~Gold~
The last two or so days were alright, with somewhat mild weather despite the intense chill. It wasn't windy, and that made a big difference when you were so high up it was hard to breathe. Not to mention the ice had been covered over with another softer layer of snow so Silver and I could walk through ourselves, rather than riding on my Mamoswine.
The nights were black and soundless, leaving the two of us with the most promising awkward moments, especially when we were going to sleep. Typhlosion would normally lay between us, him on one side, me on the other, both sharing his warmth that left us sweaty in the morning. I didn't bother to be bothered by the fact that Silver was so obviously avoiding me, but rather tried to enjoy the side of me that didn't worry.
The old Gold seemed to be back for a short time, thinking about my mother and if she really intended on moving to the city or not. I was myself again, if only for a few days, it was nice. I wondered how Lyra was, and if that Maril of hers was doing a good job protecting her. It was easy to assume yes, but I knew that being bipolar she would never really be safe.
And to my surprise, I found that I couldn't quite care as much as I should have. It was more of a mutual worry, like I knew she was worried about me so I should worry about her. But deep down there was no trace of Lyra in my mind. It was a surface scratch, something easy to think about while I walked in silence with Silver.
Every now and again our eyes would meet, particularly when one of us slipped or tripped over something. It was easy to get your feet all tangled up here, since the snow would hide anything that could potentially harm you until it was too late. I had managed to avoid some of the dangers by being extra cautious and not thinking about anything to distract me, but even so my feet wouldn't stop scrambling to catch up.
Silver had fallen twice, once flat on his face in the snow. He hit a soft patch and sunk down about three or four feet. I had to help him out of that one, but I had been laughing so hard it took longer than it should. I didn't regret it though, even if he had punched me in the shoulder and given me a slight bruise.
It felt like friendship. Nothing more, nothing less. And even if he never admitted it, I knew that he had cracked a smile when I started gasping for air, unable to control the lack of oxygen going into my brain because of the elevation. That was how friends treated each other right?
Since that moment we had been catching each other's eyes more often, sometimes even not looking away instantly. I wouldn't retreat back to the safety of staring at my aching feet, and after a little while he must have realized it because he decided to talk to me.
Two more days later, we were stuck in normal conversation, only this time putting in more effort to howl over the bad weather. I could hardly believe that this was the same person I was rivals with for three years.
"I think we should stop for now!" I commented, snow slapping me in the face. I was ice cold and my stomach was snarling for the skimpy readymade meals we packed a ridicules amount of. I noticed a little ways off there was what looked to be another cave entrance. We could hide out in there until the wind stopped.
"I think we should too!" Silver agreed hesitantly, probably wanting to disagree. But he couldn't deny the fact that this was harming us more than it was doing any good.
We scrambled over to the cave entrance and had to duck down to get into it. There seemed to be barely any room to breathe in there, and since I went in after Silver I couldn't help but flush a terrible scarlet. At least he wouldn't notice it though; I was already red with chapped skin. My body grew hot as I pushed up into the confined space and brought my backpack around to the front of me.
"This is too small." Silver tried to turn but couldn't. "Go back out, we can't stay here."
I didn't move though, because I spotted what seemed to be a different exit. It was almost too dark to see where my hands were going as I felt along the frozen rock walls, which was why my hand was ruffling through my backpack; for a flashlight.
"Hold on." I said, dropping the heavy bag at my feet and crouching to dig through it more thoroughly.
"Shhh…. Do you hear that?" Silver suddenly grew still and quiet. I looked up, trying to see his face clearly in the dark, and only noticing that my head was inches away from his crotch. Oh great… I grit my teeth together and shoved back down New Gold before he had the chance to speak up. Over four days of no confrontation with him and I wasn't about to ruin it. I focused on listening to the silence around us.
Past the sound of my own heartbeat I could hear a gentle rumbling, almost like something of a snore, but too faint. More like rough breathing; rough char filled breathing. The lungs of a smoker maybe. I swallowed and felt along the wall until my hand got a better grip. The flashlight was a lost cause now, (I had to assume it was in Silver's bag) so I just made a slow movement to stand up, face kept well to the side away from his hips and pelvis area.
"There is a crack here." I whispered, finally my hands coming to the end of the cold stone. I felt the gap just past Silver's right shoulder and could tell that it was big enough o squeeze through. "Want me to go first?"
"Why would you go at all?" he hissed. "Don't you hear that?"
"We have to see what it is… right?" curiosity raged inside me. "We have all our pokemon too… twelve of them against whatever is in there… come on we have a good chance."
"Are you always this stupid?" I would have taken offence to that if it wasn't for the fact that real fear hung in his words. I heard him swallow.
"I will go first." I put my hand on his shoulder and maneuvered around him in the enclosed space. He shoved me slightly and I could feel the tension on his back. He turned the opposite way and I had to flinch when both our backsides rubbed up against one another. New Gold tried to scream for release, and I ignored him, gripping the stone and fitting myself through the crack in the cave with hastiness. Silver grunted softly.
"You're crazy."
"Silver we have been towering this mountain for days and haven't seen any sign of pokemon at all. What could it be?" I shot back, though my voice was distracted. "Can you find the flashlight?"
I noticed as I stood on the opposite side of the crack from Silver, that it was significantly hotter over here. Hot enough that having a leather jacket on was too much. My eyes searched the darkness as the smell of something burning came. Was someone here? There was no way a fire could be started… it was pitch black.
"Here." Silver's barely audible voice came and I felt his arm being fed through the crack to me. The flashlight entered my hands as he squeezed in and pushed me aside. This part of the cave must have been much larger, judging by the now echoing sound of the breathing. We both grew unbearably quiet in the dark. The sound of a simple click as I flipped the switch of the light.
Everything lit up gently; just enough so that we could see that the stone floors were covered in soot and ash, and that it was indeed much, much larger here, with countless different directions to take the tunnels. I stared in awe, wondering just what we were getting ourselves into, and then remembering this was my idea.
The old Gold's idea at least… I decided that it was better to be curious and brave than cowardly and… well… according to New Gold, worried about Silver.
"Well… now what?" he asked and I turned the flashlight just under him. His face lit up eerily and I could see every significant line and crease in his skin. Surprisingly it was actually pretty smooth, and sleek and unaffected by the wind. I knew my face would look somewhat like a desert right about now.
"Should we fallow it?" I whispered. "The noise?"
"You wanted to do this!"
"Shhhh! Ok, ok, then let's go…" I walked with quickly defrosting feet to the nearest tunnel entrance. When I shined the flashlight in there was nothing to reveal at the end and didn't sound like the noise was coming from down there anyways so I ignored it.
The second tunnel was wider, with the same ash lined ground as the main cave. The smells coming from this direction were strongest, and when I put the flashlight that way I could see the cave walls and where they turned. This had to be the direction.
"This way I think."
Silver was right beside me, bumping shoulders as I spoke, and I hadn't even noticed until now that his hand was gripping the material of my jacket at my elbow. Was he really that scared?
"Gold… what… what if it's Red?" he mumbled after a second of stalling.
I hadn't thought about that… I really didn't consider the possibilities of what may be creating fire in the mountain at all, but I certainly didn't think it was Red. The stories only told of him being at the top of the mountain, like a statue that never left but came to life to battle when you approached it.
"He's at the top though…" I mumbled, staring down the smoky corridor with no attempts to
move.
"He has to stay somewhere though… not even a legend can survive the weather outside…"
Silver had a point.
"Don't worry…" suddenly New Gold, the part of me that had been slowing forming since three years ago, decided to force its way back up my throat. My voice was divided, half choked, half startled by myself. "We will be ok." Was it really all I could do to comfort Silver?
"But are you ready for that kind of battle?" he questioned as I took a step forward into the tunnel.
I glanced back at his dim face, thinking about that for a second. I used to always tell myself that I would never go up Mt. Silver until I absolutely knew I was ready and would win against Red. But with Silver's decision I didn't have a choice. Never once before Silver mentioned challenging the legend did I think I was ready, and yet somehow now I felt like maybe I was. Even so, I was surprised to find that it was HIM asking ME this question.
"I thought you wanted to battle him?" I mumbled. If I was being honest with myself I had to admit that Silver never once showed any sign of wanting to beat the notorious Red. Sure he claimed to want to climb this mountain, but I never knew his reasoning.
Silver looked at me like I was the crazy one. "I never said that."
"Why else would you want to climb this mountain?" I challenged weakly. The silence was getting softer, and the breathing we heard was getting heavier. The smell of soot and ash and fire grew to a miserable high and I had to cover my face in my jacket just to breathe. My eyes stung as we rounded a corner in the tunnel and turned, walking too closely to each other.
For some reason when in the dark, small spaces, when the air was hard to breathe, New Gold liked to come out. It was like he was nocturnal, or lured by the awkward moments. He wanted to break free, and it was getting harder and harder to not to let him.
I focused on the smoke and the ash and the sound of "fffffhhhhssssht….. hrrrruuuuuuphhhh….. fffffhhhhsssssht." Coming from our direction. What a strange noise... my heart started to race.
"That doesn't sound like a human." Silver whispered, fingers tightening on my jacket sleeve. "Maybe we should turn back."
There was a sudden crackling sound, and I realized that it wasn't the breathing that did it. It was indeed fire, casting a ghostly red glow on the black stone surrounding us. I turned the flashlight down and let the separate light guide us. It flashed and flickered and danced to the beat of our slowly shuffling footsteps. I could feel just how much ash had gathered below, and it began to feel like I was walking through sand. A single corner stood between us and the fire.
We stalled, glanced at each other's orange glinted eyes, glancing back at the turn, stepping closer to each other, then shuffling away, trying to seem brave alone. The panic in Silver's eyes was tough to look at though. Had he always been so frightened of things? Everything I remembered about him was confidence.
Ever so slightly I turned to the corner, and pushed my hands up against the hot black stone to peer around the corner. I expected the same kind of lowlight that was illuminating the rest of the tunnel, but found it to be astonishingly bright. I blinked, drew back in a fluster, and rubbed my adjusting eyes. Silver leaned in close to me, straining forward to glance around himself. His reaction was almost the same, but he let out a little grunt of surprise.
"What… what is that thing?" I spluttered, squinting to see.
Wrapped up in its own giant steaming cavern was a bird, swathed in fire and smoke and tucked so tightly together it was almost impossible to make out. Its neck looked long, its head small, its beak skinny, but the wing span had to be easily ten feet across. That was what I saw, a monster, sleeping with its flaming feathers dropping ashes into its nest of more ashes. The pokemon seemed as much dead as it was alive. A phoenix, like those of the old folktales they told kids in grade school, only much more menacing.
Even asleep it looked like a killer. I started to panic, seeing that its chest would rise and fall and its feathers would flutter and shift every few seconds. It appeared deaf, trapped behind the crackle of the fire surrounding it, but it obviously could sense something was here.
"Moltres…" Silver gasped softly under his breath. "There is no way… Gold… that's Moltres!"
"Shhh!" I hissed, angrier at myself though, for having not paid attention to those stories in grade school so long ago. I had wanted to be a trainer so badly that school work came as a nuisance, regardless of how smart I was or not.
"Gold…" his voice was tight, a small squeak of fright. "Look…"
My eyes trailed back to the monster pokemon. A legendary… something that wasn't supposed to exist. I wondered, if this was perhaps the reason why trainers didn't make it up the mountain often. Did they have to get past such a creature first?
"Go…" I stepped back, seeing as though it was shaking to life. The sleeping beast stretched its wings out (bigger than ten feet) and raised its neck. It shook its feathers loose, and blinked open fleshy lids to reveal scarlet colored eyes. Disturbance lined the pokemon's face, and all I could see for a split second, was the pure venom of hate.
The flashlight in my trembling hand somehow dislodged itself, and came rattling down to the floor, sending a heartbreaking echo to bounce the walls and back again The light flickered once, and then the dim glow of the fire was all that was left. We stared, like a deerling caught in a pair of headlights, while the beast turned its attention in our direction.
Fire flew and erupted into a torrent of heat and embers, lighting the cavern and spraying ash all around. It screeched, and bunched, and I knew it was going to leap. My heart was in my throat, and my feet welded to the ground.
"Dammit Gold!" Silver gasped and yanked me back, I hadnt realized until now that he was gripping my shoulder tightly. The eyes of the great bird had collided with mine, and refused to let my gaze go. I was trapped until Silver snagged me away, and started hauling me back the way we came, this time into pitch blackness.
"Run." I huffed, realizing just how horrible this was.
I sickening screech embedded into the walls and echoed back and forth, running through our heads with sickening effects. Dizziness grew behind my eyes as well as a cool pressure on my hand. I didn't understand, my other hand was tight fisted and scathing the walls as I bolted forward, a step behind Silver, a pace in front of a dwindling flame.
Horror shot through me when I realized we were being attacked.
"Faster!" I howled, dizziness and heat sweeping through me and threatening to buckle my knee caps.
"Come on!" Silver urged as we disbanded from the tunnel and into the first largest corridor with the many different entries. The Moltres was hot on our heels, spitting and flapping madly, just a bit too large to actually fly through the tunnels. It was a ball of writhing heat, and barely awkward enough to run from.
My feet slipped in the loose ash and my hand gripped the wall for support. Still I was being yanked and pulled, faster than ever before while I tried to catch up and get away. Silver suddenly stopped then, making me run into his back and almost knock us both over.
"Go!" in the pitch blackness I was shoved, with full force of his body he pushed me through the hole, the crack barely big enough for a person that lead us back out into the icy world. I scratched my already soar back on the rocks and felt something clip the top of my brow. There was the smell of blood and the feel of hot moisture growing on my face, but with the adrenalin so high I didn't quite get it.
Silver came next, still shoving me, still pulling me forward as well. I was lost in the blackness for a moment, while fire spun around us and danced through the crack too small for the bird itself. My forearm was scorched slightly and stung, but only a moment later Silver managed to find the exit.
The mountain, the cave itself seemed to spit fire at us as we collapsed, sweaty and panting into the freezing snow. Wind howling and hail battered our bodies proved that this was still the mountain we started on. Two completely different worlds, one within each other. Hot and Cold. Death and life. New Gold, and Old Gold.
We lay panting in the snow, eyes shut tight and blood trickling from several spots on our faces. We got pretty beat up going through without seeing anything. Blood fell between my eyes and soaked the strands of hair. I didn't quite care though. We were alive.
We were alive, and that thought alone made me laugh a shaky, humorless laugh. But more than that I realized that we were still staring at each other. Honey eyes and sleet gray ones, glinting in the suns reflection off the snow.
Silver snorted, as if he couldn't believe what just happened. I knew I couldn't…
New Gold danced with delight inside the pit of my stomach, and tingled all the way up through me to the tips of my fingers.
I hadn't realized until now that Silver and I were gripping each other's hand, fingers locked and lying between us in the snow. Was that a reflex reaction? Some life or death situation and we automatically lock fingers and save one another? I stared at him in shock, both our faces flushed and sweaty, teeth chattering.
His senses came back to him then, for he ripped his hand away and shoved up off the ground with a slight gasp. I remained there though, on the cool ground staring up at his back turned to me. Between the snow and the slight sunlight and the dark auburn of his hair, New Gold fluttered.
My heart fluttered.