Chapter 14: Big Footsteps, Bigger Goodbyes

By the unanimous and most indubitably unexpected help of the rather large individuals we'd convinced to join us, once further settled into the confines of Paradise—Gurdurr now upholds the plan to build a covered walkway to a new wing of our home just for these new troops and whomever else will join them—the entirety of the fully-evolved creatures expands and fills our large plot of flowers and rejoice with the thumping footsteps of big creatures stumbling about.

FUMP FUMP FUMP FUMP FUMP FUMP

It continues in every which way. One moment the sea-blue golurk with her huge muscles and feet traipsing over plain, another chased by simply Blast the aggron with his metallic feel and silence, but the plodding of his feet can't be hidden. BOOM, BOOM, BOOM, BOOM. I'm not used to so many large entities—or large ones at all—roaming around, especially all at once.

The tumult of each cry and THUMP and smack and step bongs through my mind: exceeds expectations. "W-wow," titters Cheeka's whisper-soft voice, muffling over me as her body hugs me close. Bay has left with the leader—Brutus, I believe, the brown one—to discuss priorities and, as quickly as possible, pinpoint not only our rescue team currently out, but the one missing as well.

Umbre.

His swaying step continues to miss from here. But I see them as Kyo said he does: shadows. They swirl at the edges of my vision like I'd never imagined prior, leaping from hidden crevices and threatening to strangle me—is Tim one of them or am I slowly sinking into blind nothing? With a prick in my mind, I recall the burning warm arms wrapped about me. Cheeka is here with me.

"Wow..." I echo after another tremble of moments.

Ember, I believe, has roamed off to watch the primary roamers, to keep tabs on them as they keep tabs on our friends, and us, as well. His fiery frame sometimes steps into where I'm bluntly looking at, but he doesn't acknowledge us. I'm fine with that; Cheeka's fine with that. We're each okay, really, just a little startled, a little cold, a little scared.

I'm so terribly aware of the shadows that dance and sway and bubble from us now. How deadly they could be where their source is... who could be the cause of this. I need to take this in, I need to accept and notice this, feel the holes Tim has punctured into me and understand them. His Bittercold surely—yes—does, does exist, I know it. It's there. And we have to do something about it.

Somewhere inside of me, a voice obliges to this—and we are. Umbre... he was the final straw, with what must be the timburr ripping into our home and stealing him away. It's... frightening, how easily I predict what the Bittercold will do next. That he'll come in and we need tabs on everyone and now I know, I know in a pit down to the very core of my heart that this is him.

It's frightening to be able to predict a monster's moves out like this, like we're all childrens' toys littered on the ground, and I know what that other young pokemon is going to do with Tim's piece, what he demands for. At the same time, I didn't know a precise according of what, but certainty that he will.

The monster haunts on; what could come next? Blood paints over my eyelids. Yes. That's what will come upon us. Cheeka feels my shaking and melds herself with me, her abnormal warmth from her psychic mutation just enough to cut away the frost inside of me.

"I've been on the run for a really long time after I was created... after Ember found me and all we could do was go. Go; go; go; to nowhere, no place to welcome us. Now that we have here... and you guys..." A watery sniffle cracks through. "I'm not letting go again. No way..."

"Cheeka—" I'm at a loss for words; how does one continue?

"I love being able to know there's others out there who care for us as much as we them! I love you guys, and you love me!" Her cry punctures the air and captures my heart in sudden flight. Such elation blooms and whirls within me. And I do care about her; and... to know that our rescue team can birth this joy for her, and for all of us...

My eyes blur. "Than-thank you... Cheeka..." Her smile grazes just past the side of my face; the slit for my ear tingles the slightest.

We stand there again silently, blown around by the air: but just enough that its coolness feels soft and gentle, not scary, or thunderous. I feel safe here, and I feel happy. My chest warms from the little piece inside of me that pumps this happiness throughout me. Cheeka's warm touch helps my coldblooded body in the cloudy winds about.

Cloudy. This day has taken a musty change for the... worse, would it be? Supposedly... indubitably. The morning sun, or however high it's swooned to now, ticking overhead with a spin, has sunk from view. No light but wind creaks out. Whurrrrrrrrrrff... whhuuuuuuuuurrrrrrrrrfffff... whhUUURURRRRURRRRRRRRUURUURRRRRFFffffFff! It seems to howl at us to go away.

We don't, either way.

The footsteps thunder clap, the wind banshee cries, but we don't move. Cheeka and myself, standing in the midst of what could result in turmoil or glory: only one way it will tip. I see how much trust and faith we've poured onto the shoulders—those shoulders—of these rather large pokemon. Ours don't hoist weight now that a ploy's spun to motion; but Vivi, and Espa, and Zoey and Jen and Roland will carry that same weight in pain and search for our dear, lost Umbre until he's recorded safe—bloody breath or claws don't taint him.

At some point in our shaded standing, with the shadows shamelessly covering us up, softer and fluffier feet scuff their way closer to us. "Hey, babe~" The natural goofiness in his voice is enough to provoke a smile: it's Burr.

"Dude, don't call her your babe—I'm your babe."

"I can call any girl I want babe, babe," he smoothly replies to who must be Mina.

A whap! "I. Am. Your. Girl. Friend. Burr."

A snigger in return. "That kinda hurt!"

"Well, if you're awake enough to feel it, you're awake enough to tell the difference between your babe and your lovely friends!" Then with a sudden motion of soft brown arms—laden strong enough to make them wavy with fur—Burr's hands cusp over Mina's soft yellow cheeks and chin and his lips connect with hers and Cheeka and I ditch eyesight, snapping the orbs shut.

For long moments, not a word utters.

Then a splutter. "Burr!"

"That, that is how you tell which one of these buddies are my girlfriend." And, as I didn't expect, the mienfoo doesn't respond or even huff a soft grunt of the sort—she simply goes quiet.

Until her glitzy, diamond-cut voice comes back. "You've worked on it... haven't you? You always were bad at pulling me into a kiss because it'd aggravate my back by one wrong tug... you've been figuring out how to..."

It's Burr's turn to stay solemn. The shorter panpour tied to me pinches one of my fingers, and I open my orbs as her bright pink shine once more into the gray day. "Yeah. I was."

"They're so sweet." Cheeka's whisper, hot and soft over the side of my head.

"Mina... did it work?"

"Um... yeah. It did." He doesn't whoop, doesn't celebrate, doesn't visibly show off his love or joy for the occasion, but I spot the warm, dark eyes in his face, and how much they twinkle now. How much happiness has strung and tuned his heart now, just from that simple moment. Sometimes there are even moments where this brown timburr feels a need to pull himself silent; and so does his chatty girlfriend. No words spill out, no voices bridge the gap between them, but arms reach out and fingers twist as one into a satisfying lump that must sprinkle warmth between them.

I kill the lights on thoughts of Elijah. I am happy for Burr and Mina—but it stirs in my heart, provokes thoughts on the emolga, and what I would do to replace Tim with him, to pretend the Bittercold timburr was someone else, someone I loved back so dearly.

"So anyways." Burr's other hand moves from his fluffy side and pats my head once, again, again, softly. His paw moves to Cheeka's head, gives a slight ruffle, then settles by his side again. "'Sup with you guys? I see a lot of fat pokemon have taken over—don't tell Gurdurr I said that—and it seems it's a little breezy... little loud. Mm. I don't think I've ever been in a situation like that, like, here, before. Funny."

My royal accent responds softly in tune, "Yes, indubitably, I've never been so close to all the noise."

"Haha, surprised you don't mind, since you're all Llana like that." I smile at his odd compliment: it's how Burr is, and I love him like so. "But I guess you like knowing they're working out of the good in their hearts, all so many, so maybe you don't mind."

His response plows thoughts into my head: "I suppose... I don't." Somehow my accent and voice float over the stomping of the others, those guards. Blast again rumbles by, the pink clefable with those sparkly pink wings—Selvana, I believe—skipping up beside him. His cold, steely appearance nary fits with hers, but somehow they gloat their friendship and it works.

"I can't believe that once Umbre returns"—again, doubt shamelessly avoided with a grin—"we'll be setting off and staking our boundary on old Great Glacier turf! Show Lady Munaah and Darkie and... all that." Mina leaves her words off there because we all see it, like heavy clouds just above our heads—literally, in this case as well—that she wasn't the cause of this: desperation ran like ice in her veins and Darkie, that black spirit with the taken souls weaved into her long, mournful white hair, Darkie made her into who she was when she died.

Can the darkrai return, though? Could she rebirth Munaah's fears and desperation and her, her in her own, and send the pastel colored chub down our path once more? She could, I feel no doubt; that she could.

She's tried to spin her own lies about me, but such also includes my own killing of you: I plan to stray rather far away from that. You have quite the lovely head on your delicate shoulders.

Tim's words come tumbling back to me, strike me as I cling to Cheeka further and her fingers gently stroke over my scaled face. I'd rather not try to imagine what Darkie could be plotting just amongst the shadows littered throughout our small knot of characters. Burr, a lopsided smile dressing his brown cheeks loosely, goes on to say, "Yeah, but, like, you'll be going with me."

"Mm? What if I wanted to go with Llana instead of you, you loser?"

Burr coughs—a fake, teasing one. "Well, it looks like my pride's just taken a hit."

"Yep, it has. That is has." The lovers share a laugh, a glance: love must fill in those echoes of movement. It's sweet how one or the other can spout such words in a jive, and the other only giggles and eggs them on with their own. A teasing game, the duo dances. One I doubt I could ever stand to with another being—but how they glide through it...

Skshh, skshh, the slither of scales on land. Bright yellow twinkles in my sight, Bay's white wings flitting into my eye next. Burr and Mina turn to face him as he winds his way up to us over the shadowed ground. It slightly throws his drawn luminosity, but still the dunsparce shines; his cyan markings from the rims about his eyes to tail gleam the most curiously. "Hey, guys!" comes the chipper cry. "Brutus said he's just about done with some preparations, and I think Talmon's about ready with his psychic power!"

I nearly choke on the word "Talmon"—who is Talmon? I'd forgotten—until "psychic" joins its ranks: the meowstic. That bipedal feline with the blue fur and foreboding, purple eyes like he'd rather see our insides churn out.

"Wait who. Was it that rapidash? I swear she almost burnt me with that fire mane when she stalked by," Burr starts; then, "Wait. Wait! Why the heck are these guys here in the first place? What're they even doing? I'm so confused, man! Who's Brutus? Who's Tal-whatsit?"

Bay blinks. "Oh, right; you and Mina didn't hear. Forgot, sorry. Brutus is really browned hitmonlee and he's got a team of pokemon with him that'll help us keep tabs on everyone so we don't have to lose someone else after Umbre. We're like... carefully molding a safety in place. So that Tim can't get in."

They recognize these words: So that Tim can't get in.

It echoes, bounces against us slightly. He won't he won't can't be able to get in here and taint another of the souls lined in our ranks with his Bittercold personality and his Hate and his darkness, if that's even the right word for it. Stars spin in my eyes; I recall when I first met the smoky dark timburr and how he'd looked at me quietly with a sort of mysterious curiosity, said it was fine I'd rammed into him. And I didn't know what feelings came cascading down inside of me... but the revelation in his action, that look of depravity draped over him, the blackness in what he was...

No.

Simply no.

So that Tim can't get in so that Tim can't get in so that Tim can't get in because now he can't pull off anything he can't. Simply no: we won't let him he can't. This group of pokemon individuals, each in their final evolution form with these strengths and great, vast body sizes have a system, and doubled unto us we'll be okay. Okay okay okay is all we can be.

Cheeka squeezes me from where her arms wrap and unravels herself, one hand straying by my side and nabbing my own. Long waves of blue hair fluff up by my side as the panpour leans closer to me. These are my entities, this is where I belong. A sudden trill of warmth creeps into my heart: yes, I belong here.

"So, uh, we going or..?"

"Oh yeah—yeah yeah. Yes. Sure." Burr's head bobbles up and down, almost a brown smear with the pink lines in the back of his head a blurred dot.

Mina adds, "I think we'll be okay without knowing anyone. Heck, I can't even remember the leader guy—that hitmonlee, right?—his name. Yeah—no. Nope. Completely forgot."

Bay tosses a cheerful grin. "It's Brutus! He really likes Paradise, so try to be on your best behavior."

"Bay, I am not a child!" goes the timburr, as he totters on and proceeds to step on something that makes him cry "Ow!"

Mina simply blinks, wickedly grins. "Hah. Guess that means I'm dating a child. What are the odds of that?" Even in the mix of shade and cloud above, I can easily watch the mienfoo's sunny, fluffy yellow arms raise up in a stretch and fold behind the back of her head, well out of the way of that scar scrawling over her spine.

"I am not a child, Mina! This really hurts though! What the heck did I step in?"

Eyes dull with tease, the glitzy girlfriend lazily slopes up to her boyfriend, yanks his foot from the ground, and inspects as the owner of such foot slides to the ground with an easygoing whurmph. "Mm. You have stepped on... a twig. Wow." A pluck, a toss of her hand, and it's gone.

"Ow," Burr mumbles again for good measure and pulls himself off the shaded earth. As he and his girlfriend loop a pair of arms and saunter up toward where Bay slithers proudly, Cheeka scoots another bit closer to me, her head nigh to colliding with mine.

Pink eyes, bright and fervid, sit above the words that fall from her lips: "The shadows... They're as K—er, he"—who feels threatened when we use his name, Cheeka narrowly missing that action—"described them, aren't they... it's like they're purposely getting worse, and they know it, and... they scare me too. I feel your fear as my own and wear it like your scales. Those shadows..."

"Yes, I know," I whisper, "oh I do."

The same names play games in my head:
Tim
Darkie
Lady Munaah

His throbs; the other ladies lurk in shadows as if they're out there now, their backs poised against the blackness, poised to strike, ready to dive in and take out a limb, a heart, a life, anything. Anything, and they'll take what they can get; desperation is a powerful fool.

Further along, across our lovely home, stands tall Gurdurr's tent with its various grays and folds. Inside sits cross-legged the patchy brown of the hitmonlee leader—Brutus—and so does the meowstic whose name starts with a T, I know, but what letters and sounds follow falls into mismatched jargon. "Ah, I see you've arrived!" plows his excited squeak with a natural growl as I recall it. "Talmon"—there's the name—"and I have nigh finished recording our observations! Here's what we've found already..." He nudges the glowering feline and names spill out.

"Llana Cheeka Ember Bay." A flick, a moment of hesitation, more names not as close. "Mina"—who squeaks at her name—"Burr"—who nods slowly, smiling—"Gurdurr Ky—"

"Don't say it—" I whisper.

"I wasn't going to finish," interrupts the meowstic. For a full, shaking whisper of time his purple irises trace over my figure slowly, in a way that seems to invade on my every last scale; then they close and the names bubble onward: "Vivi F Zoey Jen Roland Espa..."

A pause. I want to faint in the anxiety, the tension I'm swimming in, my brain is losing itself in. "Umbre."

Our breaths fill up the tent with joy, with ease. He's truly okay.

"Tim."

The breaths edge over.

The purple eyes pop open.

Wide open.

"Unidentifiable entity. Black fills it, follows it. Disgusting. Cold."

The breaths lie limp on the ground and suck out of the tent. Our sunshine has been taken over by this "unidentifiable entity." What—what is? What is that?

"Honing for aforementioned names... which ones were—ah: Vivi F Zoey Jen Roland Espa. Especially... Umbre."

He's not dead but he's getting there.

"Tim seems to evade the cloud."

He's not dead but he's getting there.

"Tim seems able to walk through it at will. He seems in control of it; as well the temperatures severely drop to allow dew to form to ice in his wake. The ground behind him is red."

He's not dead but he's getting there.

Oh, we have to do something we have to go I can not can not—refuse—refuse to just sit here and listen to a monotonous feline spew out how long my dear Umbre has to live, this umbreon that I've loved him and his humor and Espa can't lose him. None of us can lose him. Vivi said to wait; she'd understand if we didn't.

This is the great grassy green virizion we speak of. She may even feel the grasses grow cold somewhere nearby. We cannot... stand here. And do nothing.

No.

"Come," whispers a voice in my head—in my ear, from Cheeka's warm, sugared breath. She disperses from the room, and I follow. Mina's and Burr's sad, sad eyes follow, wishing they could go but knowing they should stay; if everyone leaves, Paradise could be at stake; and there's their own trip.

Their time is coming.

Soon a streak of fire, of Ember, burns past, and then he's flitting by us and takes Cheeka's other flank. The slither of scales—Bay joining as well.

Hwah, turns out Llana's needed anyways. xD

But I mean if one of your buddies, you learned, was about to get sucked into a death trap, and only you knew this, wouldn't you go too? Fun fact, when I first first created Fates through Sky's plot that long long time ago, I had plans that Umbre would get kidnapped. They were by different people, but yeah, he was going to get taken. I'd also planned he and Espa have baby, but not when we'd mention that, hweh.

Umbre: Am I dead?

Me: I dunno, are you?

Umbre: I dunno, so I'm asking you. I REALLY DON'T FEEL LIKE DYING.

Tim: enell

Me: So anyways, I'm just trying to imagine how big chapter 15 might get, heh... x3