*BOOM*
The group jumped at the sudden noise.
"What was that?!" Serena asked.
"We need to go check it out" Ash said while running towards the sound. The others agreed and followed him. As they were running, Bonnie remembered something.
"Wait, aren't Nate and Katie in the forest?!" Bonnie exclaimed. That thought made them increase their pace. Soon, they saw a column of smoke rising up in the direction they were running. They soon came upon the source of the sound and the smoke, a large crater that was right in front of a lake.
"What happened?" Clemont muttered to himself as they slowly walked towards it. Meanwhile, Jibanyan and Whisper ran right to the edge and looked into it. At first the smoke blocked their view, but when it cleared a bit, they were horrified by what they saw.
"GUYS! Over here!" Whisper yelled. When the group got there, they gasped. In the middle of the crater were Nate and Katie with severe injuries. Nate seemed to be covering Katie so he looked in a worse condition than her. Ash and Serena ran to them and picked them up.
"Oh my gosh. Are they a-alive?" Serena asked, her face shaking in fear.
"No time for standing around, they need help!" Ash said in an urgent tone.
"There is a town with a hospital close by. We can make it if we run" Clemont said after checking a map. They immediately began to ran as fast as they could, for their friend's lives depended on it.
A few minutes later, they finally reach the hospital and ran inside.
"Hello, how may I hel- Oh my!" The receptionist exclaimed when she saw the injured.
"Our friends are seriously injured and they need help!" Clemont said. Two stretchers were called and the two were rolled off to emergency care.
"Do you think they're going to be alright?" Bonnie asked with tears forming.
"Let's hope so" Serena said as she hugged Bonnie. They group were brought outside of the room and were asked to wait. After an hour or so, a doctor came out.
"How are they?" Ash asked while standing up from his chair.
"Unfortunately, not to well. Both of them had sustained serious injuries, such as burns and damage by pressure waves" the doctor explained while reading a sheet. "From what we could tell, they were most likely struck by a close range hyper beam from a gyarados" He continued as the group looked more and more scared.
"Interestingly, the boy seemed to have more severe conditions than the girl" He said with a curious face.
"When we found them, Nate was covering Katie as if he were shielding her" Serena explained.
"Well, it's actually thanks to the boy that the girl has a chance to live. From our tests, we concluded that she wouldn't have survived a direct blast" The doctor said, shocking them.
"You mean she could have died?!" Bonnie asked. The doctor simply nodded. Before they could ask, he open the door and gestured them to go in. When they entered they saw Katie lying on a bed with a breathing mask and an iv sticking in her.
"Hey Katie, you feeling okay?" Serena asked silently as if Katie were awake. The steady breathing that Katie made was a okay sign. Nate on the other hand didn't look okay. His entire back was dark with burns, gauze wrapped all around his arms, and lots a tubes sticking into him. His breathing was slower and shorter than Katie's.
"Hey buddy, just hang in there" Ash said while trying to force a smile.
"If you want, you can stay here with them as long as you don't interfere with anything" The doctor suggested. When they said okay, he quietly left the room.
As they group watched over their two injured friends, they worried about if they would survive or not.