Chapter 36: The Hunter and the Blind Prince: Part 1

Frigid winds swirled and bit at Kirlia as he trudged forward with his arms wrapped around his trembling body. Two parallel trails marked his path as he trudged through the knee-deep snow. More was building up on his shoulders, his arms, his face and his hair, sapping his body of warmth. He needed respite. His body begged for it, but Kirlia denied himself of any. He just had to cross these mountains, and then the hunt would begin. Those were the words he chanted over and over as he lumbered forward. The hunt… The hunt… The hunt…

His idea of his path withered as dark clouds rolled over the mountaintops late into the night. The moon and stars that scarcely illuminated the cold white slope were swallowed up one by one by the approaching blizzard. Summer storms were brutal, and apparently their wrath applied to even the snowstorms. Howling gales drowned out even one's thoughts, and all one could hear was their own shivering and chattering teeth.

"I c-can't f… fffffeel my tails," Buizel whimpered. He followed not far behind Kirlia for now, but any minute now he felt as if he would suddenly collapse into the snow. And right then Buizel wasn't sure if he would be able to get back up if that happened. He was shaking with each step, his arms rubbing all over his chest as he tucked his head down. All his life Buizel had thought himself more susceptible to the cold than most, or maybe that just spoke of his own lack of fortitude, but his tails actually felt frozen. They were slung over his shoulder, tucked under the inflatable pouch around his neck, where he felt that they had frozen to him. To their very bones his tails were ice-cold and absolutely refused to move. Buizel couldn't bring himself to look at them, afraid that if he did they would be blackened. They foolishly hadn't expected a blizzard. They didn't even have enough rope to tie themselves together with.

"Just… t-ten more minutes!" Kirlia shouted. He didn't know if Buizel could hear him, he could barely even hear himself, but their hearing had always been better than his own. "We'll h-h-hit the Shiversnap dungeon, a-and then… it's- it's all r-rrrroutine from there."

"I don't think that's right!" Luxio shouted into the wind, of which Kirlia only heard "I don't think." The Electric-type was only a few paces behind Buizel, his coat shimmering with tiny bolts of lightning that arched between his fur. It kept him warm enough for now, but he couldn't keep it up for long. If he was lucky, they'd make it to the other side of the mountain before he was defenseless to the elements. "That storm… it's gonna get worse once the Mystery Dungeon kicks in!"

"We'll be fine," Kirlia insisted. "We've g-gone through Shivers-snap Mountain a hhhhhundred times. Quit c-complaining. A-act lllllike the exp-plorers we are."

"An Explorer sh-should act smart!" Buizel barked. Perhaps it was the cold, perhaps it was raw passion, but there was a tremble in the Water-type's voice. Not a meek shiver, but a gripping tremble that Kirlia picked up on more than the words themselves. Kirlia glanced back at his companion, meeting Buizel's defiant glare with his own unmovable authority, and then looked ahead again without a word. "Don't give m-me th-that! We'll f-f-freeze if we d-don't… t-t-t-turn back!" When he took another breath the bitterly cold air burned Buizel's throat and mouth.

"If w-we turn back now," Kirlia hissed through his teeth, "we'll never c-catch up. He'll get away-"

"And so what?!" Buizel roared, kicking up snow as he marched towards Kirlia. "Riley'll get a-away. Sure. Does it mat-t-t-tter when we know th-that he'd b-been framed? You know this, Kirlia!"

"I kn-know that he has a connection with Bisharp," the Psychic-type growled, "and if he getssss away overseas, we'll be… We'll be out of luck. We need to bring him in."

"Uhhhh…" Luxio uncomfortably shifted his gaze between his companions. He felt powerless to stop them, as if whatever he said would only be more fuel on the fire. But if he didn't try now, then… "Look, arguing like this only wastes-"

"This wh-whole thing has done nothing b-but waste time!" Buizel roared, earning himself an incredulous glare from Kirlia. Undaunted by both his leader and the blizzard that rolled over them, he pressed onward, now only a few paces from Kirlia. "I've tried being patient. I've waited for your usual self to come back, to replace this irrational mess you've become. But you're still this… this other Kirlia. As far as I'm concerned, our leader's gone."

Dryly, Kirlia chuckled to himself, although the look on his face was anything but amused. "Then what am I?" he croaked. Wisps of steam from his breath were pulled away by the fiercely frigid gales. They could barely see beyond each other, and for Luxio the two were only silhouettes that grew more and more opaque by the second.

Buizel leaned in only a few inches from Kirlia's face, and with all his courage, he growled, "You're blinded. And I won't follow someone around that doesn't know where he himself is going."

There was a lull in the wind, and in that brief instant the snow fell gently, turning from a harsh bite to an icy kiss as the flakes formed a veil around Kirlia. His facade had broken. The authoritative edge was immediately dulled as shock overcame him. He actually couldn't believe it. He must've heard him incorrectly, there was no way his team would talk to him this way. He was their leader. He was in charge as he always had been. They had no right. And yet, Buizel's piercing glare was uncharacteristically serious. It was the same expression Kirlia had worn back at the desert, that retaliatory agony of being caught vulnerable but refusing to be cornered. His partner really did-

No. The word resounded in Kirlia's mind with finality. His brow furrowed and sank over the tops of his crimson eyes. "Then don't."

Buizel recoiled an inch, his confidence faltering. It had been a possibility all along, he knew, and one that he'd been prepared for, but Buizel held onto that last hope. He wanted to believe that Kirlia would turn himself around. In one way, he did. The Psychic-type spun around abruptly and continued his suicidal trek through the mountain.

Swallowing his resentment, Buizel shouted after him, "Go then! If you wanna get yourself killed, fine!"

Kirlia gave no answer.

Rage flared to life in Buizel. Five cycles they had spent together. Five cycles of adventuring, finding grand vistas and glorious treasures, taking down some of the biggest criminals in every corner of the world. Five cycles of growing closer together, even when they strayed apart from time to time… And it was to come to a close like this?!

"But we're not gonna take that bait! We're not gonna waste ourselves here! Our home needs us more than this… this stupid quest!" He paused, took a deep breath, and then… his trump card. "If you ever regain your senses… We'll wait for you. Come find us. Then, you can start being a worthy Guildmaster."

Kirlia didn't even flinch at the mention of his father. As far as the boy was concerned, whatever they said about his father was meaningless. It was only the word 'we' that caught his attention. He speaks for Luxio, too. So they talked this over without me? he thought with contempt.

"You traitors can do whatever you want," Kirlia scowled.

Now the blizzard was in full force. A flurry of snow and ice blew into them like a thousand freezing needles. The slim moon and all the stars were extinguished behind the raging storm clouds, and there was only absolute darkness. In seconds Kirlia was out of sight, and only a few seconds after that were the sound of Kirlia's footsteps crunching through the snow swallowed by the roar of the blizzard.

Luxio had seen none of this. He stood there, his sparks giving off the faintest bit of light, staring at the spot he saw his friends' silhouettes vanish. He'd heard bits and pieces of the exchange, but he wasn't sure how it turned out. But he couldn't bring himself to interfere. He waited, and waited, and waited. He wondered if they'd somehow got lost in the storm less than fifty feet from him. He wondered if Kirlia had responded aggressively and was attacking Buizel. Surely though, he'd be able to hear that… he hoped…

When Luxio saw Buizel's shape emerge, clutching himself and shivering, he was relieved. That is, until Luxio noticed that Buizel returned alone.

"Is he… Did he leave?" he asked.

"He's l-lost." Evidently, now that his confidence had been used up, Buizel couldn't ignore the cold anymore. "But th-that doesn't mean-n w-we ha-ave to b-b-be."

Deeply Luxio exhaled through his nose, the steam again dragged away by the storm. Things were in shambles. Their leader was gone, they were stuck on a mountainside, and Buizel, the previously unofficial second-in-command, was minutes away from collapsing.

"A… alright," said the Electric-type, striding quickly over to his friend. Buizel's walk was already getting unsteady. "Hurry up. We have to find some place to dig in."

Luxio gave one last forlorn look to where he'd last seen Kirlia, wondering if he should insist on taking him into whatever shelter they could manage to find, but he felt a sudden rumbling through the pads of his paws, and Luxio knew right then that Kirlia was beyond them. That had been the sound of the entrance to the Shiversnap Mountains' Mystery Dungeon breaking open.

He sighed, and then escorted his friend downhill, in an attempt doomed to fail to find a better place to dig in for the night.

…

It was Kirlia's last Teleport that saved him. When the snow underneath his feet fell abruptly and the boy began to plummet, he used the last of his energy to almost immediately bring himself to the icy ground, before he even had a chance to look at the environment around him. He wouldn't have been able to get a good look anyways, for the only light was incredibly dim and seemingly without source. All he saw was gray stone and blue ice, and of course, snow.

When Kirlia looked up again, the ceiling he fell through was back where it had been, perfectly pristine. He was in the midst of some great chasm hundreds of feet deep. The walls and the floor were made of smooth, bluish ice, broken apart here and there with boulders and slabs of granite.

He shut his eyes and sighed with relief. The storm didn't touch the dungeon. No biting winds, no falling snow… Even if it was still lethally cold, the still air made it infinitely more comforting than the mountainside had been. His team must've heard him fall. They'd be there any minute now, taking respite in the dungeon, knowing that Kiria had been right. If they just pressed on further, they would've been fine. Hell, if they groveled and begged, Kirlia might even take them back.

So he waited, curled up, his shivers becoming weaker and weaker.

Minutes crawled by as Kirlia awaited the sound of the snow ceiling breaking open, wondering if he'd be able to catch them in his weakened state, when he suddenly darted his head to the right. For just a second, something had scratched against the ice, creating a high, grating hiss. He could see no movement, but on the far wall, there was an opening in the ice where a tunnel took a sharp turn.

Silently, Kirlia slipped a freezing hand into his bag, only to remove his dagger. His father's final gift to him had been a proper brass scabbard for his dagger, a fit so snug that it was almost a hassle to remove it. In fact, out of fear of making his own hiss, he kept it in its sheath, clutched in his right hand as he waited. Kirlia knew he wasn't at his full ability, but he felt confident in himself as long as this wasn't one of the apex predators, the 'dungeon lords' as the vets would call them, he'd be alright.

A smooth, dark face surrounded in billowing white fur emerged from the narrow tunnel. Crimson eyes similar to his own swept over the room before settling on the lone Psychic-type. Even in the dim light, the wild Pokémon's crescent horn sheened as it lowered its head towards the boy.

Is that… Is that an Absol? Kirlia pondered with a hint of dread. I didn't know there were any in Arushar. Fast, deadly, and with infamously sharp instincts. He pushed his trembling self to his feet. If it's anything like what I've read about them, this could be bad-

"A minute too late," the Absol sighed.

Kirlia blinked. Did a Wildie just talk, or was this some sort of hallucination brought on by the cold?

"I wanted to be there to catch you, but a... territorial Beartic blocked my path. Are you alright?" The Absol asked, quiet but refined, strolling into the chasm as casually as if it were his own home. While his smoky white fur was unkempt and all over the place, it was at the same time very fluffy and completely spotless, and around his sickle-like tail there was a dark gray scarf swaddled and bound by a strand of twine. No, the Absol was no savage dungeon-dweller.

The scabbard sang as Kirlia yanked it off the blade, and he pointed it directly at the approaching Dark-type. It was a warning, but if the Absol was smart, he would also see it as an admission of defeat. None of the Moves Kirlia had would work against a Dark-type, except for one, and Magical Leaf wouldn't do much good. "Wh-who are yo-ou? Why are you here?" the boy snarled.

"Oh, just an Absol. I live in these mountains," the Absol replied. His gaze swept over the boy, finding the sight pitiful. Even though he looked to barely have the strength to hold his dagger, and his legs looked like they might give out any second, and his face was red with exhaustion, the small Psychic-type looked as if he would fight.

"Here." The Absol raised one paw into his poofy mane and swatted out a yellow berry speckled with green rings, then rolled it across the uneven icy ground to the boy. "It's an Aspear berry. It should keep you from getting frostbitten-"

Kirlia pointed at it with his offhand, and the berry hovered inches off the ground before rocketing back towards the Dark-type. A startled Absol jumped in the way of it at the last possible second, just managing to stop it with the side of his body, where it then bounced off.

"I d-don't n-n-need it," the boy growled. "I h-h-have my own-n."

The Absol raised a brow musingly as he looked over the boy's bag. Simple leather emblazoned with the emblem of a now defunct military power, with no fur lining or faint glow visible. "My apologies," he said, holding back an amused smirk. "Feel free to get your own then."

Kirlia did just that, his offhand slipping into the opening of the bag before settling upon… His face grew a deeper shade of red as his fingers settled upon his small store of berries, each cold, each hard as a rock. The Absol chortled to himself, resulting in Kirlia's gaze shifting down and to the left.

"Sh-shut up!" Kirlia barked. "Wh-when they g-g-get here… Luxio could fry-"

"'They?' I'm sorry, but no others will be showing up," the Absol cut him off. "Nobody could be running around right now. Either they're in shelter, or they're dead."

Kirlia felt himself grow rigid. A lump built up on his throat as he imagined it: Buizel and Luxio frozen mid-stride, unable to find the entrance to the dungeon, unable to apologize for their grave error. Sure, their mistake wasn't small, and their insult could not be easily forgiven, but did they deserve to die for that?

The Absol kicked the berry back over to Kirlia. It bounced off the wall and stopped at his heels. "Eat it before it freezes," he sternly suggested now that the gravity had been firmly established. "Then we can go back for them. I'm sure they-"

"No," Kirlia flared. The scabbard was lifted into the air by the Psychic-type's powers, and then quickly snapped back onto the blade. "I w-won't t-turn back. They'r-re the ones th-that lef-ft m-m-me."

The Absol looked at him incredulously, but the intensity in his eyes… While it was fierce, it was also a facade. Beneath it all was stubborn pride that absolutely refused to look back. There was only forward. Everything that straggled behind was swallowed by toxic mist. It gave the Absol chills. One day, Kirlia would glance over his shoulder to find himself entirely alone, and what would his face look like under his stalwart, indestructible mask? What was the face Kirlia would make when he could be honest with himself?

Undaunted by the eyes of the stranger, Kirlia made for one of the tunnels with a stumbling, unsteady gait. The Absol only wasted a moment before snapping back to alertness. "Wait, what? You can't delve into the dungeon like this!" After impaling the Aspear berry on his crescent horn, he hurried after the boy. "You're on the verge of dying as is! You need to-"

"I'm f-fine," Kirlia growled. He formed great clouds of steam as he puffed out each laborious breath, and his whole face was pink instead of pale. After a few paces Kirlia's legs buckled out from under him, and he dropped to his knees, but he wasted no time struggling back up. "I'm s-stronger than s-some… ssssstupid c-c-cold."

"No, you're obviously not!" the Absol cried in frustration, to no result. The boy just tuned him out. Step by staggering step he approached one of the tunnels out of this chasm, and the Absol had to make a choice: subdue him, or let him wander until he dropped.

Kirlia, though, had stopped hearing him entirely. Everything sounded filtered and blurry as if he were submerged in water, and it wasn't long until everything looked that way as well. With each step he felt the ice sapping more and more of his strength. What was wrong with him? He felt so fragile, so vulnerable, so cold and alone and… something else. A looming sense of dread, a sword hanging above his head, that made Kirlia reluctant to press on. Yet he must. He didn't even want to name what he felt, name this blade that loomed over him. If he didn't think about it, if he just focused on just that next step, then he could make it. One more step, just one more step, just one more…

…

The joke of a funeral had ended only minutes earlier. It was a hollow funeral in a hollow shell of a city, with hollowed Pokemon shedding the few tears they had amidst the sparse words of remorse and grief. Even the grave was hollow. With nothing to bury, the Pokemon that could bring themselves to attend could only gather around the ruined cabin.

It started when the town awoke to find Rhyperior disassembling the pieces of the walls, leaving only a floor, two beds, and a wood stove next to the pile of wood. Confused and forlorn Explorers crawled out and Pokemon of the town shambled towards the hill, seeking guidance, seeking answered, only to see Gallade's desk now only feet away from the cliff. Everything but the black inkwell and the shimmering Articuno quill had been left inside. Minutes later Blaziken strolled up and placed a bouquet of blue forget-me-nots, and Dusknoir added a brick of a novel written about one of Gallade's early adventurers: A New Dawn written in gold print on a blue cover. Soon some of the Explorers pitched in, adding memorabilia and giving short speeches, and then the townsfolk offered their own expressions of gratitude. It wasn't long before the quill, the flowers and the book were buried underneath a mound of enchanted trinkets and scarves, gifts being returned, other books of Gallade's adventurers, other flowers, even some of Gallade's favorite foods were placed along the far edges of the desk. Nobody had planned this. Nobody had anything profound to say just then. It was just an impromptu memorial.

When Rhyperior spoke the few words Kirlia had given to him, the service broke up, and the Pokemon drifted back to their homes. "All Guild activities outside of domestic areas are to be put on hold. Efforts are to be focused on building up and keeping the towns safe. Pursuing the assailants is a task only assigned to a select set of individuals. Anyone going against those rules will be denounced and dejected."

After this, Rhyperior went into a speech of his own. Nobody had known the guy to be the long-winded sort, not even his colleagues. All he ever was to the townsfolk was a silhouette at sunrise on top of the hill, lingering for less than a minute. Not once had he ventured into the town that he protected so dearly. Perhaps that's why his eulogy was so bizarrely captivating, especially near the end. "A leader… a hero… a father… a friend… And now, only a legacy. While I'd like nothing more than to scrub that bastard's face into the cliff… Gallade would want us to keep ourselves safe first. That's the kind of guy he was. So long as we were okay, he was okay. Every damned thing he did was to build up our future. And now… Now, it's all knocked down. It's up to us to show that we're more than just the Guildmaster. It's time to prove that we have some mettle of our own."

Some were roused into a spirited 'hurrah!' by Rhyperior, but not nearly enough. Maybe twenty Pokemon. Spirits were so low that the silence after the cheers was deafening.

As the Pokemon began to walk away, Kirlia knew the town was doomed. When he would arrive in town again it would be ruined, nothing but a pale echo of what it had been not but last afternoon. Maybe Kirlia was just being pessimistic. He'd hoped he was. Hoping for the best, but braced for the worst.

He lingered after the impromptu service had ended. Rhyperior gave Kirlia a brief nod, communicating a thousand wishes in only a glance, before lumbering down the hill for the first time. Blaziken hopped down the open hole into the Guild and Dusknoir followed. It was just Kirlia, his companions, and a sprinkling of others that left one-by-one.

Not once had Kirlia cried about the whole affair. Not when he saw his father's head, not before a mound of memorabilia laid out on the memorial, and not during the long night in between on which Kirlia could get no sleep. He knew he should've been bawling, or seething with rage, or feel anything at all, but Kirlia didn't know what he felt. Whatever it was had been suppressed by a sense of duty that dragged behind him like an anchor.

"Are… Are you sure about this?" Luxio asked meekly. When Kirlia didn't answer, he looked over to Buizel for support, who in turn gave him an encouraging nod. "We wouldn't know where to begin looking, and even if we did, this is way out of our league."

"It's our job." Kirlia's answer was automatic, so much so that he wasn't even aware he said it. His attention remained on the desk that would never be just a desk, ever again.

Just about everyone else had placed an offering, but Kirlia had placed none. What could he have offered that would suffice? Nothing. Nothing besides his killer's own head would do, and until then… Until then, the best Kirlia could do was not an offering, but a theft. His father's bracelets, two blue cuffs with intricate but indecipherable etchings, that had rarely seen the light of day… They fit loosely around his slender wrists, even when tightened all the way, but there was some trick about them that made them almost impossible to actually take off. His last gift to his father would be taking up his mantle in whatever small way he could.

"We don't have a job anymore," Buizel added. He was unsure whether to be gentle or harsh with his words, and ended up wandering a non committal middleground. "Everything's flipped on its head. We don't have any orders to follow anymore."

Somewhat more consciously, Kirlia lectured, "Our job is more than our orders. We don't have to be bossed around to know what needs to be done."

"B-but… Don't you think that Astraean would need you?" Luxio asked.

"I wouldn't-" For an instant Kirlia had snapped, but he caught himself. After a deep breath, he turned his head to face them. At the time he didn't notice how weary and drained his companions looked. Red, puffy eyes, heads facing down, ears laid back… They were mortified.

Firmly, Kirlia had said to his friends, "They won't feel safe until all this is wrapped up. Not until Riley is dealt with, and that bastard Bisharp has been melted down. Anyone can rebuild. Even if we stayed, we'd be overshadowed. This way… This way…" He shook his head. Hopefully, they'd fill in the gap.

When Buizel and Luxio looked between each other, sharing a conversation entirely without words, Kirlia thought he'd gotten through to them. Looking back on that morning, it was probably the beginning of their mutiny. Had they stayed quiet out of pity? Giving the grieving son his space? Treating Kirlia as if he were a fragile, vulnerable child? Sickening…

Since they didn't answer, Kirlia spoke again. "Whenever we're ready, we'll head east. There's more possible asylum eastward."

Luxio piped up, "But shouldn't we-"

"Every minute we waste is another minute they have to get away. And finding them all is already gonna be tough enough as it is." The look on Kirlia's face… Retaliatory agony, refusing to be exposed, like in the aftermath in the desert. They had only an instant to take it in before Kirlia himself marched off, unaware of where he was going… No. No, that wasn't quite true.

He was going forward.

…

The boy awoke suddenly, violently, as he realized his body didn't feel like it was on the verge of freezing. Something soft covered him, and without looking he swung his arm and tossed it into the air. A dark gray scarf had been draped over him, seemingly some kind of weather scarf, and now lay coiled up on the other side of the room.

To his surprise, Kirlia had been laid upon a pile of furs in the corner of a log cabin. In the adjacent corner there was a plush brown sack like a bean bag, except it too was made of fur, and it had a great yellow ring facing the room. Except for a cast iron wood stove with a weak, sputtering flame, everything inside the one-room cabin were furs. Navy blue Sneasel and Weavile pelts hung next to a Delibird's thick down feathers. A couple of chests had the shaggy brown coat of a Piloswine stretched over them. Some of the rare frigid-Vulpix furs, too. Every portion of the wall had a perfectly-carved skin, with the magnum opus being a Beartic's hide in the very center of the room.

"... The hell…?" Kirlia muttered. They were all the kind of Pokemon that naturally lived in the Shiversnap Mountains. Killing Wild Pokemon for food wasn't uncommon, but to make trophies of them? What kind of-

"That Absol." Those last few minutes came back to him. Falling into the Mystery Dungeon, meeting the strange civilized Absol that somehow knew to be there, scraps of a conversation, and then… What, he ended up here? There were a few windows, and they all showed to him a remarkably blue sky. At the very least, he'd slept the whole night. An entire half the day, wasted, and the Absol was nowhere-

"Yes, that's me. Good morning."

Kirlia nearly shrieked, for the Absol stood by the wood stove. Hanging from his horn was a kettle with tendrils of steam climbing from its spout. Kirlia was positive, without a shadow of a doubt, the room had been empty not ten seconds earlier. Even if he could've mistaken him for one of those pelts, that ash-black face had nowhere to blend in… Well, maybe the cast iron stove, but-

"Are you feeling alright?" the Absol asked. "I'll have some porridge ready in only a minute or so. Warms you right up, and you can eat it no matter how tired you are."

"I'm fine," Kirlia answered cautiously, but he did feel perfectly fine. No hunger or thirst, no lingering frost, no injuries or anything missing. Hell, his bag had been laid out beside the stove, and all his supplies were spread out before it, everything dried and his food and water well-thawed. Nothing was left unattended to, and that only made Kirlia more alert.

"Well, it'll be here for you," the Absol shrugged. He set the kettle on the floor and then nudged a wooden bowl of oats next to it. "A growing boy needs-"

"You carried me here," Kirlia said through his teeth. "You assumed to have the right- Where am I? Who are you?"

The canine chuckled. It was good-natured on the surface, but it was clear to Kirlia that it was only a surface, a hollow facade. "I'm just an Absol. You can call me Abby; the friends I have left do. Forgive me, I'm not used to your customs. I just saw a boy about to freeze to death, so I took you here. I didn't realize that saving a prince was so heinous."

"I'm not a prince," Kirlia growled.

Another hollow chuckle. "Whatever you say." The kettle tipped over, and water gushed into the bowl. "You're in my cabin, high on the east face of the mountains. You'll be safe here for nearly a week before I need to go resupply."

"No thanks," Kirlia scoffed. "I've already wasted a night because of… this. I can't waste more time."

"Wait," the Absol cut in. "'A' night?" As Kirlia's confusion grew, there arose that same smirk on the Dark-type's face. That playful, above-it-all grin, followed by a few short chortles. "Try four."

Kirlia nearly choked on his own breath. "Four?!" he nearly screamed. "You don't mean… No. No! If I was out cold for four days, then why-"

"Why aren't you hungry? Because I fed you myself," the Absol answered before the question could arise. "Porridge and water, and a lot of rest. And you needed it. You were on the verge of hypothermia."

Four days that Kirlia had spent out cold. Four days that the raiders spent getting further and further away. Hopeless, he fell to his knees in the pelts, incoherently muttering to himself. The chase might be over now. Either they'd gotten away or they'd been caught, and during the climax, Kirlia had just been… asleep? For multiple days?

"I have to go," Kirlia proclaimed. He jumped to his feet and hurried over to his possessions, all of which were laid out by the stove. "So much time has already burned away, and unless I'm lucky the hunt is already over."

"Ah. Well, alright, I can guide you down before nightfall-"

In a frigid whisper, Kirlia cut him off, putting all his weight behind a meager two words: "Without you."

The Absol opened his eyes wide, and then narrowed them. "You'll venture out there on your own? When another storm is due in by tonight? I can't in all good conscience-"

"I don't trust you." Those words were only made colder when the boy scooped his belongings into his bag, not giving the Absol so much as a glance. "If your… 'decorations' aren't reason enough, you knew where I would show up. You're creepy, and I won't have you following me."

"'Creepy?'" the Absol guffawed. "I wouldn't play that game, if I were you. Your raw angst makes you quite the target."

Instead of taking the bait, Kirlia slung his bag over his shoulder and went for the door, paying no attention to the smirking Absol. And the moment it was open, Kirlia immediately recoiled and shielded his eyes. He fell back onto the floor as the door slammed shut again.

"You… You weren't even prepared for snow blindness?" the Absol asked, his smile faltering. Just in case snow wasn't dangerous enough, it also had the ability to blind you, if you didn't come prepared. The science of it was mostly lost on him, but the canine knew that it reflected the fiercest parts of sunlight, and prolonged exposure could lead to long-term blindness. Many Ice-types, and some Pokemon with dark faces that helped absorb light, were resistant to it. Kirlia, though, had not prepared for even this. Kirlia had not prepared even the slightest bit.

The boy blinked twice. His sight was still with him, thankfully, and he immediately used it to thoroughly scan the room.

"You can't be… What's up with you? If you're always like this, I'm not surprised that you're alone," the Absol scoffed. The boy twitched. His right hand slipped into his bag for a moment before coming out empty, and his search continued.

The Absol nodded in recognition of the boy's stubbornness. "Fine then. Would you like to know how I knew where to find you? It's because I sensed that you were about to die." This much earned him a curious glare, and taking that as a sign of encouragement, he went on. "My kind can sense disasters. And I usually sense one or two every cycle. Big winter storms, or earthquakes… Never something as small as one boy's death though. I had to save your life."

"To satisfy your curiosity," Kirlia accused.

"Yes," the Absol said without hesitation. "I wasn't just saving you, I was saving an anomaly. And when I learned who you are, I was intrigued. My mind ran wild." For a moment the Absol sounded eager, but slowly that faded away into something else. "So imagine my disappointment that you turned out to just be an edgy brat."

Kirlia marched over to the corner and picked up the dark gray scarf, then wrapped it tightly around his head over and over again, until he only had the faintest sliver to see out of. The Absol didn't comment, for he knew that despite how silly it looked, it would be moderately effective. "I'm borrowing this," he proclaimed, then went for the door again.

The two shared one last glance, their bright red eyes sizing the other up, before Kirlia readjusted the "borrowed" scarf and opened the door. Snow crunched under his light steps, and then, the door slammed shut.

And so he had willfully turned away from a pelt hunter not out of ignorance, but out of sheer stubbornness. So quick was he to grow up that he'd forgotten to mature.

…

For the most part, the dark scarf served to block the snow's glare, but at the steep cost of most of Kirlia's visibility. He had to use his sliver of sight to the best of his ability, and as it turned out, he could do so fairly well. The cabin was located on a gentle slope blanketed in a couple inches of now, nowhere near as deep as it had been on the climb up. Behind him the mountain bared its granite fangs to anyone that would try for its summit, and ahead of him, a gentle slope only broken up by the occasional stone tooth. Snow had a way of hiding all but the fiercest of imperfections.

The slow did not stay gentle, however. In ten minutes Kirlia was sliding as much as he was striding, and he had a good view of the lands beneath the mountain. Far, far, far below him the mountains gave way to a savanna peppered with small clusters of skinny trees. The rotted green hue of their leaves stood out against the golden grass and the deep blue sky that came from being above the rest of the world.

"The east face," Kirlia muttered to himself, speaking to himself. At least the Absol had taken him in the right direction. Finding a town to orientate himself would be difficult, but he was closer to his objective than before. And his prey was even further away. He took a deep breath filtered through the scarf, and then pushed on.

It was eerily silent. There were no winds stirring, no Wilds roaming, only his gentle steps and steaming breath to accompany him beneath a cold, vacant sky. Even the sets that would usually accompany his own were missing. Combined with Kirlia's self-hindered vision, he was naturally on full alert. His blood was up. At any inclination of danger he would be armed and swinging before he knew what was happening, so sensitive were his eyes and his ears. But it was a surprise to him that his nose picked up something first. A salty, savory scent that seemed so out of place in the freezing air. What could possibly be…

HIs dagger was unsheathed and in his hand as Kirlia spun around, just in time for his steel to catch the black edge of a crescent horn. Kirlia staggered backwards, reflexively making another slash in time to intercept the next attack. The blades rattled against one another when they met, struggling for dominance, until they broke apart and Kirlia found himself glaring at the Absol again.

"That rest served you well," the hunter observed.

Kirlia bared his teeth. "I should've known not to turn my back to you," he scowled, and began to adjust his stance to something more patient and defensive. That savory scent… It made Kirlia's blood boil. Like his father, Kirlia had an ability to sense emotions, albeit with much less polish, but while Gallade had equated his to his hearing, Kirlia's was matched to his sense of smell. There were only a handful of emotions he was sensitive enough to pick up on, or maybe they were the only ones he cared enough to detect, but of the few he had, Kirlia had come to detest the smell of salt and buttery snacks. It meant a sense of playfulness, teasing, or mockery. And the hint of a sneer on the Absol's face made his purpose clear.

"You really shouldn't have," the Absol agreed. "Now I have every advantage I could want out here. Not only can you not see, but I'm immune to most of your gimmicks."

Gimmicks.

While the boy felt a ravenous flame ignite inside his chest, the Absol went on.

"You may be an anomaly, but you're a damn fool if you willingly bring yourself out here. Dim. Dull. Utterly visionless, utterly worthless. But I am still curious about that near-disaster, so-" His forepaw inched forward through the snow as he crouched down in an unspoken declaration. "Let's see what you are worth in death."

That single word was so innocuous, yet for Kirlia, it was an anchor, constantly dragging the poor boy down. It was everywhere. In the admiration of other Explorers, in the sympathy of his father, in the mouth of that damnable Riley… And now, it was here. Kirlia would be rid of it. Once and for all, he would be rid of it.

"If you insist on sticking your nose where it doesn't belong," Kirlia hissed through his teeth, "I'll gladly take it!"

Kirlia closed the gap between them and thrusted the dagger forward. The Absol cut off his line just in time to leap backwards. So narrow was his escape that the dagger had brushed against the fur on his chest. Kirlia lunged again for the chest, but the Absol easily dodged to his left. The boy stepped back and swiped to cover himself. Abby stuck just outside the reach of the short blade. Teeth clenched, Kirlia lowered his stance and swiftly slashed at the Absol's forepaws. Abby had almost spaced himself perfectly, but he hadn't counted on Kirlia letting his grip slip just an inch, and a shallow cut formed across his left foreleg. Red seeped out and stained his soft fur.

"I'm more than just a gimmick," Kirlia said in a low, raspy murmur. He went for another slash, but Abby gave him a wide berth. In only a second the gap between them spread to fifteen paces. Abby raised his stained foreleg and lapped at the cut. Likely, to Kirlia's sick satisfaction, he was now noticing a small nick in the bone, and realizing that this anomaly was not to be taken so lightly.

"So you say, so you say," the Absol mused.

His paw fell back to the snow, leaving a red smear in pristine snow. He crouched down until his face was half-buried, just eyes and a horn poking out from the snow. Kirlia thought he was planning to obscure himself completely in the snow and so he dashed in. But he was wrong. When the Absol burst forth, the snow blew outward in a fine haze, in which the white canine was nearly invisible. It was only by a sudden impulse, somewhere between instinct and luck, that Kirlia caught the Absol's horn with his own blade. The two bounced off each other. Kirlia lost his footing and fell backwards into the snow while the Absol vanished again into the haze.

"There's something… I'd like you… to know." Every time the Absol spoke it came from another direction. Cautiously, Kirlia kept his ears open. He could hear the light footsteps of the hunter dancing around him, but they were infrequent, and gave no sensible path to follow. Leaping around with Quick Attack? Or Agility? "When you fight… don't be afraid… to use your wits…" The haze thinned enough where he could see the harsh glare of the reflected sunlight once again, but the figure of the Absol was nowhere to be-

The smooth side of the horn slid up the back of Kirlia's head, between the boy and the scarf that masked his face. Kirlia's instincts took over and he stabbed behind him, but it wasn't until near the end of his swing that he realized what was happening. "Because everyone has their gimmicks!" The fabric pulled as the Dark-type tore it in two, and before he knew it, Kirlia was assaulted by light. His eyes clamped shut.

In a move of pure panic, Kirlia clamped his hands together, enveloping himself in a soft glow before teleporting away. Where he reappeared, he didn't know, but the moment he felt the cold snow, he took a quick glimpse before immediately burying his face in the snow. He was further down the slope, and the Absol's dark face draped with gray shreds of cloth was some hundred yards up.

"Cutting it… awfully close there," he called after the boy.

"Bastard," Kirlia growled. He looked again, and still immediately had to clamp his eyes shut. The ember in the pit of his stomach burned furiously. Blind, cold, and trying to rid himself of a somewhat deranged pelt hunter… Not to mention, he'd been cornered into using Teleport blindly.

Think, he told himself, as faintly he heard the crunching of snow from further up the slope. You cannot fall here. One day you'll be the next Guildmaster. You can get yourself out of this. There has to be some way of keeping track of him! Think, damn you!

"You'd better have an ace or two with you," the Absol warned. "The Guild's dark star has a reputation to uphold. And if you dash my hopes… then what worth do you hold?"

Dad… He had a way of dealing with depth. His missing eye never hindered him. Maybe, if I can reverse-engineer whatever he does- or, did- then I can make it out alive. All he has on me is experience. Every ability he has, I can match. So there's absolutely no excuse.

Footsteps hastened and grew closer at an alarming rate. Kirlia raised his head in alarm, eyes still shut, just as he heard the canine grunt. The boy acted out of panic, expending a blast of his psychic abilities on the snow around him. Frigid powder filled the air, and through his eyelids, Kirlia saw the light dim. A moment of sight! And with it, the dark face of the Absol lunging for him. From there it was all a hazy dance of thrusts and slashes, of whiffs and parries and hissing blades. In those short five seconds Kirlia channeled all of his hate into every strike, until the sunlight came back, and the snow blindness along with it.

The Absol drew back a couple paces with a sneer across his face. This was to be Kirlia's moment of vulnerability, as he either fled or turtled. Attacking now would've been ridiculous. And it was for that reason that Abby didn't at first react when the snow around his feet began to rise. Kirlia picked up great slabs of snow from all around the Dark-type, and when the boy's fist closed, he entombed the Absol in snow just as he began to jump. For now, the hunter was just a lump of white, and then Kirlia shut his eyes again.

And as the boy caught his breath, he realized just how his father might have made up for a missing eye. He even practiced, and with each attempt he was more and more confident in his judgement, more and more admiring of his father's enginuity, and soon after, more and more ridden with shame that he would need to do so in the first place.

It took nearly a minute for the dark face to break free of the snow. The sneer was gone, and in its place was a humbled smirk plastered over something… else. Something mischievous. "You're still here? I'd thought you would be a dozen warps away by now." More chunks of snow fell loose as the canine struggled and shook.

"I realized there's a cornice only twenty feet further. The drop after that… I won't risk it," Kirlia answered, leaving out one word: yet. Though he couldn't quite see it, the smile on the Absol's face was practically audible. To Kirlia's disgust he'd realized that the hunter had been trying to warn him about it. Through his teeth, Kirlia continued. "So I'd figured, if I wanted to be rid of you here and now…"

"... You'll do what? Go on. If you're in the mood to share, then share. I'm all-" He pushed his head the rest of the way out until he was free up to his neck, "-ears."

Kirlia's answer came with a steady hand pointed directly at the great clod of snow, and the Absol found himself rising along with his prison. In only seconds he was looming over the Psychic-type, and not twenty paces past him, the white slope gave way to nothing but blue skies. A sheer drop masked by an overhang of snow. It wasn't a game for the hunter anymore. He writhed around in the snow, shaking loose powder and pieces of snow, but the process was nowhere near fast enough.

"It speaks for itself." With a sharp jerk of the arm, the hunter catapulted away with only a defeated sigh that got quieter and quieter, further and further.

Kirlia took a deep breath, then another. So far, all he had done was buy himself time, wear himself out, and leave a single scratch. From here… Here, hopefully, he'd be rid of the hunter, one way or another.