A torrent of snow blustered past the man and the younger woman who huddled together on the mountainside. They were hardly dressed for the occasion; she wore a beautiful low-cut blue dress, and his sleeves were still rolled up to his elbows. He made no attempt to change it; instead, his attention was focused on the young woman pressed against him, holding her hands to his not merely in an attempt to share body heat, but to try and warm herself with the ball of fire he was gingerly holding in his palms.
"Keep your eyes open." he told her. "If you fall asleep, you might not wake back up again." She nodded vigorously, her teeth already beginning to chatter. He gritted his own teeth and forced more energy into the fireball, making it blaze brighter.
"I dddon't think we're going to find any sssalts here, Bbbooker..." she chastised him.
"To hell with salts. Soon as we get you warmed up, we'll go someplace that does. We didn't fight our way through that nightmare just to wind up a couple ornamental ice blocks."
They turned their heads as the crunch of feet on snow reached their ears. A tall slender woman, wearing a dress that was almost painfully black against the grey sky and swirling snow, and the second set of long blonde hair they'd seen that day that reached below the waist (although hers was not nearly as spiky as his had been), rounded the corner. Her eyes widened when she spotted them. "Oh! Are you two all right?" she asked as she hurried over to them.
"Couldn't be bbbetter." the young woman said sarcastically. "I just left my only pppair of long-jjjohns in the tower."
"Why in the world didn't you dress more sensibly?" the other woman asked. "Never mind. There will be time for explanations once we get you warmed up." She reached into her bag and pulled out a fist-sized red and white ball which she then tossed to the ground. It flew open and a white light poured forth, quickly resolving into a small vaguely feline creature with an orange coat and a yellow mane and tail. It chirped loudly and looked up at the woman who'd released it. "Flareon, I need you to warm her up for me." It chirped again and began climbing up onto the girl's dress. "Don't make yourself too hot! Think of it as an Ember, not a Flamethrower." The creature nodded as if it understood her. It pawed at the girl's face and she lowered her hands from her companions' as she looked at it curiously. The creature nestled against her chest and seemed almost to glow as it did so. The girl's expression changed to one of wonder and she held the creature closer. "Wwwow! Can I pet him?" she asked eagerly.
The woman nodded. "Flareons can be very affectionate sometimes, although they'd much prefer to battle. I'm taking care of this one for a friend of mine. He's raising another Pokemon right now."
The man stood up, brushing snow from his pants while still holding the fireball carefully. "Just slow down there a second. What the hell's a Flareon? And what's a Pokemon for that matter?"
The woman started. "You mean you... you climbed all this way without Pokemon?"
"Well we didn't climb so much as...fall." the girl explained as she scratched the creature between the ears.
"And it wasn't falling as much as we were pushed." the man grumbled. "Look lady, I don't mean to be rude, but where the hell are we?"
"You're in the Sinnoh region. But if you want me to be more specific... Would you like to come inside? It won't be much warmer in the caves, but you won't get soaked through from the snow." the woman suggested. Both parties heartily agreed to this, and so they followed her along the cliff into an opening in the rock-face.
