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The Path of Destiny

Chapter 32- A Shadow in the Dark

When Snowcrystal woke, she was aware that she had only managed to doze off for a short while. Lifting her head, she glanced at the others. Rosie was still asleep. Thunder might have been as well, but Stormblade was wide awake.

Snowcrystal slowly stood up, hearing the faint sound of water dripping from somewhere deeper in the tunnels. She turned and walked toward Rosie, using the light of her crystal to see by. As she walked past Thunder, the scyther stirred and got to her feet. Snowcrystal noticed that she was using both legs to stand again, but she still looked unsteady on her feet.

Rosie slowly opened her eyes and looked up as Snowcrystal approached. Surprisingly, she didn’t seem very tired. “I guess we’re going now?” she asked, giving the growlithe a questioning look.

Snowcrystal nodded. “We’ve got to find a way out of here and meet up with the others as quickly as possible,” she replied. “We’ll be able to rest again later.”

Soon Snowcrystal was leading the way through the cave, using the light from her small fire attacks to see the way. Rosie helped at times, though not quite as much, as it still wasn’t easy for her to walk over the rocks. For them, the fact that they had to walk slowly for Stormblade wasn’t a problem. However, for Thunder, it was.

Thunder was in a bad mood to begin with. The deep cut on her arm was made worse by the shackle rubbing against it, and it had begun to show signs of infection. Some of her wounds were bleeding again, and it was hard to see in such a dark place, especially when she still could not open her injured eye. And to make matters worse, Stormblade was setting the pace for the whole group.

Angrily, she slashed a small stalagmite in half as she followed Snowcrystal, wishing she didn’t have to rely on the growlithe’s light to travel through the darkness. “Can’t we go any faster?” she growled. “There’s no food in this cave, so it’s not like we can just take as much time as we like!”

“I thought you didn’t mind going without food so much,” Rosie replied, turning to look at the thin scyther. “And it’s not like we’ll be here for weeks.”

“Why can’t we go on ahead and let Stormblade follow our scent?” Thunder muttered.

“It’s too hard to follow a scent in here,” Snowcrystal told her, letting the flame die out for a second. “We have to stick together.”

The others were silent for a moment, and then Rosie slowly nodded and Thunder sighed and looked away. “Fine…” the scyther muttered.

For a while longer, the small group of four traveled together in darkness through winding tunnels and past strange towering rock formations. Snowcrystal felt worried and afraid, wondering if the tunnels she was choosing to enter were the ones that would lead them out of the cave, or if she was really just getting her friends hopelessly lost.

Rosie had the task of helping Snowcrystal mark the cave walls with her claws. It was while she was doing this for what had to be at least the fifteenth time, Stormblade, who was still struggling to catch up, suddenly collapsed.

Snowcrystal rushed over to him, worried he might be hurt worse. It took her an instant to realize that he had simply passed out. Rosie turned away from the wall and approached Snowcrystal, using her ember attack to light up the area around them. After that, she could clearly see Stormblade lying motionless on his side, his limbs sprawled out in random directions. There was blood trickling from the corner of his mouth.

Rosie kept her fire attack up as Snowcrystal glanced around frantically. “Is there any water here?” she asked, looking back and forth from Rosie to Thunder.

“I don’t think water will do him much good,” Rosie replied worriedly, shaking her head.

“Well, we have to-” Snowcrystal began, facing Rosie, but a cough from Stormblade behind her made her turn around. Stormblade was stirring slowly, and lifted his head long enough to spit out a small bit of blood. Then he lay back down again, closing his eyes. Snowcrystal didn’t know if he had the strength to get up.

Rosie stepped closer to him, while Thunder watched from afar, a look of what was almost horror on her face, as if the scene before her had suddenly awakened some terrible memory. Snowcrystal sat beside Stormblade next to Rosie, and told the ninetales, “He can’t go on like this. We need to rest now.”

While Snowcrystal lay beside the half-conscious Stormblade, using her ember attacks to keep him warm, Rosie and Thunder kept watch. Rosie jumped at the slightest sound from within the cave, glancing constantly all around her, as if she expected some pokémon to jump out of the darkness at her from behind one of the many stone columns. Thunder was calmer, and not having any fire attacks to help her see by, she had to rely on sound and scent. However, neither of them could detect any potential danger.

“Snowcrystal…?” a weak voice mumbled, and the growlithe turned to see Stormblade, his eyes barely open, looking at her. Stormblade’s voice sounded weak and forced, and she could hardly hear what he was saying. “If the others are waiting…why don’t you keep going? You have to get out…you can leave me here…I’ll catch up. If the others are…”

“What?” Snowcrystal exclaimed, shocked. “We’re not leaving you here! You know you wouldn’t be able to catch up! We aren’t leaving anyone here. We came into this cave together, and we’ll leave it…together. All you need is some rest…then we can keep going,” she added more gently. ‘All you need is some rest…’ she thought. ‘If only that were true…’

Stormblade didn’t answer and merely closed his eyes again. Rosie stood up and limped over to the scyther and sat beside Snowcrystal once more. Both of them looked down at Stormblade, and from where she stood, Thunder could hear them whispering quietly to each other.

Thunder sighed and turned away. False hope, that's all it was. Those two were just prolonging the inevitable. They simply couldn’t accept the fact that Stormblade was going to die from his injuries. She had accepted it. In the long run, there was simply nothing these pokémon could do.

Yet at the same time, she could not help but feel distressed at the sight whenever she looked at Stormblade. Out of all the pokémon she traveled with, she felt as if he knew her best, not that that was saying much. Though she knew that she shouldn’t care about his pain or the pain of any of the others, she couldn’t help but feel sorry for him because of the pain he was in; she had been there. Annoyed, she closed her good eye and slowly sat down, trying to push the troubling thoughts to the back of her mind. This was what she got for allowing herself to get close to these pokémon.

-ooo-

Confused, and completely lost, Blazefang had no choice but to trail after the group as Nightshade led Redclaw, Wildflame, and Spark through the winding passages of smooth wet stone. The others seemed too distracted with their own matters to pay much attention to him, and as long as he stayed far enough behind the group, they didn’t bother him much. He was glad he was a fire type and able to use his own fire attacks to provide light to see by, otherwise he would be stumbling after the others in the dark. He was a nocturnal pokémon, but a moonlit field or forest was one thing, and an underground cave was another.

Up ahead, Redclaw, the arcanine, was talking to Wildflame while the heracross paused momentarily to listen to them. Blazefang looked up hopefully, wondering if they were going to stop and rest, but they turned and kept going after a moment. The houndour sighed wearily and trudged after them.

While Wildflame used her ember attack to light the way, Spark, who was still limping, ran up to Redclaw with a grin on his face. “Hey Redclaw!” the jolteon cried, a bit too loudly for the arcanine’s liking. “Now that Stormblade’s with the others…I’m the injured pokémon around here. You guys all have to take care of me now! And I’m tired…so carry me…”

“You’ve got four legs. You can walk yourself!” Redclaw grumbled.

“Fine!” Spark muttered, acting offended. Redclaw rolled his eyes and was about to reply when Nightshade interrupted him.

“Looks like we’ve gone in circles…” the heracross sighed. “See these claw marks? One of us made them when we came by this way. We took the tunnel leading left…I guess we need to try the right path now.”

“Uggh…we’re never going to get out of here at this rate…” Wildflame muttered, peering around. “How long do you think we’ve been walking?”

“Eleventy hundred million days…give or take a few,” Spark replied with a grin.

Wildflame rounded on him. “Can you take this seriously even for just a little bit?” she growled.

“What? And end up all stressed and worried like you?” Spark replied.

“Look…if we don’t find a way out, we’ll be trapped here, got it?” Wildflame snapped. “If you’re not going to give me a real answer when I ask a question, don’t say anything at all!”

“Calm down, Wildflame,” Redclaw told the houndoom softly. “Spark’s right about one thing; worrying won’t do us much good. We’ll just have to keep looking for a way out, and most importantly, we need to stay calm.”

Wildflame felt her fur lie flat again, realizing that he was right. “I know…” she muttered quietly, lowering her head with a sigh.

As the group started to follow Nightshade into the right tunnel, Spark made an observation. “Hey, look,” he pointed out, “there’s claw marks on the side of this wall too.”

Nightshade looked up from where he was busy clawing the wall in another place to mark their path, and saw what Spark was looking at. There were claw marks in the wall, very similar, yet slightly different in shape to the ones he had just made. Carefully, he ran his claws over them. “These ones weren’t made by me, and they weren’t made by Wildflame either…and they’re too small to be Redclaw’s…” he mused, and then darted back to the other claw marks on the left tunnel’s wall, Wildflame at his side. After a moment of examining them closely, he sighed. “These look the same. Obviously someone else made these…and recently by the look of it. I think they may have made them to try and confuse us.”

Blazefang shifted uneasily on his paws, while Redclaw glanced around, worried. Wildflame decided to speak up. “Well, they’ll have to try harder than that,” she growled. “We now know we haven’t gone through either of these tunnels, and we’ll just have to have Redclaw mark the way. His claw marks are pretty recognizable.”

“Good idea!” Nightshade complimented her, and the group headed off down the left tunnel.

As they walked, they often saw other rooms and small spaces that led to bigger caverns, all with the same marks. Some of the places marked even led to spaces too small for Redclaw to fit through. However, just as a precaution, Nightshade checked every one closely to make sure that the marks really were the strange ones, and not their own.

“Whoever’s trying to confuse us isn’t thinking this through very well,” Spark remarked after a while.

“I’m not so sure they’re trying to confuse us anymore, Spark,” Nightshade told the jolteon. “I’m beginning to think that these marks might be a warning.”

“As long as we stick together, we should be fine,” Redclaw stated. “Let’s just keep going and make sure we aren’t going in circles.”

Nightshade nodded and he and Redclaw walked further over the slippery stone, Spark and Wildflame following just behind them. Blazefang followed them at a distance, feeling an eerie feeling creep along his spine. He wished the pack were here…or even that the heracross and his friends would allow him to travel with them. But neither of those things were going to happen. Trying to forget his worried thoughts, Blazefang sighed and took another step forward.

He was immediately met with a loud screech as something jumped down on him from above.

“TRESSPASSERS! We’ve found you!”

-ooo-

It was a while before Stormblade was ready to travel again. Even then, the going was painfully slow, and Stormblade would often stop, and each time he did so, it took longer for Snowcrystal and Rosie to help him get up and keep going again. Thunder didn’t try to offer any help, though she did make a few remarks to the others that forcing him to travel like this was only making things worse. Rosie had quickly gotten tired and ended up walking beside Stormblade, leaving Snowcrystal to light the way on her own.

The small growlithe wasn’t sure how much farther the group could go that day. They were all tired, hungry, and thirsty, yet there was no food to be seen, nor was there any source of water other than the scarce droplets falling from the ceiling and the occasional tiny puddles. She decided that they’d find a place to rest and try to sleep for a while.

As she walked ahead of the others through a narrow passage, she realized that up ahead, the tunnel opened up into a much larger cavern, with a high domed ceiling covered in long, pointed stalactites. Snowcrystal ran ahead, emerging from the tunnel and into the big cavern. The sight took her breath away.

She was standing on a stone ledge above an oddly smooth cave floor below her, looking out over a cavern bigger than any she’d ever seen, even in the vespiquen’s hive. Colorful and complex rock formations, ranging in hue from golden yellow and orange-brown to grayish purple, covered the cavern, forming strange and intricate patterns on the cave wall and the many pillars of stone. Parts of the cave were lit up by large clusters of crystals that glowed, much like the ones she had known back in her home. A feeling of homesickness washed over her, and she wondered what her friends back at the mountain were doing now.

Snowcrystal turned her head as Thunder came to stand beside her. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” she asked the scyther.

“For one big, giant enclosed space? Sure,” Thunder replied. She turned her head as Rosie and Stormblade stood beside them.

“Wow…” Rosie gasped, “I’ve seen caves before…but none like this…it’s amazing! I never knew stone could be so…colorful.”

Snowcrystal wondered what Stormblade thought of it, but when he didn’t say anything, she realized that at the moment, pain must be a far more pressing issue for him than the beauty of a cave. She sighed. “At least I won’t have to use fire attacks for a while until we get through this part of the cave,” she said, indicating the crystals. “And the floor is smooth…it’ll be easy to walk over.” She directed this last statement at Stormblade, who didn’t respond. She wasn’t even sure he had heard her.

“Do you think we should walk through here before we rest?” Rosie asked Snowcrystal.

The growlithe nodded. “Yes, it’ll be easy. And if we need to, we can always rest somewhere in this cavern.” She stepped toward the edge of the rocky ledge, looking down at the smooth ground below. “Let’s go.”

She leaped down, but once she landed, she soon figured out why the stone floor was so smooth; it wasn’t stone at all. Her paws landed with a squelch in thick, gooey mud. Lifting one of her paws with a little difficulty, as the mud was sticky and reached halfway up her legs, she turned to the others, trying to shake the mud off her paw and flinching when a drop of water from above struck her nose. “It’s…uh…muddy…” she told them sheepishly.

Rosie peered down at the ground and then gingerly leapt to stand beside Snowcrystal on three legs, the mud only reaching a little bit above her paws. “It’s not so bad,” she told the two scyther, who were waiting. “And it shouldn’t be a problem for you two.”

“That mud is just an infection waiting to happen,” Thunder muttered grudgingly, but she too leaped down to stand beside Snowcrystal, ignoring the pain shooting up her injured leg. Being taller than the other two, the mud wasn’t much of a problem for Thunder to walk through, but Snowcrystal was worried that she would be right about the infection.

Stormblade, still on the ledge, leaned over to get a better view of the ground below. At any time before his injuries, he could have effortlessly made the jump. Now, it seemed impossible. He turned to peer at his wings, all four of them battered, burned and useless. He turned back to look at the other three pokémon on the ground. He knew the only way he’d ever get down without injuring himself further was to climb.

Snowcrystal watched as Stormblade turned away from the edge of the rock he was standing on, and limped over to the side, where the ledge sloped down a little to meet the ground below it. The scyther leaned forward, using the tips of his scythes to steady himself, and began to slowly, hesitantly, climb down.

Stormblade hadn’t gone far when his scythe slipped on the wet stone, causing him to trip and tumble down into the mud. He slowly tried to stand upright, looking down at the mud covering the thin but deep burns around his legs.

While Stormblade started to lick his wounds clean, Thunder began walking ahead, determined to get out of the cavern. “Wait up!” Snowcrystal called, running with difficulty through the mud to catch up to her. She stopped at Thunder’s side, panting. “We have to stick together…and wait for Rosie and Stormblade.”

To her surprise, Thunder didn’t object, and stayed where she was. Rosie reached the others first, though it was clear the ninetales found it a bit harder to walk through the mud on three legs. At last Stormblade reached them, no longer bothering to try and clean the mud from his wounds. Snowcrystal looked at him and sighed yet again. “Come on,” she told the others, knowing that Stormblade and Rosie wouldn’t be able to climb back onto the ledge anyway. “We might as well just keep going until we find a good spot to rest. Follow me…”

Snowcrystal began walking, heading toward a large group of stalagmites near the center of the cavern, the others trailing behind her. As she walked further, the mud she was walking through got deeper. The others, apart from Stormblade, didn’t seem to notice or care much, but Snowcrystal found that wading through the mud was becoming harder and harder. After a short while, the mud had gotten so deep it reached her belly fur, and it was so thick that she found it hard to force her way through it. Stopping, she turned to Thunder. “Maybe you should go first,” she suggested, realizing that Thunder could move through the mud without much trouble, and make the way easier for the rest of them.

Thunder moved to the front of the group, and Snowcrystal found it easier to walk through where the scyther had stepped, but further on, the mud was still getting deeper, and stickier. It wasn’t long before Thunder got fed up with fighting her way through the thick gooey mud, and decided to fly over it instead, despite the injuries to her wings. Snowcrystal watched the scyther fly over to another ledge on the far side of the cavern, where she stood waiting for them, though unable to see them clearly from that far across the stone room.

Snowcrystal was finding it increasingly more difficult to wade through the mud. Near the center of the cavern, it got much deeper, and her paws could no longer touch the bottom. Instead, she was forced to crawl over the mud’s surface, trying not to sink too far and get stuck. Behind her, Rosie was forced to do the same, only on three legs.

“I think the combee’s cave was nicer,” the ninetales remarked, trying to distract herself and the others while she struggled to keep her paws from sinking too deeply.

“Well at least there aren’t any angry pokémon chasing after us this time,” Snowcrystal remarked, realizing what Rosie was trying to do. “I’ll take this over being chased by a swarm of combee any day.”

“Heh, me too,” Rosie replied. “I can’t stand bug pokémon…well, most bugs anyway,” she added in a whispered apology to Stormblade. “Being chased by a swarm of combee was really…ugh…oh great…I think I’m stuck.”

Snowcrystal turned her head, seeing Rosie lying on the mud with her forepaws reaching out in front of her. Her back legs had sunk deeply into the ooze, and as she struggled to pull them free, the suction from the thick, sticky mud kept her from making much progress.

As Snowcrystal watched, she realized that her own paws were sinking. Quickly pulling away, she shouted a warning to Rosie. “Don’t stop!” she hissed warningly. “Keep moving forward or else you’ll just sink further.”

Rosie nodded and pulled herself forward, inch by inch, until her back legs were free enough to allow her to crawl over the surface of the mud again.

By this time, Stormblade was up to his waist in mud, and was making slower progress than the others, despite the fact that he could still touch the ground and didn’t have to worry about sinking. As he got further, Snowcrystal realized that the mud was deeper still further on, and was still so thick that Stormblade could hardly force his way through it.

Snowcrystal quickly found that it was easier to walk over the mud when she walked quickly, not allowing her paws much time to sink. Rosie caught on and followed Snowcrystal’s example, calling encouragement to Stormblade. Stormblade, however, couldn’t follow the example. Unlike them, he only had one good leg, and his scythes quickly and easily sank through the mud when he tried to put any weight on them. He was also heavier than the others; even an underweight scyther weighed more than a small ninetales or a growlithe.

Snowcrystal didn’t dare stop for fear that she would get stuck, but she was growing increasingly worried. She became even more so when they reached the group of stalagmites, which blocked out most of the light from the nearby crystals, eclipsing the group in darkness. Snowcrystal kept close to the stalagmites, in case she needed to use something to help her pull herself free of the mud. Here, the shadows from the stones made the ground even darker, and she had to rely on the light from her crystal to see. After a few more steps, she noticed a strange smell, but didn’t focus on it long, and continued to make her way past the rocks.

Suddenly she stumbled into something, causing her to fall onto her side in the mud. She quickly got up and backed away, trying to see what she had walked into by scraping some of the mud off her crystal with her claws. She soon realized what it was that she had stumbled into. What lay ahead of her was the skeleton of some canine pokémon, half submerged in the mud by the rocks. Letting out a squeak of surprise, Snowcrystal backed away.

Rosie looked up, stopping in her tracks at the sight of the long-dead pokémon. Snowcrystal edged around it, calling to Rosie to keep going. Snowcrystal found herself unable to look away from the still skeleton of whatever pokémon had tried to travel through the cavern. It was bigger than she was, but it looked horribly like a growlithe, and Snowcrystal got a sickening jolt when she realized that along with the churned up mud around the pokémon, there were claw marks on the stalagmite nearest to it.

“What an awful way to die,” Rosie remarked sadly, noticing the same thing she had. “Being trapped in the mud and slowly starving to death…” She shuddered.

“K-keep g-going…” Snowcrystal whispered quietly, turning away. However, the image of the growlithe’s skeleton and the desperate claw marks on the stone was forever branded into her mind. She kept her gaze focused ahead, not knowing if she could force herself to look back even if she wanted to. Rosie kept silent until they left the shadows of the stalagmites and emerged into the open again.

The ninetales breathed a sigh of relief. The ledge Thunder was waiting on wasn’t far away, and as they came into the light again, Thunder turned her head towards them, saying nothing. As Stormblade managed to make it past the stalagmites, Snowcrystal and Rosie, already far ahead, noticed with relief that the mud was shallower at the bottom of the ledge, and the two exhausted fire types climbed up the slope and reached Thunder.

Snowcrystal looked out over the mud again, calling to Stormblade. “Keep going, Stormblade! It’s not so deep further on!” However, she knew that he was in one of the deepest parts of the mud, and she realized with worry that he looked more exhausted than any of them.

Stormblade moved forward, ever so slowly, but got no more than a few paces before he stopped, feeling too weak to go on. “Don’t stop!” Rosie called to him. “Do you want to get trapped there?”

Reluctantly, Stormblade kept struggling to move toward the others, but this time he only got a small step further before he stopped again. Snowcrystal quickly edged her way down off the ledge and into the shallow mud, facing him. “It gets easier over here!” she told him. “You’re almost through the worst part…just keep going and it won’t be so hard!”

This time Stormblade looked up at her but didn’t move. “Keep going!” Snowcrystal shouted at him again.

But Stormblade’s strength had left him. As he tried to struggle forward, he found himself unable to move. Although he wasn’t in danger of sinking further as long as he was standing, the sticky mud made it impossible for him to move backwards or forwards in his weakened state. Snowcrystal watched as he struggled wearily for a few more moments before doing the worst possible thing he could have done, laying down on the surface of the thick mud.

“Stormblade! No, don’t-” Snowcrystal shouted, but Stormblade didn’t respond. Without hesitating, Snowcrystal raced across the surface of the mud toward him. Rosie stayed behind on the rock ledge, looking panicked. Snowcrystal reached Stormblade’s side quickly. “Get up!” she shouted urgently. “Don’t lay down…you have to keep going!”

“I-I…can’t…” Stormblade’s voice was hardly even a whisper.

Snowcrystal felt her paws sinking further, but at the moment she didn’t care. “You have to get up! Don’t give up Stormblade! You…you…can’t give up…”

“Stormblade, don’t just lay there!” Rosie’s panicked shout sounded across the cavern from the ledge she stood on, but to Snowcrystal, her cry seemed very far away.

Stormblade lifted his head painfully and tried to rise, but it was clear that he simply did not have the strength. He lay down again.

“Stormblade!” Snowcrystal cried, pulling her paws free of the mud and edging closer to him. She whined softly, nudging the side of his head. She knew she should get back on the ledge, but she couldn’t bring herself to leave his side when she had no idea if he would be able to make it or not.

Back on the ledge, Rosie paced back and forth anxiously. If it hadn’t been for her broken leg, she would have dashed into the mud to try to help Stormblade as well. Yet in reality, she realized, all they could do was try to encourage him. Snowcrystal was far too small to help Stormblade out, and she knew that she wouldn’t be of any help either. Thunder was the only one who remained calm, watching Snowcrystal and Stormblade impassively.

“Stormblade you have…to try…” Snowcrystal gasped, trying to push the scyther’s blade out of the mud. “You can’t just…give up…” Stormblade’s only response was to close his eyes.

“Snowcrystal, get out of there!” Rosie shouted in worry. The growlithe looked down to see herself submerged up to her shoulders. Fighting to free herself, she crawled forward out of the mud, turning to Rosie.

“What do you want me to do? Just leave him here?” she shouted back.

“You’re too small to be of any help to him!” Rosie called back, the fear for both her and Stormblade showing in the ninetales’s panicked gaze. “Get out or you’ll be stuck too! We’ll think of something! Just…let me think…”

Snowcrystal refused to listen. Rosie could hear the growlithe’s cries grow more and more panicked as Stormblade still didn’t move. “Oh no…” she whispered. “He’s giving up…oh no…”

Thunder could hear both Rosie’s panicked whispers and Snowcrystal’s desperate shouts echoing around the walls of the cave. She closed her eyes, trying to drown it all out.

“Snowcrystal you need to get back here!” Rosie cried. “It’s dangerous! There’s got to be another way…just…come back! Get back where it’s safe!”

“NO!” Snowcrystal shouted back, still trying in vain to push Stormblade out of the mud. She was simply too small…there was no way she could help him, but she was refusing to let herself believe it. In the back of her mind, she knew that if she stayed there she would soon become stuck too deeply in the mud to be able to get out, just as Stormblade now was, but she couldn’t bring herself to leave Stormblade’s side.

“You’re no use to him trapped!” Rosie shouted, fighting back the panic that was threatening to overwhelm her.

Thunder opened her eyes. Her gaze slowly moved from Rosie to Snowcrystal and Stormblade. She stood still, the cries of the growlithe and ninetales echoing all around her. She sighed.

Rosie was nearly knocked off her feet as Thunder rushed by her, taking to the air and flying out over the mud. She blinked in surprise, hardly registering what had just happened. Snowcrystal looked up as Thunder landed roughly beside her, her feet skidding slightly in the mud. “Move aside,” Thunder told the stunned growlithe, who obeyed.

Stormblade’s eyes opened in surprise as he looked up at Thunder as if the mud and blood covered scyther was the last thing he expected to see. Without waiting for a response from him, Thunder leaned down and sank her unusually long fangs in the top of Stormblade’s wing.

Stormblade was too weak to even cry out in pain as Thunder pulled on his wing, backing up to keep herself from sinking into the deep mud. It was much harder to try and pull him out than she expected, and she didn’t seem to be making any progress. Instead, she was starting to sink herself. Despite this, she pulled harder, ignoring the acrid taste of Stormblade’s blood in her mouth.

Snowcrystal backed away from Thunder, making sure to stay constantly moving to keep her paws from sinking deeply. “Keep trying, Thunder!” she called, her hope beginning to be renewed.

After a few more moments, Stormblade felt himself being pulled ever so slightly out of the mud. Feeling a small bit of strength returning to him, he lifted his head again, trying to help Thunder by pushing against the ground with his good leg and attempting to crawl forward using his scythes.

Exhausted, Thunder let go of Stormblade’s wing, spitting out the blood. “Stupid deep mud…whose idea was it to come this way anyway?” she muttered, before grabbing his wing again and starting to pull.

Fighting against the sinking mud that felt like it was trying to pull him down again, and trying not to think about the possibility of his wing getting ripped out of his back, Stormblade, aided by Thunder, used what little strength he had left to crawl out of the deepest part of the mud. Even then, the worst part wasn’t over. Allowing Stormblade to lean against her, Thunder had to do most of the work fighting her way through the thick mud, knowing that flying was out of the question. Snowcrystal raced back and forth from the ledge to the two scyther, refusing to get to safety until they had managed to reach the rocky ledge where Rosie waited. When at last Thunder managed to help Stormblade pull himself up onto the ledge, both of them collapsed, exhausted.

Snowcrystal climbed up after them, feeling exhausted herself. For a while, there was nothing any of them could do but gasp for breath.

“Thunder…thank you…” Stormblade whispered, looking up at her. “I couldn’t have done that alone.”

Thunder stared back at him in surprise, a moment before Snowcrystal ran over to her, wagging her tail and happily licking her face. “You did it!” the growlithe cried. “You saved his life! You’re a hero!” Startled and confused, Thunder pulled away from her and stood up.

“That was…really brave of you,” Rosie told the scyther, her gaze filled with respect.

“Brave?” Thunder repeated. “Why should I be afraid of mud? I have usable wings.”

“Of course it was brave!” Snowcrystal cried, not seeming to have heard Thunder’s last statement. “You saved Stormblade’s life…” she added in a more serious tone. “I don’t think any of us can thank you enough.” Thunder didn’t reply; in fact she seemed completely clueless about how to respond.

While Stormblade lay down, too exhausted to get up, he watched Snowcrystal and Rosie talking to Thunder, and realized with confusion that it seemed to only be making Thunder look more miserable than before. And he certainly knew that it wasn’t because Thunder had any sort of problem with others seeing her doing a good deed.

As the two overjoyed small pokémon continued to praise Thunder, the scyther’s gaze darted from side to side. Then, without saying anything, she turned and darted into a tunnel veering off from the ledge they were standing on.

Rosie paused, looking confused. “Was it something I said?” she wondered aloud, glancing at the others.

Thunder had no intentions of leaving the group or going far. She simply wanted to be alone. Noticing a dark, small cavern to the left of her, she turned and walked into it, crouching down against the rough stone. Rosie and Snowcrystal’s voices reached her through the darkness. “Thunder?” Snowcrystal cried. “Where are you?”

“I’m over here!” Thunder yelled back, annoyed. “Don’t follow me. I just want a moment’s peace…and I’m obviously not going to get it with you three around!”

“Oh…okay,” Snowcrystal replied in a confused tone, and she and Rosie turned back and walked to Stormblade.

When she was sure the two of them had left, Thunder lay down, trying to ignore the tears that came to her eyes and dripped to the rock below her, looking exactly the same against the cold stone as the water dripping from the stalactites above her.

Back on the ledge by the large cavern, Snowcrystal lay curled up next to Stormblade with Rosie right beside her. They had decided to rest there and continue the journey when Stormblade was stronger. Snowcrystal was nearly asleep when Thunder finally reappeared, looking a bit worried about something. Looking up, Snowcrystal smiled at her. “Oh, hi Thunder…” she whispered sleepily.

“Look, if you guys want to talk about how happy you are that Stormblade’s here, save it for later, okay?” Thunder told her.

“Oh…all right,” Snowcrystal replied.

Rosie looked up and watched Thunder move to the other side of the ledge and lie down. “You can sleep here with us if you want to,” the ninetales told her.

“How about…no,” Thunder muttered, before laying her head down and closing her eyes.

Rosie just sighed and closed her eyes as well, hoping that traveling through the rest of the cave would be easier for all of them, and that they would have the strength to make it through.

-ooo-

Cyclone had long since realized that Blazefang was in no way going to cooperate with him. The houndour would probably have to be killed by a trusted fire type in his army. But the real question was…who to trust?

The vaporeon did not turn as Solus approached him from behind. Sunlight glinted off the red letter ‘R’ on the espeon’s collar as he came to stand beside Cyclone. “So…are we going after them?” he asked.

“Not through the cave,” Cyclone replied calmly, not even turning to look at Solus. “We can’t afford to lose our strong pokémon. Instead, I will send some of them to guard the tunnel entrance in the hills. The rest of us will simply find all exits to the cave system and wait there for the houndour to come out.”

“How are we going to find all the exits?” Solus asked.

“Some of the forest pokémon should know,” Cyclone replied calmly, and stood up, heading back to the main army. “Stay calm, Solus. The fire Forbidden Attack is not lost…everything’s merely been…delayed…”

To be continued…

Description
The Path of Destiny

Chapter 32- A Shadow in the Dark

When Snowcrystal woke, she was aware that she had only managed to doze off for a short while. Lifting her head, she glanced at the others. Rosie was still asleep. Thunder might have been as well, but Stormblade was wide awake.

Snowcrystal slowly stood up, hearing the faint sound of water dripping from somewhere deeper in the tunnels. She turned and walked toward Rosie, using the light of her crystal to see by. As she walked past Thunder, the scyther stirred and got to her feet. Snowcrystal noticed that she was using both legs to stand again, but she still looked unsteady on her feet.

Rosie slowly opened her eyes and looked up as Snowcrystal approached. Surprisingly, she didn’t seem very tired. “I guess we’re going now?” she asked, giving the growlithe a questioning look.

Snowcrystal nodded. “We’ve got to find a way out of here and meet up with the others as quickly as possible,” she replied. “We’ll be able to rest again later.”

Soon Snowcrystal was leading the way through the cave, using the light from her small fire attacks to see the way. Rosie helped at times, though not quite as much, as it still wasn’t easy for her to walk over the rocks. For them, the fact that they had to walk slowly for Stormblade wasn’t a problem. However, for Thunder, it was.

Thunder was in a bad mood to begin with. The deep cut on her arm was made worse by the shackle rubbing against it, and it had begun to show signs of infection. Some of her wounds were bleeding again, and it was hard to see in such a dark place, especially when she still could not open her injured eye. And to make matters worse, Stormblade was setting the pace for the whole group.

Angrily, she slashed a small stalagmite in half as she followed Snowcrystal, wishing she didn’t have to rely on the growlithe’s light to travel through the darkness. “Can’t we go any faster?” she growled. “There’s no food in this cave, so it’s not like we can just take as much time as we like!”

“I thought you didn’t mind going without food so much,” Rosie replied, turning to look at the thin scyther. “And it’s not like we’ll be here for weeks.”

“Why can’t we go on ahead and let Stormblade follow our scent?” Thunder muttered.

“It’s too hard to follow a scent in here,” Snowcrystal told her, letting the flame die out for a second. “We have to stick together.”

The others were silent for a moment, and then Rosie slowly nodded and Thunder sighed and looked away. “Fine…” the scyther muttered.

For a while longer, the small group of four traveled together in darkness through winding tunnels and past strange towering rock formations. Snowcrystal felt worried and afraid, wondering if the tunnels she was choosing to enter were the ones that would lead them out of the cave, or if she was really just getting her friends hopelessly lost.

Rosie had the task of helping Snowcrystal mark the cave walls with her claws. It was while she was doing this for what had to be at least the fifteenth time, Stormblade, who was still struggling to catch up, suddenly collapsed.

Snowcrystal rushed over to him, worried he might be hurt worse. It took her an instant to realize that he had simply passed out. Rosie turned away from the wall and approached Snowcrystal, using her ember attack to light up the area around them. After that, she could clearly see Stormblade lying motionless on his side, his limbs sprawled out in random directions. There was blood trickling from the corner of his mouth.

Rosie kept her fire attack up as Snowcrystal glanced around frantically. “Is there any water here?” she asked, looking back and forth from Rosie to Thunder.

“I don’t think water will do him much good,” Rosie replied worriedly, shaking her head.

“Well, we have to-” Snowcrystal began, facing Rosie, but a cough from Stormblade behind her made her turn around. Stormblade was stirring slowly, and lifted his head long enough to spit out a small bit of blood. Then he lay back down again, closing his eyes. Snowcrystal didn’t know if he had the strength to get up.

Rosie stepped closer to him, while Thunder watched from afar, a look of what was almost horror on her face, as if the scene before her had suddenly awakened some terrible memory. Snowcrystal sat beside Stormblade next to Rosie, and told the ninetales, “He can’t go on like this. We need to rest now.”

While Snowcrystal lay beside the half-conscious Stormblade, using her ember attacks to keep him warm, Rosie and Thunder kept watch. Rosie jumped at the slightest sound from within the cave, glancing constantly all around her, as if she expected some pokémon to jump out of the darkness at her from behind one of the many stone columns. Thunder was calmer, and not having any fire attacks to help her see by, she had to rely on sound and scent. However, neither of them could detect any potential danger.

“Snowcrystal…?” a weak voice mumbled, and the growlithe turned to see Stormblade, his eyes barely open, looking at her. Stormblade’s voice sounded weak and forced, and she could hardly hear what he was saying. “If the others are waiting…why don’t you keep going? You have to get out…you can leave me here…I’ll catch up. If the others are…”

“What?” Snowcrystal exclaimed, shocked. “We’re not leaving you here! You know you wouldn’t be able to catch up! We aren’t leaving anyone here. We came into this cave together, and we’ll leave it…together. All you need is some rest…then we can keep going,” she added more gently. ‘All you need is some rest…’ she thought. ‘If only that were true…’

Stormblade didn’t answer and merely closed his eyes again. Rosie stood up and limped over to the scyther and sat beside Snowcrystal once more. Both of them looked down at Stormblade, and from where she stood, Thunder could hear them whispering quietly to each other.

Thunder sighed and turned away. False hope, that's all it was. Those two were just prolonging the inevitable. They simply couldn’t accept the fact that Stormblade was going to die from his injuries. She had accepted it. In the long run, there was simply nothing these pokémon could do.

Yet at the same time, she could not help but feel distressed at the sight whenever she looked at Stormblade. Out of all the pokémon she traveled with, she felt as if he knew her best, not that that was saying much. Though she knew that she shouldn’t care about his pain or the pain of any of the others, she couldn’t help but feel sorry for him because of the pain he was in; she had been there. Annoyed, she closed her good eye and slowly sat down, trying to push the troubling thoughts to the back of her mind. This was what she got for allowing herself to get close to these pokémon.

-ooo-

Confused, and completely lost, Blazefang had no choice but to trail after the group as Nightshade led Redclaw, Wildflame, and Spark through the winding passages of smooth wet stone. The others seemed too distracted with their own matters to pay much attention to him, and as long as he stayed far enough behind the group, they didn’t bother him much. He was glad he was a fire type and able to use his own fire attacks to provide light to see by, otherwise he would be stumbling after the others in the dark. He was a nocturnal pokémon, but a moonlit field or forest was one thing, and an underground cave was another.

Up ahead, Redclaw, the arcanine, was talking to Wildflame while the heracross paused momentarily to listen to them. Blazefang looked up hopefully, wondering if they were going to stop and rest, but they turned and kept going after a moment. The houndour sighed wearily and trudged after them.

While Wildflame used her ember attack to light the way, Spark, who was still limping, ran up to Redclaw with a grin on his face. “Hey Redclaw!” the jolteon cried, a bit too loudly for the arcanine’s liking. “Now that Stormblade’s with the others…I’m the injured pokémon around here. You guys all have to take care of me now! And I’m tired…so carry me…”

“You’ve got four legs. You can walk yourself!” Redclaw grumbled.

“Fine!” Spark muttered, acting offended. Redclaw rolled his eyes and was about to reply when Nightshade interrupted him.

“Looks like we’ve gone in circles…” the heracross sighed. “See these claw marks? One of us made them when we came by this way. We took the tunnel leading left…I guess we need to try the right path now.”

“Uggh…we’re never going to get out of here at this rate…” Wildflame muttered, peering around. “How long do you think we’ve been walking?”

“Eleventy hundred million days…give or take a few,” Spark replied with a grin.

Wildflame rounded on him. “Can you take this seriously even for just a little bit?” she growled.

“What? And end up all stressed and worried like you?” Spark replied.

“Look…if we don’t find a way out, we’ll be trapped here, got it?” Wildflame snapped. “If you’re not going to give me a real answer when I ask a question, don’t say anything at all!”

“Calm down, Wildflame,” Redclaw told the houndoom softly. “Spark’s right about one thing; worrying won’t do us much good. We’ll just have to keep looking for a way out, and most importantly, we need to stay calm.”

Wildflame felt her fur lie flat again, realizing that he was right. “I know…” she muttered quietly, lowering her head with a sigh.

As the group started to follow Nightshade into the right tunnel, Spark made an observation. “Hey, look,” he pointed out, “there’s claw marks on the side of this wall too.”

Nightshade looked up from where he was busy clawing the wall in another place to mark their path, and saw what Spark was looking at. There were claw marks in the wall, very similar, yet slightly different in shape to the ones he had just made. Carefully, he ran his claws over them. “These ones weren’t made by me, and they weren’t made by Wildflame either…and they’re too small to be Redclaw’s…” he mused, and then darted back to the other claw marks on the left tunnel’s wall, Wildflame at his side. After a moment of examining them closely, he sighed. “These look the same. Obviously someone else made these…and recently by the look of it. I think they may have made them to try and confuse us.”

Blazefang shifted uneasily on his paws, while Redclaw glanced around, worried. Wildflame decided to speak up. “Well, they’ll have to try harder than that,” she growled. “We now know we haven’t gone through either of these tunnels, and we’ll just have to have Redclaw mark the way. His claw marks are pretty recognizable.”

“Good idea!” Nightshade complimented her, and the group headed off down the left tunnel.

As they walked, they often saw other rooms and small spaces that led to bigger caverns, all with the same marks. Some of the places marked even led to spaces too small for Redclaw to fit through. However, just as a precaution, Nightshade checked every one closely to make sure that the marks really were the strange ones, and not their own.

“Whoever’s trying to confuse us isn’t thinking this through very well,” Spark remarked after a while.

“I’m not so sure they’re trying to confuse us anymore, Spark,” Nightshade told the jolteon. “I’m beginning to think that these marks might be a warning.”

“As long as we stick together, we should be fine,” Redclaw stated. “Let’s just keep going and make sure we aren’t going in circles.”

Nightshade nodded and he and Redclaw walked further over the slippery stone, Spark and Wildflame following just behind them. Blazefang followed them at a distance, feeling an eerie feeling creep along his spine. He wished the pack were here…or even that the heracross and his friends would allow him to travel with them. But neither of those things were going to happen. Trying to forget his worried thoughts, Blazefang sighed and took another step forward.

He was immediately met with a loud screech as something jumped down on him from above.

“TRESSPASSERS! We’ve found you!”

-ooo-

It was a while before Stormblade was ready to travel again. Even then, the going was painfully slow, and Stormblade would often stop, and each time he did so, it took longer for Snowcrystal and Rosie to help him get up and keep going again. Thunder didn’t try to offer any help, though she did make a few remarks to the others that forcing him to travel like this was only making things worse. Rosie had quickly gotten tired and ended up walking beside Stormblade, leaving Snowcrystal to light the way on her own.

The small growlithe wasn’t sure how much farther the group could go that day. They were all tired, hungry, and thirsty, yet there was no food to be seen, nor was there any source of water other than the scarce droplets falling from the ceiling and the occasional tiny puddles. She decided that they’d find a place to rest and try to sleep for a while.

As she walked ahead of the others through a narrow passage, she realized that up ahead, the tunnel opened up into a much larger cavern, with a high domed ceiling covered in long, pointed stalactites. Snowcrystal ran ahead, emerging from the tunnel and into the big cavern. The sight took her breath away.

She was standing on a stone ledge above an oddly smooth cave floor below her, looking out over a cavern bigger than any she’d ever seen, even in the vespiquen’s hive. Colorful and complex rock formations, ranging in hue from golden yellow and orange-brown to grayish purple, covered the cavern, forming strange and intricate patterns on the cave wall and the many pillars of stone. Parts of the cave were lit up by large clusters of crystals that glowed, much like the ones she had known back in her home. A feeling of homesickness washed over her, and she wondered what her friends back at the mountain were doing now.

Snowcrystal turned her head as Thunder came to stand beside her. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” she asked the scyther.

“For one big, giant enclosed space? Sure,” Thunder replied. She turned her head as Rosie and Stormblade stood beside them.

“Wow…” Rosie gasped, “I’ve seen caves before…but none like this…it’s amazing! I never knew stone could be so…colorful.”

Snowcrystal wondered what Stormblade thought of it, but when he didn’t say anything, she realized that at the moment, pain must be a far more pressing issue for him than the beauty of a cave. She sighed. “At least I won’t have to use fire attacks for a while until we get through this part of the cave,” she said, indicating the crystals. “And the floor is smooth…it’ll be easy to walk over.” She directed this last statement at Stormblade, who didn’t respond. She wasn’t even sure he had heard her.

“Do you think we should walk through here before we rest?” Rosie asked Snowcrystal.

The growlithe nodded. “Yes, it’ll be easy. And if we need to, we can always rest somewhere in this cavern.” She stepped toward the edge of the rocky ledge, looking down at the smooth ground below. “Let’s go.”

She leaped down, but once she landed, she soon figured out why the stone floor was so smooth; it wasn’t stone at all. Her paws landed with a squelch in thick, gooey mud. Lifting one of her paws with a little difficulty, as the mud was sticky and reached halfway up her legs, she turned to the others, trying to shake the mud off her paw and flinching when a drop of water from above struck her nose. “It’s…uh…muddy…” she told them sheepishly.

Rosie peered down at the ground and then gingerly leapt to stand beside Snowcrystal on three legs, the mud only reaching a little bit above her paws. “It’s not so bad,” she told the two scyther, who were waiting. “And it shouldn’t be a problem for you two.”

“That mud is just an infection waiting to happen,” Thunder muttered grudgingly, but she too leaped down to stand beside Snowcrystal, ignoring the pain shooting up her injured leg. Being taller than the other two, the mud wasn’t much of a problem for Thunder to walk through, but Snowcrystal was worried that she would be right about the infection.

Stormblade, still on the ledge, leaned over to get a better view of the ground below. At any time before his injuries, he could have effortlessly made the jump. Now, it seemed impossible. He turned to peer at his wings, all four of them battered, burned and useless. He turned back to look at the other three pokémon on the ground. He knew the only way he’d ever get down without injuring himself further was to climb.

Snowcrystal watched as Stormblade turned away from the edge of the rock he was standing on, and limped over to the side, where the ledge sloped down a little to meet the ground below it. The scyther leaned forward, using the tips of his scythes to steady himself, and began to slowly, hesitantly, climb down.

Stormblade hadn’t gone far when his scythe slipped on the wet stone, causing him to trip and tumble down into the mud. He slowly tried to stand upright, looking down at the mud covering the thin but deep burns around his legs.

While Stormblade started to lick his wounds clean, Thunder began walking ahead, determined to get out of the cavern. “Wait up!” Snowcrystal called, running with difficulty through the mud to catch up to her. She stopped at Thunder’s side, panting. “We have to stick together…and wait for Rosie and Stormblade.”

To her surprise, Thunder didn’t object, and stayed where she was. Rosie reached the others first, though it was clear the ninetales found it a bit harder to walk through the mud on three legs. At last Stormblade reached them, no longer bothering to try and clean the mud from his wounds. Snowcrystal looked at him and sighed yet again. “Come on,” she told the others, knowing that Stormblade and Rosie wouldn’t be able to climb back onto the ledge anyway. “We might as well just keep going until we find a good spot to rest. Follow me…”

Snowcrystal began walking, heading toward a large group of stalagmites near the center of the cavern, the others trailing behind her. As she walked further, the mud she was walking through got deeper. The others, apart from Stormblade, didn’t seem to notice or care much, but Snowcrystal found that wading through the mud was becoming harder and harder. After a short while, the mud had gotten so deep it reached her belly fur, and it was so thick that she found it hard to force her way through it. Stopping, she turned to Thunder. “Maybe you should go first,” she suggested, realizing that Thunder could move through the mud without much trouble, and make the way easier for the rest of them.

Thunder moved to the front of the group, and Snowcrystal found it easier to walk through where the scyther had stepped, but further on, the mud was still getting deeper, and stickier. It wasn’t long before Thunder got fed up with fighting her way through the thick gooey mud, and decided to fly over it instead, despite the injuries to her wings. Snowcrystal watched the scyther fly over to another ledge on the far side of the cavern, where she stood waiting for them, though unable to see them clearly from that far across the stone room.

Snowcrystal was finding it increasingly more difficult to wade through the mud. Near the center of the cavern, it got much deeper, and her paws could no longer touch the bottom. Instead, she was forced to crawl over the mud’s surface, trying not to sink too far and get stuck. Behind her, Rosie was forced to do the same, only on three legs.

“I think the combee’s cave was nicer,” the ninetales remarked, trying to distract herself and the others while she struggled to keep her paws from sinking too deeply.

“Well at least there aren’t any angry pokémon chasing after us this time,” Snowcrystal remarked, realizing what Rosie was trying to do. “I’ll take this over being chased by a swarm of combee any day.”

“Heh, me too,” Rosie replied. “I can’t stand bug pokémon…well, most bugs anyway,” she added in a whispered apology to Stormblade. “Being chased by a swarm of combee was really…ugh…oh great…I think I’m stuck.”

Snowcrystal turned her head, seeing Rosie lying on the mud with her forepaws reaching out in front of her. Her back legs had sunk deeply into the ooze, and as she struggled to pull them free, the suction from the thick, sticky mud kept her from making much progress.

As Snowcrystal watched, she realized that her own paws were sinking. Quickly pulling away, she shouted a warning to Rosie. “Don’t stop!” she hissed warningly. “Keep moving forward or else you’ll just sink further.”

Rosie nodded and pulled herself forward, inch by inch, until her back legs were free enough to allow her to crawl over the surface of the mud again.

By this time, Stormblade was up to his waist in mud, and was making slower progress than the others, despite the fact that he could still touch the ground and didn’t have to worry about sinking. As he got further, Snowcrystal realized that the mud was deeper still further on, and was still so thick that Stormblade could hardly force his way through it.

Snowcrystal quickly found that it was easier to walk over the mud when she walked quickly, not allowing her paws much time to sink. Rosie caught on and followed Snowcrystal’s example, calling encouragement to Stormblade. Stormblade, however, couldn’t follow the example. Unlike them, he only had one good leg, and his scythes quickly and easily sank through the mud when he tried to put any weight on them. He was also heavier than the others; even an underweight scyther weighed more than a small ninetales or a growlithe.

Snowcrystal didn’t dare stop for fear that she would get stuck, but she was growing increasingly worried. She became even more so when they reached the group of stalagmites, which blocked out most of the light from the nearby crystals, eclipsing the group in darkness. Snowcrystal kept close to the stalagmites, in case she needed to use something to help her pull herself free of the mud. Here, the shadows from the stones made the ground even darker, and she had to rely on the light from her crystal to see. After a few more steps, she noticed a strange smell, but didn’t focus on it long, and continued to make her way past the rocks.

Suddenly she stumbled into something, causing her to fall onto her side in the mud. She quickly got up and backed away, trying to see what she had walked into by scraping some of the mud off her crystal with her claws. She soon realized what it was that she had stumbled into. What lay ahead of her was the skeleton of some canine pokémon, half submerged in the mud by the rocks. Letting out a squeak of surprise, Snowcrystal backed away.

Rosie looked up, stopping in her tracks at the sight of the long-dead pokémon. Snowcrystal edged around it, calling to Rosie to keep going. Snowcrystal found herself unable to look away from the still skeleton of whatever pokémon had tried to travel through the cavern. It was bigger than she was, but it looked horribly like a growlithe, and Snowcrystal got a sickening jolt when she realized that along with the churned up mud around the pokémon, there were claw marks on the stalagmite nearest to it.

“What an awful way to die,” Rosie remarked sadly, noticing the same thing she had. “Being trapped in the mud and slowly starving to death…” She shuddered.

“K-keep g-going…” Snowcrystal whispered quietly, turning away. However, the image of the growlithe’s skeleton and the desperate claw marks on the stone was forever branded into her mind. She kept her gaze focused ahead, not knowing if she could force herself to look back even if she wanted to. Rosie kept silent until they left the shadows of the stalagmites and emerged into the open again.

The ninetales breathed a sigh of relief. The ledge Thunder was waiting on wasn’t far away, and as they came into the light again, Thunder turned her head towards them, saying nothing. As Stormblade managed to make it past the stalagmites, Snowcrystal and Rosie, already far ahead, noticed with relief that the mud was shallower at the bottom of the ledge, and the two exhausted fire types climbed up the slope and reached Thunder.

Snowcrystal looked out over the mud again, calling to Stormblade. “Keep going, Stormblade! It’s not so deep further on!” However, she knew that he was in one of the deepest parts of the mud, and she realized with worry that he looked more exhausted than any of them.

Stormblade moved forward, ever so slowly, but got no more than a few paces before he stopped, feeling too weak to go on. “Don’t stop!” Rosie called to him. “Do you want to get trapped there?”

Reluctantly, Stormblade kept struggling to move toward the others, but this time he only got a small step further before he stopped again. Snowcrystal quickly edged her way down off the ledge and into the shallow mud, facing him. “It gets easier over here!” she told him. “You’re almost through the worst part…just keep going and it won’t be so hard!”

This time Stormblade looked up at her but didn’t move. “Keep going!” Snowcrystal shouted at him again.

But Stormblade’s strength had left him. As he tried to struggle forward, he found himself unable to move. Although he wasn’t in danger of sinking further as long as he was standing, the sticky mud made it impossible for him to move backwards or forwards in his weakened state. Snowcrystal watched as he struggled wearily for a few more moments before doing the worst possible thing he could have done, laying down on the surface of the thick mud.

“Stormblade! No, don’t-” Snowcrystal shouted, but Stormblade didn’t respond. Without hesitating, Snowcrystal raced across the surface of the mud toward him. Rosie stayed behind on the rock ledge, looking panicked. Snowcrystal reached Stormblade’s side quickly. “Get up!” she shouted urgently. “Don’t lay down…you have to keep going!”

“I-I…can’t…” Stormblade’s voice was hardly even a whisper.

Snowcrystal felt her paws sinking further, but at the moment she didn’t care. “You have to get up! Don’t give up Stormblade! You…you…can’t give up…”

“Stormblade, don’t just lay there!” Rosie’s panicked shout sounded across the cavern from the ledge she stood on, but to Snowcrystal, her cry seemed very far away.

Stormblade lifted his head painfully and tried to rise, but it was clear that he simply did not have the strength. He lay down again.

“Stormblade!” Snowcrystal cried, pulling her paws free of the mud and edging closer to him. She whined softly, nudging the side of his head. She knew she should get back on the ledge, but she couldn’t bring herself to leave his side when she had no idea if he would be able to make it or not.

Back on the ledge, Rosie paced back and forth anxiously. If it hadn’t been for her broken leg, she would have dashed into the mud to try to help Stormblade as well. Yet in reality, she realized, all they could do was try to encourage him. Snowcrystal was far too small to help Stormblade out, and she knew that she wouldn’t be of any help either. Thunder was the only one who remained calm, watching Snowcrystal and Stormblade impassively.

“Stormblade you have…to try…” Snowcrystal gasped, trying to push the scyther’s blade out of the mud. “You can’t just…give up…” Stormblade’s only response was to close his eyes.

“Snowcrystal, get out of there!” Rosie shouted in worry. The growlithe looked down to see herself submerged up to her shoulders. Fighting to free herself, she crawled forward out of the mud, turning to Rosie.

“What do you want me to do? Just leave him here?” she shouted back.

“You’re too small to be of any help to him!” Rosie called back, the fear for both her and Stormblade showing in the ninetales’s panicked gaze. “Get out or you’ll be stuck too! We’ll think of something! Just…let me think…”

Snowcrystal refused to listen. Rosie could hear the growlithe’s cries grow more and more panicked as Stormblade still didn’t move. “Oh no…” she whispered. “He’s giving up…oh no…”

Thunder could hear both Rosie’s panicked whispers and Snowcrystal’s desperate shouts echoing around the walls of the cave. She closed her eyes, trying to drown it all out.

“Snowcrystal you need to get back here!” Rosie cried. “It’s dangerous! There’s got to be another way…just…come back! Get back where it’s safe!”

“NO!” Snowcrystal shouted back, still trying in vain to push Stormblade out of the mud. She was simply too small…there was no way she could help him, but she was refusing to let herself believe it. In the back of her mind, she knew that if she stayed there she would soon become stuck too deeply in the mud to be able to get out, just as Stormblade now was, but she couldn’t bring herself to leave Stormblade’s side.

“You’re no use to him trapped!” Rosie shouted, fighting back the panic that was threatening to overwhelm her.

Thunder opened her eyes. Her gaze slowly moved from Rosie to Snowcrystal and Stormblade. She stood still, the cries of the growlithe and ninetales echoing all around her. She sighed.

Rosie was nearly knocked off her feet as Thunder rushed by her, taking to the air and flying out over the mud. She blinked in surprise, hardly registering what had just happened. Snowcrystal looked up as Thunder landed roughly beside her, her feet skidding slightly in the mud. “Move aside,” Thunder told the stunned growlithe, who obeyed.

Stormblade’s eyes opened in surprise as he looked up at Thunder as if the mud and blood covered scyther was the last thing he expected to see. Without waiting for a response from him, Thunder leaned down and sank her unusually long fangs in the top of Stormblade’s wing.

Stormblade was too weak to even cry out in pain as Thunder pulled on his wing, backing up to keep herself from sinking into the deep mud. It was much harder to try and pull him out than she expected, and she didn’t seem to be making any progress. Instead, she was starting to sink herself. Despite this, she pulled harder, ignoring the acrid taste of Stormblade’s blood in her mouth.

Snowcrystal backed away from Thunder, making sure to stay constantly moving to keep her paws from sinking deeply. “Keep trying, Thunder!” she called, her hope beginning to be renewed.

After a few more moments, Stormblade felt himself being pulled ever so slightly out of the mud. Feeling a small bit of strength returning to him, he lifted his head again, trying to help Thunder by pushing against the ground with his good leg and attempting to crawl forward using his scythes.

Exhausted, Thunder let go of Stormblade’s wing, spitting out the blood. “Stupid deep mud…whose idea was it to come this way anyway?” she muttered, before grabbing his wing again and starting to pull.

Fighting against the sinking mud that felt like it was trying to pull him down again, and trying not to think about the possibility of his wing getting ripped out of his back, Stormblade, aided by Thunder, used what little strength he had left to crawl out of the deepest part of the mud. Even then, the worst part wasn’t over. Allowing Stormblade to lean against her, Thunder had to do most of the work fighting her way through the thick mud, knowing that flying was out of the question. Snowcrystal raced back and forth from the ledge to the two scyther, refusing to get to safety until they had managed to reach the rocky ledge where Rosie waited. When at last Thunder managed to help Stormblade pull himself up onto the ledge, both of them collapsed, exhausted.

Snowcrystal climbed up after them, feeling exhausted herself. For a while, there was nothing any of them could do but gasp for breath.

“Thunder…thank you…” Stormblade whispered, looking up at her. “I couldn’t have done that alone.”

Thunder stared back at him in surprise, a moment before Snowcrystal ran over to her, wagging her tail and happily licking her face. “You did it!” the growlithe cried. “You saved his life! You’re a hero!” Startled and confused, Thunder pulled away from her and stood up.

“That was…really brave of you,” Rosie told the scyther, her gaze filled with respect.

“Brave?” Thunder repeated. “Why should I be afraid of mud? I have usable wings.”

“Of course it was brave!” Snowcrystal cried, not seeming to have heard Thunder’s last statement. “You saved Stormblade’s life…” she added in a more serious tone. “I don’t think any of us can thank you enough.” Thunder didn’t reply; in fact she seemed completely clueless about how to respond.

While Stormblade lay down, too exhausted to get up, he watched Snowcrystal and Rosie talking to Thunder, and realized with confusion that it seemed to only be making Thunder look more miserable than before. And he certainly knew that it wasn’t because Thunder had any sort of problem with others seeing her doing a good deed.

As the two overjoyed small pokémon continued to praise Thunder, the scyther’s gaze darted from side to side. Then, without saying anything, she turned and darted into a tunnel veering off from the ledge they were standing on.

Rosie paused, looking confused. “Was it something I said?” she wondered aloud, glancing at the others.

Thunder had no intentions of leaving the group or going far. She simply wanted to be alone. Noticing a dark, small cavern to the left of her, she turned and walked into it, crouching down against the rough stone. Rosie and Snowcrystal’s voices reached her through the darkness. “Thunder?” Snowcrystal cried. “Where are you?”

“I’m over here!” Thunder yelled back, annoyed. “Don’t follow me. I just want a moment’s peace…and I’m obviously not going to get it with you three around!”

“Oh…okay,” Snowcrystal replied in a confused tone, and she and Rosie turned back and walked to Stormblade.

When she was sure the two of them had left, Thunder lay down, trying to ignore the tears that came to her eyes and dripped to the rock below her, looking exactly the same against the cold stone as the water dripping from the stalactites above her.

Back on the ledge by the large cavern, Snowcrystal lay curled up next to Stormblade with Rosie right beside her. They had decided to rest there and continue the journey when Stormblade was stronger. Snowcrystal was nearly asleep when Thunder finally reappeared, looking a bit worried about something. Looking up, Snowcrystal smiled at her. “Oh, hi Thunder…” she whispered sleepily.

“Look, if you guys want to talk about how happy you are that Stormblade’s here, save it for later, okay?” Thunder told her.

“Oh…all right,” Snowcrystal replied.

Rosie looked up and watched Thunder move to the other side of the ledge and lie down. “You can sleep here with us if you want to,” the ninetales told her.

“How about…no,” Thunder muttered, before laying her head down and closing her eyes.

Rosie just sighed and closed her eyes as well, hoping that traveling through the rest of the cave would be easier for all of them, and that they would have the strength to make it through.

-ooo-

Cyclone had long since realized that Blazefang was in no way going to cooperate with him. The houndour would probably have to be killed by a trusted fire type in his army. But the real question was…who to trust?

The vaporeon did not turn as Solus approached him from behind. Sunlight glinted off the red letter ‘R’ on the espeon’s collar as he came to stand beside Cyclone. “So…are we going after them?” he asked.

“Not through the cave,” Cyclone replied calmly, not even turning to look at Solus. “We can’t afford to lose our strong pokémon. Instead, I will send some of them to guard the tunnel entrance in the hills. The rest of us will simply find all exits to the cave system and wait there for the houndour to come out.”

“How are we going to find all the exits?” Solus asked.

“Some of the forest pokémon should know,” Cyclone replied calmly, and stood up, heading back to the main army. “Stay calm, Solus. The fire Forbidden Attack is not lost…everything’s merely been…delayed…”

To be continued…