"Where?" I state as my first question, sticking to only uttering one word at a time in an attempt to not unnecessarily strain my voice.

Treek begins to talk as the wagon rocks back and forth and I press my teeth against each other. "You probably already figured out that we managed to escape on the cargo train as it was leaving Kossary."

"More than a day has passed since then and today at sunset we crossed the border to Sazari. Don't worry: since the countries are working together the train didn't even have to slow down while crossing and."

Nina interrupts Treek and continues without being asked to. "We've gotten pretty lucky when the Zangoose who's operating the engine didn't hear all the ruckus my former boss caused. Good thing you never did upgrade our orb engines, or else he might have heard us through the humming noise of the engine running."

'She's correct' I think to myself, as I once again start noticing the humming noise vibrating through the metal of the cargo wagon. And while the noise isn't as bad as it is when the train is starting or stopping, I still regret noticing it immediately.

'I guess Jacob really took me seriously when I was babbling all that nonsense about Orb engines, and actually told his superiors about it.'

Nina stops talking and I can process the information while everyone is paying attention to me without me being able to look back at them. I am staring out into the terrain and wonder about what is going to happen next.

"Arrive?" I ask, hoping that Treek and the other would be able to decipher my question.

I'm wondering about when and where we are going to arrive and how they are planning to getting me off the train without being spotted.

"What does he mean ~arrive~?" Cari asks while looking at Treek.

"You mean this train, don't you?" He retorts to me without paying attention to Cari wondering out loudly.

I answer his question with a single word like we agreed upon. "Yes." And while I carefully try to swallow and actually manage to do so without immediately regretting the action, he begins speaking.

"I'm not sure where or when this train will be coming to a stop, but since it's a cargo train it's probably not heading for a military base. And even if it is, it'll surely leave behind this cargo wagon before getting some real passenger carts."

I start getting worried as I notice a risk that Treek hasn't mentioned yet, and most likely hasn't even though about if I were to judge by his facial expression.

'What if the train is headed for the capital?' I ask to myself. 'It's more than likely that this train is on its way there, seeing how almost all routes still in use are somehow connected with it.'

"Capitol." I say weakly, making an effort not to have it sound like a question.

"What do you...?" Nina tries to insert, but is interrupted by Treek.

"Shh..." He says. "I understand what you mean, Cyder."

"Guys..." He continues after a moment in a concerned voice and after having turned towards the rest of the group. "We have a problem. Cyder is referring to the destination of this train. It must be heading towards the Capitol City in Sazari."

"Shoot!" Nina exclaims as she appears to understand the problem. "Of course: where else would this train be heading. Why didn't we think of that?"

Interrupting her and regaining everyone's attention, Treek takes over and starts discussing a plan. "If that's where we're heading, we can't let this train reach its goal. If we end up in Capitol City, we'll have no way of escaping and are going to be detected the moment we step foot out of this box. - Much less with Cyder hurt and him not being able to walk on his own."

"We'll have to stop this train before it reaches its goal. And judging by how much time has already passed since we've crossed the border, we'll have to act now."

Tolan finally speaks up and states the obvious problem. "But we don't know how to stop a train. We'd have to knock out the driver and take over the engine in the front. But none of us know how to operate an Orb Engine; only dad might know how to do that..."

Tolan is right in that I do know how to operate and shut down an Orb Kinetic Engine, as is the scientific term. And more than that I know about the danger associated with someone not knowing what to do operating it.

"Yes..." Treek regains everyone's attention. "Those things are no kids toys." He continues, knowing full well of how dangerous an Orb Engine can be. " - If you make a single mistake you might end up blowing yourself up in an explosion."

I can see Nina swallowing after having herd the warning before speaking up again. "But we have to do something. This train is headed for Capitol City for sure! And judging from what I know about the geographical layout, we'll be arriving sooner rather than later. And even though they won't be expecting us to show up, since the word of your escape can't travel much faster than we are travelling right now, someone will surely inspect this wagon. And even putting all that aside and assuming we do make it out in time, which will be difficult with Cyder still hurt, there's no chance to leave undetected with soldiers running around everywhere."

"Guys!" Treek speaks up again. "We can't be arguing about this. We have to stop this train one way or another. And I only see one way of doing that."

"First thing we have to do is take over control, which means we have to get rid of that Zangoose. It shouldn't be too hard: Nina and I should easily be able to take him out. But the hard part will be dragging Cyder to the engine so he can shut it down."

I try to think of another way to stop the train, but Treek is already in full vigor and pays no attention to me as he immediately starts executing his plan.

"Nina. I hope you're ready, because we'll be hijacking a train."

"Always." She says excitedly.

"Wait..." I speak up again, trying to stop Treek from going through with his extremely stupid plan. Because once they'd incapacitate the driver, there will be no one to regulate the engine. And before they'll be able to come back to get me, it will have overheated and exploded, leaving the rest of the train to fly off the tracks and crash into the terrain, with us still inside of it.

Noticing my intervention, Treek stops in his steps and turns around while already standing inside the doorframe of the container wagon we are in.

"Over..." I begin speaking, again finding it hard to pronounce the words. "heat..."

"What did he say?" Asks Treek, now facing my kids still sitting in front of me.

"He said ~Overheat~" Answers Tolan.

But Treek doesn't appear to understand as he faces Cari and begins to speak. "He's hot. Try to cool him off while we're gone. We need him to have a clear head in less than a few minutes."

Cari nods and Treek turns to leave again as he starts heading out of the container onto a maintenance framework just in front of the doors.

"No..." I try to stop him again, only managing to whisper the words with my strained vocal cords.

Cari walks up to me with the scarf drenched in the blood I must have been losing during the course of the past day. She walks up and starts dapping my forehead with the red piece of cloth. It feels cool and a little bit wet, meaning that it must have been dipped in some water at some point in the near past.

For a moment I wonder if holding a wet piece of cloth is hurting Cari, before I snap back to the problem at paw: I have to stop Treek from unknowingly killing himself and taking Nina with him.

"Engine..." I whisper, straining my voice anew while Cari is close enough to my face to understand.

"What's with the engine?" She asks, not following my thoughts.

"Don't worry dad..." She says while continuing to pat my forehead with the wet piece of cloth, producing faint sizzling noises whenever the cloth is making contact. "Treek and Nina won't touch the engine. They'll knock out the driver and come back to get you, then you can instruct us on how to turn it off or do it yourself if you feel up to it."

For a moment I am overcome with the sudden urge to strangle her for just not understanding what the problem is. But after immediately realizing that that wouldn't be a good idea even if I was able to go through with it, I try to speak again while ignoring Treek's advice to only say one word at a time.

"No..." I begin, producing the faint sounds of the syllables and hoping that Cari would manage to understand them. "Engine over... heat." I am barely able to whisper the last syllable, but my attempt is successful and Tolan who has been standing next to his sister and was listening to what I was saying seems to understand.

"Are you saying the engine is going to overheat?" He asks.

I move my mouth to try to answer "yes", but no air manages to hit my vocal cords as my mouth simply moves to form the word, while Cari is able to read my lips and translate for her brother.

"He said ~yes~. - We have to stop Treek and Nina!"

I am relieved that I was finally able to get them to understand the problem with Treek's undertaking.

I let myself breath in as I can hear Tolan's and Cari's paws scurry across the metal floor of the container, heading outside to follow the others.

But the moment they step outside, I realize what I have done. Not only am I completely alone now, but if the kids fail I just send them into their deaths.

Panic overcomes me as I can no longer see a flame lighting up the inner walls of the wagon, as neither Tolan nor Cari are there to create it.

'No!' I shout in my head while my mouth tries to obey the signals send, but fails to articulate the words and only manages to produces the movement of the muscles that would be necessary to comply. Air is flowing through the throat, but not sounds are produced.

With the panic flowing through my body, my emotions take over and reactivate my motor system, starting to move my arms and legs without my permission while redirecting the pain that doing so is giving me towards my head.

The pain is immense and my poor, reasonable mind must endure the stupidity of my ember as it flares, thereby tearing open the fresh scab that was covering the main wound on my back, letting my blood start flowing out again.

Ignoring all my body parts' wishes to stop, my ember has no intention of doing so as my body starts heading towards the open door less than a meter away from me.

But ignoring the screams of pain may not have been the smartest choice, as my ember loses its control over our body only a moment later when the pain begins to override its access, letting the muscles go limb.

The pain is still there and I can feel some of the blood flowing down my back as I fall face-down on my stomach, having moved less than a meter. My head has fallen outside of the container and is resting on the metal of the scaffolding lining the container.

My eyes fall open and I can see the small flames carried by Tolan and Cari follow the shadows of a Zorua and a Treecko already far ahead of them.

My eyes blink on their own and I can hear shouting cutting through the noisy rattling of the train continuing on its way.

"Stop!" I Cari blares out, most definitely alarming the Zangoose that must still be driving the train. But even alerting him to our presence is a better course of action than the alternative or being blown up.

The shadows they are chasing stop moving and the lights my kids are carrying catch up to reveal their already known identity.

I blink again and my eyes remain closed for a moment, before I find the ability to command them to open again. The blood loss of the wound my ember so carelessly ripped open is starting to make me dizzy and I have trouble focusing the image of the two candles poking out of the dark terrain while being distracted by the pain.

Since they are no longer shouting and the train is making too much noise, I can no longer hear what they are saying to each other. But I image Treek scolding them for following while Tolan and Cari try to explain that the engine would overheat if the Zangoose were to suddenly disappear.

But unbeknownst to them, I can see a fifth shadow appearing on the side of the train while by brain surprisingly manages to connect the dots immediately. It must be the driver who has left his post to investigate the shouting.

I try to alarm the others; to tell them to look out. But the only sound I manage to produce is another pained and dry cough as my body forces me to close my eyes again.

After what feels like an eternity I finally manage to command my body to open its eyes. It obeys my order and the picture I see manages to appear even more distorted that what it was before.

The sky has changed and the moon can be seen as it lights up the terrain. I can see a small fireball flying towards it, only to whizz out of existence before ever managing to touch it. It must have been launched by one of my kids, as I start to understand that a fight has broken loose. As indicated by the various shadows jumping around to dodge the different attacks they are throwing at each other.

'Whatever the outcome of this fight may be, it is not going to be in our favor.' I think to myself while doing my best to process what I'm seeing, wishing I could simply turn off the pain still distracting me. 'If the Zangoose wins, which is unlikely seeing how he's alone, they're all going to be dead. And in the likely case of my team winning, one of them might get hurt badly and most importantly: the engine is going to blow.'

With my mind distracted from processing the picture while having to run under the strain of not having enough blood, I am not able to understand everything that is happening in real time, leaving my body take advantage of my weakness and force my eyes to close again.

My mind is notices the fact that my body has closed its eyes when a loud shout of pain can be heard, immediately followed by the train notably rocking up and down while barely managing to stay on the tracks.

The anxiety of the act providing me with a tiny bit of strength, I manage to open my eyes without having to wait for my body to process the request, as I can see something white and red pass by directly underneath me. I can see arms and claws and a shocked face. - But no legs. It is the Zangoose, the train driver who has passed underneath me. Or at least half of him as his lower half was cleanly cut off by the blunt force of the train running over him. I can see the white of his spine sticking out the lower end of his torso, where it once connected to his lower body.

'He must have fallen on the tracks in an attempt to elude an attack of one of my team members.' I try to explain the gruesomeness of what I just witnessed without even considering the fact that my previous question has been answered. 'Because I know for certain that they would never kill an innocent, much less someone they'd need to survive.'

The train continues to rattle and I can hear what I had feared. The high-pitched noise of the engine running has already started changing its frequency. I can tell by the speed at which it is switching between seemingly random tones, that it will most likely blow before anyone would get the chance to take a look at it.

'Please body!' I try to get my body to follow.

'Let me move!' I attempt my best at persuasion, with the only response given to me being more pain.

'Help me, Ember!' I cry out to myself. 'We have to save them. Now would have been the time to activate those energy reserves you've already wasted in your infinite wisdom.'

But to no avail, as the adrenaline given to me after hearing the Zangoose's dying cry leaves my circulatory system and my eyelids start to close on their own again.

Practically no time must have passed, before I can hear voices at my side and feel my body being lifted up. But time must have passed as the constant humming has started picking up, flooding the air with its mind-numbingly loud cries while switching between dozens of seemingly random frequencies in every passing second.

I can't open my eyes, but I can hear the noise of the engine changing its pitch faster and faster. And I know that it is too late with only seconds remaining before it will blow. The frequencies of the have reached the critical threshold, and I know exactly that less than a minute remains before it will blow.

There is one specific frequency that marks the limit of every Orb Kinetic Engine. Once only a single of the sounds being emitted surpasses that frequency, the engine will explode. And while it is absolutely random at which point the first tone with a pitch above the breaking point is emitted, the frequency they are jumping around is continuously rising if the Orb's unstable energy is not regulated.

So my estimate is a glass-half-full kind of estimate, meaning that there is no way that the engine will still be running in less than half a minute.

While not managing to open my eyes, the voice next to my head starts getting clearer when I am able to hear Treek's voice cut through the buzzing cries of the machine.

"Cyder!" He yells. "Cyder! Can you fix this?"

'No' would have been my answer if I was in any condition to respond. But all I can do now is hope that he makes the right decision and either tells everyone to jump of the train, or tell them to get to safety in the back of it, hoping that Arceus would be looking over us and let the blast be absorbed by the empty containers between us and the engine.

I lost my sense of time and any amount of time could have passed before I'm ripped back into reality by an ear shattering explosion.

~ BOOM ~

I can hear nothing else and have no idea where I am as the echo of the explosion has shattered my ears, leaving the machines dying cries to transition into the loud and constant ringing now flooding my mind.

Everything shakes and I lose my sense of up and down. But while I'm still unable to command my eyes to open up, my eyelids don't have to follow my orders to allow me to see as their back is lit up by a bright ball of fire somewhere, a little off in the distance.