Tepig
He had resolved to leave at night, and so that was what he was going to do.
Tepig awoke when the moonlight was slanting through the large window in his hospital room. He blinked himself awake, feeling strangely well-rested, although he didn't understand why he felt so odd. Perhaps it was because he had fallen asleep after he'd eaten lunch that day, a day that felt like so many eons ago thanks to the floating, unattainable darkness of his supposed dreams stretching time out to imaginary lengths. Or maybe it was because he was finally leaving, was finally going to try and find out what was going on. He was determined to find Charmander and Torchic and bring them back to the Fire Nation alive. Even if it meant he had to traverse through Hell itself, he would not squander the Nation's moment of distraction. He could not.
But he also couldn't do this alone. He'd debated about going there a bit, and that was what probably kept him awake. It kept him awake more than the sunlight did, that was for sure. As sleep had overcome him, he still hadn't stuck to one rational decision regarding whether he would try to enlist help. But as he woke up and slowly climbed his way down the bed and onto the dark, smooth floor, Tepig knew that he could not do this alone. No matter how confident he was and no matter how distracted the Nation itself was, he could not do this alone.
He walked across the unlit room, following the small slit of light in the door. Every door in the hospital had to have a small, rectangular window directly above the door handle. This was just in case something happened to a patient in the room, such as an epileptic having a seizure or a depressed patient attempting suicide, so a medic would notice and would be able to rush in at a moment's notice to help the patient. The light was obvious, and Tepig started to mentally kick himself for not realizing it in the first place; the hospital was still in operation.
You dolt! What the hell made you think they would close the friggin' hospital at night?
Tepig shook his head. No use dwelling on his mistakes now, not when he had this one chance. One chance that he could easily squander the moment he opened that door. But now was not the time for thought. Now was the time for action. That was what he told himself, anyway, as he jumped up and used his front leg to push down on the door handle, pulling it back so the door would creak open slightly. It did just that. Tepig pushed his head out of the doorway, looking left and right down the hallway to see if any medics were anywhere. He noticed Miss Arcanine's tail swishing as she walked into a patient's room, causing Tepig's heart to jump in his throat. Now was the chance. Now. Now it was time.
Tepig launched himself out of the hospital room, the door suddenly bursting behind him from the force of his body launching out of the doorway. He heard it creak as it slowly started to stop, but by then he was sure Arcanine would notice that a black and orange blur was running down the halls of the fourth floor of the hospital. As quickly as he could, Tepig dashed for the stairs that lay just at the end of the hall, just five hundred feet or so to the left of his room. He ran as fast as his stubby legs would let him, the pumping causing the muscles in them to burn. He was sure at that moment that he would never run any faster in his entire life.
He rushed down the stairs, his hooves clattering against the steps, clattering that made him cringe with the sureness that he was going to be caught, that he was going to round the corner to see Flareon standing there, glaring at him, asking him what he was doing up this late and sending him back to his room and oh sweet Arceus what if he extended his hospital stay? No, that couldn't happen, that wouldn't happen!
And as though it was by the sheer force of his own sudden willpower, nothing happened. Tepig ran down the steps, past the third, second, and first floor, down into the main lobby where the front desk sat empty, all of the doctors and nurses and medics busy with those that truly needed their help. Tepig stopped short at the front doors, looking up at them. They were made of glass for the moment, temporary doors after the raid from the Ground Nation had destroyed the original steel ones. They showcased to Tepig the night life of the Fire Nation, a night life that was always busy and bustling with civilians on their way to a dinner or a play or a book club or a poetry reading or a night club or the bar or something, anything.
It was dead quiet. Just as it had been for close to two weeks, the night was silent and dark, said darkness only broken by the light of the moon and the stars in the sky above. Tepig felt a cold chill go through him as he mentally prepared himself to go into this familiar yet new world. The world was just as empty as he had been, just as lonesome and confused as he had been. As he still was, but not to the degree he had been. He felt a surge of purpose go through him, just as he'd felt it go through him that morning when he'd resolved to find Charmander and Torchic alive. It was caused by this desolation, and it made him feel as though he needed to step into this unfamiliar world to prevent it from ever being this terrible again.
He jumped up and opened the door. It swung open slowly, and he walked into the night. He closed the door behind him, wherein it creaked shut before making a snapping sound as it closed behind him forever. He didn't know how he knew, but he knew with one hundred percent certainty that he would never enter that hospital again. The thought of never stepping back into a patient room made him feel exhilarated and frightened. But there was no time to keep thinking about that for longer than he had to. He turned away from the hospital and surveyed the dark emptiness of this new Furnace. He stepped forward into this new world.
The streets hadn't been fully repaired yet. Holes littered the brick pathways that snaked through the city, holes that must have reminded everyone that passed them of the tragedy that had befallen the city such a short amount of time ago. Tepig looked around, feeling his heart sink when he saw where the original Capitol Building had stood. That great spire of pride and strength of the Fire Nation had once towered above the rest of the city. Now, in its place, was a small, stone, shack-like place of residence. It was about as wide as the original tower and looked just as decorated, but now it had been reduced to only one floor. Judging from its height, Tepig wondered how Senator Moltres was supposed to fit in that thing at all.
He continued to walk, seeing all of the business buildings around him that were still dotted with holes and rot, rot that had not come from age but from the destruction that had been brought upon them. His heart went out to the door business owners of the city, the pastry makers and accessory designers that had been killed or lost everything to the invasion. But losing everything, Tepig thought, was exactly like being killed. It was like having the physical manifestation of who you were and what you wanted ripped from you and burned in front of you. It was almost surreal and seemed impossible, but it had happened to hundreds of residents in the city, all of which Tepig would never blame for voicing their frustrations.
At last, after what he knew had to be an hour or so, he came to it, the one thing he had dreaded to see but knew he would on his way out. The hole in the wall. A large, hundred-foot wall had once surrounded all of Furnace, protecting everything in the city. Even the original Capitol Building had only reached approximately ninety feet in height so it too could be protected by the wall. That was nothing but a dream now. An eight foot section of the wall was gone, a large gap now standing where a stone slab had once taken residence. In the time after the invasion, working crews had managed to get rid of the large pile of rubble that had been the remains of the wall the Ground Nation had burst through. Now it was just a gaping hole, wide enough for a Nation's most powerful tanks to go through single-file.
But it wasn't his concern. The safety of the city was something the Council and the Council alone would have to deal with. Tepig hoped they wouldn't be stupid and would but repairing the wall over everything, including finding either the trainees he was off to seek or Charizard and Blaziken. Tepig knew the safety of the people had to come first in order for the Nation to be preserved and safe. He just hoped others of elite stature understood that too.
He walked until he made it there, and when he looked up at its dark, looming figure, he started to have doubts. But he knew he couldn't do it alone. He steadied his mind, feeling a dark familiar swirl claw its way back in. He could still see her face, the tears tracing down her cheeks as they made up, but what kind of a make-up had it been? Flawed, just as they had been, just as it all had been and was. He felt a sudden exhaustion come over him, like he'd been through all of it, every moment, all over again, all over again in the span of only a few seconds. It was terrible to feel this way, but what other way was there to feel about something like this? He didn't know. He didn't think he wanted to know. He just wanted to get it over with.
Delphox had used loose rocks to form the pathway from the brick to her family's front door. Tepig picked one of these small pebbles up in his mouth, prayed to an Arceus he didn't know if he believed in or not, then tossed the rock at Fennekin's window. It hit off it a bit harder than he expected; Tepig winced when he saw the small strike-smudge on the window. What a great way to start, he thought bitterly.
He waited a few seconds, hoping she'd heard the little clink of the rock. He was about to pick up another one when the front door suddenly swung open. Fennekin stood there, her eyes bleary with exhaustion and dark circles under them, indicating to Tepig that whatever sleep she was having, it had been broken long before he'd come to the door.
"Tepig? What the hell?" Fennekin whispered, stepping into the night. Tepig felt a cool breeze chill him, and he wasn't sure if it was real or not, given that it never even ruffled Fennekin's fur. She glared at him, not with malice (which he was relieved about) but with a healthy amount of annoyance.
"Fennekin, listen," Tepig said. "You already know that Charizard and Blaziken disappeared, so everyone is going ballistic trying to find them. I think…I don't know, I just feel like this is the perfect chance to find Charmander and Torchic. Listen, wait, don't go! Wait." Fennekin, who had turned towards her door and started to walk back inside, stopped abruptly and spun around to face Tepig. "Look, I don't know where they are, but something tells me they're still alive. And I feel like, with everything that's been going on recently, we'd be able to…I dunno, slip away without anyone noticing. They would do the same for us, Fennekin, you know they would. So come on, what do you say?"
She didn't say anything for a moment. Tepig felt the night silence slowly weighing down on him as Fennekin stared at him with a hard, stony face. He already knew he wasn't going to be shocked by her answer, but her next words did throw him for a loop. "I'm going to be a medic."
Surprise hit him like a small rock. "A medic? Wh…well, that's good, we can always use more. But, you know, if you don't mind me asking, why?"
"After the Ground Nation invaded Furnace, I felt useless," Fennekin explained. "I was looking at all of these injured soldiers, seeing all of this blood and chaos everywhere, all in my home, and there was nothing I could do to fix it. Nothing but keep training for the next fight. But Tepig, I don't want to train for the next fight. I'm as skilled as I'll ever need to be, I think. I want to be able to help soldiers that are wounded in battle. I want to be able to find a way to cure soldiers like Monferno who suffer paralysis. I want to…I want to be there to save lives. Lives like…like Ponyta's." Fennekin looked away at the mention of their deceased friend, and Tepig could see her eyes shining with tears that she was fighting back.
"Okay," Tepig said. "Okay, yeah, I understand. But how does that prevent you from helping me find Charmander and Torchic?"
"I've already talked with Flareon," she said. "He's going to take me to Flintwood in three weeks so I can start some basic training with him. He says that was where he learned how to be a medic, and that's where I should learn. I'm not going to just fling off this opportunity for friend who are…" she trailed off.
"What?" Tepig asked, knowing already what she was going to say. Fennekin looked down at her paws. "Friends who are what?" Tepig demanded.
"Friends who are dead, Tepig, okay?" she said, glaring at him. "Tepig, it's been close to two weeks at this point. If another Nation hasn't killed them yet, then the elements have. Think, Tepig! They have no idea how to survive on their own out there! They don't know what to do, where to go, nothing! They're dead, and there's nothing you can do about it!"
"You know what, forget I was even here," Tepig said, turning away. He was hoping that Fennekin would make a smart remark, he even expected it, just so he could hear her voice address him one last time before he left. But she didn't, and he heard her door close behind her as he went off into the night.
He retraced his steps, trying to push Fennekin out of his mind as he went to the gap in the wall. He looked at it at the towering stone on either side of him, acting as pillars that marked an unfamiliar entrance to the city. Tepig sighed. Maybe it was best if Fennekin hadn't come with him. At least now he wouldn't have anyone he would have to explain any of his crackpot theories too. At least he would be able to keep this whole Reaper business, whatever it meant, to himself.
He didn't know the exact way to Aquarius, but he thought that if he walked for long enough, through the Red Desert and into the Water Nation, he would be able to make it there. He would need to be careful, just in case of any surprises from the Water Nation, surprises he would retaliate against in any way he could.
He breathed in one last breath from Furnace. He stepped out, walking through the wall, as though it had parted for him. He came to the other side and started out into the forest that awaited him. He took his first step into the world, and vanished among the trees. The search for answers had begun.
