I don't know if I've already mentioned this, but if you pay close attention the previous chapters you'll notice that Aura has an ability that has already appeared in the PMD games…anyways, it gets mentioned again in this chapter. Although I still want to keep it a secret, or at least as much as possible if I haven't already ruined it for you all. ;-) Aaaagh, I'm not so great at that nowadays—hiding plot and character details, I mean. I just keep getting so many ideas to make her more and more mysterious that I just want to get it all out there already! (is rambling mindlessly on as a result of drained mental energy from working on two school projects in a row)

….so yeah. All that said, I really do hope you enjoy the chapter. And please forgive if it seems to…wander…a little.

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Chapter 19: Salvaging the Remains

It astounded Aura how far they had to go before they were able to leave the ravine—it was almost an hour before they reached a place where part of the cliff wall to their right had crumbled away, leaving a sharp slope. Aura was startled when she realized this was where she'd fallen in. Had the flood really carried her that far?

From here, their progress was slowed somewhat. The storm had swept debris everywhere, and as they climbed there were several occasions when she and Dekka had to wait while Ronja shoved an obstruction out of their path. There were a few times when even he was unable to clear a way through—when this happened Aura had to fight to stay on Dekka's back as the Zangoose lashed out at the blockage with his lethal claws. It only took him seconds to reduce it to rubble, with Ronja looking on and providing a comment here and there. Aura quickly found that it was impossible to be bored around the Marowak. Ronja's cheerful, gregarious attitude served as a stimulus to keep them going, and didn't allow them time to feel sorry for themselves over what had happened. As time passed, even Dekka seemed to loosen up a little in his partner's presence.

When they finally cleared the ravine, Aura was confronted with the full ferocity of the havoc the disaster had wrought. Everywhere for miles around there were still areas of forest burning low, and smoke hung hazily in the air like a veil. On each step Dekka and Ronja took they were splashed by small puddles of mud. The air around them was chilled from lack of sunlight, yet the breezes that blew were unsettling warm, also whipping up ashes into their faces. After a while Ronja stopped to rub at the corners of his eyes—soot had managed to find its way through his skull helmet's eyeholes.

"Never dreamt I'd someday miss the badlands much as I do now, mateys," he said wistfully. "This stuff's like walking through cinders, so help me."

Aura sneezed violently, flinching as her throat flared in protest. The constant exposure to the smoke was chafing at her lungs as the miniscule, shard-like particles scratched her airways. What she wouldn't give right now for a cool, clear drink of water…just the thought made it even worse.

Still, she was primarily worried over the fate of the village and its inhabitants. Was everybody alright? Had her friends been able to reach safety? Over and over her mind replayed nightmare images of buildings blazing furiously, of total destruction. Finally, she couldn't take not knowing anymore and blurted out, "What happened to the Square?"

After a second Dekka answered roughly, "Gone."

Aura felt the blood rush from her face. "What?"

"You heard me. It's gone, completely ruined. Less than half of the villagers are known to be alive, and some are so badly injured that they won't be living for much longer. And worse, Pokemon Square wasn't the only place to suffer." He shook his head. "Treasure Town, Gaelthorn Valley—all of the major settlements on the continent were hit heavily. We would know—three of the Pokemon we rescued before you were fugitives from other regions."

Ronja barked out a single laugh. "Aye, mayhap the old legends are coming true and Arceus 'erself has come back to deliver punishment for all the wrong done o'er the years."

Aura hesitated before asking. "…who's…Arceus?"

Her rescuers both turned around to stare at her in shock.

"Stripe me…" Ronja said quietly. "Looks like the Chief was right and you'd gotten some kind of amnesia, if you'd forget the One."

"We can fill you in on the details later," Dekka said irritably. "But for basic knowledge, Arceus is only the most powerful being in all lore. And never mind that she brought the existence of Pokemon about, and gave birth to the supreme deities, making it possible for our lives to play out without constant death and chaos or interference from darker forces—"

"Never mind…" Aura mumbled. It unnerved her to know that there were things she didn't know about that were as important as this. What other crucial knowledge had she forgotten?

"Don't give yourself a heart attack over it. I'm sure Ronja will fill you in on everything later. But in the meantime, don't do anything stupid as asking any random person you see about the matter. At least pretend you know what everybody is talking about, if only until you find your memories again. In the meantime, we're here."

She turned her attention forwards. Without her noticing it they had left the forest border behind, and now stood before a rock face with a wide cleft torn down it, creating a pathway for them to head through. At the other end of the way, much to Aura's confusion, a massive tree reached up out of the hard ground. Miraculously the tree was unscathed, as though it had somehow been spared from the grand scale destruction. As they approached she could see that the rock wall around them widened and encircled this tree to create a citadel-like clearing of silence and security.

She saw now that the tree was very old, having a massive trunk and a thick roof of leaves that stretched widely to cover a good deal of the open area in the crevasse. As she watched Ronja climbed onto a large root that was protruding from the ground and pounded loudly on the trunk with the butt of his bone staff.

"Can't come in unless you're a runaway, a mercenary, or a maggot!" came a cheery and prompt response from above them. Aura jumped out of shock and reflexively looked up to try and see the speaker. The leaves were an excellent screen, though, and hid whoever it was from sight.

"Will you just let us in already, Ryrku, you stupid tree climber?" Dekka snapped in annoyance, shifting Aura on his back. "We don't have all day to stand here, so the least you can do is get this kid to the infirmary and let us go back to the search!"

"Will you just calm down already, Dekka, you scruffy hairball?" the voice teased in an uncanny sing-song imitation of his voice. The leaves rustled loudly before a small blur dropped down in front of them, landing nimbly in a sitting position on Ronja's shoulder. Small, bipedal, and resembling a gecko, the Pokemon had skinny limbs and three round, stubby digits on each hand and foot. It had an odd turquoise color, with a pale yellow stomach and two large rust-red tails that looked like budding leaves.

Dekka glared at the strange Treecko. "Very funny," he grumbled. "Seriously, take this one inside. She needs to have a head wound treated.

Wide, reptilian eyes looked Aura over. "Funny. She doesn't look like the insane type," Ryrku commented smartly.

"That's NOT what I meant!" Dekka said in irritation. "Ronja, come on, we're going. Can you walk?" he asked Aura, lowering her to the ground without waiting for an answer.

"Um…" She did still feel a little dizzy, but her head had cleared up enough for her to move—she was starting to get a large headache, though. Even so, her worry over her friends surpassed her own pain. She would rest only after everybody was accounted for. "I'll be fine," she decided out loud.

A smile could be seen in Ronja's eyes. "Y'see this, messmate?" he asked Dekka, thumping his partner heartily on the back. "I doubt I've ever seen a lass tough as this one! Strike me, little 'un, with just a few months I bet you'll be back to shattering boulders with that arm o' yours! Aye, that'll be just what you need, lots o' rest and some proper grub! Any how, be good and keep out of trouble 'till we get back, savvy?"

Despite her throbbing head and scratched throat, Aura couldn't help a smile. She found that she greatly liked this jolly Pokemon. "I will," she promised.

"Yes, daddy," Ryrku said sarcastically. "We'll be good little kids, I promise."

"Ryrku, since when have you ever behaved?" Dekka asked her as she jumped down from Ronja's shoulder to stand next to Aura. At her full height she was still a few inches below Aura's shoulder.

"Since I was a little kid," Ryrku responded. "C'mon, Legs," she said to Aura, referring to her greater height. "Lemme show you inside. See you, Ronja."

"Aye, same to you, mate!"

"Sure. Say goodbye to Ronja, of course," Dekka's grumbling voice reached them as he and Ronja trailed away. "Never mind me; I'm just a scruffy hairball who doesn't know my business."

"Grump," Ryrku said. She then motioned for Aura to follow and walked around to the backside of the tree, which was just a few feet from the crevasse wall. She searched along the wall for a few seconds, then, finding what she was looking for, reached out to push a small protrusion in the smooth grey granite. There was a soft click, and Aura was startled as a narrow section of the rock suddenly moved back into the wall and slid slowly to the side.

"Trick door," Ryrku explained. "Get used to it, 'cause you'll be seeing a heck of a lot more like them in this place."

"Where are we headed?" Aura asked. She was pretty sure Ronja had mentioned something about a refuge, but the name kept eluding her…

"The Haven. Officially its name was Cairnehall, but a few years ago everybody just started calling it by the nickname. It's a special place—Lucario and his team lived here, you know."

That was certainly startling. "No…I didn't know," Aura admitted.

Ryrku raised an eyebrow. After a second she let this go and said, "Well, now you do—so remember it. Anyways, it's one of the safest places on earth. I would know, I helped designed most of the more recent defenses." She jabbed a thumb at the empty entryway. "Like the door? It's not just stone. We reinforced it with steel. You could practically have a Machamp pound away all day at it, and it wouldn't move an inch."

Aura had to admit, she was impressed. But why would anybody go to such lengths to modify a place as old as this? When she voiced her thoughts, Ryrku looked incredulous for a second. "Are you kidding me? This was Lucario's home! Of course we want to keep it safe!"

As she spoke, Aura noticed a slightly evasive look in Ryrku's eyes. Was there something she wasn't being told here? For instance, who was this "we" she kept mentioning? Ryrku interrupted her as she was about to say so. "Look, daylight's wasting and your head's still bleeding, right? So let's go already." Before any more could be said she took off at into the hall inside. Aura had to move at a quick trot to keep up with her. For the moment it looked as though Ryrku wasn't going to surrender any information on the matter at hand, so she decided to let the subject drop for now and ask about something that was worrying her more.

"There's some Pokemon I'm looking for," she said after a brief hesitation. "One of them's a Trapinch—his name's Jay, he's a Delta species, and his color's more of a dusty red than brown. There's also a Quilava named Khalil and an Azumarill, Azerie—there's a Raichu too, but I'm not sure what her birth name is, and there's a Charmeleon, Jack. Then there's an Alakazam and a Vaporeon, the last one's—"

She fell silent, horrified. She'd just come that close to giving away Luma's identity! Who knew what could have happened had she continued speaking? Thankfully Ryrku didn't seem to think her pause strange. "Can't say about the Raichu and Vaporeon," she said, shrugging. "The only Raichu I've seen here so far was a male, and I'm guessing yours is female if you're calling it a 'her'. And we've had a Leafeon and Umbreon, but no Vaporeon. Alakazam was here earlier—one of his team mates is missing, though. I think it was Tyranitar…in any case, Alakazam left with Charizard just an hour ago to look for 'im. As for the red Trapinch," she continued, "he made it here early this morning. I think he's helping out in the infirmary right now, if you're going to look for him. There's a Charmeleon with him, but I don't know if he's the one you want. I dunno about the other two."

Aura could have practically collapsed from relief. They were safe! Or rather, most of them were safe—but so long as there was still a chance the others were living, she could relax a little. She willingly followed Ryrku down the hallway, eager to find her friends.

The place was much bigger and more complex than she could ever have guessed from outside—several smaller hallways branched off from the main one they were in now, and twice they passed through large, high-roofed rooms. Even though they were technically underneath a mountain, there was way too much space for Aura to feel claustrophobic. Quite on the contrary she felt quite at home…

Actually, she felt too much at home. She didn't know why, but she was being bugged by a strange feeling of having seen this place before in the past. The feeling also brought with it a sick, heart-wrenching sensation of dread…why was this? She almost felt guilty of something…

"Y'ello. You just walked past it." Ryrku's voice cut into her thoughts.

Aura came to a stop, blinking. "Huh?" she asked, confused and a little dazed after her reverie.

Ryrku rolled her eyes. "The medical wing. You just passed it." She jerked her thumb towards a doorway at their left. The chamber on the other side was crowded with Pokemon, all of whom were either wounded or tending to the injured. The room was void of beds—in their place was thick, woven blankets spread over the ground for the patients to rest on. As expected a few Chansey were present, playing the roles of nurses, though they were accompanied by some other Pokemon wearing the same scarves and bands as those from the flood sight. Again, Aura was struck by the impression that something was…different…about them…this thought trailed off as she caught sight of a familiar, dark-furred Pokemon close to the center of the room.

"Khalil!" she shouted, rushing towards him. Khalil jerked in surprise and whipped around to look at her. A wide gash was on his right shoulder and the back of his neck, and he had a nasty cut on one ear, but the wounds appeared to have been cleaned and bandaged. Aside from a faint rasp in his breath, he looked fine. Upon seeing Aura his whole face lit up with a huge grin.

"Aura! Dude! You're alive! I can't believe it!" he said happily, twisting around so he was sitting in a position facing her.

Behind Aura, Ryrku shrugged. "See ya," she said boredly before taking off.

Khalil's face was quickly overcome with worry. "Have you seen Raichu by any chance?" he asked quietly.

Right away Aura was nervous again. "No…I thought she was with you and Azerie."

Khalil's face fell, and he sighed. "She was…but then that whole mess with the fires started, and she just bolted off to go find Pichu and Zigzagoon. I swear, she would throw herself in a volcano to protect those two kids—that's NOT an exaggeration. She doesn't exactly have a sense of logic, you know. And Azerie…" he bit his lip. "Azerie got hurt pretty bad—hit by a falling timber, and she's got a lot of smoke in her lungs besides. She's been in a coma for hours—Chansey says that even if she does wake up, there's a pretty good chance that Azz will be paralyzed for life."

Aura had never heard more despair in anyone's voice than Khalil's at that moment. Seeing his pensive expression and slightly trembling frame, she realized that he and the others of the "Insanity Trio" were even closer as friends than she could have guessed. "I just…I never really thought that there was a chance that we could get split up like this," he continued quietly. "It was always such a weird idea. That one of us could be…I mean, I respect Raichu and what she's capable of, I really do, and she's a priceless friend, but Azerie…Azerie's special to me. If she died, I don't know what—"

He suddenly stopped talking in midsentence and whipped around so his back was towards Aura. She blinked. "What?" she asked, confused by his behavior.

"Nothing," Khalil said rapidly in a high voice. "Nothing. I wasn't about to say anything. Forget you heard that. Hey, look—"

"AURA!"

Aura was suddenly tackled, causing her breath to leave her in a loud whoosh. It took a second for her to realize somebody was hugging her tightly, and a few seconds more to figure out who it was.

"Jack--!" she gasped out, struggling to breathe. Jack suddenly released her and punched her shoulder, making her yelp.

"Aura, you idiot!" he shouted angrily. "What the h*** were you thinking? I was trying to get your attention the whole time, and you didn't even turn around! Then you had to fall off that cliff, and I was calling you, and—and—" he broke off, panting for breath as he struggled to get a grip on himself.

Aura stared dumbly at him in shock. "…you mean you were following me?" she asked, confused. "Before the cliff fell away?"

"What are you, deaf? I was practically two feet behind you the entire time! You had me practically scared to death!" he snapped.

This disconcerted Aura. If Jack really had been so close behind her, as he was saying, then why hadn't she heard him until reaching the ravine?

"Aura!" Aura turned to see Jay part his way through the crowd towards them. His expression was a mix of both relief and incredible stress. "Aura, are you okay? What happened? I was trying to contact you the entire time, and—" his voice trailed off in horror as he saw blood on her head.

"I'm alright," she said quickly. "Head wounds always bleed a lot. It's not so bad—" she hissed in a sharp breath as Jack poked the back of her head, causing the throbbing to worsen.

"It is so bad," he growled. "Look how deep this thing is. I could practically fit my claw in this gash."

"Oh, that's a nice image," Khalil mumbled, looking a little ill at the thought. Fortunately a yelp from the front of the room distracted his attention enough to avoid being sick, and he glanced quickly over in the direction of the sound. "Oh…just Raichu," he said absently. As he was turning back to the group, he suddenly jumped and did a double take. "…Raichu? Hold on! RAICHU!" he shouted, leaping up and running over to his partner.

Raichu? Aura looked over. Sure enough, Raichu was standing just inside the doorway, flanked by Zigzagoon and holding a grime-coated Pichu in one arm. Her usual energy seemed to be absent, as her ears and tail were drooped listlessly and her position was slumped wearily, but otherwise she appeared unharmed—just incredibly tired.

"Got 'em…" Raichu panted, handing off Pichu to Khalil. No sooner had she done this than she swayed wildly and pitched forward onto the floor.

"Rai--!" Aura was interrupted as Raichu lifted a paw.

"Nnh…I'm…okay…" she mumbled sleepily before dropping her paw again. Khalil worriedly looked her over, then sighed and sat back down, looking relieved.

"She'll be fine," he assured Aura, patting Zigzagoon on the head. "It takes a heck of a lot more than a disaster to bring her down like this. Most likely it's just stress and junk food withdrawal symptoms—give her a few days and a couple dozen Gummis, and she'll be back to normal in no time."

"I'm glad…" Aura looked down at Raichu, who had quickly fallen asleep on the floor. "She's one tough Pokemon," she said quietly.

Khalil laughed. "Hey, you think this is her strongest? You should see her fight with lightning attacks sometime—that'll give you a shock." He grinned at his own pun.

Jack rolled his eyes. "Lame," he muttered.

Jay was still worried about Aura's wound. "Aura, you still need to get that checked. That's a pretty vicious cut you have."

Aura was about to agree—she was starting to become increasingly dizzy. She opened her mouth to speak when pain suddenly knifed through her back.

"Ghk--!" She fell roughly to one knee, hissing in a sharp breath as her vision exploded in stars. What was going on? Why was she in such agony? It felt like something was tearing her apart!

"Aura!" she heard somebody shout. Unable to respond, she shut her eyes tight, fighting to stay awake as the pain worsened.

When she opened her eyes again…everything had changed. Rain was pouring down heavily, causing steam to arise from the pools of lava around her. She was on the peak of a mountain, standing in the middle of a rock platform and surrounded by pillars of stone. Rayne's voice broke into her thoughts, startling her.

"Get out of this place, Razor!" the Tyranitar roared. "We can't do anything here! If we stay, we die!"

Aura's mouth moved on its own, putting out a voice that wasn't hers. "Screw that!" she snapped. "You and Shinbashi pull back! I'm taking this bastard down if it costs me everything I—" She cried out as the pain sharpened, doubling over as she nearly blacked out. Her hand shot out to hold herself up—blood was staining her leaves and claws in a dark scarlet.

Wait a minute! Claws?! What was this?!

"Wake up, d*** it!"

Aura gasped as the scene changed once again. Suddenly she was no longer on the volcano summit, but on her back, staring up at a swarm of frightened and concerned faces. Jay was shaking her shoulder, trying to wake her up, but stopped when her eyes opened.

"Aura? What happened?" He sounded greatly unsettled.

"What…" Aura's head was swimming as she tried to piece together what she had just seen. Her headache had gotten worse, making thinking harder. Suddenly she realized what it was she'd just gone through.

A premonition. The same as the kind she'd had at the storage warehouse, and before meeting Weavile. It was the same thing. And that voice…

"Razor…" she gasped out. "Something…something happened…something's wrong…Razor…Razor's hurt." The stars then returned to her vision, and she blacked out.

TBC…