Enjoy!

{UNCONSCIOUS [eve] SUOICNOCNU}

I rushed after Destiny, surprised at how fast she could go. "Left," I told her the one time she stopped, confused, but otherwise she knew the rest of the way back.

Just as we arrived back, Austin and Will were gently laying Jaeson's body (still in human form)- bloody and beaten and pretty squashed- on the ground among the piles of rocks and roofing.

At the sight Destiny fainted beside me.

{UNCONSCIOUS [knight] SUOICNOCNU}

With a groan I blinked open my tired eyes. Looking around, I noticed Laek, watching over Pratt like a guarddog. Uxie was next to the evil bastard, both his and her eyes glowing a dulling white. Neither were moving. Thunder laid near me, totally knocked out. "Where's everyone else?" I wondered, my voice cracking and sounding broken as I spoke.

Laek glanced back at me and offered a small smile of reassurance. "Will and Eve are with Destiny and Austin back at the base. Thunder is still knocked out, as you probably know, and Uxie is taking Pratt's memories."

"What about Jay, Jaeson, and Lily?" I wondered, but Laek answered with only a silence that quickly turned grim. Laek glanced back and met my gaze for a moment, his expressionless eyes confirming my fears.

They were dead.

I laid my head back and sighed sadly, letting myself rest in my misery for a moment before standing up and joining Laek as he stood guard over Pratt and protected Uxie.

{UNCONSCIOUS [austin] SUOICNOCNU}

Leaving Eve to watch the fainted Destiny, Will and I climbed back to the spot where we'd found Jaeson. Lily lied in the hole, her body broken and blood gushing from several areas of her body. I watched as Will ran a paw over her ribs and looked up to report, "She's breathing, but her blood is running out and all her ribs are broken. No doubt her lungs and heart and probably other organs have been punctured. She won't live."

I immediately raced down to her, morphed into my own human form, and sat down and pulled her gently into my lap. I looked up at Will gratefully and responded, "I thought she'd already be dead, honestly."

Suddenly Lily coughed hard and her eyes blinked open. Her nose was bleeding and the blood dripped down her face, her left eye wouldn't open, her right eye was cloudy towards the left, and when she smiled she was missing teeth. Despite it all, she was alive, and she seemed more beautiful to me than she ever had.

"I love you with all my heart, and I always will, Lily," I told her as I felt my face flush and tears begin to crawl down my cheeks.

Lily choked out, "I love you," then coughed some more. Blood spluttered out. She looked up at me with her one eye and smiled brightly, then her head suddenly rolled back and I knew she was gone.

I sat there staring until one of my tears dripped down onto her perfect face. I wiped it away, knowing it would be the last time I ever did it.

I gently stood up and carried her over the mountain of rock and placed her next to Jaeson. There I closed her eye, signaling to myself that she was really gone.

"She was a great person," Eve offered. She wouldn't look up, just stared down at Destiny's fainted form as it began to stir.

I morphed back into a lucario and responded, "Thanks."

"And Jaeson was... a lot like me. I'm sorry," Eve said quietly.

I stared at her for a long time, wondering if she meant she was sorry Jaeson's life was short and he lived it with a heart that barely got a chance to start thawing, or if she was sorry that he was dead. Probably both, I realized, but more so the first. "A lot like me," she had said. She wasn't dead.

I just nodded and climbed back up to Will, who was kneeling on the bloody spot where Lily and Jaeson had been, frowning with confusion in his eyes.

"What?" I wondered.

"Jay's not dead, I don't think," Will murmured quietly. "His body would be in this area right here."

I closed my eyes, using my aura, hope blossoming in my chest. "He's in the room under this one!" I gasped, smiling. "And he's alive, I think! When Jaeson tried to teleport, I guess Jay managed to get himself down below."

Will smiled broadly. "Okay," he said, then thought for a moment. I could hear him asking himself, "Who needs to see a friend alive the most out of the three of us?" A moment later he said, "Eve will take you to get him. I'll stay here with Destiny and Jaeson and Lily's bodies."

"Okay," I said, nodding. We climbed back up and told Eve.

"Let's go," she said. The sadness in her eyes and face receded a little, but she didn't smile. I guess she was closer to Jaeson than I thought. Probably him, anyway- she and Lily I didn't think were a very good pairing. Plus what she'd said about him a few minutes ago.

Eve led me down the corridors and stairs. It took a few minutes before we managed to get down to the room. Meanwhile, I felt Jay's aura beginning to dim. I worried if he was actually alive. After all, your aura stays with you for a while after you die. Jaeson and Lily's were fading fast, but Jay's was just a little. I wondered if he was just very injured. I hoped so.

"Here first," Eve murmured, then turned into a room. It looked like a doctor's office and a hospital room combined with a cot and medical supplies everywhere. Cabinets lined the walls, one of which Eve jumped up onto and then grabbed a small white kit with a red plus sign on it. "Okay. Come on." I couldn't help notice the numbness that had begun to settle in her voice and her eyes.

She led me into the room and flicked on the lights. It was pretty small, with dark green walls and brown carpeting. Jay was lying in the middle of it, his right arm thrown over his eyes and his left bent under him with his legs splayed out in painful-looking positions.

"Jay!" I gasped, and raced over to him. I carefully took his arm from out from under him and checked his pulse. He was alive. I felt along his arm, noticing his grunt as I did so. Definitely broken. Glancing up and down his body for bleeding, I found, thankfully, the only source was a blossom of blood on his chest. It wasn't good, but... one was better than two or three or five. Eve padded over and moved his arm from his face. Dried blood was under his nose and trailed down his cheek, so he evidently had a nosebleed earlier.

"Open his shirt," Eve told me.

I nodded and unbuttoned it. Blood pooled around an indented area just under his heart. Not his heart, not his heart. I sighed in relief.

"Don't," Eve warned, eyeing me as a warning. "There's a lot of tissue under the heart."

"It's better than if it was the heart itself," I murmured.

Eve shrugged and said, "We'll see. I'm going to call Will down here. He's got a medical degree. I'm sure he can help him."

I simply nodded as she went over to the wall and knocked on it. A phone came out of the wall and Eve dialed. I listened as she relayed what we knew.

Will was down in two minutes, Destiny lagging behind with her head down. He was in his human form, pushing the cot I'd seen earlier.

Without a word I helped him lift Jay up onto the cot. He groaned again and his eyelids fluttered. They kept at it but didn't open until we'd gotten him into the medical room.

"Help," Jay managed to get out, the word a squeak of pain. He tensed hard and started shivering, his eyes opening once or twice for a moment every few seconds.

"Shh, shh, it's okay, it's okay," Will murmured, quickly walking around the room, gathering supplies.

Eve morphed into a human and took his hand. I smiled my thanks to her, and she simply nodded. Destiny morphed into a human and took his other hand. I morphed, too, and put a hand on her shoulder for a moment. She gave me a small smile. I smiled back and stood back to watch Will.

Jay squeaked again, and Will sped up a little. He fixed a mask over Jay's mouth and nose and flipped a switch on the wall. Destiny felt his pulse and reported quietly, "He's falling asleep."

"Good, good," Will murmured softly in response. "I have to operate on him. If you guys would like to leave, please do so now."

"Come on, let Will work," I told Destiny, gently tugging her away. For a moment she wouldn't budge, just held tightly to Jay's hand. I wrapped her in a hug and said, "It'll be better for Will and Jay if you let Will help him, okay?"

"Okay," Destiny finally said, and she let me take her out of the room.

"I'll stay and help," Eve said quietly. Will nodded his thanks.

"It should only take thirty minutes," Will told me as he set up a tray of sharp-looking tools. "Actually, Eve, take them to the control room and contact Laek. Tell him and the others what's going on. If there's a situation, I trust you to handle it. Remember that Austin and Destiny can help you."

Eve nodded and led us away.

With Jay in surgery and Jaeson and Lily's bodies growing cold above on the floor above us, I knew this would be the longest thirty minutes of all my lives combined.

Author's Note:

Well. This chapter sucked to write, sucked to edit, just all around was not a fun chapter. I hope you all enjoyed it anyway :)