Hello once again audience! When we left off, it hit the fan.

Chapter 22

Burn, Baby, Burn

Coran could not take his eyes off of the burning town. His mind was flooded with thoughts. What? How? Why? Who did this? Is the business okay? Is everyone okay? What do we do? Can we put it out? Is anyone trying? Why are we standing here?!

Squirtle wasn't. She dashed off toward Nuzlocke, not knowing what would become of her when she did. The others, exchanging a quick glance, followed.

Squirtle's eyes were burning. Her lungs were filling up with smoke, screaming for clean air. Her brain didn't even give her a reason to be here. But she was.

Looking around the flaming town, Squirtle's eyes began to water for a different reason. Everywhere she looked, buildings were falling, houses were smoldering, Pokémon were getting hurt. She almost did not notice the unrelenting heat that pressed in on her from all sides.

Almost.

"Squirtle! What are you doing?!" Coran's voice rang out in the red-hot inferno. She faintly saw Coran's wavering outline in the heat.

"Coran!" She yelled, unable to answer his question.

Coran rushed through the fire to her side. He was furious. "What are you thinking, dashing into the fire?! What good is that going to do? We've got to get out of here!"

Squirtle felt empty. Her town was burning to the ground. She couldn't leave. "We have to-" she coughed. "We have to help!"

Coran tugged on Squirtle's front paw. "I don't have time to argue, and neither do you! We need to get out!"

"We have cough we have to help!"

Coran stopped. "How?"

"We could..." Squirtle hacked, trying to clear her throat of the smoke. "We can put...put out-"

"No, Squirtle. Mew's doing the best she can with that. But we can't do anything. Now we need to get out of this fire before we-" Coran began to wheeze. "Before we asphyxiate!"

Squirtle screwed up her face. She was defeated. "Which way's out?"

Coran stiffened. "I-I, um..." He looked around, covering his mouth as he coughed again. "It's...It's this way."

Squirtle stayed silent as she followed Coran's uncertain path through the flames. He ran past building after building, sometimes swerving to the left or right. After five long minutes of doing this, Squirtle began to get suspicious.

"...Coran...do you...really know where...you're going?" Her voice was raspy from inhaling smoke.

Coran didn't reply. He simply waved off Squirtle's comment and kept fighting through the fire and flames. His pace slowing to a stumble, he kept on for as long as he could. Then he saw something he recognized.

The business.

Coran's voice was hauntingly calm. "I...I could use a sleep about n-about here..." He choked, and stumbled into the business.

"C-Coran! What are-" Squirtle interrupted herself with a fit of coughing. "What are you doing?!"

Coran turned around, his eyes indifferent. "Nobody values...sleep anymore."

Squirtle had seen that look before. She'd seen it in Faren Heights. He was delirious. "Wake up!" She shouted, and slapped him across the face. "C'mon, we're almost out!"

Coran slowly came to. "I...I'm fine...Let's go."

The business was on the outskirts of town anyways, right next to those boring, plain fields where she first found Coran. The two of them finally made it out of the burning inferno of Nuzlocke. They were away from heat and fire.

Or so they thought.

"Mew, do you see them anywhere?" Monty called as he followed the Blastoise through Nuzlocke.

"Not yet," Blastoise grunted as he pumped water through the cannons on his back. "Why would Squirtle just run in there anyways? It's so astoundingly stupid!"

"Don't be too harsh, Mew," Monty said. "She felt like she had to help."

"Well, everyone else seems to have evacuated," Blastoise commented, noting the lack of life around her. "Evacuated, or burned to a crisp."

"What?!" Monty exclaimed, horrified.

"I've only seen one, Monty. A Breloom,"

Monty stopped walking. "Marvin..." His eyes wide, he hung his head.

"What, you knew him?"

"He...Well, yes. I knew him. He...I suppose he trusted me, which is saying a lot for Marvin...because he came to me to complain about anything. The last time I talked to him was about the Drasil roots...I can't believe it," Monty lamented.

"Don't believe it just yet..." A sullen voice came from behind Monty, scaring the bejeebers out of him.

"M-Marvin!" Monty cried as his heart rate began to slow down. "I thought you were dead!"

The charred-black Breloom merely looked at Monty with a skeptical expression. "Do you honestly think life would give me sweet release that easily?" he sighed. "Have I taught you nothing?"

"Monty...I think you might want to see this..." Blastoise called, quite a ways ahead of him.

"What, did you find Coran and Squirtle?"

"Yes, but that's not what I'm talking about."

Monty walked up to Mew, now in her original form. She pointed, and as he directed his gaze, he said, "Then what are you talking ab- Oh."

Squirtle and Coran were here. They were breathing heavily, Squirtle still coughing smoke out of his lungs. Coran had a bit of a welt on his cheek. But that was not what Mew was pointing at.

The villagers of Nuzlocke were here. They had gathered on the once boring and unassuming plains. By the looks of it, everyone was accounted for, which was good. Or bad. Really, it depends on your opinion on the villagers of Nuzlocke. But that was not what Mew was pointing at.

She was pointing at the thing that everyone in the area that used to be a field. The thing that took everybody by surprise.

She was pointing at a volcano.

The town restoration project was going well. Rain came not thirty minutes after everyone evacuated, so that helped put out the fires. So far, there were quite a few injuries, but no casualties, which was good. Or bad. The essential establishments were nearly completely restored. The stock of Banette's Bazaar was mostly destroyed, but Banette was hard at work exploring to restock. Squirtle had donated two of her Treasure Bags to help him restock faster. In return, Shuppet helped them restore their business, which had nearly burned to the ground.

"Wow..." Squirtle shook her head. "Shuppet, were you here when this happened?"

"Yeah," Shuppet nodded, dragging out what looked like a hodgepodge of fabric and moss stitched together out from under some wooden beams. "What is this thing?"

Coran looked over to what she was referring to while dragging the remnants of the interior bulletin board outside. "It's a mattress. You sleep on it."

"Oh," Shuppet looked at it in confusion. "Well, anyways, I was here, sitting at the counter as usual, when I heard a rumbling. I thought it was an earthquake, but since I'm...y'know...floating...I didn't think I had to worry about it too much. But then it didn't stop. It went on for a full seven minutes or so. There were people screaming about something rising up out of the ground or something. I was curious, but I had to 'man my station', so to speak. And then fire rained down from the sky."

"The volcano erupted?" Monty asked.

"That's what I think," Shuppet confirmed.

"So the volcano just...rose up out of the ground?"

"I didn't see it, so I don't know. But that's what Pokémon around town are saying. Do volcanoes even work that way?" Shuppet wondered. "Do you require any additional assistance, my amiable acquaintance?"

"Don't do that, that's my thing!" Mew called from the office as she was trying to salvage business files that weren't completely destroyed.

"No, I think you're good. Thanks, Shuppet," said Squirtle.

"No prob. See you later!" Shuppet called as she went out the door.

"A volcano, huh?" Coran asked, dropping the bulletin board outside. "Do you think this might have to do with the Drasil roots?"

Monty shook his head. "I'm not entirely sure. The Drasil roots wilting seem to make certain areas change or lose properties. But this is the first time they've actually created something. It hasn't happened before, so it either isn't caused by the wilting, or the state of the Drasil is worse than we thought."

"Hey, Coran," Squirtle called down from the ceiling as she checked any standing beams for stability. "Weren't those the fields where I found you?"

"I'm sorry, I don't think I heard this story. You found Coran?" Monty wondered.

Squirtle was about to start, but Coran was mouthing the words 'not yet' while shaking his head frantically. "I found him unconscious on those fields a while back. Not much of a story, really," Squirtle said. She gave a bit of a sideways glare to Coran, trying to non-verbally tell him she did not like lying.

Coran just shook his head helplessly.

"Hey, guys?" Mew came back into the main room. "Do you feel that?"

"Feel what?" Coran asked.

"That itching in the back of your heads. I'm wondering if it's just me."

Squirtle didn't realize it until now, but it was true. Ever since they had seen the volcano, or maybe before that, there was a bit of a stinging itch at the back of her head. "Wh-what is that?" Squirtle asked uncomfortably, trying to itch it.

"Don't try," Mew shook her head at Squirtle. "I've tried already. And I think I know what's making it."

"Well, what is it? Don't leave us hanging!"

"It's the Voice. It's getting stronger."