Chapter 9 - Fire and Ice

Traveling with the two girls proved to be incredibly beneficial. There were no chemistry issues whatsoever; the three of us clicked right away, and we found ourselves blazing through the dungeon. I already knew Espurr was strong, but Deerling impressed me all the same with her capabilities.

When she got the chance to, at least. The trip through the forest was relatively uneventful. More than once, nothing but stretches of trees stood to greet us as we progressed through the area.

During one of these spans of tranquility, I turned to Deerling with a question in my mind. "Hey Deerling. If you don't mind me asking—what do you think of Leah?"

Deerling, snapped out of her thoughts by my question, turned to me with a confused look. "Hm? What do you mean, Sage?"

"Well…" I rubbed the back of my head and sighed. This wouldn't be easy. "It's kinda hard to explain…"

Deerling's face lit up, and she mischievously smirked. "Ooh, I think I get it…"

I made sure the confusion on my face was evident. Her grin only got wider.

"You like her don't you Sage? …Don't worry, I definitely ship it."

I held in a laugh at how far off target she was. "No, no it's not… that. We just… we actually got into an argument and aren't really on speaking terms at the moment." I could feel the disappointment radiating off of her, but her interest still remained poignant as ever. I continued, "I just wanted to know what you… you know, thought of her character and all that."

Deerling paused for a long moment. "…I mean, she's not a bad Pokemon by any means, but—well, how do I put this?" Another pause. "…She's kinda in her own world, you know?"

In her own world? Okay, but…

"What do you mean?" I pressed.

"Well…" Another pause from Deerling to choose her words. "She's erratic. Way too concerned with exploring to even consider anything else, often including the well-being of herself or others. Oh! Like this one time, she tried to get Goomy, of all Pokemon, to go with her up Revelation Mountain, which is the village's sacred landmark. She almost convinced him to go too… safe to say I wasn't happy about that."

I slowly nodded my head. It seemed like just more of what I already knew. It made sense once the full context of the village's lifestyle was taken into consideration. Serene Village was… serene; Leah was just about anything but. I'd seen it in the square: the villagers didn't seem to do much besides earn their living, make light conversation, and perhaps occasionally entertain their kids so that they might one day follow the same path.

I hadn't known Leah for too long, but I knew that definitely wasn't her.

I was about to inquire more from Deerling when she spoke up suddenly and alerted our group to an obstacle in our path.

"Oh no!" Deerling cried. "The creek—it's flooded!"

I stepped up to get a better look, and froze. Laid before me was a trench at least ten meters across cutting through the forest. Water rushed through at turbulent speeds. Leah, Goomy, and I had crossed this creek without any trouble the day before when we were racing to get the flags, so it was amazing to see that one night of rain could turn it into a raging stream.

"The natural dam to the east must've overflowed after last night's downpour," Espurr mused. "How inconvenient."

"How do we get across?" Deerling asked no one in particular. "I hope we don't lose time because of this."

Espurr approached the water. "…Swimming isn't an option."

I scanned the creek's edge until my gaze fell upon a dead oak idling right next to the edge. It wasn't very tall or very thick, but it was just enough of both to fall completely over the creek and probably support the weight of the three of us crossing it. I formed a simple plan in my head, drawing inspiration from Espurr's psychic display of splitting wood on my first day of school.

"Espurr, do you think you could make that big tree there fall over the stream?" I said.

She looked in the direction I was referring to, and after a moment's contemplation, nodded her head. "I can do that," she said. "But it will take a few moments of concentration. In the meantime, you two will probably need to stand back."

Me and Deerling followed her advice and stood a good distance back behind cover, watching Espurr put her hands to her temples in concentration and slowly opening her ears. The air around her reverberated with visible waves of energy, and we heard an earsplitting crack that carried all throughout the forest. After a few more seconds of Espurr hemorrhaging the tree, it buckled near the bottom and descended over the creek. It hit the ground on the other side with a thump and laid still. To our delight, it held firm.

"Yeah, Espurr!" Deerling and I cheered.

"Come on, let's get going," an exhausted (but flattered) Espurr said as we emerged from our cover.

Deerling went first, stumbling a bit with her hooves before finding her footing enough to move forward. Espurr walked on the log next, balancing with no trouble and casually strolling across. I went last, wobbling a bit before I too found equilibrium and started forward.

The next few moments were a blur.

Something slammed into the middle of the dead tree from an unseen angle, shifting it under my feet and nearly causing it to break in half. Deerling, who had just reached the end and hopped onto the other side, turned back to find that Espurr and I were in peril of having the tree collapse under us. From the impact I could immediately smell smoke.

When the second ball of fire came, I caught a glimpse of its approach and was able to react just fast enough before it struck. My vine whip caught the back end of Espurr's astonished form as she was sent careening off of the log and to a halt beside Deerling a millisecond before the burst of flame struck. I heard a dreadful crack under my feet, and felt the floor disappear.

"Sage, n—!"

Everything was cancelled out by the rushing water flooding my consciousness with knives of ice. The creek's floor wasn't at all deep, leading me to be tossed into it a few times and pick up a few scrapes. The water's chill shocked my nerves for the first few seconds of being submerged.

I fought to regain the strength in my shocked muscles until I finally managed to slow myself enough to allow for an escape. I stopped myself by catching a root sticking out of the ground with one of my vines and pulling against the current. After a few moments of exhausting labor, my strength finally overcame the drag of the water and I ascended out of the raging creek.

Fortunately I had managed to pull myself out on the side I had intended to reach, so I wouldn't have to start the whole process over again. The water had carried me a ways down from where I fell in, so I would need to walk for a few seconds before I reached my team again. Hardly bothering to regather myself, I shakily ran back to where the other two had gotten off the tree before its collapse.

The scene playing out there made me quickly hide behind a large birch before being seen. As the initial shock wore off, I puzzled together what was transpiring.

Before a distressed Espurr and a furious Deerling stood Pancham and Shelmet, and standing a bit behind them was…

Leah…? What is she…?

Espurr noticed my presence immediately with her psychic abilities, and acknowledged me telepathically.

'Sage. Are you okay?'

I'm fine. What the hell is—

'I don't know. Stay put for now, I've got a feeling they might be here for more than just a chat.'

Every fiber of my being screamed at me to make my presence known. For the moment, I barely resisted the urge. She was right; this didn't look like it would end peacefully.

"You just… Was that you?!" Deerling accused through gritted teeth.

"Deerling, Deerling… if only you'd understand," Pancham jested. "Sage deserved every bit of it."

Deerling's rage was slowly overcoming her, and it seemed she would lash out at him at any moment.

"Do you think this is some kind of…"

"Game?" Pancham rudely interrupted, compounding Deerling's rage even further. "Not at all. We're just teaching that arrogant no-gooder a lesson, that's it. He's done nothing but cause trouble, and he knows it. He blamed Goomy's disappearance on Leah, and even made her cry."

Leah told those jerks about our fight?

Hold on… he just said I made her cry? Is that why she took off so suddenly?

Perhaps, if the circumstances had been a little different, I'd have felt bad in that moment.

It was a little too late for that, though.

Pancham approached Deerling, his words taking on a new level of malice with each step. "He's the real bully, Deerling. Thanks to her…" he gestured behind him to point at Leah, whose expression was hard to read—conflicted. "…we've put him in his place, and we're gonna return our flag first. We'll see how you three like that."

"What about Espurr, huh?" Deerling snarled at him. "What about me? You've just dragged us into this without any thought at all!"

"You two are fiiine, get over it," Shelmet jeered.

"Sorry, I guess," Pancham shrugged.

Deerling took a step closer, and Pancham and Shelmet did the same. Even from my concealment, I could feel the tension reach a peak.

"You're going to move out of our way." Deerling said slowly. "Or we will make you move."

To everyone's surprise, Espurr broke her silence with a threat of her own. "You don't honestly think I couldn't wipe the floor with you three, do you?"

Somehow, the fact that her expression did not change at all made her much scarier. Pancham and Shelmet, fully aware of Espurr's strength, each backed up a step.

But it would be Leah this time who spoke up, all of her uncertainty disappearing. "Try me!" she snarled right back, a new expression of anger springing forth.

"As you wish," Espurr countered, putting her hands to her temples.

The two sides had clearly been chosen by all parties in question, myself included. Now fueled with anger, I planned to make that evident to everyone.

My emergence from my hiding spot was timed perfectly with the launching of Espurr's psybeam. The psychic blast hit an unprepared Shelmet head on, sending him flying right into my two swinging vines. He never even got a chance to react before he was face-down in the mud, out cold.

Deerling, taking advantage of Pancham's momentary confusion, spun and slammed her back hooves right under his nose. The attack stained his white face with a trickle of blood running from his lip. He covered his mouth in pain, unintelligibly cursing as he lost his balance and fell back.

I realized my mistake in what should have been a moment too late. I had wasted a half-second to glance over at Deerling's attack, which wasn't given enough time to be coordinated with my emergence. My stupid curiosity left my entire left flank wide open to the third obstacle, and I knew to brace myself for the burn before I could even see it coming.

Except it never came.

I whirled around to meet our final opponent, and our eyes locked together. Leah's gaze held the same friction that advertised her own anger, but there was something different about it this time. It wasn't that it was calmer, or smaller, or any less of an objection to my own stare. It was that this time, Leah's gaze carried something that it didn't have yesterday when we were chewing each other's ears off:

Hesitation.

After my vine whip on Shelmet, she had a wide open attack on me, and could have easily fried me where I stood just as quickly as I turned around to face her. But she didn't. Whether it was because she simply wasn't up to the task, or she was truly apologetic for our fight the day before, I wouldn't know. Nor would I get the chance to ask her.

She pivoted off of her hind legs and ran off into the trees without a word. Based off of her direction I couldn't tell where she was going, but it didn't seem like she had any interest in the flags… not that the petty race to complete the dungeon was what mattered anyway.

Deerling spoke in a voice riddled with disbelief. "Sage? …What could you have possibly argued about that would lead to all of that?"

"It… doesn't matter," I coldly replied as the rush of adrenaline slowly dissipated. "Let's just get this stupid flag and get out of here, please."

"But what about—"

"Forget about these two." Espurr interrupted her. "Neither of them are badly hurt. Shelmet will be fine in a little while." Espurr gestured to his unconscious form, drooling in the grass. "—Probably."

Deerling stared at the panda still clutching his lip, failing to stifle the small trickle of blood from the wound she inflicted, before finally sighing and walking over to me.

"Alright, fine. They won't dare tell the teacher we beat the daylights out of them since they're the ones who instigated the fight. Lucky us, I guess…" she said.

Espurr walked over after her, meeting my gaze and nodding. "Lead the way," she told me.

I nodded back and headed further into the forest, a slew of thoughts plaguing my mind. I just needed to stay focused at the moment, and worry about all of this later. Watchog would be awaiting our return.

"Hey, look! The flags!" Deerling cried after a few minutes of walking in silence.

We arrived back at the school to find the battered pair being treated by nurse Audino. They did not acknowledge us when we arrived, avoiding our gaze and trying to act as though nothing had happened.

Goomy, on the other hand, was colored nervous waiting for us. After seeing the other team limp back in their unkempt state, he was relieved to see the same didn't happen to us.

"Good job, team!" Watchog commended us as Deerling brought the flag to him.

"What happened to them?" Espurr feigned, gesturing at Pancham and Shelmet. I could've sworn I saw Pancham bare his teeth at her clever ploy of innocence, but he made it subtle enough for nobody else to notice.

Watchog just sighed and condescended them. "They failed in their mission to complete a dungeon as simple as the School Forest, I'm afraid. Their poor teamwork undoubtedly lead to their defeat. All it took was a pack of Stantler and a bit of bad chemistry. The troublemaker told us all about it before dashing off."

Just as Deerling had predicted, none of them were willing to take the fall just for the satisfaction of seeing the same happen to us. They would merely have to deal with their damaged pride (and damaged face, in Pancham's case).

Idiots. If you're gonna start a fight that doesn't even need to happen, at least make sure you're the ones who win it. You didn't even land a single blow!

I wouldn't let such comments be spoken from my lips in the current setting—not with Watchog around. But that didn't prevent me from curling my lip and narrowing my eyes at the pair of bullies when I got the chance.

That river had been really cold, and I wasn't about to forget it.

I bid Deerling and Goomy farewell for the day, and was about to leave myself when Espurr stopped me.

"Hey…" she said softly, looking a little nervous. "I wanted to thank you for saving me in there. I almost…"

I smiled. Considering her small size and fluffy fur, it occurred to me that she likely would not have fared nearly as well as my slick body did in the tumbling rapids.

"…almost took a dive?" I finished for her, putting a vine on her shoulder in reassurance and giving her a lukewarm grin. "Hey, don't worry about it. I got your back. It's what friends do."

The monotone voice she usually spoke with was colored with a pitch of concern. "You're… still shivering, you know."

She was right; over the past hour or so, I hadn't really warmed up much. The water carried with it the chill of the passing spring season that would linger until the temperatures rose a bit more in the coming months.

Before I could respond, I found that a substantial source of heat was coursing through my scales. Espurr wasn't very tall even compared to my unimpressive height as a Snivy, but saying that the tender embrace merely did its job would be an understatement. She was ridiculously soft, and it dulled every sense of touch and thought. If pillows could read your mind and split trees in half without touching them, she would fit the description spot-on. I returned the hug as best I could with my vines.

It only lasted a few seconds before she broke it off, somewhat to my disappointment. She began walking back to the village with a final wave.

"See you around, Sage," she purred before walking off down the road. I stared after her, deep in thought.

At least I have her, right? Yeah. I can definitely trust her, unlike…

All of my thoughts rushed to the forefront of my mind. The situation concerning Leah; the situation concerning Pancham and Shelmet; the situation concerning myself…

Plenty of food for thought. I definitely had some things I needed to sleep on.