

“In four...three...two...one...” He lowered his head as he progressed.

Silence invited another voice, but when none came, Zaion was left to listen to the emptiness of the room, filled only by the pattering of the four pokémon’s feet. A little disappointed by his failed prediction, he scowled. “Well, it was worth a try.”

The rhyhorn eyed him a little strangely before sighing and glancing behind, watching the dumbfounded – or just rude – geodude whose body was still glued to the floor. He merely watched them go, possibly a little lost for what to do himself.

“Hey,” Etire called from shortly behind, earning the attention of the rhyhorn and houndoom. He laid his eyes on the former. “Isn’t that geodude from your herd? I haven’t seen any living here so it seemed weird that this guy might be on his own.”

Maka’s expression hardened, but she slowly shook her head. “I don’t recognise him. He evidently didn’t know who I was either, so...maybe he was from another part of the clan that I didn’t converse with.”

Etire made a noise of acknowledgement and frowned a little, figuring that he must have somehow been right. Maka was a little disheartened by the fact that the geodude had not been grateful, especially if he was from her clan, although she couldn’t say that ingratitude hadn’t been shown to her before, but had also not been expected in this situation. She figured she would be best just to forget the situation instead of waste thought on it.

After a time of travelling, the four encountered slopes and rises time and again, and Zaion wondered if they were finally being led to the surface. The thought had flashed to his mind a few times, and he was indeed excited by the prospect, which seemed a likely outcome. If they were low enough down to be at the receiving end of a falling geodude, then they were obviously not at the highest level in the caves. It left room for many more floors, any of which he knew could lead them out.

At one point, the tunnel was a spiralling ramp ascending to the top floor above, which they reached and met with several paths. It was difficult choosing one that all three agreed on – as Splash was content to follow any of them without question – and much of the time, two were in agreement while one opposed. Democracy was condoned by Zaion but loathed by Etire, who believed that a physical fight had a better chance of achieving a resolution. However, when the houndoom asked him to test that theory, the pokémon remembered his injuries and withdrew his statement.

Eventually the time came when the cavern brightened significantly, as previously, the fire type was required to use his flame to light the way. The exercise did get tiring, and he was glad for some natural light. However, the presence of light wasn’t just comforting and convenient—it meant they must have been near an opening of some kind, such as a window or, if they were lucky, a way out. Once voicing his opinion and hearing the others groan and nod in response, he cleared his throat and began looking about the room. Obscured at first by a stalactite was a small hole in the ceiling which let in a considerable amount of light in a blocky shaft, which he could see as he passed under it, and called his companions over to see for themselves.

Etire was the last to arrive, and when he looked up, his face brightened. “Does this mean we’re close to the surface? Finally?”

“Do not be deceived,” Maka warned, and the other two looked at her in concern. The comment made it sound as if she had experience with similar things.

“What do you mean?” the psychic and fighting type questioned.

“Just because there’s an opening here, it doesn’t mean we’ll suddenly find our exit.” She threw her head to the opposite end of the room. “We have no choice but to keep moving, but try not to get your hopes up.”

“Yeah, but we’ll get out of here at some point,” protested Etire stubbornly, as if keen to gain confirmation from her that escape was at least a possibility. He was a little discouraged at her words, which made it difficult for him to summon the necessary motivation to continue. He knew that he had no choice, as she had mentioned, but he found it easier nonetheless to have a proper goal.

“Duh,” Zaion muttered with a little amusement, keeping his brow raised and his smile freshly tantalising.

Despite the low hopes they had for an escape to meet them quickly, they each continued on, Splash wandering happily behind. The stench from the pool had not worn off, and every now and again, the males would be reminded of their adventures in the rancid water. Maka smelled it as well, but she kept ahead of the group to avoid any directional wafts. Nobody questioned her decision, but it didn’t exactly comfort them. Splash didn’t seem to mind.

“There goes my stomach,” Zaion commented with a shred of humour as a rumble reverberated from his midsection, and immediately the krinar turned to him.

“I am so freaking hungry!” he bellowed, slapping both of his hands to his torso. “Does this place even have food anywhere at all? I haven’t seen a single plant...or fruit. I’m really craving fruit.”

“Fruit,” laughed Zaion in a muffled chuckle. “I need some fresh game between my jaws. It’s what the elite consume.”

A look of questioning crossed the krinar’s face, but he refrained from reacting, as he knew the dark type’s words were a simple ploy to entertain himself with small bouts of meaningless arguing. “Don’t you think an elite pokémon would have gotten us out of here by now?”

“Being elite is not about taking responsibility for everyone else. Besides...” He flashed a sideways smile coated with cruel amusement. “I’m not the one in bits and pieces.”

“This is a battle wound,” argued the krinar in mild outrage, unsure if their banter was friendly or merely minor.

“Should I be sad that I don’t have proof that I survived a bombardment of terrible, horrifying pebbles?”

“Those terrible, horrifying pebbles blocked your way back to the chamber the earthquake chased us out of,” the krinar retorted. “Perhaps they’re the real elite things here.”

“Case of the dreaded pebbles,” Zaion resigned, giving a neutral smile.

Etire was still confused about their argument’s status. He just sighed. “The point is, we should find something to eat.”

“We need to find a way out first,” the rhyhorn reminded him, and he sighed, nodding in agreement. “I have a feeling we’re on the right track...”

“We better be on the right track,” the fighting type muttered. “I don’t want to be stuck in here forever. As delightful as this little underground fieldtrip has been, I have a life to get back to. On the surface.”

“Nonsense,” the houndoom began with an amused scoff. “Your female friend is stuck here too. You got all you need to start an underground clan!”

The krinar was clearly uncomfortable with the statement as he didn’t reply, and Zaion wondered if he should have spoken at all. However, he had said it good-naturedly, and decided that if it was taken as an insult by the recipient, then he couldn’t do anything to change that.

Both males came to a halt when their rhyhorn friend stopped in her tracks. Having not paid much attention, Zaion and Etire shifted their gazes to what occupied the rock type’s attention, which looked to be something small and round. At first they had not a clue for what it could be, but that soon changed when the rhyhorn, extremely curious, moved towards the patterned ball. When she reached out to touch it, it suddenly uncurled, as if one simple touch was all it took to break its composure, and the olive pokémon’s white underside sprawled with it as it stretched out across the ground. Even outspread, the pokémon was only around half the length she was. It posed no immediate threat, as it was unconscious, and Maka stared at it with unknowing eyes. Splash sat contentedly beside Etire while the other three tried to assess the situation, unsure of what to do.

“It’s not...dead, is it?” questioned Etire slowly, and Maka shook her head, eyes still on the sandshrew before them.

“No, she’s...not. She’s just unconscious.” She looked up, her face one of concern. “I think we should try to help her.”

“How?” asked Etire sceptically; he had a feeling that he would have to carry her based on the fact that he had more versatile limbs than the houndoom or rhyhorn. He hoped she would be willing to carry the pokémon on her back instead.

“I’m...not sure, but if there are predators in here, we should bring her somewhere safe.”

“We need to bring ourselves somewhere safe,” added Zaion, and Maka held her breath. “What do you propose we do?”

She looked to Etire. “Lift her onto my back.”

The krinar eyed her for a moment before glancing to the houndoom, then followed her request. Despite the injuries he had sustained, he was able to hoist her up with the help of Zaion’s curved horns, which, given there were two of them, provided suitable support. Once the sandshrew was set upon the rock type’s back, she glanced around, trying to spot her but having trouble due to her intruding armour.

“We don’t even know if we’re close to the end. And that pokémon could weigh you down...” commented the psychic and fighting type, and the rhyhorn focused on the path ahead.

Zaion joined with her gaze. “Now what?”

Without looking to either of her companions, she answered, “We continue.”


---------

FINALLY. That's all the chapters so far. xD Remember, if you read this, PLEASE leave a comment so I know! :D Thank you for reading!

[Dragon Master Mike]

How did i not notice this was here sooner. I just read chapter one. Oh my god. It is amazing. So much detail. Now i really want to read more, but im too tired. I like, really want to know what the Golem was talking about now. I will continue reading at some point in the near future.

[Suicune's Fire]

O:! I'm not sure! It was pushed back to the next page before I decided to post all the chapters. XD Thank you so much! <3 I'm so happy you enjoyed it! XD No worries. x) YOU WILL FIND OUT. ONE DAY. lel.

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR READING I LOVE YOU AND DON'T WORRY I STILL PLAN TO READ YOUR 18 STORY IN FACT I SHOULD DO IT TODAY.

[Dragon Master Mike]

This. I just read to chapter five. Great. I cant say i was expecting what happened. (For those who have not read to chapter five yet but are reading this comment, spoiler alert) When Dusty regained consciousness at the side of the lake, i was so confused at what was happening. I was going over all sorts of ideas in my head: Was Dusty dead? Was she dreaming? Was it actually the completely rational explanation of the Pokemon dragging Izante away? I kept reading and was very surprised to see what actually happened. I'm surprised that it took her until chapter 5 to start shooting fire at the guys. If i were in her position the guy who tried to poke her wouldn't have been bitten, he would have had his arm burnt off. I will continue reading this regularly until i finish.

[Suicune's Fire]

OOOOOOOOOOOOO: I'M SO EXCITED YOU'RE READING MY STORY ADJIXNLHERAMCJGIJER;GAJ <3 You have a long way to go. XD And lol...you'll find out why it took her and left Dusty. xD And yeah, that's a good point. She really should have kicked it up earlier. xD Glad to see you reading it and THANKS! <3 Hope it remains entertaining for you! xD

[Dragon Master Mike]

This... Just gets better and better! I was so hooked, the only reason i'm stopping now is because its 11:30 and i'm really getting tired. I just read up to chapter 9. Every chapter seems to give me more questions about what's going on than it does answers. At the part with Sed, it was so sad, I actually had to stop reading for a minute. I couldn't even finish the chapter without taking a break after reading it. Also, I REALLY want to know what was going on with Izante and the Persian! I have a feeling it has something to do with... Uh.... What was it called? Whatever it was the Umbreon was talking about. I actually have to go back and look to get the name.... "Monogatari Karei." That's what the Umbreon said. I guess i will find out as i read.

[Suicune's Fire]

WOW THANKS! I love hearing your thoughts! XD And I also love how it gives you more questions than answers. And nah, the Monogatari Karei was just something specific to the umbreon, and has nothing to do with the story, really. xD He was a guest star of someone who...I think is on this site, but was on Pe2k. xD And yeah, Sed. :C WELL I HOPE YOU KEEP ENJOYING YOURSELF. <3