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

[Suicune's Fire]

Chapter Twenty-five: Unearthed

Idiot had told me that the forest’s name had apparently changed when we had suddenly encountered a change in the style. The morning had taken us into the part I had seen from a distance and to its reaches, where the trees were patterned differently, in an interesting and pleasant arrangement, and I found it quite peaceful to walk through. We were nearing the end, however, and the style would soon change. My thoughts didn’t remain on the idea for long though; as I clearly knew, it seemed that most good things were not built to last.

I had resisted the urge to speak with the houndoom at all times since our fight, and it seemed avoidance was becoming a large issue between us. He clearly had no problem with communication between us, but I was simply reluctant to open my mouth at him, unless in a growl or a string of muttered insults he usually didn’t hear.

Regardless, we weren’t exactly friends, and that made it considerably painful to travel with him. I really would have liked to journey with somebody who I actually liked, and it was unfair that I apparently had no choice but to be stuck with him.

“Look.” I turned to him at last, ceasing my walking. He looked up in response, hardly an implication of mischief engraved in his face. “I don’t like having you around. We’ve established that. It just...might be nice if we could get along.”

He cocked the fur of his eyebrow, and that gesture alone, a smug expression to follow, made me clench my jaw in annoyance. “That could be instantly possible.” At the statement I gave a tiny frown of curiosity and then nodded to myself, glad we were in agreement. “If you tried to be nice, maybe.”

I threw him a glare. “Maybe I could be if I found it possible to like you.”

“What’s not to like?” he asked, placing himself behind me and sitting on his haunches, spine straight. He reached a foreleg out a little ways and modelled his other front leg in a similar fashion, holding still. I bit my bottom lip, trying to conceal the laughter that would have bubbled from my mouth had it not been that infernal houndoom displaying such ridiculousness. It was obviously intended; his face was a permanent neutral expression with a hint of mock seriousness.

I pretended to be unfazed and flicked my head with clear disregard, moving my legs again as I walked away. “That’s right,” I said as I passed him, “beg for my approval.”

“Begging?” I heard him ask, and to the surprised comment, I allowed my lips to bend up into a sly smile. “This isn’t begging.” The notion of his pride becoming wounded was of utmost amusement, as was his reaction to my meaningless remark. I heard the soft thud of his paws touch the ground, accompanied by the sound of dried leaves separating. He paused before bounding toward me and stopping by my side. “Do you seriously think that was begging? Because it wasn’t,” he added, as if keen for clarification. I didn’t respond at this, however, and merely kept walking, internally smug as I tried not to let it show on the outside. “This is begging.” To my surprise, the dark and fire type snaked from my left and rolled out in front of me, curling his paws in and poking out his bottom lip while eying me with a sadness that was difficult to take seriously.

I jerked with the laughter I forced down, reluctant to embrace it while he looked. As amusing as I found the gesture, and after realising he hadn’t taken my remark to heart at all, instead deciding to play on it, I knew that making him believe it was funny would only encourage him—and that was not what I needed.

I walked around him, padding on as I heard him shuffle and reapproach. “Come on, Flair. I know you thought that was funny. You looked like you were trying to keep fifty bees locked inside your mouth; let ‘em out. Have a bit of fun.”

I inhaled deeply, quelling any remaining laughter, and turned to him. “You think I should have a bit of fun, do you?”

The houndoom gave a shrug-like dip of the head in agreement “I think you need to loosen up a bit, yeah. You’re tense. You look like you couldn’t enjoy yourself even if you were confined to an empty theme park with fully operational rides.”

I turned to him curiously, surprised he knew what such a thing was. For a wild pokémon living in the absence of a trainer, I would have thought such knowledge was not available. However, I avoided touching on the subject simply because I wasn’t curious enough. “Being given an entire theme park, unless it brought back my trainer, would be useless to me.” I reasoned after the statement, adding, “Well, I’d have my fun first, and then I’d deem it useless. I mean, I’d have to employ human or able-bodied pokémon to do repairs, to run the ticket booth, operate the rides –” I paused to throw a glare of obviousness his way “– they don’t work on their own. To clean up the vomit, maintenance... That’s too much work for one flareon.”

“Well, don’t look to me for upkeep. I’d do my own and that’s it,” he explained heartily.

“Have no fear,” I clarified plainly, raising my brow at him, “I wouldn’t want you on my theme park staff unless you were the only other pokémon alive.”

“So you...would want me?” he inquired, clearly trying to slip thought the loophole in my idea.

“Actually,” I began after considering, “no. I mean, what’s the point in having a theme park all to yourself if you’re the only one there? It would be meaningless to run it ‘cause there’d be nobody there to run it for.”

“Well, there are still two left,” corrected the dual type, and I shrugged, shaking my head.

“It’s too much effort to manage for just a single customer, though.” I stepped on a rock, momentarily elevating myself before stepping off it.

“You’d be allowed to go on it as well.” He flashed me a grin.

I glanced to him with a scoff and a brow pressing down on my eyes accompanied by a knowing smile. “I am the customer. You’re just a worker.”

He chuckled at the comment, bopping his head side to side in recognition of defeat. “I don’t deter from the point—you don’t let yourself have enough fun.”

“I have plenty of fun. Fun is easy to have.” I felt myself growing a little impatient at this point, and I shrugged my shoulders, removing my eyes from his face to instead search the memories lingering in my mind. “Like when...” I continue to shake my head in little movements, relatively blank. “Like, um...”

“When I had to save you from those enraged sandslash?” he questioned, his overbearing annoyingness returning.

I pinched his eyes with a glare. “Yeah, I’d forgotten how much fun that was,” I responded with evident sarcasm, adopting a lowered condescending tone conveying striking obviousness. “Like... Well, I...”

“Maybe when you almost fell into that raging river. Before I saved you, of course. It was a long drop.”

“Oh, shut up,” I growled, still unable to detect a moment over the past few weeks, the separation with my trainer. The notation sort of surprised me. Sure, it was true that I had been in some bleak situations, but surely there had been some moments of enjoyment. “Well, I...guess I had more fun with Master than anything...”

“You had a trainer?” he asked, nearly as if it was a statement and not a query.

Silence ran cold between us, and it was a while before I could look at him. “I did...do...” Before fumbling and tripping over my sentence, I stopped to take a moment to think. “I have a human, yes, and will return to her after...things.”

“Things?” he pressed, keeping his distance.

“YES, things.”

“How can you return to someone after ‘things’?” he wondered, volume low as he presumably tried to solve such a ‘riddle.’

“If you had a brain, you could use it to figure it out.” I gave an agitated huff. “You should consider getting one. I’m sure you can find a contractor around here somewhere,” I sneered. “Or around some human laboratory. I would caution you not to go there if I cared, but, oh, I don’t.” I stopped, dark eyes meeting his. He looked surprised at the harsh remark, and I snorted before continuing. “Why are you still here?”

“You keep asking me, and I’ll keep giving you the same answer,” he shrugged, pacing beside me. “I’m bored. You’re alone and vulnerable.”

“Vulnerable?” I questioned, a little bit offended. Vulnerability had never been something I was overly prone to. I was rather tough on the outside, and was fine with protecting myself. It was not a challenge, provided my opponent wasn’t four times my size and doused in water or some kind of thick armour. As I glanced around, moving my eyes without my head, I came to the conclusion that pokémon fitting that description were not accustomed to calling these sorts of woods their home. “I don’t think that’s your reason.”

“Well, for one, I have knowledge of this area. It’s vaguely mapped out in my mind, unlike you, a pokémon not even from around these parts.”

“Tell me,” I began, flicking to him as we continued to walk, “what exactly were you doing at Boon’s colony? What possessed you to make Zhol and I have to stay there?” I felt like rolling my eyes at the memory of that ridiculous quarrel between two colonies which was easily solved with some brainpower on my sneasel friend’s part.

“I come and go,” he replied, but gave nothing more after that. I decided not to press; any chance to have him silent was one I planned to take.

The walk continued for a time until we ascended a rise that, at its top, overlooked a region becoming snowier as it stretched into the distance. With a sudden jolt, I noticed that we were close to the mountain range. The lands before the base of the great mountains were interesting; some were caved paths between masses of rigid rock, and other parts were regular glades that were surrounded by winter trees. The mountain itself looked somewhat intricate, as I could see from even a distance.

I had never been up a mountain before, and I wasn’t sure what I thought of the prospect. Somewhat frightened, although that would never reach the houndoom’s ears, but simultaneously exciting. I amused myself at the knowledge that the same factor created two coexisting feelings of relative difference in my mind.

“Well this terrain looks...challenging,” I concluded without particular emotion. I hadn’t yet assigned a singular one to form the reaction to what I could see. There was still a lot to cross before we got to the mountain, and at that knowledge I sighed.

“Crossing those fields there will be easy,” he told me, gesturing to the regular tree-less land before the small quarry of rocks shot up from the ground, and further on, changed shape to create some type of maze. “But those rocks... I would chance missing them.”

Past the short-lasted quarry, many of the rocks melded with ones surrounding them, and created a thick expanse impossible to squeeze between. From what I could see, the walls of rock, extending for leagues in all directions but forward, which was a small amount shorter before it reached other lands our side of the mountain’s base, did not look climbable. The only choice was to take the paths through them, which I could see were slicing through in clear paths, but at the same time, looked complicated to follow and dangerous if threatened by rockfalls. The thought returned me to the hunting trip I had been on, and could nearly feel the rapid heartbeat in my chest urging me to rush forward, on high alert for anything that could have fallen upon me and squashed my spine.

The bandages Aemara had wrapped around my leg had mostly slipped off, and only a single one remained on my back ankle, because of travel, but the memory of the small wounds was still present, and made them pulse with reawakening.

“It doesn’t look like we can do that,” I grumbled, waiting a moment before tearing my gaze from the scenery below toward the houndoom. “Hey.”

His eyes flashed to me and he drew his head back, shaking it as he went. “Well don’t ask me! You don’t want my help, remember?”

I felt my belly push out a rather forced breath of air. “If you know a way to cross without having to get through that bit first, then tell me.”

“I might. I might not,” he said, his upper body descending into a stretch. His tail, still elevated by his butt, waved around childishly.

I gave an audible sigh riddled with annoyance and flicked my tail with agitation, the effect much less than that it could have been had it been full, and regrettably less than the dark type’s. “You’re useless,” I growled, taking off down the slope. As I went, he followed humbly, and I wasn’t sure if he was just going along with what I had chosen, or if he planned on breaking off and taking this shortcut he may or may not have had. If he did, I had reason to believe he would tell me.

It took him a moment, but when he was by my side again, he looked at me, failing to get a response. “I don’t believe your pride would get in the way of your self-respect,” he assumed.

“Pride is self-respect,” I responded, and I could tell he wasn’t going to take that for an answer.

“Pride is reputation. Self-respect is knowing that you will waste time and make yourself look the fool for letting your pride obstruct your better judgement. And therefore you choose it before your pride.” He had a good point, but I was unwilling to let him win.

I knew why he was doing this and telling me such things. It was his aim to make me turn away from that dignity which always shot him down and prevented me from listening to him for a reasonable purpose, and give in to him, even if the result helped me more in the end. I wasn’t a stranger to the idea, but I wasn’t entirely fond of it either. I looked up at the path before me, noting the quarry. It didn’t seem too bad...mostly hindering and time consuming. There were also small lakes of ice before even the quarry, and it didn’t appear that there was another way to go in order to avoid them. Even if they were frozen, I hated lakes. I had learned that as a permanent fact after Izante had forced me into one—the whole reason I got into this mess.

Another gruff sigh rumbled in my throat before I came to a gradual stop and clenched my jaws, unable to open them for at least ten seconds while he waited with raised brows and eyelids half closed. “If you have another way, spill it.”

“It’s also much faster,” he informed, and for a moment I thought I must have missed his answer. “They’ll be somewhere between here and the expanse of rock. To catch up to them, it’ll only take this shortcut.”

“What kind of a shortcut is it, exactly?” I demanded, glaring around in an effort to catch sight of it.

A grin licked his chops. “I’ll show you.”

He began again off to the left, pursuing the entrance to this so called “shortcut.” I didn’t want to have to doubt him until I saw it for myself, but something told me that it was the safest way to go. Besides, there was no harm in taking a shortcut. I tried to wonder what he could instead be leading me to, and figured there wasn’t much around this part that would cause terrible consequences. I followed him, and it wasn’t long before we came to a dip in the earth, probably about the size of an average room on the Rockets’ ship.

He dropped down into the ditch, as it was only around two metres to the bottom, and steadied himself as he turned around and waited for me to descend. I didn’t make it down so quickly, however, and instead I tried to edge my way down carefully, my senses alert and my muscles fairly tense. I inched my top half down, trying to ground myself by pressing on the wall only slightly angled, but as soon as my back legs left the surface level and began to clamber at the wall, as the top half of my body was doing, I lost all grip. I skidded along the gravelly wall for a moment, becoming dislodged shortly after and tumbling to the ground.

I released bottled air as I landed on my right side, the earth forcing it from my chest. It took not a second later for breath to return, and once it did, I got to my feet and noted the houndoom holding a bemused expression. “Shut up,” I grumbled, looking around to my right, as that was the direction we needed to go, and where the ditch’s length stretched to before stopping.

I frowned, seeing nothing but the curved wall that came back around me on both sides, curling again to meet some distance behind me. It was as if somebody had captured a humungous kadabra and asked them to use their spoon to dig out a dip in the earth. I shuddered to think how huge that psychic type would have to have been, but dismissed it as soon as I realised I was forming ridiculous stories in my mind.

“So what now, genius?” I growled, spinning around to find him at the other end, behind me, where a gaping opening sat wide-mouthed before us.

“You have a habit of calling me Idiot, and now it’s Genius? Make up your mind, Flair,” he teased, jerking his head at the entrance to what looked like a tunnel.

“It’s headed the wrong way,” I objected flatly, turning to him with expectation for an answer after looking in the opposite direction, to my right, where we realistically needed to go.

“Yeah, that’s the funny thing. You see, there’s this new thing that tunnels do called turning. It means that the tunnels bend to change direction. It’s just so weird!” he blabbed, his tone painfully patronising.

“Ya know, there’s also this weird thing called ‘you’re a jerk’!” I hissed, feeling a sudden urge to throw something heavy at his face. I began to proceed into the tunnel when I stopped myself, my suspended paw not yet with the permission to enter. I peered partway into the underground path, unable to see anything – not even the floor – due to an absence of light. With a wondering thought, I turned around and placed my clouded eyes where I wanted them. “Tell me, genius, how exactly are we supposed to see?”

“See?” he questioned with a bit of a laugh, coming up beside me. “You’re going to provide a flame, that’s how.”

“...Right. While you do what? Oh, hmm, let’s see...nothing? Sounds about right. You get to waltz through there without a care in the world, while I provide the light. Do you know how draining that gets?” a second after the question, I felt somewhat stupid, as he was a fire type. Of course he knew. He saw this in my reconsidering expression and looked to be once again amused, but I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction. “Alright, come on. This is a bet. Fair game of fire breather. Loser has to provide the light.”

His trademark greasy grin wormed its way onto his face. “You’re on, Flair.”

Within an instant, we were both firing flamethrowers directly toward the ground, a little ways from the entrance as we stood side-on. I felt my breath quickly escaping; I hadn’t taken a large enough breath before I’d started, and that was always the loser’s undoing. Determined, I continued to push out a stream of flames, feeling the control for my breathing slipping away; I felt like a deflating balloon, and soon enough, stress in my shoulder muscles became apparent. My fire was weakening, as was the houndoom’s, but it was clear who was to be the victor.

I forced it from my jaws at a steady pace until I could provide it with life no longer, every inch of me screaming for air, and as I cut it off, it felt like an eternity before I drew my next breath. My chest expanded with the welcoming of oxygen, and I could relax, focusing on giving myself air for the next few seconds. I had lost, but the satisfaction came onto the winner’s face when the loser made eye contact. I tried to resist, but as he said nothing, I rolled my eyes and averted them, seeing his smugness as he shrugged, as if he hardly cared about his win. I knew otherwise, however, and whirled around to come face to face with the gaping entrance to the tunnels again. I huffed reluctantly as I continued to regain my breath.

The impending darkness was somewhat daunting after being so used to light surrounding me, even during night hours, when the moon showed its friendly face and lit my way. This, however, was more like some kind of mouth. We would travel down the endless oesophagus and become permanently swallowed food, ripe for digestion in whatever foul liquids happened to impede our way. Anything could have been down there. Reasoning with myself, however, I concluded that the houndoom would not lead me into a death trap. He may have been a tool and an idiot, but I was fairly certain he wasn’t a murderer. Or suicidal.

“Come on,” he urged, trying to hurry me along.

I blew a puff of smoke from my nostrils, waiting another few moments before I sprouted a flame.

***

Trees leisurely sped by as hurried legs powered on. Two lone figures ran through the woods, their statures extremely different to each other as they both avoided uprooted themselves on fallen logs and roots that periodically threatened to block their ways. One, a quadruped, wad reasonably faster than the other, and a more urgent drive pushed the figure through, occasional growls and complaints spilling from the creature’s mouth. The other, quite content with running on two legs as two arms flapped about in a useless accompaniment, was slower and less hurried, giving a strong sense of contrast to the duo.

As they continued on, the tiredness they had accumulated during the night they had barely slept through in an effort to reach their goal increasing, the quadruped narrowed her eyes and continued her focus. The blue fur covering her body shimmered somewhat each time the sunlight caught glimpses of her through the canopy, and highlighted the darker coloured patches patterning her back.

“And then I find out she’s staying with us? I mean, at that point, I didn’t think things could get any worse, and yet...” The pokémon trailed off, clearly conflicted about something. She eyed the ground, barely able to define the details of any leaf or stone that whizzed by, and then looked up to the quagsire beside her, stretched out and tilted like some sort of running weasel. His face held a smile without further complication, his simple eyes set on the road ahead. Not once did he show a sign of response. “Ugh...never mind,” the glaceon growled, turning her gaze back to the road.

It wasn’t long after she had caught wind of that troublesome flareon, who she had been unfortunately sent after to travel with and see safely to the mountains. She had been highly unimpressed with the fact that she had left, as confirmed by the teddiursa child, hours before the assigned time, going directly against the colony leader’s orders. In consequence, the ice type was forced to pursue her and keep a regularly speedy pace, all the while tracking her movements. She was glad she managed to follow the right trail, but what was strange about it was the second scent, which indicated another that had been with her, and likely still was. She knew the scent. She was quite confident about whose it was, yet constantly denied it, trying to pinpoint any sort of reason that houndoom would have for travelling with Dusty but unable to come up with feasible results.

It was not a minute later that an unusual sight popped into view. Distorted undergrowth and blackened trunks made up a small area that was obviously the result of a battle or some kind of disagreement. She hardly found it odd. She was well aware of how annoying that houndoom could get, and figured that if it was him, which she did not find herself doubting – especially due to the strong scent that, she found, was unmistakably his – then it was no surprise that the flareon would have launched into an assault. There had been times when the glaceon herself lost control of her temper, and in almost all situations that he had been in her presence, it was his snide remarks and overall provocative nature that had caused it.

“Figures,” she whispered to herself, hardly pausing as the tiny battlefield showed itself before she left it in her wake, and continued on, the quagsire without a single implication of stopping. “I don’t know why Habib wanted to let her join,” she growled, digging through her mind for answers.

Every time she decided to say something negative about the fire type, however, she was constantly reminded of the one thing that caused her guilt. It was true that she may have been frustrating and possibly not trustworthy, but she had initiative. The glaceon was willing to admit that much, at least, as well as the fact that she had courage. She was unsure if she would have had the gall to do what Dusty had done, especially when it came to the lone act that looped in her mind.

-- --

The flareon threw herself into me, forcing a cry of shock to ring from my throat as we soared for a moment before hitting the deck, her body falling onto mine. I had no idea what had happened until I angled my head, spotting the nearby human with a raised gun, clearly after just firing. For a second I felt a pang of panic wash through me as I visited the possibility that she had been shot.

“MOVE!” she shouted, my legs suddenly finding cause to work. I shuffled from underneath her, my mouth agape in the shock of realisation. Had she just pushed me out the way of a bullet? One that was meant for me? I wasn’t sure, but as another gunshot exploded in the air, a second bullet flew directly past one of her ears and claimed a nick.

The shock took me by surprise, holding me in place as I stared after getting to my paws, disbelieving of what had just happened. I wanted to deny that this flareon, someone who I was sure I had established a mutual dislike with, had just saved my life in possible exchange for hers. I knew she was not mortally wounded, or so my mind told me as I saw no fatal injury or extensive blood. My mind presented strong bewilderment; such an act was in need of repayment. The sheer surprise of the situation was what captured me in its astounding embrace, and as a result, I found myself staring at her, eyes perceiving her in a new light. As someone...possibly trustworthy, and perhaps even capable of earning the title, upon earning it formally, friend.

“Why are you—” she hissed, and paused to moan in discomfort, “—just standing there?!” The question was a good one, but I found myself unable to answer as she sneered and barked, “Get away!”

The severity of the situation caused me to listen to her, and without thinking, I flashed a look of all that bewilderment tangled with very subtle gratefulness, turned and ran, bounding away from what I realised could quite possibly have been the act leading to her demise.

Immediately I regretting fleeing, but it had obviously been what she had wanted, and returning would only cause problems. Instead I quickly came upon Luck, who I had definitely been surprised to see with the flareon when she made the announcement in the crate. I had been entirely oblivious to his capture until that point.

Coming into his view as he swatted a ninjask from the air, I shouted at him, gaining his attention. “It’s Dusty; she’s in trouble! Human, gun; that way,” I panted, jerking my head in the direction I had come. Very quickly he nodded, uttering thanks for my assistance, obviously intending to end the human’s pitiful life. I watched solemnly as he thudded hurriedly away, and hoped with regret for a bundle of things that the flareon would be saved. Although she had initially been an annoyance, this act alone had proven that she was of some worth.

It made me question myself, wondering if I would have done the same if I was in her situation. As painful as it was, each time the question rang throughout my mind, the answer was always no.

-- --

Azure shook her head violently as she and Splash continued, reluctant to admit that she was undoubtedly in debt. What the flareon had done for her – to give her a second chance – was something she had never been taught. Not from the moment her clan rejected her for the odd patterning of her back. They had deemed her some sort of outcast, different, even for something as meagre as different markings. Some believed it was a sign from the Underworld, the mark of something devilish and sinister. For a time, Azure had believed them.

She shook the past from her mind and blinked out any visions clouding her sight, making the decision to focus ahead. Hopefully they would come upon Dusty and her dark type companion soon, but she was willing to bet that they still had a little ways to travel.

Sighing, the glaceon and the accompanying quagsire exchanged not another word for around another hour, by which time she had come to the end of the forest and looked out upon the ranges before the mountain. She disliked the thought of crossing the expanse of multiple terrains, and turned her sights elsewhere, discovering the familiar ditch that she had encountered in the past. She wondered if the houndoom had chosen to take the underground route, and determined by the scorched ground near the entrance that he must have.

In the time that she had known he was with Dusty, she knew that he was doing so in the absence of hostility. Although she probably showed it to him, he had no such intentions, which posed the question: what exactly did he want? He knew he wasn’t welcome within the colony, and Azure in particular condemned him for her own reasons. She knew that showing unnecessary contempt in Dusty’s presence was unwise, however, and came to the conclusion that she and the houndoom would remain silent about private affairs. Hopefully he would agree to the same policy. After all, he probably lacked any desire, as did she, to expose such matters to the flareon. If he wanted to remain friends with Dusty – if they were even that – then he wished to save both himself and the ice type a large portion of strife, he would keep his smart trap sealed. If he would, she would.

Casting the thought momentarily aside, the glaceon slid down the rim of the crumbly wall before pushing off and landing gracefully onto the packed soil. She turned to see the quagsire lie on his side and stretch his arms up before he began rolling down the wall.

Azure scoffed, averting her eyes with embarrassment and hoped that nobody had seen. She cleared her throat and looked back to him as he stood upright once more, a look of placidity gracing his oblivious face. She felt like face-pawing as she heaved a gruff sigh and stalked toward the entrance to the cave, unsure how she would have any hope of seeing in the wretched darkness.

Thinking quietly, she snatched a long branch suitable to be carried in her maw, making sure to angle it to fit as she and her temporary companion slipped inside, hoping soon enough to meet with the two fire types.

***

We had been padding for a short time in silence, my mouth providing the flame and therefore disabling speech, when the houndoom spoke. “Dusty...” It got my attention, but I didn’t turn in case I disturbed the fire. “Who were you fighting back there?”

He presumably saw the frown upon my face as I recoiled a little, unsure what he meant. ‘What kind of a question is that?’

“Back there, when you attacked me.” At this I was not any less confused. He could tell what kind of question I itched to ask and its enhancing tone, and decided to clarify. “You were firing attacks at me, yes, but...you weren’t fighting me. Your mind was elsewhere.”

I blinked, wishing to swallow, but unsure if it would put out the fire or not. ‘Who is he to assume that? He can’t just decide what I’m thinking and what I’m not. He can’t know anything for sure.’

For a moment I wondered why the fire was not yet out; the tiny flame I had spurted wavered weakly in the darkness, as it took constant breath to keep it going, and I quickly reminded myself that it was lucky I could breathe in while, instead of breathing out, simply pushing my cheeks to empty the air already filling my mouth. It lased but a moment, and required concentration, but I was able to maintain an appropriate and much-needed cycle. I wasn’t sure how it would go without this knowledge; perhaps the uselessness of it all would require me to extinguish the flame for a temporary time, and the thought seemed tedious—lighting and then relighting flames was annoying, especially ones that feed only off the heat one provides and the air one pumps into it. It took more effort than one would think. But that was the element of fire in a nutshell. Unpredictable.

He tilted his head, his mouth open as if to say something, his eyes in place and scanning the ground as we walked. “I wonder...who it was that you were fighting. If not me, then someone else that annoys you,” he guessed, and I wanted to cease the fire to tell him that he was pretty much the only one that ground my nerves. Sure, Tarla and Azure, as well as Cupborn, were all variations of irritating, but in their case it was somewhat minor and part of who they were. This pokémon annoyed others on purpose.

‘Who cares who I was “fighting” anyway? I don’t get why this is something he needs to get his precious little tail in a knot over.’ The frown on my face remained as I realised that I didn’t have a way to tell him any of this accurately.

“Maybe it was someone who you’re mad at,” he mused, bringing up his head to walk more casually as he moulded his face into expressions I wasn’t even sure that houndoom could make. “Someone that wronged you horribly.”

I suddenly realised something. He was intentionally saying all this with a mock-curious voice, indicating that he had figured it out a considerable time ago, but didn’t bother to let me know. Instead he played mind games and spoke with a tone making me wonder about his conclusion to the situation. ‘There is NO DOUBT he is the most annoying pokémon ever to enter my life.’

“Someone...that graced the days of your childhood but now haunts the nights in your sleep?”

The words caught me off guard, and I felt a horrible pain in my stomach, as if a beedrill had just shoved a jagged forearm into my gut and twisted. ‘He...he means...’

“Someone you thought you trusted, but doesn’t even reach the title of friend anymore.” His face grew somewhat solemn, still holding that element of playfulness I wasn’t sure was necessary at that moment.

‘Why...do I have to be reminded of this?’ my mind questioned, and my expression hardened, as if a permanent engraving of sadness would forever be carved onto my face. I found it hard to shake the feeling, my expression constantly returning to what it had been not a second before.

“Someone who you thought you were over.”

I suffered a metaphorical blow to the chest and felt my head lower as a reflex, my eyes scraping the soil that approached underneath. “Stop it,” I commanded, more weakness to my voice that strength. Immediately the surrounding area lost its glow, and we were absorbed by the darkness.

Neither of us moved as I remained still, my shoulders up by the sides of my head, my mane failing to provide its usual comfort; I recognised it as prickly and intrusive. My tail only felt wrong, the weight not nearly enough as it pathetically sagged from my rear end. We both stayed in silence as the thoughts hung heavily in the air, invading my mind and probably resting harmlessly on his.

“Don’t...not again.” I kept my gaze fixed on the ground, regardless of whether or not I could actually see anything. “Do you know...how hard I have tried...to forget that? How much I have denied its actuality—how I have been forced to pretend like she never did exist?” I waited a number of seconds, the answer not reaching my ears. I doubted that he was even thinking about it. “But you know what? ...It doesn’t work. There’s nothing to suggest that she never was; I have no proof in my mind that she never entered my life. Every day I live with these memories...” I fought to keep myself calm, but the rising emotion was making it increasingly difficult. “You wouldn’t understand. Nobody could understand unless they’d been through the same thing. Yes, I can remember those good times...and yes, I wish with my entire being that she was once again beside me, helping me through things as I helped her.” I breathed out in a despondent chuckle, shaking my head with a slowness that surely branded my position as a hopeless one. I didn’t care that he couldn’t see; he could probably hear it in my voice.

“Betrayal is rough,” he began, and I was momentarily surprised by his evident showing of sincerity. “Trust me; I know.” I was aware he was about to follow with ‘but.’ “But you’re taking this really badly.”

“I don’t need a lecture from you,” I snarled, hearing the disdain in my voice swell.

“No, Dusty. Listen to me.” Again with my name. “Look...you can see how this is affecting you.”

“What’s your point?”

“My point is...I think you need to find a way to deal with this. You’re clearly not coping.” I could hear him shuffle closer, and I fought the feeling of dejectedness; I had to be strong. I had to replace it with anger. Even in knowing so, it faltered as I once again realised that anger was an inefficient protection mechanism against sorrow. They complimented each other. One led to the other, and it worked the other way around just as easily.

“I’m warning you,” I growled, biting down on the inside of my cheek as I recognised the lingering frailty. ‘No.’

“The way you attacked me back there was a prime example. You couldn’t physically reach the problem, so you went for the nearest thing that you could sink your teeth into. You exploded with anger at one mention of this pokémon’s name. You’re unstable.”

“I KNOW!” I boomed, and immediately silenced myself, despite my wishes to continue. I closed off my connection with sight as I sealed my eyes.

He took another step. “Then why don’t you address it?”

“I don’t know HOW,” I explained with an increasing hint of desperation to my shuddering voice.

“Why don’t you just...get over it?”

My eyes snapped open.

In a roar of flames, I shot forward, halting when my face came within an inch of his. My burning hate for him suddenly welled, and I felt myself wishing many awful things upon his pitiful existence. My heart rate increased, my breathing jagged, and I bit down with such pressure that I thought my teeth might split. The rise of exaggerated ire was like a rotating fireball in my chest, spreading through my body and fuelling every action that followed. “Don’t you DARE use that on me!” I thundered, his face lighting up with orange illumination every second or so words, searing flames bouncing around in my mouth and singeing the air in front of my teeth, only to dissipate and be replaced shortly after. It danced in horizontal streaks as my head moved in a fashion to invite such behaviour. “You do NOT have the right to tell me what to do with my emotions!”

Using every inch of my strength, I resisted erupting with fire and lunging at him with bared sharp teeth. I felt my legs quaking with the desire to stretch out and quench their extreme desire for blood, for his punishment. Breath entered my nose and exited again with uncategorised fragmentation while my ears pricked their air with their elongated stiffness. My head, swimming with mad sorrow and lividity, pounded with this need and with that, mostly the desire to direct my heated hate to unleash it and thereby be done with the problem.

I blocked out all reason as I focused solely on what I wanted at that moment: some kind of rightful justice for his careless words, and with great shame, I felt myself wanting unwarranted closure. I wanted to avoid all this conflict, even if my rage spoke out contradictorily, and with a random spark of something I couldn’t identify, I thought closure would give me peace. If he could somehow, in some way, provide me with it, then I would have been grateful. Reluctantly so, but grateful nonetheless. The thought angered me; I didn’t want to condone his reckless behaviour. He had no right to say those things. He needed to be taught a lesson.

“Did you ever consider,” I spat, scorn soaking my words as I forgot the momentary gap in my anger, “how much she meant to me? Do you not realise that she was my best friend for years?” The raging tornado inside me twisted and clambered its way to the fore of my thoughts. “How can you not see why this is affecting me? Are you that blind?” My head began to tilt, my anger twitching my nose. “Do you not know what that’s like?!” The flames still seeped between my teeth, light flickering between us as my gaze jumped between his two eyes. “Or are you that insolent, that shameless that you have none to lose?”

I obviously struck a nerve when, as the fire tested the air before my mouth, I notice his face change in the disappearing dim light. He didn’t look enormously offended or affected, but the result was good enough, and from there I planned to work; planned to dig up his core and lacerate anything that gave him internal comfort.

Interrupting our ‘discussion’ was a set of pawsteps in the distance. With no more than another few seconds to determine, it became clear that they were closing in on us. It was difficult to estimate any sort of detail, but I knew that it couldn’t have been a heavy foe, one who would have broken the earth in its effort to chase its prey.

The fuming odium still burning brightly in my chest, I faced the direction they would be coming from—where we had come. The houndoom did the same, and I watched as I could hear them near. Deciding fast and in the midst of my anger, I charged up a flamethrower, eyes clouded with anger. These cave dwellers wanted to interrupt somebody’s conversation? They could interrupt someone else’s. It frustrated me to no end that such a situation was suspended for interruption.

Constricting my stomach muscles and exhaling with more effort than a normal breath would take, I fired a powerful stream of flames, ones that whipped about and illuminated the path to both sides, as well as partway into the path cutting across; we had just come from the right of the intersection, left when we were travelling the path and turned onto the one we resided on now. The fire hammered the ground, flames gushing in multiple directions as the fire seemed to separate where it met with the earth to snake its way to another victim.

I had no idea what the houndoom thought, but for some nonsensical reason he probably disapproved. Frustration riding my tone, I waited, listening for any sort of change in pace of the pursuers. However, I soon came to realise that listening while expelling a long line of flames was not exactly efficient or really that possible, so I cut it off, only realising as I did so that I was fairly out of breath. I panted; it had been a reasonable effort.

The pawsteps had not subsided, but they certainly sounded more controlled. To my annoyance they kept coming, and I shot a glare to the houndoom, who clearly couldn’t see me with the absence of fire, our eyes not accustomed to the dark. “Can’t you use your brain and give us some light?”

It went unsaid that I had exerted enough energy, both in previously lighting our path and now because of the defence I was clearly willing to uphold, as opposed to his...nothing. He hesitated, but probably realised I was right and spurted a flame from his lips, keeping it at the end of his muzzle. In response, I prepared myself, only a few metres from him and more from the tunnel we had been in and come from, and kept my head low.

There were familiar shouts which suddenly reached my ears, my legs losing their formation. It took me a moment to realise what was happening and who it was when they burst into the tunnel, catching me off guard in my moment of contemplation. “...Azure,” I commented to myself with a perplexed frown, my anger beginning to somehow quell. A quagsire appeared behind her, the last few steps of his ridiculous two-limbed run displayed as he stopped beside her. I finally registered, remembering Habib’s word about the other pokémon that were supposed to be accompanying me.

She said nothing as her eyes settled on me before quickly switching to the houndoom. I knew she would want to know who on earth he was, but I really had no desire to explain. If he wanted to her to know, he could tell her himself.

Without warning, the flame died out. Nothing lit the tunnel as the houndoom failed to relight his fire, and with a constant rumble, I began listening. Something told me that he was not keen on meeting with others. The noise of tiny shuffling met my ears from my right, and instantly I pounced, crashing into something larger than me and skidding across the rocky earth. Quickly I allowed flames to circle in my mouth, as if I was about to spit a fireball onto his face, and watched as he cowered beneath my dominance. He sighed as Azure commanded Splash to situate himself beside me, probably in an effort to warn the fire and a dark type with a pokémon who had two elements he was weak to at his disposal.

“Alright, alright,” he sighed, and I watched him make an odd face of discomfort but acknowledgement for his imprisonment.

Slowly I climbed off him, allowing him to get to his feet. I kept the rotating fireball in my jaws, mostly for light, and waited for judgement. When none came, and the dual type merely locked eyes with the glaceon, who tossed the short branch she had been carrying onto the ground. Without another moment of hesitation, I spat my fire at the stick and watched as it lit up. Azure instructed the quagsire to hold it, as his paws were most suited for carrying such things.

“What the hell are you doing?” I needed not remind him that he had made a break for it in the direction both we and the newly arrived had come. “Retreating? You still have to guide me.” I lit a flame between sentences to ensure he knew I was serious. Something told me he didn’t plan on escaping while the quagsire stood in front of him. “You run at the sight of a glaceon?” I questioned incredulously with an appropriate hint of mockery. It was quite amusing that he found a pokémon of a type he was strong against to be frightening. It certainly didn’t appear as if he began to flee because of the quagsire.

He exhaled again, clearly unhappy to have been caught. “Alright, Azure,” he began, and I recoiled in surprise, blinking repeatedly as I flicked between the two.

‘They know each other?’

The glaceon remained silent, and I turned to her, momentarily forgetting the collar I needed to keep clamped around the houndoom’s neck. “What’re you doing?” He spoke quite casually, agitated and partially suspicious.

“I was instructed to accompany Dusty,” she answered, her voice steady and her stature trying to come across as authoritative. I had a feeling she was only attempting to keep her cool, but at the same time wasn’t going to lose it with ease. I could tell she wanted to question him on his motives, but something held her back. He seemed to have some sort of invisible control over her.

“Habib’s lapdog, I see.” He narrowed his eyes, giving her a greasy sneer. “From one to another, hey? And yet you still can’t remain loyal—”

“Shut up, Zaion,” she snapped, and I was caught by so many surprises that I wasn’t sure which was the most confusing. My head and his rotated simultaneously, our eyes exchanging an unspoken gain of knowledge. This was the first I had heard of his name, and somehow it felt weird. It was then that I noticed confusion had taken the place of my anger. Not entirely, but a decent amount.

“Will someone tell me what’s going on?”

Silence filled the cave as the ice type glanced away, a frown pasted upon her face. Surely she could have scented him on her way to us, so if she hadn’t wanted to encounter him, why had she come? Perhaps...Zaion...was wrong, and her loyalties lay with just one leader. His statement had confused me; what on earth had he meant? ‘Loyalties? Is it that Azure belongs to anther colony and hasn’t told Habib? If so, that wouldn’t be hard to correct, and I doubt Habib would even be against the idea.’ I considered the possibility that this houndoom’s definition of loyalty was something as simple as that, whether the one she was meant to remain loyal to minded or not.

Nobody wished to enlighten me as Azure trudged scornfully past, Zaion watching her as she went. I too followed her, but returned to the fire and dark type to shake my head in question. He barely responded as he got to his paws and stood, signalling with a flick of his head for us to continue. The quagsire sat complacently, a smile plastered upon his face as he held the torch tipped with fire.

“Um...what do I do with him?” I asked, mainly directing it at the glaceon.

“Splash, come,” she commanded dully, not making an effort to turn her head as she spoke. She continued on, head low and tail drooping. The water and ground type happily waddled in her wake, surpassing every one of us in height. The thought of having a large pokémon like him, probably ruthless when instructed and of two types that I, like the houndoom, was weak to. I made a mental note to stay on his good side.

Tossing my head questioningly at Idiot...or Zaion...I shook my head lightly, still confused and asking silently for answers. He merely exhaled and padded past me without any degree of hastiness, and I was left to stand in place, wondering how this had managed to turn into such a strange situation. I hardly knew what to think.

Scowling, I turned away, following the others further into the cave and hopefully in the right direction.